These are two videos from US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about the dangers smoking poses.
Self-study activity:
Watch the videos and answer the questions about them.
The activity is suitable for intermediate students.
Brett's story
1 How old was Brett when he started smoking?
2 Why did he start?
3 When did he use to smoke in the beginning?
4 What physical problem did Brett get as a result of smoking?
5 How did he justify the fact that he smoked?
6 What did people use to tell him?
7 Why doesn't he want to die of smoking-related diseases?
Amanda's story
1 What three facts about her life when she found out she was pregnant does Amanda give us?
2 What 'health problem' did she have as a result of smoking?
3 What was she allowed to do when her daughter was a week old?
4 What does 'four hours' refer to?
Brett
I started smoking... I met a waitress at an all-night restaurant (2), and I was about 16 (1) and she was about 18, and she was super cool, and she smoked (2) .
So, I would go in the restaurant late at night (3) and then sit there while she didn’t have any customers, and we would talk and we would smoke, and that’s how it started, which is funny, because I don’t remember her name, but now I have the legacy of that, you know, it sort of colored everything that I do.
But I don’t really think that I really considered it until it actually happened, until it actually happened. The first time that I had to lose two teeth (4), which, you know, doesn’t seem like that big of a deal, but, it’s like, two teeth, okay, whatever.
And then, right after that, I lost another, I don’t know, 16, or something along those lines (4). And even at that point I was still smoking. And, you know, when you’re smoking, you love to smoke, and that’s the addiction. And, so you rationalize that, you justify it, to say, 'I love to smoke,' (5) when it all kind of gets in the way of everything you do.
I guess, for me, you know, in youth, when I was smoking, people said, 'Well, you’re going to cut 10 years off of your life.' (6) And I always said, 'Yeah, but those are the bad years at the end, what do I care?' But they’re not. It’s not 80 that all those things start happening. You’re not this feeble old man. But I don’t want to die from a smoking related illness. I... There’s a lot of ways to die out there, and I’ve seen smoking related illness, and that is not a good one (7). You know, you have a lot of years left ahead of you, and anything that you want to do in life, anything that you want to do, is better if you’re healthy.
Amanda
When I found out I was pregnant I was 24 years old, recently engaged, and a year away from student teaching in college (1), and still smoking cigarettes. I knew that smoking was bad, well, at any time, definitely, while you’re pregnant, but I didn’t think it would happen to me. I didn’t think I would have a premature baby (2). I thought everything was going to be fine.
It wasn’t. I went into an ambulance. I was very scared. I felt alone. I felt like I hurt my baby. When my daughter was born two months early, she had to be placed on a feeding tube.
I was not able to hold her. A couple... after she was about a week old, I was able to do skin-to-skin contact (3), but that was only for less than an hour a day. The only time I was allowed to touch her in her incubator was every four hours for a diaper change (4).
