The Vagina Monologues - Listening - Exercises
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Listening Comprehension Exercise - Back to Eve Ensler & The Vagina Monologues
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These words come at the end of this piece:
At first women were a little shy, a little reluctant to talk. Once they got going, you couldn't stop them. Women love to talk about their vaginas - they do. Mainly because no one's ever asked them before
More comprehension questions? Send in your questions!
Questions for the first five minutes of the recording :
01. What does Eve Ensler do?
02. What worried her about vaginas?
03. How did she start writing the monologues?
04. How many women did she talk to? What kind of women were they?
05. What was women's attitude when they were asked to talk about their vagina?
06. What are her points about the word "vagina"?
07. Try to jot down the sound of words you hear but don't know. And try to work out their spelling! Bring them to class or send them to the forum!
08. What was the real beginning of the monologues?
09. Did Eve expect to become a vagina expert?
10. When did this Vagina Journey start for Eve Ensler? (the audio was recorded in 2004)
Questions for the second 8-minute part starting with the happiness bit :
11. What did she believe about happiness?
12. What did she learn about happiness while developing her project? (the qualities or principles involved in happiness)
13. On the V- wave... What happened after each of the first shows Eve gave and what did she actually expect?
What stories did she expect to be told and what was she told? (Can you relate these issues to the Monologues we watched in the theater?)
14. Why were women mentioning so much violence?
15. In what year did she call women to gather and consider what they could do with all the info? What did they do one day?
16. Spreading... Where did they take the play and what happened?
17. About violence... What did she learn about violence and women?
18. Who did she meet in Afganistan and what did she did with them?
19. How many places has she been to?
20. Seeing violence has allowed her to realize something. What?
21. It doesn't get ............................... in the press or in the media because I don't think good news is ever ...........................
22. I don't think that people who are transforming the planet are what get the ............................. on TV shows
23. But every single country I've been to -- and in the last ..................... years I've been to ................................ countries ... -- I've seen what I've come to call ..................................................
24. What is a "........................................."? A ........... is a .................. and rather than ... they .... and then they go out and devote their lives to ...
But I wanna talk a little bit about happiness and the relationship to this whole Vagina journey, because it has been an extraordinary journey that began 8 years ago. I think that when I did the Vagina Monologues I didn't really believe in happiness. I thought that only idiots were happy, to be honest. ... How can you be happy and live in this world of suffering, and live in this world of pain? I mistook happiness for a lot of other things like numbness, or decadence, or selfishness... And what happened to the course of the Vagina Monologues in this journey is - really - I think I've come to understand a little bit more about happiness