Helen's Community

Audio

While you listen

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).
You can choose one or two of these suggestions – you don't have to follow all of them!

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 sort of building does the speaker live in?
A small square building with a parking garage
A large square building with a playground
A large rectangular building with a courtyard
A large flat building with a swimming pool
Why does the speaker like living there?
Because the people living there are friendly
Because many families with small children are living there
Because of the services that are available
Because the apartments are very large
According to the speaker, what makes the community seem active?
People from the community visit and perform for them.
People in the community have potluck dinners once a week.
People from the community bring their children to visit them.
People from the community visit and members organize activities.
Of the activities the speaker describes, which does she take part in?
Playing the violin
Singing a capella
Teaching ceramics classes
Visiting nearby schools
What is the speaker's main purpose for the talk?
To describe how she chose the place where she now lives
To talk about why she enjoys where she lives
To offer some ideas to the people in her building
To compare her current and previous residences
What was at that location before the speaker's building was built?
An old school
A children's park
A garbage dump
A parking lot

Well I live in a low income senior housing project in a moderately large community and our complex is a two storey rectangular building with a lovely courtyard in the middle.
We have lovely woodlands on the outskirts.
The deer come up to the building.
And the rabbits and the groundhogs and the birds are around. So, it’s a delightful setting.
I would say it was a rural setting on the edge of the town, of course we were built.
They tell us we are built on a garbage dump, but you don't notice it.
Haha.
And the things that I really enjoy about living here are the services they have to offer.

I live on the second floor.
I can look out my window,  the traffic doesn't bother me here.

We have elevator service.
We have trash service.
We have laundry service.
We have a large community room where we have a number of activities.
We have a dining room and a kitchen.
Because we do serve dinners here.
Our residents associations puts on dinners, for the residents and  we frequently do invite families.
And we have an activities room where we often hold art classes, and knitting classes and other types of classes.
We have someone gave us a kiln for ceramics.
And we do occasionally hold ceramic classes here.
And we have had creative writing classes, which makes things interesting.
And then we have speakers come from the outside.
And there is a group of unis- Princeton_ I'll say Princeton because they have a group that maybe other colleges have it.
But this is a very special group of, young men who sing acappella.
And they are very much in demand.
They have the most beautiful voices.
So they come and put on a program for us.

We have church choirs coming, and we are very fortunate we have a woman who teaches the Suzuki violins.
And she has pupils ranging from high school down to, maybe three and four years old and the violins are  sized according to the size of the pupil.
But they, put on a wonderful wonderful program.

And then we have a little tea afterwards and meet the parents and the students.
And its really exciting.

And then we have a couple of elementary schools nearby.
And a group of us about a year ago visited the second grade and we would go and help them with their reading.
They would read and we acted as surrogate grandparents.


And this is sort of a interesting thing to do too.
So it was really interesting the time that we went over the second graders were studying about the tribe of eskimos.
And it was, it was just sort of coincidental because I had been to Alaska and I'd met many of these eskimos and brought back some artifacts.
So I took them over to show them to the pupils.
They were very interested in it.


So, now as I say we do have other people coming in, to putting on programs for us and  we do good outside.
We have special bus trips.
We go to Atlantic City.
We go to dinner theaters...
And even the university students offer dance to senior citizens. Those of us who shake a leg can go.
Hahaha.