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.

2 comments

• Kim Dammers says:
  

  Bijan, English is an ever-changing language, so it is not surprising that a relatively new (1970s) word such as HALF PIPE / HALF-PIPE / HALFPIPE is spelled differently in various authoritative sources. It is common for words that were originally two words used together to morph into a hyphenated word and then into one that is simply the two original words written together without a space. This evolution can take centuries, decades, or a few years. The speed seems to depend on how closely associated the pair is in the minds of significant numbers of significant people, the way it looks on paper, and confusion a combined word might bring.

  The winter Olympics goes with HALFPIPE and HALF-PIPE, differing from page to page. Already in 2007, the “New York Times” also spelled it that way.

  Searching through freely-available online pages of “Skateboarding Transworld” (apparently the leading skateboard magazine), I was surprised not to find the word in any variant. However, I did find “full-pipe” — with a hyphen. Going through the Web site of the International Skateboarding Federation, I could not find any variant there either.

  So, I would say it is unsettled enough that you can use any variation without worrying — though the separated word spelling is probably dying out.

• Bijan says:
  

  Hi Tara,

  First, thank you for this week’s news report.

  Second, this news report is easier than the last week’s news report for me because I could understand it and fill in the blanks except one word.

  In addition, your speaking’s speed is slower than last week, so I enjoy listening to the news because the words are clear for me.

  Third, I couldn’t understand the meaning of the “halfpipe”, so looked at the Cambridge Dictionary and the Merriam Webster Dictionary, but again and again couldn’t understand the meaning of it because I’m a foreign learner.

  Thus, I searched for the images of halfpipe on the Internet and understood:

  Wow!
  I had seen it very much on TV. it’s my favourite sport. Here is the link for other students that, maybe, want to know the halfppe:

  https://www.gettyimages.ca/photos/half-pipe?mediatype=photography&phrase=half%20pipe&sort=mostpopular
  Fourth, I’m surprised about one subject about writing the halfpipe.

  Teacher Tara,

  You have written “halfpipe” in the above text while Google tells me now it’s wrong and “half pipe” is correct, but the Oxford Dictionary says “halfpipe” is correct.

  I looked at the Cambridge Dictionary, it says “half pipe” is correct while the Merriam Webster have used a hyphen between half and pipe (half-pipe).

  I’m confused about the writing the word halfpipe.

  Fifth, I’m happy to see the Olympic games to help to a US senator to show that merit-based immigration isn’t the American way.

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