If you're preparing for the CPE Speaking Paper you'll know you're required to make a 'long-turn' or short presentation during your interview. It's a good idea with a task like this to structure your thoughts with a clear beginning, middle and end, making the organisation of the talk transparent with signposting words and expressions. This week we listen to Eun-Kyung from South Korea who was asked to talk for about two minutes on the subject of a place in her country she would recommend to tourists. You can listen to the recording from the link below where you'll also find the transcripts and this week's 'Get Speaking' task sheet giving you the chance to carry out a similar activity.
http://splendid-speaking.com/blog/?p=27
Keep on blogging!
Sunday 28 September 2008
Saturday 27 September 2008
Who's (not) afraid of the rain?
Except for one person in this picture, everyone else was absent for our last meeting. Can you guess who was not afraid of the bad weather?
Friday 26 September 2008
Tips for Paper 2, as promised
DOs and DON'Ts
Before you start writing:
Read each question very carefully.
Remember that Part 1 is compulsory.
Choose Part 2 questions on the basis of what interests you the most but also bear in mind the task type.
Decide exactly what information you are being asked to give.
Identify the target reader, your role as writer and your purpose in writing.
Check which task type you are being asked to write.
Organise your ideas and make a plan before you write.
Don't attempt a set text question if you have not read the book or seen a film adaptation of the book.
Don't attempt a question if you feel unsure about the format.
When you write:
Use a pen.
Write your answers in the booklet provided.
Write in an appropriate style.
Remember in Part 1 to use all the content points and to add your own ideas.
Make sure in Part 2 that you deal with all parts of the question.
Calculate how many words on average you write on a line and multiply this average by the number of lines to estimate how much you have written - don't waste time counting words individually.
Follow the plan and keep in mind your purpose for writing.
Use as wide a range of structure and vocabulary as you can but think carefully about when to use idioms.
Use paragraphs and indent when you start a new paragraph.
Check the use of punctuation such as capital letters, apostrophes and commas.
Cross out errors with a single line through the word.
Don't include irrelevant material.
Don't write out a rough version and then try to write a good copy - you will not have time
After you have finished writing
Check for spelling and punctuation errors.
Check structures: subject – verb agreement, tenses, word order, singular and plural nouns.
Make sure that your handwriting can be read by the examiner.
Before you start writing:
Read each question very carefully.
Remember that Part 1 is compulsory.
Choose Part 2 questions on the basis of what interests you the most but also bear in mind the task type.
Decide exactly what information you are being asked to give.
Identify the target reader, your role as writer and your purpose in writing.
Check which task type you are being asked to write.
Organise your ideas and make a plan before you write.
Don't attempt a set text question if you have not read the book or seen a film adaptation of the book.
Don't attempt a question if you feel unsure about the format.
When you write:
Use a pen.
Write your answers in the booklet provided.
Write in an appropriate style.
Remember in Part 1 to use all the content points and to add your own ideas.
Make sure in Part 2 that you deal with all parts of the question.
Calculate how many words on average you write on a line and multiply this average by the number of lines to estimate how much you have written - don't waste time counting words individually.
Follow the plan and keep in mind your purpose for writing.
Use as wide a range of structure and vocabulary as you can but think carefully about when to use idioms.
Use paragraphs and indent when you start a new paragraph.
Check the use of punctuation such as capital letters, apostrophes and commas.
Cross out errors with a single line through the word.
Don't include irrelevant material.
Don't write out a rough version and then try to write a good copy - you will not have time
After you have finished writing
Check for spelling and punctuation errors.
Check structures: subject – verb agreement, tenses, word order, singular and plural nouns.
Make sure that your handwriting can be read by the examiner.
Tuesday 23 September 2008
Monday 22 September 2008
Saturday 20 September 2008
The stars shine brighter and brighter!
My goodness! I am running out of medals!
Just kidding!
Keep up the outstanding work girls!
Tuesday 16 September 2008
May I contribute?
Which one word fits all three sentences?
