Intermediate Audio script Unit 2

UNIT 2 RECORDING 1

1 Last English lesson I was wearing jeans and a white shirt … I think.

2 I can clearly remember walking on my own for the first time. I was about 13 months old and I

was walking with my parents – they were holding my hands. Suddenly, my favourite aunt

appeared at the door and I walked towards her … on my own.

3 At that time … I was watching football on TV, probably.

4 Her name was Miss Spivey and she was quite young – about 25, I think – and she had very

dark hair and dark eyes, and she always wore a lot of make-up on her eyes, I remember.

5 While I was shopping in town, I saw the news on the TVs in a shop window. I went into the

shop and asked the assistant what was happening … . Everyone in the shop was talking

about it, they were really shocked.

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 Intermediate Audio script Unit 2

UNIT 2 RECORDING 2

The most romantic story I know is the way my grandparents met. They were travelling from

London to Newcastle by train, and in those days it was a long journey, so after a while they

started talking. They soon discovered that they had a lot in common. Both of them were from

Newcastle, but both of them were training to be journalists in London, and both of them were

going home to see their families for Christmas.

The weather was terrible; apparently it was snowing really badly all the way to Newcastle. At

one point, the train stopped for quite a long time, but it obviously wasn’t a problem, because

somehow during the journey, they fell in love and decided to get married. By the time they

reached Newcastle, they were engaged! The wedding took place a few weeks later, and

amazingly they are still happily married 50 years later!

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 Intermediate Audio script Unit 2

UNIT 2 RECORDING 3

started

discovered

stopped

decided

reached

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 Intermediate Audio script Unit 2

UNIT 2 RECORDING 4

arrived

asked

invited

remembered

expected

studied

visited

offered

hoped

watched

worked

noticed

travelled

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 Intermediate Audio script Unit 2

UNIT 2 RECORDING 5

R = Rafael M = Mi-Sun/Emily

R: Basically my upbringing was fairly easy-going, I guess. I mean my parents used to have

rules – we had to do our homework and we had to go to bed at a certain time. And we

would get into trouble if we were rude, or if me and my sister were mean to each other.

They used to punish us sometimes … if we did something really naughty – they would

stop our pocket money or send us to bed early, but I don’t remember a lot of

punishments.

M: My parents were very strict. They didn’t believe in giving us freedom and allowing us to

choose things for ourselves. We didn’t use to go to friends’ houses to play after school,

and they didn’t allow sleepovers, because we had to study. Even when I was 18, I

couldn’t go out in the evenings with my friends, because of exams.

R: We had quite a lot of freedom. I mean, generally, if we wanted to do things, we could.

After school we used to play in the street with our friends – football or skateboarding or

something – or we’d go inside and play games on the computer. When I was about 11 I

used to love going into town with my friends and hanging out … I thought I was really cool

… and my parents were fine with that. We had a few fights about things when I was a

teenager – I got my ear pierced without telling them when I was about 15 and my mum

didn’t like that. There were one or two things like that, but generally it was cool – I could

go out with my friends when I wanted to and they didn’t mind if I stayed out late.

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 Intermediate Audio script Unit 2
M: We didn’t choose which activities we did, my parents decided. My mum decided that my

brother and I should both learn the piano, so that’s what we did. We used to practise for

two hours every day after school and more at the weekend. Occasionally, I argued with

my mum about piano practice and then my dad would really tell me off, and I used to feel

very ashamed. In Korean culture you should always show respect to your parents.

R: Schoolwork was quite important to my mum and dad, they would get angry if we got into

trouble at school but they also encouraged us a lot, and they didn’t often criticise us. Mum

always used to say ‘just do your best, that’s all you can do’.

M: My parents were especially strict about schoolwork. They expected us to get ‘A’s in every

exam and every piece of work. I remember once my brother didn’t get a very good mark

in a test and my dad got really, really angry. My mum bought some books and he had to

do hours and hours of extra homework until he improved. They did praise us, but you had

to be really excellent at something before they praised you. You really had to work to get

their praise. It sounds a bit hard, but we accepted it, because the other Korean parents

we knew were the same with their kids, so it was normal for us. I’m not sure if I will bring

my children up the same way, but I think actually my parents have given me a lot of

confidence in myself. I know that if I work really hard I can do anything, and I think that’s a

very good lesson in life.

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 Intermediate Audio script Unit 2
UNIT 2 RECORDING 6

1 I remember when I was about eight or nine, I had a pet; it was my first pet actually, and it

was a little budgie called Ollie. I named her Ollie because it was, er, the year of the

Olympics … um, I can’t remember which year it was. But this bird was really unusual

because, um, quite quickly she became very tame. And I used to come home from school

and I’d pick her up, er, off wherever she was perching and I’d take her upstairs and she’d sit

on the side of the bed while I did my homework, and then she’d jump onto my pen while I

was writing, or she’d jump onto my hair and chew it. Er, sometimes during dinnertime she’d

actually jump onto the plate and skid around in the sauce, which wasn’t very hygienic, but …

um, I don’t actually know what happened to her because one day, we all got so used to just

her being round the house, that one day my mother came in with some washing, the back

door was open, and she just flew off and, er, we never found her again. It’s a bit sad really.

2 Right, er, this is a story of something that happened to me when I was I think about 11 or 12,

so I was actually quite old, which makes it more embarrassing. Um, I was in the garden at

my parent’s house, and I think they were having a party because there were lots of people

there – family members and their friends – and I had this swing on, um, a cherry tree in the

garden that my dad had made me when I was quite little, and on this day I jumped onto the

swing, um, as I would do any other day, and the branch that the swing was attached to fell

clean off the tree, and the swing hit me in the head and I blacked out, um, very briefly. I was

fine, but it was so, so embarrassing in front of lots of people that I know and who still

remember it today.

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 Intermediate Audio script Unit 2

3 Right. So, it was a time when I was really frightened, and, er, it was about two years ago,

when I was on holiday in Sicily. And one afternoon we decided to hire a boat to go and sail

round the coast. Um, it started off quite nicely – it was, the sun was shining and, er, you

know we were sunbathing. But then we, er, we decided to drop the anchor and, er, stay still

for a little while, but I didn’t know that you shouldn’t use the, er, engine when the anchor is

dropped. So somehow the rope got tangled up in the engine, and the, um, engine stopped

working.

So, um, we were stuck. The boat started floating out towards the sea, um, and also at the

same time the, er, the weather changed; it became very windy and the sea got choppy, um,

and we were quite scared. So when we looked in the boat, the radio didn’t work, so we

couldn’t ask for any help.

We thought we were gonna be stuck there all night, um, because we had no way of

contacting anybody. Um, there was water coming in the boat, we were cold, it was windy,

and we didn’t know what to do; it was desperation really.

But, in the end it was OK because my girlfriend managed to find the telephone number of

the people who gave us the boat, so after about half an hour maybe, they came and rescued

us, but at the time it was, er, we were very worried and very scared.

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 Intermediate Audio script Unit 2

I remember when I was 8 years old, I was in a familiar meeting with my mother in my great-

grandmother’s house.

At the same time, I was playing with my cousins in the garden. My great-grandmother had a

box of bees at the end of her garden

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