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Gossip

Learn Contractions and Abbreviations

Date: Aug 15 2011

Themes: Friend

Grammar: Contractions and Abbreviations

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Intro

1. Learn Vocabulary - Learn some new vocabulary before you start the lesson.

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2. Read and Prepare - Read the introduction and prepare to hear the audio.

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Did you hear what John said about what Brad said to Jennifer about what Bill did to Tom? No? Sounds like you need to catch up on your gossip.

Gossip is talk or rumors about other people. Sometimes it’s harmless, but when it’s mean or untrue it can hurt people’s feelings or cause conflicts.

Some people only like to dish about people they know, but others are interested in celebrity gossip, or stories published in tabloids about famous people’s lives. Hear Jason and Ella gossip about gossip.

Dialog

1. Listen and Read - Listen to the audio and read the dialog at the same time.

2. Study - Read the dialog again to see how the vocab words are used.

Jason

Ella

Jason: I’ve seen you reading some gossip magazines lately.

Ella: Yeah, so?

Jason: Is that a subject of interest for you?

Ella: It’s entertaining. It’s like official gossip since it’s in print. You know, everyone knows them, so…

Jason: Oh, OK.

Ella: That’s why it’s OK to gossip in this manner.

Jason: But it’s not OK to gossip if everyone doesn’t know the person that’s being gossiped about?

Ella: I guess gossip in general, it just depends on how malicious the rumor is, and also how juicy the details are of that rumor.

Jason: Do you think it’s more likely to be true if it has juicy details attached to it?

Ella: I don’t know, I feel like it’s less likely to be true because of the juicy details. But it makes it definitely more interesting and you definitely want to spread it.

Jason: Have you ever known someone or had your own reputation damaged by gossip?

Ella: I’m not gonna lie, I definitely spread a lot of rumors when I was younger. But I saw the repercussions of that, and so even though I partake in gossip I’ve decided that anything I say behind someone’s back I have to be willing to say to their face.

Jason: Oh, wow, OK.

Ella: And so, that’s kind of my approach to gossip now.

Jason: I kind of enjoyed it. There were a lot of rumors about me and some of my friends in high school.

Ella: Like what?

Jason: Um, one of my friends was rumored to have been in a street fight in Japan.

Ella: Sometimes when you hear rumors about yourself you just want to keep it going because it’s interesting.

Jason: Exactly, we thought it was fun. We were like, yeah, let’s let these people believe these hilarious and untrue things.

Grammar Point

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Discussion

Go Super to Listen

Ella likes to read about celebrity gossip in the tabloids. She thinks it’s OK to follow gossip about celebrities because they have public lives and everybody knows who they are.

Jason asks Ella if she gossips about people who are not famous, too. She says it depends on how malicious the rumor is. She doesn’t like to spread mean gossip. She used to gossip more when she was younger, but now she won’t say anything behind someone’s back that she wouldn’t say to that person’s face.

People used to spread rumors about Jason and his friends in high school. But he didn’t mind it. In fact, he and his friends thought the rumors were funny. They liked to hear wild gossip about themselves.

Do you like to gossip? Has anyone ever spread a rumor about you? Do you pay attention to celebrity gossip?

Comments

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Successfulliving

Latvia

People like to spread rumors , but that’s very sad if you can’t tell everything in that person’s face. I agree that rumors are sometimes funny- I have experienced that myself. But yeah, there is many people in the word who just haven’t got anything more intersting that to spread non true things about somebody- we can’t live without that. ..

amado

Jordan

gossip and rumors are really what make my day. you know, that you have something to chat about and make fun of it.
and by the way if you think that no one would make rumors about you just because you don’t do to the other! believe me they already do.
advice for future wise : eat or be eaten.

Madline

Jordan

auctully, I don’t like to gossip about anybody because my approch is don’t say gossips about anyone so no one will say gossip about you …and I really hate hearing the non true things and th harmful one …..........I don’t pay attention to the celebrity gossips because most of them is non true

Learner of Life

Indonesia

Talking about other people behind their back when it’s good things,those people might don’t mind. However when it’s about their bad things, of course they don’t like to be talked about.

In my opinion, it’s OK to talk about good things from other people, whoever they are… if from those goodness we can take it as a lesson for ourselves to know the true and change ourselves be the good people.

However, when we are talking about bad things from other people, it’s bad when we are just talking about the bad sides of those people. It will be ok when we can see it as the bad things which we shouldn’t follow it and we try to see the other part how it should be. So even from the bad things we can find the true from the opposite side of those badness.

after all, instead of talking about other people, when we can’t see which one is good thing and which one is the bad thing, I THINK IT’S BETTER JUST TO EVALUATE OURSELVES. WE MIGHT THINK THAT OTHER PEOPLE WE ARE TALKING ABOUT ARE BAD WHILE IN FACT WE MIGHT BE WORSE THAN THEM, OR OTHERWISE.

Sonny Boy

Canada

Folks always like to amuse themeselves with unimportant information. I am not that kind of people. There is always a better topic of conversation than other’s life… oh… Who cares? That’s what I am saying when hearing a gossip…