Listen to News with Tara Benwell - Instructions:
1. Preview the vocabulary and read the gapfill text.
2. Play the news report and try to fill in the blanks.
3. Answer the comprehension questions by writing full sentences.
4. Use the discussion question to write an essay or discuss the story with other students.
5. Click "show Answers" to see the full text.
6. Pretend to be a news anchor by reading each story out loud.

7 comments

• The King Of Love From IRAN says:
  

  I wish you Love & Peace, My dear Teacher Tara

• Masako Nagashima says:
  

  Hi Tara

  Could you explain what “controversial code” is?
  I couldn’t find the term in the English-Japanese dictionary and also google search. Would you give me an example such as….. like…..

  Thank you

• Christo Meyer says:
  

  Thank you Tara and the English Club web-master for posting Andreana Tittilani’s insightful comments. Sadly, my own country is full of contradictions and hypocrites. Some citizens pretend to abide by and promote old-fashioned (i.e., conservative) ideas of what is “proper” clothing attire (on athletic fields and courts, or in school classrooms) while also claiming to be tolerant Christians. What they actually want is for other other people to behave and believe more like they do. They teach their children to obey their bible’s “Ten Commandments” – which includes the rule to not to kill other people. And, at the same time, they are willing to send their own older children, spouses and siblings off to fight in wars in other countries with the goal of killing other human beings (that our government labels and describes as our enemies). It seems as if many “American Christians” don’t really respect and recognize that people with different skin color, genders, and / or religions are equal human beings. Similarly, this tennis umpire could not honor the needs of the female and male tennis players equally.

• Michael Sullivan says:
  

  I have read the other two reader’s comments and I disagree. The umpire made a good call. If the ump hadn’t done so, somebody else would have had something to say to Ms. Cornet: her coach, her teammates, her friends. Better to have had the judge to have done what he did than to leave it to others.

• Bijan says:
  

  Hello everybody,

  I watched the video and agree with the Women’s Tennis Association.

  I’m surprised why Cornet has received a code violation from the US open chair umpire?

  I believe that the US open chair umpire should apologize to Alize Cornet.

  Best wishes,
  Bijan from the Persian Gulf

• Bijan says:
  

  Hi Tara,

  First, thanks to you for this week’s audio news report.

  Second, WOW!
  This lesson was very difficult for me because I couldn’t understand the subject clearly without seeing the text.

  In addition, I couldn’t fill in the blanks any word except the word “apologized”.

  It’s the first time during one year that one lesson is so difficult for me and it has many new vocabularies that I haven’t heard them before.

  Third, how is it possible Cornet have received a code violation from the US open chair umpire while the Women’s Tennis Association quickly apologized confirming there is no rule against changing attire on the court?

  Teacher Tara,

  I would like to suggest a new subject for these cases:
  If it’s possible, please you show us an image in these cases too because we can understand the subject well.

  Now, I want to search on the Internet for finding the image of Cornet that I understand what was the subject exactly?

  Of course, I understood from Andereana’s comment something.

  Thanks to you and English Club for teaching us kindly.

  Best wishes and have a great week in nice Canada,
  Bijan from the Persian Gulf

• Andreana Tittilani says:
  

  We have to realize this was a US judge. For the USA, blowing off breasts and other body parts in Iraq or Libya or Yemen is no problem. Murder and mayhem is good business. But show one square millimeter of female breast and Uncle Sam will come down on you like a ton of bricks.