Unit 1 Getting to know you
3. More personal questions
Listen to the questions above and practise saying them.
How old are you,if you don't mind me asking?
How much do you earn,if you don't mind me asking?
How long have you been learning English.if you don't mind me asking?
What happened to your hand.if you don't mind me asking?
5 listening
You are going to hear a conversation that took place during the coffee break in a language class.
Listen and find out wihch of the twelve questions in Exercise I they asked.
Do you mind if I join you?
No.of course not.Go ahead.
I'm Jack.Lisa.Hi.
So,were you here last term?
No.It's my first time here.What about you?
No.I started in September.Oh,right.Do you live near here?
Yeah,in Hihbury.Oh,yeah.Whereabuts exactly?Saints,Road.
It's just off Gillespie Road.near the big supermrket.
Yeah,I know it.I live in Old Street.
Right.You're not from here originally.though,are you?
No.I was brought up in Scotland,but I've lived down here for about ten years now.
Right.right.I was going to say.I thought I could hear your accent.
It's not very strong,though.I know.I've lost most of it.
So what do you do?
I'm a teacher.I work at St Philip's,the school down the road.
St Philip's!I used to go here!Really!
Yeah,Is it still as bad as I rember it being?
I don't know.I think it's all right.
I hated it.I left when I was sixteen.Oh.right.What do you do now,then?
Nothing much.I work in Safeway's stacking shelves.I hate it.
That's why I'm here.I want go get out and do something different.
Go and work in ltaly or something.Maybe teach English even.
Good idea.What about you?Why do you want to learn ltalian?
Oh,my boyfriend's ltalian.
Yeah?What do you need to come to class for?
He should teach you.
Yeah,maybe.It's bit difficult,though,because he speaks English really well
and he get's frustrated listening to me when I speak ltalian.
The secret of sucess
Cissy(Chinese)
I think it's important to try to learn collocations words which go together.
It's much better than trying to learn single words.
There are lots of words in English.like get,give go.make.
do which mean different things in different contexts.
so it's best to try to learn phrases like get up,go shopping,make a mistake.
Russell(Canadian)
Don't worry too much about your accent.So long as people understand you,
it doesn't matter if you sound a bit Greek or ltalian or Chinese or whatever.
Everyone's got an accent-even the Americans,the Australians and the British!
It shouldn't be a big issue.
It's also more important to be able to pronounce whole phrases or words together
than it is to be able to pronounce individual words on their own.
Sachiko(Japanese)
Make sure you revise what you study in class
and try to remember what you've studied in the book you're using.
It's more useful to make sure you really know what you've already done
than to always try to learn more and more new words that you can't really use.
Migue(Portuguese)
Of course grammar's important,but if you worry too much about it,
you'll be too scared to say anything.
It's important to be confident enough to try to say things
without worrying too much about making mistakes.
Steve(English)
Don't worry about making a fool of yourself.
When I first arrived in Peru to teach,
I was visiting the headmistress of a local school and I wanted to try out my Spanish,
so I told her in Spanish that she had a "buena escuela".
which I thought meant "nice school".
However,with my poor pronunciation,it turned out that I'd told her she had a "nice bum"!
It was a bit embarrassing.but we both had a good laugh about it.
Gao(Chinese)
It's better to try to learn lots of words and phrases than it is to just worry about grammar all the time.
You can do more with a big vocabulary than you can with good grammar!
Eduardo(Mexican)
Make sure you remember that being able to use a word
involves more than just knowing its meaning.
It's important to learn how and when you can use that word as well as what it means.
Eun-Sil(Korean)
Listen to as much English as you can,particularly things like soap operas,
because they're full of usefull,everyday English.
Also,try to use your English as often as you can-in class.with your firends,
on the Internet-so that you get better at using the language you already have.
A quick quiz (page 11)
accent design
coast whereabouts