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.

8 comments

• Ghulam says:
  

  I saw a video about plastic bag, I understand single use plastic bags very bad for environmental.

• JosKhanh says:
  

  We are not worthy to live in the earth.

• Carmen says:
  

  It is difficult to stop that practice or bad habit; it would seem that people who threw plastic where ever are not aware of the consequences for these kind of sea life.

• Giovanna says:
  

  I’m very happy for listening and reading you, if more persons worry about the irresponsable use of plastic, may be more persons could improve their behavior and we have to work for that, I live in Perú, here there are a lot of problems about the Pollution.

• Bijan says:
  

  Hi Tara,

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

  Second, I could understand the audio news without seeing the text, but couldn’t fill in the blanks the words:
  Southern and pollution ( I heard ocean ).

  Third, I remember that all supermarkets used paper bags in my country 30 years ago, but now all of them use plastic bags.

  In addition, I have seen that some countries use plastic dishes ( or container) for serving the hot foods that are very dangerous for the health of people.

  Dr. Fereshteh Akbarpour who is an Iranian-American who is an expert in the field of anti-aging and immune system said on T.V that one reason of increasing cancers is to use of the plastic in everything and everywhere.

  She also said that one century ago, 3 of 100 people got cancer, but now 1 of 3 people get cancer and one reason of cancer can be to use the plastic in our life.

  Please, for more information refer to:
  http://www.drferre.com/doctors/drferre.htm

  Another doctor told me:
  If I see two bottle of water that one of them is in plastic container and other is glass container, I choose the glass bottle of water because I know the plastic container for water and food is dangerous.

  Fourth, I’m so sorry to hear bad news about the whale because when we see plastics are dangerous for the health of people, so they are certainly dangerous for the health of animals too.

  Sixth, I agree with this opinion that plastic should ban everywhere and it needs to create an international agreements among countries under UN’s supervision.

  Teacher Tara,

  I’m so happy to see more comments in this audio news report. I hope a lot of members to participate in the audio news reports each weak.

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

• Alberto says:
  

  I think every country should ban all of them. Anyway, in my humble opinion, it is a habit problem. We should get used to use other kind of containers everyday.

• David Martín says:
  

  I think single-use plastic stuff should be banned everywhere cause there are other alternatives.

  Plastic isn’t biodegradable, it lasts hundreds of years to degrade therefore they’re a danger for the animals that could eat them like this whale did or play with them. It’s the case of the sea turtles, seals, sea lions, seabirds, dolphins, etc.

  More information at
  http://www.onegreenplanet.org/animalsandnature/marine-animals-are-dying-because-of-our-plastic-trash/

• Mishaikh says:
  

  Plastic bags have become a nuisance especially in developing third word, because they are very cheap, so mostly used by all the shopkeepers and malls to deliver products to the customers, who later throw it away in trash, and this trash sometimes dumped/disposed in sea water, so as may happened in Thailand and caused the tragic death of the whale. These bags also create pollution problems, and clause the clogging of the gutters and drains which later get overflow and cause health problems like diarrhea and skin diseases. This problem has now reached to the developed countries also. I have seen these discarded plastic bags floating in the air and garbage in US, which is considered a developed country. It is very difficult for any country to replace these plastic bags with disposable paper bags, because paper bags are expensive.