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Ebaby! on the Radio

Ebaby! on the Radio

Date: Jan 16 2009

Themes: Interview, News, Sports

Grammar: Past Progressive Tense

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.

Last week, Jason interviewed an NBA player for a lesson you’ll see next week. He went to the Portland Trail Blazers’ practice facility to talk to Nicolas Batum, a star player from France.

The interview was going well, so Jason thought he’d ask Nicolas to demonstrate a slam dunk. He said yes, so Jason stripped down to the English, baby! athletic uniform that you’ll remember from the Olympics to play a little basketball with Nicolas.

All the other reporters and players in the room stopped what they were doing and stared. Then the Blazers staff said it would not be OK for Nicolas to dunk on Jason since it hadn’t been agreed on ahead of time.

Later that day, John Canzano started talking about what happened at the practice facility on his show on 95.5 The Game. So Jason called in and talked to him.

Dialog

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

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

Canzano

Canzano

Jason

Jason

Canzano:  The guy who was in the goofy outfit at the Blazers’ practice facility, Jason, is on the phone now. I want to bring him on. Hey Jason?

Jason:  Hey.

Canzano:  Are you still in that outfit?

Jason:  I do still have the socks on because I forgot to bring other socks to work today.

Canzano:  Alright. Tell our listeners what was going on. And you’re with englishbaby.com, but what were you guys out there trying to do at the Blazers’ practice facility?

Jason:  Well, we are a website that helps people learn English through conversational English and we sometimes get celebrity guests to help give an English lesson and so we were down there with Nicolas who was telling us how he learned English and telling us the meaning of “slam dunk” for our members. We have a lot of users in France who probably already know who he is. And then we were going to have him dunk on us only if it seemed to be going well. We’d never interviewed a Trail Blazer before. We were just going to play it by ear. Nicolas seemed to be in a good mood, you know, he said he’d be up for it, but it turned out to be a big no-no and we feel really bad that we didn’t ask permission ahead of time.

Canzano:  You know what though, I think the Blazers were being kind of petty about that too. I think it was a nice distraction for everybody because the mood there was very heavy. I don’t know if you noticed that. You’re not used to being at the practice facility, but the mood was pretty heavy. There was this big, serious conversation going on, then all of a sudden you start undressing, and how did you pick that attire? It’s a little Woody Harrelson, White Men Can’t Jump.

Jason:  That’s right. Well, we took a trip to the Olympics, sent a small team there to make English lessons in Beijing, and that was our Olympic team uniform, so we would sort of challenge people on the street to different athletic competitions wearing those outfits.

Canzano:  Oh that is tremendous. And so, are you guys…Are you going to make another run of it, I mean, the Blazers, they shot you down. You guys felt bad. Your camera man said to me, “Hey, you know, could you put in a good word for us? I think they’re mad at us.” It ranked, we were talking about it after, probably a top five moment in goofy media-relations moments at the Blazers’ practice facility.

Jason:  Great. We’re gonna try it again. We got enough video today from the conversation we had with Nicolas to do a lesson out of that, and if the Blazers will have us back, we’d love to come back and do something with Rudy sometime or Sergio.

Canzano:  Alright, that’s Jason. See? A light moment. That’s what we all sort of need today.

 

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Discussion

John Canzano thinks Jason’s outfit is really funny, so Jason explains that it was the Ebaby! Olympic uniform. Canzano also says that the mood at the practice facility was very serious, so it would have been nice to laugh at Jason getting dunked on by Nicolas Batum. Even without the dunk, it was one of the funniest moments Canzano has ever seen at a Blazers practice. Jason says he’d like to interview one of the Spanish members of the Blazers if he can.

Have you ever called in to a radio show? What did you talk about? Can you think of a time when something goofy happened to break up a serious mood?

 

Comments

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xiamentou

xiamentou

China

Got it!

12:36 PM Jun 13 2009 |

yang li

yang li

China

Althongh they speak was a little fast.I can understood them.there is a good comunicate!

01:00 PM Jan 22 2009 |

Marcelolic

Marcelolic

Brazil

I already called to a radio to request a song in the air… I asked that song of Ozzy Osbourn “No More Tears”,it was very cool :)

10:11 AM Jan 22 2009 |

kukuka

kukuka

Ukraine

I'd love to listen to an interview with Oleksandr Volkov.

08:37 AM Jan 21 2009 |

christlee

christlee

China

wow,i remember once our debating team were asked to play a radio to introduce ourselves.I just don't know what should i do when such persons looking at me with a digital camera in front .It's so imberass~`but one guy at last broke up the heavy air smelling .He point at one tree and did some funny and goofy actions,that's really worked!

05:28 AM Jan 19 2009 |

EDITH ^.~

EDITH ^.~

United States

It a piece of cake for a NBA player to demonstrate a slam dunk, so I don’t think an advance request is necessary. They just rejected Jason in a nice way.

05:32 PM Jan 18 2009 |

elliott2918

China

wowowowowowowowowowow!

this is amazing! Trail blazers is my favourite NBA team in the whole league! i'm a pretty big fan of Brandon Roy and LA, and Travis Outlaw is my favourite player!

Nicolas plays the same position as Travis does on the court, i think that  he is going to be a great player

04:40 PM Jan 17 2009 |

随便伟

China

oh i see

07:39 AM Jan 17 2009 |

bhuvan.ram

bhuvan.ram

India

Hey the conservation is really beautifull and i got an idea that how the words are mingling…...but i dont know why….........

10:41 AM Jan 16 2009 |

bhuvan.ram

bhuvan.ram

India

Hey the conservation is really beautifull and i got an idea that how the words are mingling…...but i dont know why….........

10:41 AM Jan 16 2009 |

Khulood

United Arab Emirates

I like Jason's voice and the way he laughs, whenever I listen to him he makes me smile!

05:37 AM Jan 16 2009 |

magic1015

magic1015

China

who hell knows what the sofa is in here except chinese , u suck!

nahhh i have no such experience , i am  a guy who perfer keeping in  A low profile ….

anyway i like jason 's outfit to amuse us and he can bring us in a good mood

05:21 AM Jan 16 2009 |

lulu6151

lulu6151

China

sofa!

03:38 AM Jan 16 2009 |

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