1. If he has criticisms to make of me I wish he would tell me to my ........ rather than talking behind my back.
2. It was a very serious situation yet I found it really difficult to keep a straight ........
3. On the ........ of it, the course appears to be just what you've been looking for.
1. If he has criticisms to make of me I wish he would tell me to my ........ rather than talking behind my back.
2. It was a very serious situation yet I found it really difficult to keep a straight ........
3. On the ........ of it, the course appears to be just what you've been looking for.
Monday 15 September 2008
Gapped Text
One medal for the whole answer key :)
SPORTSWRITING
Offices and bars are full of casual obscenity, but most British newspapers are ... well, not necessarily careful about language, but careful about bad words anyway. The phrase 'family newspaper' is an ineluctable part of our lives. Newspapers are not in the business of giving gratuitous offence. It is a limitation of newspaper writing, and one everybody in the business, whether writing or reading, understands and accepts. There are many other necessary limitations, and most of these concern time and space.
Newspapers have dominated sportswriting in Britain for years, and have produced their own totem figures and doyens. But ten years ago, a new player entered the game. This was the phenomenon of men's magazines; monthly magazines for men that had actual words in them - words for actually reading. GQ was the pioneer and, in my totally unbiased opinion as the long-term author of the magazine's sports column, it leads the way still, leaving the rest panting distantly in its wake.
Sport, is of course, a blindingly obvious subject for a men's magazine - but it could not be tacked in a blindingly obvious way. Certainly, one of the first things GQ was able to offer was a new way of writing about sport, but this was not so much a cunning plan as a necessity. The magazine was doomed, as it were, to offer a whole new range of freedoms to its sportwriters. Heady and rather alarming freedoms. Freedom of vocabulary was simply the most obvious one and, inevitably, it appealed to the schoolboy within us. But space and time were the others, and these possibilities meant that the craft of sportswriting had to be reinvented.
Unlike newspapers, a magazine can offer a decent length of time to research and to write. These are, you would think, luxuries - especially to those of us who are often required to read an 800-word match report over the telephone the instant the final whistle has gone. Such a discipline is nerve-racking, but as long as you can get it done at all, you have done a good job. No one expects a masterpiece under such circumstances. In some ways the ferocious restrictions make the job easier. But a long magazine deadline gives you the disconcerting and agoraphobic freedom to research, to write, to think.
To write a piece for a newspaper, at about a quarter of the massive GQ length, you require a single thought. The best method is to find a really good idea, and then to pursue it remorselessly to the end, where ideally you make a nice joke and bale out stylishly. If it is an interview piece, you look for a few good quotes, and if you get them, that's your piece written for you. For a longer piece, you must seek the non-obvious. This is a good quality in the best of newspaper writing, but an absolute essential for any writer who hopes to complete the terrifying amount of words that GQ requires. If you write for GQ you are condemned to try and join the best. There is no other way.
GQ is not restricted by the same conventions of reader expectation as a newspaper. You need not worry about offending people or alienating them; the whole ethos of the magazine is that readers are there to be challenged. There will be readers who would find some of its pieces offensive or even impossible in a newspaper, or even in a different magazine. But the same readers will read the piece in GQ and find it enthralling.
That is because the magazine is always slightly uncomfortable to be with. It is not like a cosy member of the family, nor even like a friend. It is the strong, self-opinionated person that you can never quite make up your mind whether you like or not. You admire him, but you are slightly uneasy with him. The people around him might not altogether approve of everything he says; some might not care for him at all. But they feel compelled to listen. The self-confidence is too compelling. And just when you think he is beginning to become rather a bore, he surprises you with his genuine intelligence. He makes a broad joke, and then suddenly he is demanding you follow him in the turning of an intellectual somersault.
1 What does the writer say about newspapers in the first paragraph?
a) They tend not to include articles readers will find very challenging.
b) Articles in the do not reflect the way people really speak.
c) They are more concerned with profit than with quality of writing.
d) They fail to realise what kind of writing would appeal to readers.
2 What does the writer imply in the second paragraph?
a) GQ magazine contains articles that are well worth reading.
b) Some of the more recent men's magazines are unlikely to survive.
c) The standard of sportswriting in newspapers has improved in recent times.
d) He is in a position to give an objective view of sportswriting in magazines.
