Here is Level 2, Lesson 17: “Flour Baby, Part 1” adapted from VOA Learning English.
- Listen, read, translate if needed, and practice along with the audio player and dialogue below.
Ms. Weaver: Anna, Pete, I have a new assignment for you — a show on single parents! What is it like for a mother or a father to raise a child by herself or himself?
Anna: We can interview single parents. They can share their experiences themselves.
Ms. Weaver: Yes, but you need to experience parenthood yourselves.
Anna: Ourselves?
Peter: Yeah, how do we do that? We’re not parents.
Ms. Weaver: I asked myself the same question. I said, “Caty, how are they gonna do that?” Then an idea came to me. I will give you the babies!
Professor Bot: You may be asking yourself the same thing that I’m asking myself: what is Ms. Weaver talking about!? I am sure we will find out shortly.
This lesson teaches reflexive pronouns.
Reflexive pronouns refer back to the subject of a sentence or clause. We use them when the subject and the object are the same person or thing.
For example, Ms. Weaver says, “I asked myself the same question.”
“I” is the subject and “myself” refers back to it. Here, she would not use the pronoun “me.” You need to use the reflexive pronoun “myself.”
Reflexive pronouns are easy to find: they end in “self” or “selves.” I have a feeling we are going to see a lot of reflexive pronouns. Listen for them!
(Pete and Anna continue their meeting with Ms. Weaver. She puts two bags of flour on the table. Pete and Anna still look confused.)
Ms. Weaver: Here are your babies!
Pete: Those are bags of flour.
Ms. Weaver: No, Pete, for the next six days, this is your baby. Here are your instructions. Do not leave your babies alone. A baby cannot take care of itself. And you two must do everything by yourselves.
We will meet next Friday. Oh, and the person who does the best research will get an extra day of vacation. Help yourself to a baby.
Anna: Pete, look, my baby is organic and whole grain. Your baby is ordinary.
(Pete pushes her flour baby off desk.)
Anna: (to Pete) Monster! (to Caty) This is a great idea, Ms. Weaver!
(Pete and Anna are now outside.)
Pete: This is a terrible idea.
Anna: Speak for yourself, Pete! We need to throw ourselves into the research! I’m starting right now!
(She leaves but forgets her Flour Baby.)
Pete: Hey Anna, you forgot your baby!
(She turns and looks at Pete.)
Anna: Come to mama!
(The bag of flour flies at her. She catches it.)
Anna: Good girl! Good girl!
Professor Bot: Singular reflexive pronouns end in “self.” Plural ones end in “selves.”
Anna says, “We need to throw ourselves into the research!” The subject “we” is plural. So, we must use the plural reflexive pronoun “ourselves.”
(The parenting research begins. Anna tries to open a baby stroller but can’t. A man walking by helps her. She pushes Flour Baby in the stroller but it falls out. On another day, she jogs with it. After several days, she is tired!)
Anna: This is hard! I hope Pete is not doing well. I really need that vacation day!
Professor Bot: We will all see how Pete is doing in the next episode. We’ll also learn when not to use reflexive pronouns.
2. Watch the Lesson 17: “Flour Baby, Part 1” American English video lesson.
3. Take the Lesson 17: “Flour Baby, Part 1” quiz to check your American English knowledge. Click here to take the quiz.
4. Answer the following question in the comments section below:
Write about something you have accomplished by yourself. Explain how you decided to do it and how doing it alone was different from working with others.
About the Author
Hello. I’m Danijela.
Very interesting lesson also video with Ana end Pete. I ask myself how will Pete solve this asaigment. I think they two will give oll of themselves solve this asaigment.
IIn the quiz my score was 4/4.
Thank you very much Maestro Sersea.
Hello everyone
Write about something you have accomplished by yourself. Explain how you decided to do it and how doing it alone was different from working with others.
Wow! This is a good question. So I’m going to tell you about my own experience. A few years ago I had to take care of my little girl alone for almost six months because her mother was sick. I had to learn to raise my baby on my own. That was very hard but I was successful. I finally understood how difficult it is when we have no one to help you raise a child. So, after that I became a better family father, I understand my wife better and I share her household chores with her.
In the quiz I got 100% correct answers (5 of 5)
Thank you Maestro
Hello , hind from Iraq.
My score was 3/4
I’m write about some thing happen to more people in world, while next year I will retire so I looking for my life who can I spent it with my experiment and accomplish expertise because every one pass in more challenge and sometime we need help from other and another time we do it alone so the difficult life give ourself positive energy to continue .
Lesson 2.17.4 Yea 2 Lesson 17
following the answer to the above question.
How did I accomplish the following task by myself?
After my retirement, I joined a charitable school. An old, nice, and very graceful lady was already looking at the school. She told me how is she handling things in limited recourses. I appreciated her work and offered my services as much as I could. Surprisingly the whole method of learning and teaching was based on rot learning. All of them had a mindset not to accept any change in their way of the method. I followed the formula of ” slow and steady wins the race.” used all my educational skills and accomplished my task successfully.
the missing word is ” looking after”
Now in my school teachers make lesson plans, break up of curriculum, use recourses, and do activities related to lessons, monthly workshops, and pieces of training for the teachers.
Level 2 Lesson: 17 ” Flour Baby Part 1” Quiz
I got 100%.
Hello everyone,!!!in the quiz I got 100%,
I remember when I move along to My apartmen and at the first mont everythin was so hard becouse I forgot pay My bills and buy the food and clean up all bye My self ,that is the time when I missed My child life but then started to do it along and i feel much better , jaja
Hello, everyone
In the quiz my result is 4/4.
Thank you maestro