English with Jo

Youth & Old Age

This is the preparation material for an English conversation lesson on youth and old age. Listen to an audio discussion between a girl and her grandmother about the advantages and disadvantages of old age, learn some common collocations and idioms relating to age and ageing, and discover how to answer some of the most common conversation questions about this subject.

Audio discussion about ageing

Download audio discussion about ageing

Transcript of audio discussion

* Audio courtesy of elllo.org. 

Common collocations relating to age

• Disaffected youth – young people who do not accept society’s values
• Juvenile delinquent – a criminal who is still legally a minor.
• Midlife crisis – period of dissatisfaction in the middle of one’s life.
• Going through a phase – going through a period of difficult behaviour.
• Feel their age – when someone feels as old as they are

Idioms

• A ripe old age – A very old age.
• Tender age of – The young age of …
• Act your age!– Behave more maturely (when someone is acting like a child).
• Over the hill – Another way of saying that someone is old

Conversation questions 

• Are you afraid of becoming old?
• What is the best age to be and why?
• Would you like to be immortal?
• Why do some people age before others?
• What problems are there for the aging population?
• Would you like to go back to when you were a child?
• What are the good and bad things about today’s youth?
• Do today’s youth respect authority?
• What can old people teach to young people?
• Do you think that older people make better leaders?
• Should the elderly pay for residential care out of their own savings or should it be provided by the tax payer?
• What is your ideal old age to live to?
• Some people say that youth is a state of mind, do you agree?