600 Not Out! - 16/17 ep.7

Welcome

Rich: Hello my name’s Rich and welcome to this week’s Premier Skills English podcast.

Jack: Hi everyone. I’m Jack and every week we talk about football and help you with your English.

Rich: We’re going to be talking about the latest action in the Premier League and a player who reached a very special landmark last weekend.

Jack: And the language focus this week is on the past continuous.

Rich: We have some more pronunciation practice, a new football phrase for you and this week’s Premier League prediction.

Jack: But, let’s begin by talking about what’s been happening on the website this week.

Social

Rich: We had some great comments last week on the website. Last week’s podcast was all about nicknames and it was nice to hear some nicknames from football clubs around the world.

Jack: My favourite was Metalist Kharkiv in Ukraine who are called The Ferrets. They sound like they should be playing The Foxes in the Premier League. Thanks to Alex from Ukraine for that comment.

Rich: And, Kwesimanifest from Ghana told us that Accra Hearts of Oak in Ghana are also known as Phobia. I think that’s a great nickname.

Jack: Nice. Right, we’ve got a new player article on the website. It’s all about the Everton striker, Romelu Lukaku. There is a lot of Football English in our player of the week articles and you can find a football English quiz at the end of the article every week.

Rich: Some difficult words in that quiz this week - check it out. Lukaku’s scored four goals in his last two matches and I picked him as captain in my fantasy football team so I’m pretty happy about that.

Jack: His goal at the weekend was a bit dubious - I’m not sure that he touched it and it was going in anyway.

Rich: Dubious is a difficult word. It means something that you are not sure about, something that is doubtful. Sometimes evidence in a criminal investigation can be dubious.

Jack: The Premier League actually has something called the dubious goal committee which is a group of people who meet to decide the player who scored a goal when it’s not clear who scored it.

Rich: It’s important to the player but it’s also important to millions of fantasy football players. That tiny touch by Lukaku was the difference between my fantasy football team having an OK week and having a great week.

Jack: We’ve got lots more about fantasy football - check out how the Premier Skills team did in Gameweek 5 on our Fantasy Football page - there is a link on the side of this page.

Latest news

Jack: What’s been happening in the Premier League this week, Rich?

Rich: It was an exciting weekend in the Premier League. Manchester City are looking good. That’s five wins out of five after a 4-0 win against Bournemouth. Kevin De Bruyne was amazing in that game. There were big wins for Arsenal at Hull, West Brom at home to West Ham and Crystal Palace at home to Stoke.

Jack: Leicester look back in form. Their new signing Islam Slimani scored twice on his debut in a 3-0 win. The biggest surprise was probably Manchester Utd…..

RIch: Yes, Man Utd lost 3-1 to Watford. United have now lost three matches in a row. And it’s the first time Jose Mourinho has lost three matches in a row since 2002 when he was manager of Porto in Portugal.

Jack: They have a bit to think about at Old Trafford but Everton have made a great start to the season. They’re up to second place.

Rich: Yes, a great start. They are unbeaten after a 3-1 win against Middlesbrough. And in the next section we’re going to talk about a special day for one of the Everton players.

Topic Focus

Jack: On Saturday, the Everton midfielder, Gareth Barry, made his 600th Premier LEague appearance to become only the third player to ever reach this special landmark.

Rich: A landmark is an event that marks an important stage in something and making your 600th Premier League appearance is a huge landmark in Barry’s career. The other two players that have reached this landmark are Frank Lampard and Ryan Giggs.

Jack: And Gareth Barry could catch both this season to become the player with most appearances in the Premier LEague. Lampard made 609 and Giggs 632.

Rich: On Saturday, the club celebrated Barry’s achievement by giving every fan a flag with Barry’s name and number on it. And, 39,074 fans at Goodison Park - Everton’s stadium gave Barry a fantastic welcome on to the pitch.

Jack: And Barry celebrated in style. He’s not a player who is famous for scoring goals but he scored Everton’s equaliser and when he left the pitch in the final minute he got a standing ovation from the crowd.

Language Focus

Rich: Gareth Barry made his debut in 1998 - that’s 18 years ago and in this section we’re going to take a look at a few things that were happening when Barry made his debut.

Jack: Let’s start with the Premier League. In the 1997/98 season, Arsene Wenger was managing Arsenal in his first full season and, of course, he won the Premier League title!

RIch: The Premier League looked very different in 1998. Coventry City, Wimbledon and Barnsley were playing in the Premier League!

Jack: Where are they now? They haven’t been in the Premier League for years.

