Interviews

High-intermediate

1. Brainstorming: Have students brainstorm and write down a list of inventions they consider important. Ask them to think about inventions that have had a significant impact on their own lives or on society as a whole. Give them a few minutes to come up with their ideas individually or in small groups. Afterwards, discuss their ideas as a class.

2. Vocabulary Preview: Introduce key vocabulary related to inventions and technology that appear in the interview, such as “medicine,” “asthma,” “smartphone,” “audiobooks,” “printing press,” “internet,” etc. Provide definitions, example sentences, and encourage students to ask questions about any unfamiliar terms.

3. True or False Statements: Prepare a set of true or false statements related to the interview content. For example: “Aubrey’s most important invention is the smartphone.” Read out the statements and have students listen carefully to determine if they are true or false based on what they hear in the interview. Discuss the answers as a class afterwards.

4. Discussion Questions: Provide students with a set of discussion questions related to the interview topic. For instance: “What inventions or technological advancements have had a significant impact on your life?” “In your opinion, what is the most important invention of all time?” “How has the internet influenced the way we live and communicate?” Encourage students to think critically and express their opinions. After the pre-listening discussion, they can listen to the interview to gather more ideas and insights to support their responses.

influential (adjective): having great influence on something or somone
– My father’s work is very influential in the field of medicine.

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.

Randall: In this video, Aubrey, let’s talk about the most important inventions of all time for you. Let’s talk about maybe two of them. What would they be?

Aubrey: For me personally. Not like all of humanity.

Randall: Yeah. For you personally.

Aubrey: Probably medicine stuff. Um, I have pretty bad asthma, so without my asthma medicine, I would be dead. So that’s important.

Randall: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Aubrey: As far as like, um, quality of life goes, though, I really like, like my smartphone, uh, because then I can listen to my audiobooks. I can drive places without getting lost. So that’s probably like if it’s just a quality of life fun thing, probably smartphones. If it’s a very important thing. It would be like asthma medicine.

Randall: Yeah. And when I think about some of the most important inventions of all time, certainly, whether it’s to me or to humanity, I’m thinking of something like the wheel.

Aubrey: Well, you said for me personally.

Randall: I know, I know. I know. I said that. I said that. And that’s what the focus was. But if you are also thinking about to humanity, can you think of a couple of things that

Aubrey: Well, fire.

Randall: What?

Aubrey: Obviously. Fire!

Randall: Fire! Okay. Yeah. Fire certainly would be one of those. Can you think of any other inventions that, oh, this is just

Aubrey: Yeah. Probably one that was very, um, like, influential that caused the wheel of progress to start moving faster and faster and faster. Probably be the printing press.

Randall: Oh, yes, absolutely. And I think even in modern times you mentioned about the phone. I think the internet certainly in more recent times

Aubrey: Yes

Randall: has been something that has revolutionized, uh, the way that we think, the way that we understand the world, and so forth. Because just like with the printing press, I think the internet has expanded in different ways, both positive and negative. But thank you for sharing some of the ideas and inventions that have great meaning to you and to the rest of the world.

1. What invention do you use every day that you couldn’t live without? Why?
2. How has technology improved our lives in terms of communication?
3. Can you think of any inventions that have made transportation easier and more convenient?
4. In your opinion, what are the pros and cons of smartphones? How have they changed the way we live?
5. How has the internet revolutionized the way we access information? What are some advantages and disadvantages of this accessibility?
6. How do you think the invention of printing press impacted the spread of knowledge and ideas throughout history?