Debra's Family

Audio

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oCoder Education - English listening Audios are suitable for learners with different levels of English. Here are some ways to make them easier (if you have a lower level of English) or more difficult (if you have a higher level of English).
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Making it easier

Read all the exercises before you listen to the audio.
Look up the words in the exercises that you don't know or don't understand in a dictionary.
Play the audio as many times as you need.
Play each part of the audio separately.
Answer all questions in the exercise.
Read the transcript after you have listened to the audio.

Making it harder

Listen to the audio before you read the exercises.
Only play the audio once before answering the questions.
Play the whole audio without a break.
Don't read the transcript.
Now, listen to the audio and do the exercises on the following tabs.
If you do not complete all the question, you can play the audio again. After that, read the dialog to make sure that you understand all word in the audio.
What does the speaker's mother do?
She works for a publisher.
She is a kindergarten teacher.
She went back to school.
She is an engineer.
Who does the speaker look like?
Her teacher
Her mother
Her friend
Her sister
What do you think the speaker thinks about her family?
She is too similar to her sister.
She believes she is very fortunate.
She tries hard to be nice to them.
She doesn't get on well with them.
What is the main idea of this talk?
To talk about job choices
To describe the speaker's friends
To discuss school
To tell about the speaker's family

 Hi, my name is Debra.
I'd like to talk a little bit about my family.
My mother is a teacher and my father's an engineer,  they're  both really wonderful people. 
My dad's very quiet,  I don't talk to him very much.
But he's always been a really stable presence in my life.  He's always been there for my mom whenever she's needed him.

I also have two very loving grandparents on my mom's side who live nearby, and I see them quite frequently. 
I always had the good fortune of having a very close family when I was growing up, we had a lot of family functions.
Currently I'm working in Princeton at a publishing company.
I plan to work there for about a year until I can move on to graduate school.

I also have a sister whose name is Donna, we're very close in age. 
She's a year younger than I am.
We look very similarly, so a lot of people get us confused and that always makes things interesting.


My mom, as I said, is a teacher. 
She's a kindergarten teacher, she get a lot of amusement out of that it seems.
She does a lot arts and crafts projects with them, and she's always cutting things out and leaving snips all over the house. 
She just started school yesterday and she was pretty excited about it.