Culture Cruise

If you heard that you might be selected to drive around in a limo and compete in a contest to be shown on English, baby! would you be excited?

The students in the ELS program at Concordia University in Portland, Oregon, sure were. We held a casting call there and selected six contestants for the first ever English, baby! Culture Cruise.

The contestants had to be good enough at English to complete the challenges but they couldn't be too good because we wanted the challenges to be, well, challenging.

So without further adieu, we introduce you to our six contestants and Captain Jeff, leader of the Culture Cruise!

Video

The Contestants

Tommy
Korea
Li
China
Noel
Saudi Arabia
Hiromi
Japan
Ahmed
Saudi Arabia
Michelle
Taiwan

Discussion

The Ebaby! limo drives across town to pick up the contestants who each say that have come to the US to study English.

They laugh and cheer when Captain Jeff steps out of the limo and salutes them by putting his hand to his forehead and moving it forward. That's a greeting and sign of respect in the United States that's most commonly used in the military. Most countries use some variation of this gesture, which may have originated with the Romans.

Captain Jeff meets the contestants and asks Michelle if she's nervous. She starts to nod and say yes, and then she changes her mind and says no. Lee introduces himself and says that he was born in China but most recently lived in Japan. Captain Jeff explains that the purpose of the cruise is for the contestants to learn English and have fun.

The contestants are split into two teams. The women are on Team Madonna and the men are on Team Tiger. What you don't see is that the teams chose those names. Captain Jeff asked the men to name themselves after a sports star and they chose Tiger Woods. The women were asked to name themselves after a pop star and they chose Madonna.

The limo pulls up to the first challenge and Captain Jeff salutes the camera. Tune in next week to see first challenge. The contestants have to find Americans to give them dancing lessons!

Grammar Point

In the first scene, two of the students said, "I am come to here to learn English." What they mean to say is either "I have come here to learn English" or "I am here to learn English."