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Staring Contest

Date: Nov 01 2004

Intro

1. Learn Vocabulary - Learn some new vocabulary before you start the lesson.

2. Read and Prepare - Read the introduction and prepare to hear the audio.

Today, we are going to talk about John’s sister, who took a class where the students had to stare at each other for an hour at a time. Usually, we don’t stare at people like this. I can imagine that it must’ve been really hard to do. Check out what his sister thought about it.

Dialog

1. Listen and Read - Listen to the audio and read the dialog at the same time.

2. Study - Read the dialog again to see how the vocab words are used.

Steph

John

Steph: What did your sister study again?

John: She got her Masters in theatre out in Chicago.

Steph: Oh, that’s cool. What kind of things do you learn at theatre school?

John: You know, she was at school for four years for that. It was crazy. It was like a law degree. And they had all these crazy exercises. Like, she would have to sit across from somebody else in her class, for an hour, staring at each other and not speaking.

Steph: Hey. That’s kind of like a staring contest. I was always really good at those.

John: Oh, really? I was always really bad. My sister said it really freaked her out having to stare at someone for an hour.

Steph: Could you blink?

John: You could blink, but you tried not to. But just having to look in someone’s eyes and not talking. She said all kinds of weird thoughts started going through her head.

Steph: Could you laugh?

John: You could laugh, I think. No, I, actually you probably couldn’t. The goal was just to sit there and do nothing but stare at the other person.

Steph: Wow. That would make me really nervous.

John: I know. I think that’s the whole point is to train you to get on stage.

Steph: Wow. Hmm. Maybe we’ll try it sometime. Wanna have a staring contest?

John: I dunno. I’m pretty freaked out about it after hearing my sister’s stories. I think you’d win.

Steph: Whatever!

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Discussion

This totally reminds me of a staring contest. Do you know what a staring contest is? It’s when two people see who can stare at the other for the longest period of time, without blinking or cracking up. When we were kids, we used to try to make funny faces at each other to get the other one to crack up. This is so much fun! You should try it!