Thank You for Smoking

Intro

1. Learn Vocabulary - Learn some new vocabulary before you start the lesson.

• personal responsibility
• disturbing
• casting
• dark

• smoker
• resolution
• position
• Yummy

• for a living
• anti

2. Read and Prepare - Read the introduction and prepare to hear the audio.

In the 90s, several lawsuits in the US revealed that the tobacco industry had been lying about the health effects of their products, namely cigarettes. As a result, the industry had to pay out millions of dollars.

Since then, more and more information has been coming out about the potential health risks associated with smoking cigarettes. Now, cities around the world are starting to ban smoking in certain areas.

As efforts succeed to keep young people from smoking, and more older people quit smoking to avoid health issues like heart problems and cancer, the tobacco industry is losing customers.

In the movie Thank You for Smoking, Aaron Eckhart plays the spokesperson for the “Academy of Tobacco Studies,” whose main goal is to keep people smoking so that the tobacco companies can continue to make money. The movie is takes a satirical look at how companies market harmful and even deadly products.

Listen to Kevin and Amanda talk about the movie.

Dialog

1. Listen and Read - Listen to the audio and read the dialog at the same time.

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2. Study - Read the dialog again to see how the vocab words are used.

Kevin

Amanda

Kevin:  Are you a smoker?

Amanda:  Uh, we can talk about that when we talk about New Year’s resolutions.

Kevin:  Uh-huh. OK. I just saw the movie Thank You for Smoking. Have you seen it?

Amanda:  Me too.

Kevin:  Very well done.

Amanda:  I thought it was a very interesting concept for a movie.

Kevin:  Mm hmm.

Amanda:  You know, that position somebody has to have at some point and you really don’t think about what type of person it takes to actually do that for a living, right?

Kevin:  Yes. But at the same time… Now, I’m very anti-tobacco companies…

Amanda:  Yes.

Kevin:  But, like, now, if you choose to smoke today, like, you know the risks, you know, so…

Amanda:  Absolutely. Absolutely.

Kevin:  So, I think that there is something to be said for personal responsibility. I thought the movie wasn’t as funny as I thought it would… as I expected.

Amanda:  Yeah, actually I don’t think it was funny at all.

Kevin:  It was pretty serious.

Amanda:  It was very serious and very disturbing, the facts of it.

Kevin:  But well done. Entertaining.

Amanda:  Uh, the casting was great.

Kevin:  Yes.

Amanda:  What was his name? Beautiful man with the cleft in the chin?

Kevin:  Very sexy but I can’t remember his name. Shoot.

Amanda:  Aaron Eckhart.

Kevin:  That’s right.

Amanda:  Also in In the Company of Men. Dark, dark movie, but fantastic in that as well.

Kevin:  He’s good.

Amanda:  Yummy.

 

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Lesson MP3

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