3 Why were sportswriters for GQ given new freedoms?
a) The restrictions of newspaper writing do not aply to writing for GQ.
b) The magazines initial plans for its sports articles proved unrealistic.
c) Notions about wha made good sports journalism were changing.
d) The writers that it wanted to employ demanded greater freedom.
4 What does the writer say about the amount of time allowed for producing articles?
a) The best articles are often produced under great pressure of time.
b) Having a long time to produce an article encourages laziness.
c) Writers are seldom satisfied by articles produced in a hurry.
d) Having very little time to produce an aticle can be an advantage.
5 Why can't writers for GQ use the same methods as writers for newspapers?
a) Articles in GQ are not allowed to consist mainly of interviews.
b) Thay want to be considered better than writers for newspapers.
c) Writers for newspapers do not have so much space to fill.
d) They've been told to avoid the conventions of newspaper writing.
6 What does the writer say in the penultimate paragraph about certain pieces in GQ?
a) They will create enormous controvery.
b) They unintentionally upset some readers.
c) They are a response to demand from readers.
d) They match readers expectations.
7 The writer likens GQ magazine to a person who
a) says things you wish you had said yourself.
b) frequently changes his point of view.
c) forces you to pay attention to him.
d) wants to be considered entertaining.
1 What does the writer say about newspapers in the first paragraph?
a) They tend not to include articles readers will find very challenging.
b) Articles in the do not reflect the way people really speak.
c) They are more concerned with profit than with quality of writing.
d) They fail to realise what kind of writing would appeal to readers.
2 What does the writer imply in the second paragraph?
a) GQ magazine contains articles that are well worth reading.
b) Some of the more recent men's magazines are unlikely to survive.
c) The standard of sportswriting in newspapers has improved in recent times.
d) He is in a position to give an objective view of sportswriting in magazines.
3 Why were sportswriters for GQ given new freedoms?
a) The restrictions of newspaper writing do not aply to writing for GQ.
b) The magazines initial plans for its sports articles proved unrealistic.
c) Notions about wha made good sports journalism were changing.
d) The writers that it wanted to employ demanded greater freedom.
4 What does the writer say about the amount of time allowed for producing articles?
a) The best articles are often produced under great pressure of time.
b) Having a long time to produce an article encourages laziness.
c) Writers are seldom satisfied by articles produced in a hurry.
d) Having very little time to produce an aticle can be an advantage.
5 Why can't writers for GQ use the same methods as writers for newspapers?
a) Articles in GQ are not allowed to consist mainly of interviews.
b) Thay want to be considered better than writers for newspapers.
c) Writers for newspapers do not have so much space to fill.
d) They've been told to avoid the conventions of newspaper writing.
6 What does the writer say in the penultimate paragraph about certain pieces in GQ?
a) They will create enormous controvery.
b) They unintentionally upset some readers.
c) They are a response to demand from readers.
d) They match readers expectations.
7 The writer likens GQ magazine to a person who
a) says things you wish you had said yourself.
b) frequently changes his point of view.
c) forces you to pay attention to him.
d) wants to be considered entertaining.
Sunday 14 September 2008
Tips for Paper 1
Paper 1 - Reading
DOs and DON'Ts
-Read the sources, titles and subtitles of the texts where given; they are there to help you.
-Read each text carefully before you answer the questions to get an overall impression and understanding of it. This includes part 3, the gapped-text task.
-Remember that in Part 1, the missing word(s) may be forming part of an idiom, fixed phrase or collocation, so always check the words around the gap carefully.
-Remember that in Part 1, the missing word(s) has got to fit the context of the passage, so always check that the completed sentence makes sense in the passage as a whole.
-Read the questions carefully in Parts 2 and 4, and check each option against the text before rejecting it.
-Keep an overall idea of the development of the text in Part 3. You will need to check that the extracts chosen to fit the gaps in the base text fit the progression of the argument or narrative as a whole.
-Don't assume in Part 2 or Part 4 that if the same word appears in the text as well as in an option, this means you have located the answer.
