Nim's Island

Intro

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

• phobia
• sanitizer
• in bulk
• a stretch

• departure
• sold out
• targeted
• blowing up

• telecommute
• remote

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

Thanks to technology, a lot of people can do their jobs from anywhere. For instance, this lesson was written in a van somewhere between Los Angeles and San Francisco!

In the new movie, Nim’s Island, a scientist lives on an island with his daughter and sends in his research from there. They live a peaceful life, but everything changes when a reporter comes to visit them.

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, have you seen the latest Jodie Foster movie? It’s a departure from her other films.

Amanda:  Oh, like Silence of the Lambs?

Beren:  Yeah, it’s a little different!

Amanda:  Yeah, unfortunately…Well not unfortunately. I was going to say that I had to take my kid there the other day because everything else was sold out. And it’s probably more targeted at little girls. But Jodie Foster like you said and that cute little girl from…Abigail...

Beren:  ...Breslin from Little Miss Sunshine.

Amanda:  Yeah! Little Miss Sunshine. How talented is she?

Beren:  She’s really, really good.

Amanda:  She’s blowing up because I feel like there are 10 films with her in them right now.

Beren:  Oh really?

Amanda:  And she does drama pretty well, I have to say, for a girl that young. But yeah, it was a really cute story about a daughter and father that live on this remote island. Nobody knows where they are, but the father is a scientist so he writes and publishes articles from his computer, but nobody knows the location of his island.

Beren:  Whoa.

Amanda:  Yeah. And then Jodie Foster is this writer who has that…what do you call that phobia of…you basically can’t leave your apartment?

Beren:  Oh, agoraphobia?

Amanda:  Yeah. And so she’s using the Purell…

Beren:  The hand sanitizer?

Amanda:  Yeah, the hand sanitizer, like 24/7! She buys that in bulk and has it delivered. So that’s her character. And the little girl and Jodie Foster meet up, so it was quite a stretch for her because she never leaves the apartment, needs Purell, travels to find…

Beren:  Wait. How did they meet each other?

Amanda:  I’m not gonna tell you. You’ve gotta go see it. It’s only 80 minutes.

Beren:  Sounds like the plot to Jurassic Park kind of.

Amanda:  Kind of.

Beren:  Except without the dinosaurs.

Amanda:  Right, or the island.

Quizzes

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Lesson MP3

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