Part 1 - Example conversation: comics
A) Do you read a lot of comics Mark?
B) Yeah. I’m quite into Naruto at the moment.
A) What’s it about?
B) The book follows the story of the protagonist “Naruto” as he learns how to become a ninja.
A) Why do you like it?
B) The artwork is great, and I really like the character development. (Continues)
Part 2 - Example interview: daily routine
1. Are you a people person?
2. Are any of your friends broad-minded?
3. Is anyone in your family a perfectionist?
4. Are you a straight shooter?
5. Do you know anyone who is fussy?
6. Do you think it’s important to have good manners?
7. Do any of your friends have a quick temper?
Part 3 - Example speech: phrasal verbs
Learning and using phrasal verbs is a very important step in becoming a confident English speaker. By learning phrasal verbs you will be able to sound more natural and describing complicated things will be easier because you’ll be able to substitute a string of long words with a single phrasal verb. There are two main types of phrasal verbs, transitive and intransitive. Transitive verbs can take an object, whereas intransitive verbs can not e.g. “black out” is intransitive and “knock out someone” is transitive. Transitive verbs can then be split into three groups, separable, inseparable, and separated e.g. “look after someone” is inseparable, and “pick up someone” is separable”, and “talk someone into doing something” is separated.
Part 4 - Example summary
She just came back from a very interesting trip. Usually her husband books the hotel, but this time he was busy so she had to do it. When she asked him where he wanted to say, he said “It’s up to you. Whichever hotel you choose is fine”. The hotel she chose looked good online, but when they arrived it was quite different. They weren’t able to check in because the room was still being used by another guest. What’s more, when they eventually were able to use the room they found out that the A/C wasn’t working. It really ticks her off when things like this happen. She then went downstairs to talk to the manager. She was surprised because he immediately offered to change their room for free. Their new room was much nicer. In particular, She really liked the view, and the comfy bed. After they unpacked everything they decided to go for a swim. The pool was OK, it seemed smaller than the one pictured on the website, though. Now, she always makes it a habit to read the reviews of a hotel before she makes a reservation.
Part 5 - Example role-play
A) Hi Jane. How was your trip?
B) It was the pits. The weather was terrible. What’s more, the airline lost our luggage.
A) Wow!
B) It really ticks me off when people can’t do their job right. I mean, how hard is it to deliver luggage.
A) I understand. I’ve lost my luggage before and it wasn’t fun.
B) Another thing that annoyed me there was the language barrier. By and large, no-one there spoke English.
A) How did you communicate?
B) We used a phrase book.
A) Did you travel alone, or were you part of a tour?
B) We were part of a tour. I didn’t really like the people we were travelling with. There were four other people we were travelling with. Tom, Mark, Sam and David. Tom had really bad manners. Mark was really irresponsible, Sam was really uptight, and David was quite anti-social.
A) (continues)