(This posting includes a handout LINK AT THE END OF THIS POST which you are welcome to use with your students.) *

You and a friend are sitting in an outdoor café next to a street lined with stores and shops. Suddenly, you can’t hear your friend because a car with a loud muffler drives past. After a minute, you are able to continue your conversation. However, five minutes later, a loud motorcycle stops next to the café waiting for the traffic light to change. While waiting, the driver revs his motor. In other words, he makes his motorcycle sound loud without moving it. You and your friend finally decide to move inside the café to escape the noise.

Researchers have conducted studies to try to understand the reasons why some people want their cars or motorcycles to be so loud. They found four different reasons. Most of these noisy drivers are young men between 18-35 years old. Perhaps they haven’t been very successful in school or sports or in a job or in dating, so nobody notices them. Loud vehicles can change that.

(See complete article below.)

For background information about these articles and for suggestions for how to use them with your students, see  • Introducing “Short, High-Interest Readings”  Also, I’ll be adding more of these articles in the right-hand column: ESL Reading> Short, High Interest Articles for Extensive Readings

Here is the 13th article. You can download the article for your students by clicking on the link at the end. Also included are three optional exercises: True-False Questions; Paraphrasing Exercise; Reflection Exercise.

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(This posting includes a handout LINK AT THE END OF THIS POST which you are welcome to use with your students.) *

The video shows a leopard chasing and then catching a gazelle. The leopard then starts to drag the body next to a small pond. Just as it starts to eat, it hears a man’s soft voice talking about a book he had just read. The leopard stops eating, looks to the area that the voice came from for a moment, then jumps up and runs away, leaving its dinner behind.

The man’s voice was a recording playing from a speaker set up near the pond. Researchers had put the device there as part of their study to learn how scary human sounds were to wild animals compared to other sounds. (See complete article below.)

For background information about these articles and for suggestions for how to use them with your students, see  • Introducing “Short, High-Interest Readings”  Also, I’ll be adding more of these articles in the right-hand column: ESL Reading> Short, High Interest Articles for Extensive Readings

Here is the eleventh article. You can download the article for your students by clicking on the link at the end. Also included are three optional exercises: True-False Questions; Paraphrasing Exercise; Reflection Exercise.

Continue reading →

(This posting includes a handout LINK AT THE END OF THIS POST which you are welcome to use with your students.) *

I was totally confused. I saw 18-year-old Ronny walking outside his house carrying a guitar case, but I knew he didn’t play the guitar. I asked him if he was starting to take lessons. He said, “No, but I’m planning to find a date for a party. And I just learned three tricks to do that, and one of them uses a guitar case.” Then he told me about the three interesting experiments.

Researchers sent a very handsome guy to a shopping mall in France to ask women for their phone numbers so that he could call them for a date. He stood in front of different types of stores (for example, a bakery, a shoe store, a café) and as women walked by, he approached them. However, he wasn’t very successful. Only 13% of the women gave him their numbers when he stood in front of those shops. Surprisingly, however, he was twice as successful (26% of the time) in front of one particular shop: a flower shop.

The researchers have a theory about these results. (See complete article below.)

For background information about these articles and for suggestions for how to use them with your students, see  • Introducing “Short, High-Interest Readings”  Also, I’ll be adding more of these articles in the right-hand column: ESL Reading> Short, High Interest Articles for Extensive Readings

Here is the 10th article. You can download the article for your students by clicking on the link at the end. Also included are three optional exercises: True-False Questions; Paraphrasing Exercise; Reflection Exercise.

Continue reading →