Hard of Hearing

Intro

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

• tactic
• earplugs
• prone
• household appliances

• soundtrack
• hearing loss
• earbuds
• taking the bus

• weirds me out
• the thing

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

White cords seem to be coming out of the ears of most young people these days. Just about everyone has an iPod or some sort of mp3 player. With portable music, anything we do has a soundtrack—walking downtown, doing homework, falling asleep.

But recently, scientists have been studying the causes of hearing loss. Some of them have concluded that listening to music with headphones can cause as much damage to the ears as a loud concert.

They also say that earbuds cause more damage than other types of headphones. But earbuds are so convenient and even fashionable these days.

Listen to Mason and Marni talk about hearing loss.

Dialog

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

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

Mason

Marni

Mason:  I’ve been taking the bus a little bit more lately.

Marni:  I take the bus a lot myself.

Mason:  I see a lot of people with the headphones on.

Marni:  Mm hm.

Mason:  It’s kinda the thing.

Marni:  I think it’s to isolate themselves from the other people on the bus.

Mason:  Very… It’s a very good tactic. But I gotta wonder: Are there gonna be, uh, long-term repercussions?

Marni:  Absolutely.

Mason:  Yeah?

Marni:  Absolutely. I rarely listen to my music on headphones.

Mason:  Mm hm.

Marni:  Because I’m so paranoid about hearing loss.

Mason:  Really?

Marni:  Yeah. I…

Mason:  I, I generally take earplugs to concerts and stuff like that.

Marni:  I wear earplugs when I vacuum.

Mason:  When you vacuum.

Marni:  When I vacuum.

Mason:  Uh…

Marni:  It’s true. I just figure, you know, why waste… because…

Mason:  Is it… Does it get up into harmful levels?

Marni:  Absolutely. I was reading this article actually…

Mason:  Really?

Marni:  ... in Newsweek about how this generation is gonna be so prone to hearing loss because of all the headphones we wear and I thought… and it actually rated, like, all the household appliances and the amount of, you know, decibels it puts out and vacuuming was actually a big one, so I figured why waste my precious hearing…

Mason:  Your precious ear hairs. Isn’t that what it is? It’s like little hairs…

Marni:  Little hairs. Yeah. Exactly.

Mason:  That weirds me out.

Marni:  Yeah.

 

Quizzes

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Lesson MP3

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