This is an English lesson designed to help you practice and improve your English listening and pronunciation skills. The listening lesson is a short story about something that happened in my life in Canada. There is also a short pronunciation explanation about a word or sound I used in the story.

Story: A dog I encountered on a walk around my neighbourhood!
Pronunciation explanation: When ‘qu’ is pronounced /kw/.

If you have trouble with your listening skills, here’s something that may help:
How to practice listening

Listen to the podcast:
*Try to listen at least once without looking at the words!

Download the podcast in .mp3 from Podbean.com or itunes!

Watch the video:

Listening Comprehension Questions:

1) Where was I going?

2) Who was I following?

3) What did I smell?

4) Where was the fire?

5) What happened to Thor?

Transcript

The other day I decided to go for a walk around my neighbourhood. My street connects with another street to form a giant oval. It’s a nice 30-minute walk. Before I started my walk, I went into my garage to get something out of my car. Suddenly, a German Shepherd appeared at the garage door and started barking at me!

It’s not normal for a dog to be wandering around a residential neighbourhood by itself. We don’t have stray dogs living outdoors on their own. Obviously the dog was lost and was trying to get home!

When I tried to get closer to him to check if there were any ID tags on his collar … he ran away from me! I wanted to help him, so I followed him. He could be far from home and he could have been wandering for days without food or water. I tried calling him to come back to me … “Here puppy! Come here puppy!”… but he kept walking away.

At one point he stopped halfway up the hill and started barking at me again. I got close enough to pet him. I noticed that his ID tag said his name was Thor and there was also a phone number on it. Unfortunately I didn’t have a cell phone with me, because this was supposed to be a relaxing and stress-free walk! I tried to grab Thor’s collar and lead him back to my house, but he was too quick. He ran away from me again and carried on up the hill.

Once again, I followed him. I saw two people walking down the hill towards me and I thought Thor must have been their dog. “Is this your dog?” I called to them. “No!” they yelled back. This was very strange.

Then, I smelled it. Burning wood is not a common smell in the middle of the day. “Is this your house?” I called to the two people, “because it’s on fire!” There was a fire in someone’s garage! Thor had run all the way down the street trying to find someone and alert them to the fire! This dog is a hero!

The man who was walking towards me sprang into action. He called 911 on his cell phone, and then while his daughter and I stayed with Thor, he ran into the house to see if anyone was inside. Three people ran out – they didn’t even know there was a fire in their own garage!

In all the garages in my neighbourhood, there is a set of wooden stairs leading from the garage into the house. One of the people who lives in that house often smokes cigarettes in the garage [I guess he’s not allowed to smoke in his house!] On this day, he hadn’t fully put out his cigarette and the wooden stairs caught fire.

With all this commotion, no one noticed that Thor had run away again. He had alerted us to the fire and this wasn’t even his house! I caught a glimpse of him running behind a car in the driveway of another house up the street. His work was done, so he headed home.

Discussion Questions:

Do you have any pets?

Do you prefer cats or dogs?

Has your pet done anything heroic?

Pronunciation:

In the story, I used the word ‘quick.’ Can you hear the /kw/ sound in that word?

In English, the letters ‘qu’ together are usually pronounced /kw/ [like k and w] …

question
quarter
quickly
quality
quiet
square
liquid
require
equipment
equation

Vocabulary:

to the rescue
Thor to the rescue
= when someone or something in trouble or in a dangerous situation is helped

A German Shepherd
= a common breed of dog in North American

an ID tag
…to check if there were any ID tags on his collar…
Often dogs and cats wear a collar around their neck with an identification tag. The ID tag may have information such as the animal’s name, address or telephone number.

to spring into action
The man who was walking towards me sprang into action
= to suddenly and quickly move to do something

a cell phone
= a portable phone in American English; in British English a portable phone is called a ‘mobile phone’

a commotion
With all this commotion, no one noticed that Thor had run away again.
= a moment of noise, excitement, confusion