Zapp! English Listening 3.9 - Globalisation (USA: Globalization)
Taught by Katie Wood — Cambridge CELTA · Cambridge DELTA · Cambridge-accredited Teacher Trainer
Recorded and taught by a team of British and North American English teachers, based in Oxford (UK) and Barcelona (Spain).
One of the speakers remembers looking at the number of chickens exported from Britain to the Netherlands in a single year, and the number imported back the other way: millions upon millions in each direction. Katie's verdict is immediate — "It's complete insanity." That's the trick of this unit. Nobody defines globalisation in the abstract for very long; they end up talking about supermarket fruit, peanuts, chocolate bars and whether the world really is getting any smaller.
What you'll hear in this episode
We start with two short answers to a simple question: what actually is globalisation? Tom talks about "the world becoming smaller" — communications, transport, currencies, economies taking over the global market. Alec answers as a musician: the internet lets you reach more people, but he warns it's "a double edged sword", because when there's so much music, people listen less.
Then Katie sits down with Donnie and Cathy for a longer discussion, and it gets sceptical fast. Donnie notes that the word was first coined in the 1960s but only came into popular use in the mid-nineties, alongside the phrase "the global village" — which he isn't convinced by. Cathy argues that flying in exotic fruit has cost us seasonal eating, and that the papaya sold in Spain is "the diluted version of…of a papaya" compared with a local one. Donnie offers "Strawberries in the winter." as the shorthand.
When Katie raises trade, Cathy brings up peanuts grown in Mali and exported, only to come back as jars of peanut butter — "It's like the chickens all over again." Donnie's conclusion is that "the doors have opened up to Mali" mainly for money, not people: "a lot of them are stuck exactly where they are." There are positives too — the internet making people "more tolerant, and more curious" — and a final conversation between Katie and Tom about Fairtrade.
Quick facts
| Episode | Zapp! English Listening 3.9 – Globalisation (USA: Globalization) |
| Pack | Listening 3 |
| Level | 3 |
| Duration | 17 minutes 34 seconds |
| Voices you'll hear | Katie, Tom, Alec, Donnie, Cathy |
| Format | Four listening tasks with answers, plus extra materials |
| Workbook | Included in the all-in-one pack (€39) |
What you'll learn
This is opinion-listening, which is harder than it sounds. People don't state a position and stop; they hedge, half-agree and then contradict themselves. Cathy says the world getting smaller is "very, very positive" and then immediately says what globalisation ends up being about is dominance. Donnie says there are positive things "I suppose". You'll practise hearing the difference between agreement and polite noise — the constant "Yeah", "Sure" and "Perhaps" that keeps a discussion moving without committing anybody to anything.
You'll also hear real repair in action. Cathy trips over the word controversy and fixes it mid-word; speakers restart phrases and stack "of…of" and "that…that". These are the things scripted audio removes, and they're exactly what you have to cope with in a live conversation. There's background noise in places, so you get practice keeping your focus on the voices rather than the room.
In the final task, Tom defines Fairtrade as "the concept of giving people in developing countries a fair price for their products or their labour" — a clear, quotable definition delivered at speed — and then reframes it: "It's a form of voting isn't it, really?" Task questions ask you to spot which countries are mentioned, so you'll practise catching place names inside fast speech.
Vocabulary from the workbook
The glossary has fourteen entries. A few of the ones you'll hear in context:
- controversy – something which no one can agree on and people feel strongly about (the food-miles argument)
- seasonal – comes only at a certain time of the year (the loss of seasonal eating)
- diluted – made less strong (usually by adding water), used about the papaya
- insanity – craziness, not being sane (the chickens)
- dominance – having the power over a situation or person
- nostalgia – looking back at and thinking of the past in a positive way
- combating – fighting against
- sticker – a piece of paper or plastic with information on it that you stick to a surface (the Fairtrade logo in UK supermarkets)
What's in the workbook
The workbook takes you through the four listening tasks with a question before each conversation and the answers straight after, so you always know whether you heard it correctly. Task 1 asks whether the two speakers talk about any of the same subjects; Task 2 gives you four topics and asks which come up; Task 3 asks whether the discussion is positive, negative or mixed; Task 4 asks about Fairtrade and which countries are named.
After that come the extra materials: six true/false statements across the four conversations, with explanations rather than bare answers, and a getting the meaning from context exercise on five expressions pulled straight out of the speech — a double edged sword, in the end, first and foremost, stuck, and put off. You work out the meaning from the line as it was said, then use each one to fill a gap in a new sentence. The full transcript is there for checking anything you missed, and the glossary closes the unit.
The workbook for this episode is part of the Zapp! English all-in-one pack, €39 for every episode.
Get the complete courseAll workbooks and audio — €39
Questions
Is the audio scripted?
The conversations are unscripted — that's why people stumble, interrupt and change their minds. The teaching sections that set up each task and give the answers are scripted, so the instructions stay clear.
Do I need the workbook to use this episode?
No. The audio is free and the tasks and answers are read out. The workbook adds the transcript, the true/false questions, the vocabulary work and the glossary.
Is Level 3 right for me?
If you can follow a discussion where three people talk over each other and you only lose the occasional phrase, yes. If you're losing whole turns, listen twice before reading the transcript.
What if I can't hear every word?
Good. Neither can we, first time. Answer the task question rather than trying to catch everything — the questions are designed so you can get them right on gist alone.
What's the best order to work through it?
Listen to each conversation cold, answer the question, check the answer, then listen again with the transcript. Save the vocabulary exercises for the second pass.
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