photo Tara Benwell 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.

dateline: 12 April 2017

NB! For WEEKLY audio stories check out LISTEN & LEARN 🔈

Passenger Forcibly Removed from Overbooked Flight

Pre-Listening Vocabulary

  • go viral: to be viewed online by many people
  • disembark: to get off a vehicle such as a plane or train
  • aviation: the industry of air travel
  • aisle: the hallway between sets of seating
  • boycott: to avoid a product or company due to its decisions or behaviour

Passenger Forcibly Removed from Overbooked Flight

Video footage of a United Airlines passenger being forcibly removed from a plane has gone viral. On April 9, four were randomly selected to disembark from a United plane in to make room for crew members from a partner airline. One of the passengers, a doctor who said he had patients to get to, refused to leave the plane. Chicago aviation officers boarded the plane, pulled the passenger out of his seat, and him down the aisle of the plane on his back. After viewing the video footage and seeing the bloodied face of the passenger, many travellers said they would boycott the airline.

Comprehension Questions

  1. Why did four people have to give up their seats?
  2. Who refused to leave the plane?
  3. What did security officers do?

Discussion Questions: Airlines routinely sell more tickets than they have seats. They hope that some travellers will not show up for their flight. Should airlines be legally allowed to do this? Why or why not?

show Answers

Written and recorded by Tara Benwell for EnglishClub
Tara Benwell is a Canadian freelance writer and editor who specializes in materials and articles for the ELT industry.
© EnglishClub.com
Search for more stories by topic. For example, search for keywords like: climate change, floods, trump, money, thailand, language...

Teacher's Notes

Subscribe to EnglishClub Podcasts RSS Feed

3 comments

Leave a comment