Show: “The Circle”
– B2-C2 (intermediate to advanced) –
Practice Your Listening Comprehension
Practice Your Reading Comprehension
One of Netflix’s most popular reality-competition shows, “The Circle,” has seen iterations from around the globe: the United Kingdom, France, Brazil, and the United States of America. The most popular is the latter, with 7+ seasons since 2020.
The show centres on a group of strangers who live alone, secluded from the real world, in different units of the same apartment. The only way that they can interact with each other is virtually through an artificial social media platform called, The Circle. On there they create their personal profiles, either acting as their true selves or someone else entirely. The goal of the competition is to find the catfish, the people who are pretending to be something that they are not, and block them from The Circle, all while making it to the end to win the final monetary prize. Doing so requires investigative skills, independent and group strategy, as well as social skills both on- and offline.
WHAT TO LEARN
While watching “The Circle,” there are a variety of English language elements that you can learn from and practice, including:
American English
American slang
many American accents
American idioms
present simple
present perfect
past simple
imperative (LOTS!)
conditional
descriptive language
neologism
vocabulary related to:
social media
competition
identity
personality
appearance
decision making
strategy
flirting
relationships (the self, alliance, enmity, friendship, dating, marriage, family, etc.)
emotions (happiness, hope, surprise, relatability, betrayal, anger, disappointment, forgiveness, etc.)
the truth
and much more…!
Reality-competition shows are currently quite trendy. Are you a fan of them? Why or why not? What is your favourite? Practice your English by letting me know in the comments below.
