Zapp! English Listening 3.8 - The Future
Taught by Tom Wilkinson — Cambridge CELTA
Recorded and taught by a team of British and North American English teachers, based in Oxford (UK) and Barcelona (Spain).
One of our speakers works in transport, and his prediction is blunt: "no wheels. That's got to be the next step" — trains that are magnetically levitated, cars that fly, and little scooters you stand on. Another thinks we'll stop carrying phones altogether because "it'll all be internal, it'll be done through a little chip in your head". We asked five people the same five questions about the future, and the disagreements are where the listening practice is.
What you'll hear in this episode
We put five areas to each speaker — transport, medicine, communication, marriage and food — and let them talk.
Niall goes first, and in his recordings the topic is never named, so your job is to work it out from the clues. On medicine he predicts "a cure for everything", from the common cold up to cancer. On food he's stuck: he mentions Heston Blumenthal, who "fries an egg in extreme cold", and decides "I don't think there's much scope for change in that". On marriage he's blunt again: "It's an outdated concept."
Emma imagines a world of "little meal replacement, calorie controlled bars", because we'll have lost the knowledge of home cooking. She also thinks marriage will come back into fashion, with people marrying younger — the opposite of what most of the others say.
Tom talks about genetically modified food in developing countries running "in parallel" with a move back to organic farming, gets excited about Virgin Galactic, and argues that "Marriage as we know it is dying out as a religious institution".
Katie sees things going in two directions at once: fewer marriages overall, but more in some sectors of the community. And Amanda worries that screens are replacing "more around the fire type scenarios" — a prediction she calls quite negative herself.
Quick facts
| Episode | Zapp! English Listening 3.8 - The Future |
| Episode number | 3.8 |
| Pack | Listening 3 |
| Level | 3 |
| Duration | 19 minutes 23 seconds |
| Audio | Free to download |
| Workbook | Included in the all-in-one pack |
What you'll learn
The first task trains a skill you use constantly in real life: identifying the topic from the clues rather than from a title. Niall never says the words "medicine" or "communication" — you infer them from "curable", "the common cold", "landline", "computer".
Then there's the language itself. This episode is a natural showcase for future forms, and you'll hear how rarely people use a plain "will" on its own. Emma says "we'll all be quite resistant"; Tom says "we will also be turning more and more to alternative and natural medicine" and "we will unfortunately be relying more and more" — the future continuous doing the work of describing a gradual trend.
You'll also notice how heavily native speakers hedge a prediction. "I think", "probably", "maybe", "I'm not sure that", "it might go completely the other way", "I would like to think that". Amanda's "I'd also like to think" is a hope disguised as a forecast, and hearing that difference is a real comprehension skill.
Task 3 asks you to compare two speakers' opinions and find the overlap, which forces you to listen for meaning rather than words. Task 4 is a true/false task on Katie's recordings — including one statement that's false only because of a detail. The final recording you can listen to in a more relaxed way, just checking whether you agree with Amanda.
Vocabulary from the workbook
- magnetically (adverb) — in a way that attracts metal, from Niall's magnetically levitated trains
- levitated (adjective) — floating above the ground
- device (noun) — something small you use to do a particular job; both Emma and Tom predict one device for everything
- calorie (noun) — a measure of the energy you get from food, in Emma's calorie controlled bars
- genetically modified (adverb, adjective) — has had the genes changed, from Tom on farming
- institution (noun) — a large organisation, for example a bank; Tom on marriage as a religious institution
- commitment (noun) — a promise to do something, in the "different types of commitment" Tom expects
- corrupt (adjective) — does things to get money dishonestly, for example accepting money to tell a lie; Amanda on pharmaceutical companies
- damage (noun) — you get this when you break something or injure it or make it imperfect
What's in the workbook
The workbook takes you through the episode task by task. Each listening task is set up with a clear instruction, then followed by the answers, so you always know whether you got it right and why.
You get the full transcript of everything the five speakers said, which matters here: this is fast, unedited opinion, full of false starts like "that's a hard one that" and "Ooh hoo". Reading it afterwards is how you catch what your ears missed.
There's an Essential Vocabulary section that pre-teaches alternative and resistant before you need them, plus Extra Materials with additional comprehension questions on four of the recordings — what medicine Emma says we use now, where Tom expects GM foods to be grown and why, what Katie says will be curable — with answers at the back.
A Vocabulary – Getting the meaning from context exercise asks you to choose the closest meaning for obesity, run out of, dying out, damage and tendency, all taken straight from what was said. There's also the glossary listed above.
The workbook for this episode is part of the Zapp! English all-in-one pack, €39 for every episode and every workbook.
Get the complete courseAll workbooks and audio — €39
Common questions
Which topics do the speakers actually predict?
Medicine, communication, food, transport and marriage. Tom also branches off into space travel rather than everyday transport.
Do the speakers agree with each other?
On medicine and communication, largely yes — most expect more natural medicine and a single device. On marriage they split completely, with Emma predicting more weddings and the others predicting fewer.
Is the audio scripted?
The English conversations are unscripted — these are real opinions, with real hesitations. The teaching sections that set up the tasks and give the answers are scripted, so the instructions stay clear.
Do I need the workbook to follow the episode?
No. The audio works on its own and is free. The workbook adds the transcript, the answers, the extra questions and the vocabulary work.
What if this level feels too easy or too hard?
This is a Level 3 episode from Listening 3. The complete pack covers the other levels, so you can move up or down as needed.
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