General English (Listening and Speaking)
Unit 2: Good Times, Good Feelings
▪ Listening (pp.36~37)
Instructor: OK, class, let’s welcome our guest speaker, Mark Johnson. Mark works for the city
government. He manages the parks department.
Guest Speaker: Thanks. Thanks a lot. Hello. I’m Mark Johnson. It’s nice to meet you all. I’m
here today to talk to you about some of the benefits of city parks.
First, I have a question for you, though. River Park?
Student 1: I do. I walk through the park every day.
Student 2: I sometimes go there, on the weekends. In fact, last Sunday, I went to a really good
concert there.
Guest Speaker: Great! At least some of you are ______ the park, and are probably getting some
___________ your time there. I’d like to go into now and talk about some recent
the benefits of parks and other green spaces. First, one of the most common reasons
people go to parks is for _________. Yes? You have a question?
Student 2: I often see people at the park, not exercising. I didn’t realize there is
at River Park. What kind of exercise do people usually do there?
Guest Speaker: Actually, the type of exercise for most people doesn’t require any
equipment – it’s , especially in parks. Recently, research in the Netherlands and
Japan found that people who live near parks – in other words, people who have good green
places to walk, not just city sidewalks – were ___________ other people.
Student 3: That’s interesting! Why are they healthier?
Guest Speaker: Well, people who walk in a park or other place with are less
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General English (Listening and Speaking)
likely to have and high blood pressure, and they’re also less likely to be . Patients in
hospitals near parks get well more quickly, too. Just being able to see ______ and is healthy. And in
addition to the benefits, parks provide __ benefits as well.
A recent study in Chicago showed that crime falls when there are more green spaces. The study looked at
98 apartment buildings and found that crime was 50 percent lower around buildings that had lots of trees
and _____________.
Student 1: Why don’t we have more parks then? Are there any drawbacks?
Guest Speaker: I’m sorry? _____________.
Student 1: I said, what are the , or the disadvantages to building more parks?
Guest Speaker: Good question. The chief disadvantage is . Parks cost money. Cities have to buy land
and and play areas; and they have to pay people to of the parks. But
here’s the thing: We know now that having nice places where people can spend their free time is very
important. It leads to , people. And healthier, happierpeople have problems, so
cities don’t have to spend as much money on things such as and __________. So investing money in
parks saves cities money in other areas.
Student 3: I have a question: you mentioned some benefits.
I assume there are __________ benefits to parks as well, right?
Guest Speaker: Yes! I’m glad you mentioned that. Parks have also been shown to lead to cooler cities
with better air quality.
Instructor: Thank you. This is really interesting information about parks. I think there may still be questions.
Do you have time to answer a few more?
