The Environment: Extreme Weather 1

The Environment: Extreme Weather 1

Jack: Hello my name’s Jack 

Rowan: My name’s Rowan

Rich: and I’m Rich and welcome to this week’s Premier Skills English podcast.

Jack: In the Premier Skills English podcast, we talk about football and help you with your English. 

Rowan: Don’t forget you can find the transcript for all our podcasts on the Premier Skills English website.

Rich: In this week’s podcast, Jack’s football match is cancelled because of bad weather.

Jack: We’ll look at some language connected to rain and extreme weather.

Rowan: And we’ll also talk about why we’re seeing more extreme weather events around the world and some words and phrases connected to this.

Rich: This week’s podcast comes in two parts: extreme weather one and two. In each part, we have a task for you to do which will give you a chance to talk about what we have discussed and the language which we will introduce.

Jack: On the Premier Skills English website, you’ll be able to find all these podcasts and the transcripts and extra activities that go with them. 

Rowan: So if you are listening to us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or any other podcast platform,  check out our website!

Rich: And don’t forget to listen to the end of the podcast because we have a new football phrase for you to guess!

SOCIAL

Jack: Before we start this week’s roleplay we’d just like to thank everyone for all their comments on the Premier Skills English website. It’s great to know that you’re enjoying the podcasts and all of the free learning materials we have on the site.

Rich: We’d like to give a shout-out to some of our listeners and tell everyone what they’ve been saying.

Rowan: The first person we have to mention is HSN from Turkey. HSN is a long time listener and he’s been going back and listening to all of our podcasts and doing all the tasks we have for you after each podcast. Thanks for all your comments HSN and well done!

Jack: I’d like to say hi to Richard J from Ecuador who is another listener we have had on the website for a while. Richard told us how one of our Premier Vocabulary podcasts reminded him of how he used to use sticks and stones and backpacks to create goals. I’m delighted our podcast brought back some happy memories.

Rich: Finally I’d like to say thanks to Emmanuel Kwarteng from Ghana, Tiago Delazari from Brazil, HSN and MoBeckham from Turkey, and Ahmed Alariby from Libya. I’d like to say thanks for your sets of instructions on how to do something connected to technology.

Rowan: Ah, yes. This was last week’s task in our podcast about digital literacy. That advice about connecting my phone to my TV was very useful!

Jack: OK, I think it’s time to reveal last week’s football phrase and see who got the right answer.

Last Week’s football Phrase

Rich: OK, our football phrase. If you’ve not listened to the podcast before, every week we set our listeners a challenge. We explain a football phrase or word and you have to guess what it is.

Rowan: When you know the answer, go to the podcast page on the Premier Skills English website and write the word or phrase in the comments. If you’re correct we’ll announce your name on next week’s podcast.

Jack: Thanks for all your answers and guesses last week. The first listener with the correct answer was Gerardo94 from Cuba. Well done Gerardo!

Rowan: Congratulations also go to HSN and MoBeckham from Turkey, Gitaandari from Indonesia, Emmanuel from France, Marco Zapien and Vic from Mexico, Emmanuel Kwarteng from Ghana, Robert Tavares from Brazil, Liubomyr from Ukraine and Tasher Koshen from Somalia.

Rich: Later on, at the end of the podcast, we’ll have this week’s football phrase for you but for now here’s the answer to last week’s challenge.

Jack: Last week’s football phrase was record signing. This phrase is used when a club pays more money for a player transfer than they ever have before. Jack Grealish is Manchester City’s record signing and Romelu Lukaku is Chelsea’s record signing.

Rowan: Who is your team’s record signing?

Introduction to Roleplay 1

Jack: As we said earlier, in this week’s roleplay we’re talking about extreme weather and the environment.

Rowan: After the roleplay, we’ll look at some language connected to rain and getting wet. While you listen we want you to answer a question.

Rich: The question is: Why is Jack’s football match cancelled?

Roleplay

Rich: It’s absolutely chucking it down. I bet Jack is drenched. Maybe you should speed up a bit?

Rowan: Speed up in this? It’s treacherous. It’s like driving through a river. He’ll just have to wait.

Rich: It’s Jack. What shall I tell him? Fifteen minutes?

Rowan: Yeah, about that.

Rich: Hey, Jack.

Jack: Where are you? I’m soaked.

Rich: We didn’t think you’d be finished for ages.

Jack: The match was postponed at the last minute. Waterlogged pitch. Well, more like a flood now!

Rowan: Oh no!

Rich: We’ll be there in fifteen minutes - don’t worry, it’s just a shower.

Jack: A shower? A torrential downpour more like.  Get a move on. I’m drenched.

Rich: What’s happening?

Rowan: We’re slowing down.

Rich: What for?

Rowan: I don’t know.

Rich: Oh, look! That’s what you call a flood.

Rowan: The police are turning everyone around. I reckon the river’s burst its banks.

Rich: Jack’ll have to wait in this deluge a little longer.

Language Focus

Rowan: Before the roleplay, we asked you a question. The question was:  Why was Jack’s football match cancelled?

