English, baby!

简体

Fool Around

Learn the First Conditional

Date: Aug 21 2012

Themes: Soap Opera

Grammar: First Conditional

Go Super!

Intro

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

Go Super to Listen

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

Go Super to Listen

“Fool around” is a slang phrase with both innocent and R-rated meanings.

Most of the time, fool around means to play or have fun. A teacher might ask the students to stop fooling around and making so much noise in the back of the classroom. If you fool around with your car, it means you tinker with the engine. You’re not working very hard. You might fix something and you might not. It doesn’t matter because you’re just fooling around anyway.

Be careful using this phrase though, because fooling around can also mean making out or being physical and romantic with another person. Find out which meaning of the phrase applies to Dale and Vanessa.

3. Watch - Watch the video without reading the dialog.

Dialog

1. Listen and Read - Listen to the audio and read the dialog at the same time.

2. Study - Read the dialog again to see how the vocab words are used.

Devan

Dale

Vanessa

Devan: Whoa. What is going on here?

Dale: Nothing, boss, nothing. Nothing at all.

Vanessa: Yeah, we were just fooling around.

Devan: Fooling around behind Mason’s back? Dale, are you and Mason’s girlfriend…

Dale: What? No. We’re just friends. You know, we’re just fooling around, like telling jokes, being silly, what friends do. We’re just friends.

Devan: Vanessa, is this true?

Vanessa: Yeah. We’re just fooling around.

Devan: OK. But sometimes “fooling around” can mean, you know, doing things that are not appropriate with someone else’s girlfriend.

Dale: True, true. But there’s nothing inappropriate going on here. Nothing at all.

Devan: So I can tell Mason about this, then?

Dale: Well, um. Let me think about that, um…

Devan: Right. Vanessa, will you excuse us for just a moment? Thanks. Now, you listen to me. Mason is a good guy, and he loved Ella for so long and she didn’t love him back, and now he’s finally met a girl who’s actually hot, and she seems to like him, and if you mess this up for him, well, I’ll fire you. Do you understand?

Dale: Yes, I got it. I promise. I promise.

Devan: Anything I find out that happens between you two, even if you look at her weird, I am not fooling around, I will fire you.

Dale: I understand. I understand.

Devan: Alright, well, glad we had this talk.

Grammar Point

Go Super to learn "First Conditional" from this lesson

Quizzes

Go Super to take Quiz

Lesson MP3

Go Super to download full lesson MP3

Go Super to Ask Ebaby! teachers your questions!

The iTEP^® test

Sponsored by

Schedule an iTEP^® test and take the official English Practice Test.
Take Now >

Discussion

Go Super to Listen

Dale and Vanessa are hanging out and laughing in the hallway. Devan discovers them and asks what they are doing. They say they’re just fooling around.

When they say they are fooling around, they mean they are just having fun and being silly. But it appears to Devan that what they’re doing might not be so innocent.

She asks to speak to Dale one-on-one and tells him that Vanessa is Mason’s girlfriend and if he does anything to hurt Mason, he’ll be in trouble.

What do you think is going on between Dale and Vanessa? Do you like to fool around or are you a serious person?

Comments

< Previous
41 through 41 of 41
1 2 3

ErinDong

United States

Yesterday, I was having dinner at my friends house. we had nothing to do or talk about so she went to read a book and I went to look through some boxes. there I found some prank stuff that we used to play with when we were five. there were a few things like whopee cushions, fake spills , goo, squishy bugs, and more. well, since we had nothing to do, we played some pranks.