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Interviews

“My Favorite Vacation Memory”

Level

High-intermediate

Pre-Listening Question

What is your image of the ideal vacation? Where would you go? Who would join you on this adventure? What would you do once you got there?

Vocabulary and Expressions

Here are some words and expressions that appear in the video:

stale (verb): no longer fresh, good, or appealing to eat. Also, boring or uninteresting
– The bread was old and stale, so I threw it out.

– James told some really stale jokes at the party, and no one laughed at all.

hog (verb): use something in a way that no one else can have or use it
– Please stop hogging the computer to play video games. I need it to do my homework.

undivided (adjective): complete or total
– I appreciated the students’ undivided attention during the special presentation.

Listening Comprehension Questions

Now, watch the interview and answer the comprehension questions. You can also turn on the automatically-generated captions for the video once you start it.


Transcript

Randall: Hi. In today’s lesson, we’re going to be talking about our favorite vacation memory. And certainly, I think all of us have had wonderful memories of traveling, whether by train, exploring new destinations can be really exciting. And so I asked Emily right now, what is your favorite memory? And let’s talk about who you went with. Uh, where did you go? What did you do? What did you eat? And so forth.

Emily: Um, my favorite vacation memories are really probably from when I was a child and would go to southern Utah with my dad. Um, he is a very busy person. And that time, that night that I’d get to spend camping in a tent, eating stale donuts and fast food, and hiking all day was really probably some of my best memories.

Randall: And for those that haven’t figured it out, I’m your dad.

Emily: Correct? Yeah, you are my dad.

Randall: And when we went on those trips to southern Utah. Again, Utah is a desert. It’s very dry and so forth. You mentioned about camping and eating. Uh, who did we go with? Was it the two of us? Was it a group? What do you remember?

Emily: Um, my favorite was just when it was the two of us. Uh, Michael being younger than me, I felt like was hogging your attention. Which, you know, is normal. Every kid wants to feel like their dad is paying attention to them. But it was just so much fun having that time with you where it was just your undivided attention.

Randall: Right. And you mentioned about often we would buy donuts before the trip. We would have them on the first day, and then on the second day, they got staler and staler. Uh, but yeah, certainly those were wonderful memories traveling to different places. Do you remember the names of some of those places by chance?

Emily: Yeah. Uh, Goblin Valley. For little kids, best place on Earth. Um, it, it was just so much fun. And I do have to make one comment. The stale donuts, they tasted the same every day because of just how much fun we were having.

Randall: Well, thank you, Emily, for sharing those experiences.

Emily: You’re welcome.

Conversation Questions

If you had $20,000 dollars, and you could use it for any vacation, where would you go, and how would you spend the money?

Related Language Activities on Randall’s Web Site

The following activities deal with related topics to give you additional language practice.

Try More Free Listening at Dailyesl.com