-Don't try to answer any questions without referring carefully to the text.
-Don't spend too much time on any one part of the paper.
-Don't forget to record your answers on the separate answer sheet.
DOs and DON'Ts
-Read the sources, titles and subtitles of the texts where given; they are there to help you.
-Read each text carefully before you answer the questions to get an overall impression and understanding of it. This includes part 3, the gapped-text task.
-Remember that in Part 1, the missing word(s) may be forming part of an idiom, fixed phrase or collocation, so always check the words around the gap carefully.
-Remember that in Part 1, the missing word(s) has got to fit the context of the passage, so always check that the completed sentence makes sense in the passage as a whole.
-Read the questions carefully in Parts 2 and 4, and check each option against the text before rejecting it.
-Keep an overall idea of the development of the text in Part 3. You will need to check that the extracts chosen to fit the gaps in the base text fit the progression of the argument or narrative as a whole.
-Don't assume in Part 2 or Part 4 that if the same word appears in the text as well as in an option, this means you have located the answer.
-Don't try to answer any questions without referring carefully to the text.
-Don't spend too much time on any one part of the paper.
-Don't forget to record your answers on the separate answer sheet.
What a glorious achievement!!
This medal places you in the lead now, Maitê!!
But the way things are going, I dare say you will still have to deal with some tough competition...
Anyway, I am VERY proud of all of you!!
Let's practice some vocabulary?!
Talking about medical experiences. Complete the spaces. The first letter of each space is given.
a) When I was playing football, I broke my ankle and was carried off the pitch on a s............ . I was taken to c............. , where the doctor put a p............. cast on my leg. For the next two months I needed c.............. to get around with.
b) I'm a hospital p.............. . You'll see me pushing trolleys or wheelchairs, or carrying supplies from one department to another. Typically, I collect people who've just come out of s.............. , where they've had an o................, and take them to their w............... , where they stay and recover.
c) I've been having toothache and imagined I'd have to have a f.............. at the dentist's. But when I went to get it checked out, she said the tooth would have to be e.............. . Well, after it was all over and the i............... had worn off, I was in a............. for two days and had to have painkillers.
a) When I was playing football, I broke my ankle and was carried off the pitch on a s............ . I was taken to c............. , where the doctor put a p............. cast on my leg. For the next two months I needed c.............. to get around with.
b) I'm a hospital p.............. . You'll see me pushing trolleys or wheelchairs, or carrying supplies from one department to another. Typically, I collect people who've just come out of s.............. , where they've had an o................, and take them to their w............... , where they stay and recover.
c) I've been having toothache and imagined I'd have to have a f.............. at the dentist's. But when I went to get it checked out, she said the tooth would have to be e.............. . Well, after it was all over and the i............... had worn off, I was in a............. for two days and had to have painkillers.
We missed you last class!
Levi,
Even though the class was nice, we missed our witty "helper" last Friday! :(
I hope you'll recover soon.
Cheers ;)
Even though the class was nice, we missed our witty "helper" last Friday! :(
I hope you'll recover soon.
Cheers ;)
Friday 12 September 2008
Thursday 11 September 2008
Maitê and Carla in the lead now!
We are proud of you, Maitê!
Welcome to the hall of fame!!
Well, there are still quite a few medals up for grabs!
Go for them, folks!
One medal each!!
For questions 1-6, think of one word only which can be used appropriately in all three sentences.
Q1 (answered by Ana Paula: APPRECIATE)
It is very difficult to fully ........ certain pieces of jazz music until you've heard them a good few times.
Although I'm always ready to lend a hand, Marta never really seems to ........ the things I do for her.
Given the market for decorative antiques, I'd say that the value of the beautiful vase is set to ........ considerably in the next few years.
Q2 (answered by Valéria: RETAIN)
James is able to ........ an enormous amount of factual information in his head.
Although the old house has been completely renovated, care has been taken to ........ as many of the original features as possible.
When you're buying outdoor adventure clothing, the thing to look for is material that does not ........ al ot of moisture.
Q3 (answered by Valéria: HEAD)
With less than a minute of the football match to go, Phil managed to ........ the ball into the back of the net..
