Soulja Boy

Intro

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

• clubbing
• bummed
• viral
• pick it up

• make it up as you go along
• step
• spread like wildfire
• craze

• a life of its own
• my bad

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

Until 40 years ago or so, dances had funny names like the monkey or the twist. All the kids knew them. When a particular song was played, they all knew exactly what to do.

That doesn’t happen so often anymore. People typically just make up their dance moves as they go along and they can go with any song with a good beat.

But a few months ago, a young rapper named Soulja Boy introduced a step named after himself and it spread like wildfire. Amanda recently realized she’s the only person in America who doesn’t know the step.

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.

Beren

Amanda

Beren:  So, are you familiar with the latest dance craze hitting the west coast?

Amanda:  Which one? The Macarena?

Beren:  Not the Macarena. What is this? 1997?

Amanda:  Oh, my bad. No, I went downtown last night and I went clubbing with the girls and we were so [def ]bummed[/def] you couldn’t make it. There was this crazy dance that was going on in the middle of the dance floor. It was to Soulja Boy, but what I didn’t understand was, like, everybody knew it.

Beren:  Yeah! Yeah.

Amanda:  I mean from like 18-year-old girls to the 65-year-old guys on the wall. I don’t understand what’s going on with this craze. It’s this crazy phenomenon right now.

Beren:  It’s gone viral, as they say now. It’s crazy. So Soulja Boy, I think he’s from Houston…

Amanda:  OK.

Beren:  ...somewhere in Texas. He came up with this one song, this one hit, and he does the dance, the Soulja Boy in the video and if you go to YouTube, there’s like 100 videos imitating the Soulja Boy dance.

Amanda:  Well, of course, I went there that night because I was trying to imitate and watch and pick it up. And it’s not that difficult. It’s not like you have to be that skilled to do it, but if you want to learn it from start to finish, that’s like four minutes of moves and you go on and there’s like 100,000 versions of this dance.

Beren:  That’s insane.

Amanda:  So, like, from toddlers to cheerleaders to people in nursing homes for activity time.

Beren:  That’s hilarious.

Amanda:  So I was thinking, maybe you could help me out later.

Beren:  Yeah, totally. I’ll teach you the Soulja Boy.

Amanda:  My favorite part is the Super Man.

Beren:  Oh yeah.

Amanda:  How cute is that?

Beren:  Fly, Super Man.

Amanda:  Who’s not gonna like the Super Man?

Beren:  Yeah.

Quizzes

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Lesson MP3

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