Jack: Well, the answer is the weather but it wasn’t because of the rain - I don’t have any problem with playing in the rain.

Rich: No, the match was cancelled or postponed because of a waterlogged pitch.

Rowan: This means the pitch was flooded - maybe there’s a lot of standing water on the pitch so the ball doesn’t roll along the pitch when you kick it.

Jack: There’s quite a bit of language to look at straight away. Let’s start with flooded. 

Rich: A flood is a large amount of water that covers an area that is normally dry. The water usually comes from rain but you could also flood your kitchen if your washing machine breaks or you leave the tap on or something.

Rowan: Yes, so flood can be a noun or a verb but in the example, it was an adjective. Jack’s match was cancelled because of a flooded pitch.

Jack: In football, we often use the phrase waterlogged pitch. It is specific to fields and pitches - things that contain soil. The area becomes waterlogged - it can’t hold any more water so you get a flood.

Rich: Premier League clubs have very good pitches so it’s rare to get waterlogged pitches and matches postponed for this reason but it happened a lot in the past.

Rowan: Let’s look at some more language from the roleplay. Jack got very wet because it was raining. He said he was soaked and that he was drenched.

Jack: Both soaked and drenched mean to be very, very wet. They are extreme adjectives so we can’t say that we are very soaked but we can use an adverb such as absolutely and say I’m absolutely soaked or absolutely drenched.

Rich: You can also say the phrase soaking wet to say that you are very wet. I’m soaking wet - I need to change my clothes! 

Rowan: You can’t use the verb drench in the same way here.

Jack: A nice idiom that you can use is to be soaked to the skin which again means to be very, very wet.

Rowan: In the roleplay, it was raining but we didn’t use the word ‘rain’ once. Let’s look at some of the words and phrases we used instead.

Rich: It was raining a lot - it was raining very heavily so we used lots of language to describe this. At the beginning, I said ‘It’s absolutely chucking it down’.

Jack: To chuck it down is an informal phrase that means it’s raining a lot and it’s raining heavily. We might also say something like it’s throwing it down outside or we might even use the idiom it’s raining cats and dogs.

Rowan: It’s raining cats and dogs is an idiom that means it’s raining heavily. It’s a fun phrase but I don’t think it’s used so much these days.

Rich: We used more words to describe rain in the roleplay. Listen to this again and decide who thinks the rain is heavier. Me or Jack?

Rich: We’ll be there in fifteen minutes - don’t worry, it’s just a shower.

Jack: A shower? A torrential downpour more like.  Get a move on. I’m drenched.

Rowan: Jack definitely thinks it’s heavier. Rich describes the rain as a shower. A shower is a short period of rain. We use a few collocations with showers.

Rich: You might hear collocations such as heavy showers which is obvious or scattered showers. Scattered showers are showers that can happen over a wide area but we’re not sure exactly when or where they will be.

Jack: I described the rain as a torrential downpour. A downpour is heavy rainfall that often starts suddenly. For added emphasis, I added torrential which is an adjective that is only used to describe heavy rain.

Rowan: OK, I think that is enough language for now. You can look at this vocabulary and more in more detail on the Premier Skills English website. You’ll also find free activities,  the transcript and a quiz to help you understand.

Task

Rowan: OK, it’s time for your task. In the roleplay you just heard, Jack was caught in the rain and his football match was postponed.

Jack: Your task is to tell us about a time when the weather changed your plans. You might want to tell us about a time you got soaked like I did in the roleplay but maybe you want to tell us about a time when you had to change your plans because of a storm, hot weather or even snow.

Rich: We want you to tell us where you were and what the weather was like.

Rowan: We want you to tell us what you wanted to do and how the weather changed your plans.

Jack: And we want you to tell us about what happened. Did you get soaking wet like me or did you stay at home and not go out?

Rich: Write all your replies in the comments section on the Premier Skills English website.

Football Phrase

Rich: OK, it’s time for our football phrase. If you’ve not listened to the podcast before, every week we set our listeners a challenge. We explain a football phrase or word and you have to guess what it is.

Rowan: You will hear this football phrase in every podcast we release this week.

Jack: When you know the answer, go to the podcast page on the Premier Skills English website or the review section on Apple Podcasts and write the word or phrase in the comments. If you’re correct we’ll announce your name on next week’s podcast.

Rich: So what is this week’s football phrase, Rowan?

Rowan: This week’s football phrase is ******* ****. This phrase is not exactly a football phrase but it is one that you will see a lot this week if you read about Cristiano Ronaldo and his return to Manchester United. This phrase is used as a greeting to tell someone that you are happy that they have returned. I saw lots of fan-made signs saying ******* **** Cristiano at their match last weekend.

Jack: If you have a football phrase that you would like us to use in the podcast, just get in touch and let us know.

Rich: Right, that’s all we have time for but we will be back soon with the next part of this Premier Skills English podcast.

Rowan: Before we finish we just wanted to say that we hope you found this lesson useful and we hope all of you stay fit and healthy.

Jack: Bye for now and enjoy your football.