I think the best course of action would be to jump into the car and ........ for Bristol as soon as possible.
Louise has been asked to ........ an investigation into what went wrong on the night of the accident.
Q4 (answered by Maitê: DOMESTIC)
Initially, few companies saw any potential in computers designed for the ........ rather than the office environment.
Although extremely independent, and well able to look after themselves, cats are generally classified as ........ animals.
Over the years the proportion of foreign stories in this newspaper has declined as people have become more engrossed in ........ issues.
Q5 (answered by Ana Paula: CHALLENGE)
The chess champion held off a serious ........ from his younger opponent in the last match of the tournament.
The chairman of the meeting seemed to regard questions from the audience as some kind of ........ to his authority.
You'll find some aspects of the job a real ........, but we're confident that you can cope.
Q6 (answered by Valéria: Drew)
Melanie practised her lines each day after school, getting increasingly nervous as the date of her audition ........ even closer.
Although Tim had been in the lead for most of the race, as they reached the final bend, Graham ........ level and threatened to overtake him.
On an impulse, Laurie ........ all the money out of his bank account and went to London, intending to spend every last penny of it.
Q7 (answered by Maitê: STRONG)
Some of the tourists are hoping to get compensation for the poor state of the hotel, and I think they have a very ........ case.
There's no point in trying to wade across the river, the current is far too ........ .
If you're asking me which of the candidates should get the job, I'm afraid I don't have any ........ views either way.
Q1 (answered by Ana Paula: APPRECIATE)
It is very difficult to fully ........ certain pieces of jazz music until you've heard them a good few times.
Although I'm always ready to lend a hand, Marta never really seems to ........ the things I do for her.
Given the market for decorative antiques, I'd say that the value of the beautiful vase is set to ........ considerably in the next few years.
Q2 (answered by Valéria: RETAIN)
James is able to ........ an enormous amount of factual information in his head.
Although the old house has been completely renovated, care has been taken to ........ as many of the original features as possible.
When you're buying outdoor adventure clothing, the thing to look for is material that does not ........ al ot of moisture.
Q3 (answered by Valéria: HEAD)
With less than a minute of the football match to go, Phil managed to ........ the ball into the back of the net..
I think the best course of action would be to jump into the car and ........ for Bristol as soon as possible.
Louise has been asked to ........ an investigation into what went wrong on the night of the accident.
Q4 (answered by Maitê: DOMESTIC)
Initially, few companies saw any potential in computers designed for the ........ rather than the office environment.
Although extremely independent, and well able to look after themselves, cats are generally classified as ........ animals.
Over the years the proportion of foreign stories in this newspaper has declined as people have become more engrossed in ........ issues.
Q5 (answered by Ana Paula: CHALLENGE)
The chess champion held off a serious ........ from his younger opponent in the last match of the tournament.
The chairman of the meeting seemed to regard questions from the audience as some kind of ........ to his authority.
You'll find some aspects of the job a real ........, but we're confident that you can cope.
Q6 (answered by Valéria: Drew)
Melanie practised her lines each day after school, getting increasingly nervous as the date of her audition ........ even closer.
Although Tim had been in the lead for most of the race, as they reached the final bend, Graham ........ level and threatened to overtake him.
On an impulse, Laurie ........ all the money out of his bank account and went to London, intending to spend every last penny of it.
Q7 (answered by Maitê: STRONG)
Some of the tourists are hoping to get compensation for the poor state of the hotel, and I think they have a very ........ case.
There's no point in trying to wade across the river, the current is far too ........ .
If you're asking me which of the candidates should get the job, I'm afraid I don't have any ........ views either way.
Wednesday 10 September 2008
Past paper (Listening: part 2) practised in class
Ask for a copy of the paper in case you missed our last meeting!
Tuesday 9 September 2008
Monday 8 September 2008
Saturday 6 September 2008
Unit 8: Kinda challengin' ? We can handle it!
Check the comments for this post to get the keys for the exercises from pages 108 through 110!
You might also check the answers with these three heroines!
Way to go, girls!!
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