Rich: In 1998, the Dutch legend, Ruud Gullit was managing Chelsea but he was sacked and replaced with the Italian legend Gianluca Vialli.

Jack: Lots of legends there! What about outside of the Premier LEague what else was happening in 1998?

RIch: Well, France won the World Cup in France, Europeans were talking about a single currency called the Euro, Bill Clinton was trying to avoid talking about an affair he had with another woman and a few people were using a new search engine called Google.

Jack: What about you Rich? What were you doing?

Rich: I was in my final year at university. I was probably studying or that’s how I remember it. What about you?

Jack: I’m sure you weren’t studying all the time. I wasn’t studying, or maybe I was a little. I was travelling the world - well maybe not the world but I was definitely travelling.

Rich: So, we were just talking about 1998 and while we were talking we used a lot of examples of the past continuous.

Jack: We create the past continuous by using the verb to be in the past and then a verb in the -ing form.

Rich: We can use the past continuous to talk about an event that happened over a long period of time in the past.

Jack: One example of this use is when Rich said ‘ Wimbledon and Barnsley were playing in the Premier League’

Rich: It can also be used to describe something that was happening when another action interrupted it.

Jack: One example of this is when Rich said, ‘Ruud Gullit was managing Chelsea but was sacked and replaced with Gianluca Vialli’. The past continuous describes what was happening and the past simple is used for the action that interrupts it.

Rich: We look at the past continuous in more detail in the lesson below on the podcast page.

There are more examples and some activities for you to have a go at.

Pronunciation

Rich: In this week’s pronunciation section we’re going to take another look at weak forms and specifically the schwa which is the er sound.

Jack: In the last section we were looking at the past continuous. I asked Rich what he was doing in 1998. The question was ‘What were you doing?’ The word ‘were’ takes a weak form so we say /we/. Listen ‘What were you doing?’

Rich: We can hear it in another example from earlier: ‘in 1998, Wimbledon and Barnsley were playing in the Premier League’

Jack: The schwa is very common. Have a listen to these sentences. In the first sentence there is one schwa and the second two and so on. Can you identify the schwa?

Rich: Number one: It’s for you.

Jack: Number two: It takes a lot of time.

Rich: Number three: How about a cup of tea?

Jack: Number four: The book is about pronunciation.

Rich: Number five: What time are you going to arrive at the station?

Jack: Did you hear all of the schwa sounds? Now, have a go at repeating the sentences in the same way.

Football Phrase

Rich: Have you got a football phrase for us this week?

Jack: Yes, I have, but first last week’s football phrase. The phrase was to sit on the fence. This is an idiom and it means to avoid making a decision one way or the other. When someone is asked for a prediction in a football match and they choose a draw they can be described as sitting on the fence.

Rich: Well done to Kwesimanifest from Ghana, Liubomyr and Alex from Ukraine, Gunner_UZ from Uzbekistan, Davilillons from Spain and Elghoul from Algeria. You all got the right answer.

Jack: This week’s phrase is ******** *******. If you have been listening carefully, you might have heard this phrase in the podcast. A ******** ******* is when a crowd that is sitting down stand up and clap, applaud and/or cheer a special performance. ******** ******** are common in theatres but now that most fans sit down at football matches they are becoming more and more common in football stadiums, too.

Rich: Gareth Barry definitely deserved his.

Prediction

Jack: I see that nobody predicted the Chelsea - Liverpool result last week. I went for a Chelsea win, you went for a draw and 44% of our listeners also went for a Chelsea win. So no points for anybody this week but I suppose you didn’t mind getting it wrong.

Rich: No, I was very happy with Liverpool’s win and performance.

Jack: What match are you going to talk about this week?

Rich: Manchester Utd v Leicester is a big match but I’m going to talk about the London Derby between Arsenal and Chelsea. Chelsea didn’t look that good against Liverpool and seem to have lost a bit of form recently although Diego COsta is looking good again this season. Arsenal had a good win away to Hull City but haven’t looked really convincing this season. I think it will be close but I’m going to make you happy, Jack and go for a home win. Final score: Arsenal 2-1 Chelsea

Jack: Thanks Rich. I can’t go against my own team so I’m going to go for a 2-0 home win.

Rich: Remember to make your prediction in our vote at the bottom of the page in our Premier Prediction League!

Jack: Right, that’s all we have time for this week. Don’t forget to write your answers to our questions and make a guess at our football phrase in the comments below. And remember to take a look at our Fantasy Football page and join in the discussions!

Rich: Bye for now and enjoy your football!