IELTS Speaking Practice - Live Lessons on the topic of Decision Making

again and it's time for uh english class with keith keith speaking academy it's great to see you here thank you for joining me today if you don't know me my name is keith i run the website the keith speaking academy which is here to help you speak better english give better answers and get a higher score on the ielts speaking test that's what we're all about very nice to see you today today we're going to be looking at this great topic of decision making looking at vocabulary idioms model answers so we can talk confidently about decision making in ielts speaking and in the world generally wherever you need to speak english and talk about decisions fantastic great um just to let you know i'm afraid my microphone is still sick it's in bed it's poorly it's not very well and it's not working so i'm with the computer mic today but anyway not to worry let me j say a quick hello before i do just to remind you if you're watching this on demand the recording nice to see you here do remember that if you're on youtube subscribe to the channel so you can get turn on that notification button so you can find out about my latest videos coming up okay brilliant good so decision making let's see who is joining us today glossy world hello ted mon from myanmar nice to see you rajat hello rajat says what did rajat said i got an eight in speaking fantastic great well done re hab nice to see you here sophie nice to see you great and izan nosorati from iran fantastic brilliant good afternoon han bonnie who's from vietnam lovely to see you here brilliant who else is here devil's channel hello from turkey hello turkey nice um maria's here oh maria's changed from cyrillic script so i was right it was maria or have you just chosen maria because i said maria hello anne maria trazonna brilliant and patricia pacquiao nice to see you all here fantastic it's really exciting today it's um it's an interesting class or an interesting lesson we're going to be looking at decision making but before we do um a bit of housekeeping a bit of housekeeping i love that expression a bit of housekeeping you know when you go to a meeting if you ever have meetings with english-speaking people especially british and american um at the beginning of a meeting right there's always the speaker always tells you stuff about you know where the toilets are lunch will be at two o'clock lunch is on the third floor um toilets for ladies are down here they tell you these essential things you need to know especially if you're not from that company and they call it housekeeping right so at the start of the meeting a bit of housekeeping and i always have a big smile because i always think about housework and i always expect the the speaker to get out the vacuum cleaner and to start hoovering or vacuuming the floor right you know can you imagine boris johnson in the cabinet say oh hello everybody right good today just to begin a bit of housekeeping uh it gets his hoover out okay just lift your feet over here yep yep tony matt lift your feet great bizarre housekeeping so what is my housekeeping my housekeeping is to let you know that we've got the facebook group right and just in case you don't know where that is it's here and if you're not on the facebook group if you don't like face group i totally understand it but if you are on face group but you haven't joined the group come and join the group keith's mastermind community for ielts speaking now the group is private right i mean anyone can join if you agree to the rules um and it's free but it is private so you can't share things in the group what what happens in the group stays in the group the conversations the advice the tips the sharing of ideas stays in the group but so i have decided to open a facebook page right and a facebook page is basically it's open it's public and you can share things so i just want to give you updates about my website about videos things like that i'll do that through the facebook page and then you can share that with other people which is great because great for me because then i can help reach more and more people but also great for other students if you can share it and let other people know so it's facebook page it's just um keith speaking academy if you go to facebook and look for keith speaking academy you'll find my page there great um so that's it the the website if you're interested in going to the website um it's also www dot keith speaking academy surprise surprise great very interesting housekeeping nazila says housekeeping has a different meaning here ashraf means some necessary point for the class in my humble opinion yes exactly it's some necessary points not really not about english teaching but about other things yes great good so let me turn that off it looks like the bbc news did the latest news keith has a new facebook page decision making right okay now when it comes to decision making it's quite difficult right we have so many decisions to make every day of our lives right for example right shall i have coffee or shall i have tea simple decision but in the morning you're like oh seri earl grey with tangerine look at that i mean that is so tempting in the morning right or go for the indentissimo arabica arabic arabica arabica i don't know coffee right which one difficult to say and then right if you go for tea i've got to have some tea oh but do i go for this nice malaysian tea or pg tips which is from england well of course the tea is not from england but the package the company is from england which one do i go for and then right even if i decide yes i'm going for that lovely seti song kick tea another decision do i have it in a mug or do i have it in a cup mug or cup oh decisions decisions i'm in two minds i'm not too sure i really don't know i i just can't make up my mind what to do what to do in the end i've opted for water right you can't see that but water in a in a mug so decisions it's hard right i mean two i mean two minds that's a strange expression i'm in two minds like your mind is your brain you've got two minds two brains and you're in both of them i'm in two minds and that yeah it means you've got two opinions and you can't decide interesting expression right hmm let's see what do you guys think aziza says the mug is better as he's a totally agree absolutely yes devin says sing is not my cup of tea they're very good like it very very good not my cup of tea yes i guess it says very tricky indeed tricky tricky decisions nice collocation right tricky decisions ray-ban prefers tea to coffee ah okay good well depends on the day right these are all hard decisions that we have to make so i'm gonna begin with some basic vocabulary on this topic right let's jump in over here i'm going to turn off decision making no i'm not yes i am and let's turn over over here now then housekeeping there you go whoa useful vocabulary can i make that a bit bigger yes so let's begin decide of course is a verb to decide right for example i've decided to learn japanese it's not true it's just an example but maybe i should when i went to japan i decided to learn some japanese like komichiba just to be polite when i was in japan on holiday it was very it was probably a bad idea because then people started answering me back had no idea what they were saying sometimes a little language isn't is a bad thing maybe no it was great they really liked the fact i could try and speak something so to decide is the verb of course the noun is a decision it's a c and an s but be careful it's got that tricky decision a decision exactly now decisions the verbs that go together make a decision take a decision or a bit more formally come to a decision right so when it's about well when it's about t you're going to make a decision or take a decision take a decision is a bit more powerful it's like yes stronger let's take a decision come to a decision is a bit more formal i mean it's normally when a group of people are talking about something and then they decide which policy to follow or how they will develop the strategy if you're in work and then the team comes to a decision or i can come to a decision about something but normally something important right so where where are you gonna have where are you gonna have your party okay i've come to a decision i'm gonna have the party in the bar down the road bad example in times of covid i agree yes because that's not possible but you get the idea or again slightly more formal arrive at a decision right a bit more formal good we can say then i've made a decision to get married where did i get that from i'm already married but for you young people out there hit an example i've made a decision to get married notice the grammar of the word whenever you learn a word notice the grammar in particular the prepositions right make a decision to do something i've made a decision to have tea to get married have you made a decision about your wedding venue yet right so notice make a decision about something okay so the first one make a decision to do something make a decision about something or on something about or on right you can say both of those okay great um i have come to a decision i will have the wedding in the hilton hotel there you go i've come to a decision it's a bit more formal but because it's a big decision right gosh getting married and where you'll have the wedding absolutely adjectives decisive decisive so it changes from the j to the decisive the same sound decisive indecisive with the stress on the in indecisive i'm ever so indecisive i'm very indecisive um and i was asking people on the facebook in the facebook group the other day are you a decisive person interestingly a lot of people said yes i'm very decisive at work where decisions have to be made and to be made quickly yes but when i get home oh i'm terribly indecisive you know i can't decide whether to have tea or coffee or what should we have for dinner you know things like that it was interesting right so decisive or indecisive great good so that is just some very basic you know the word family around decide and decision brilliant let me just check in with you see how you're doing here's a good one sir quinda says in order to get a good job i come to a decision to learn spanish yes you would have to use either the simple past here [Music] or the present perfect in order to get a good job i have come to a decision to learn spanish i have come it's because the decision is something you've decided just in the past probably the recent past but the impact is now right brilliant similarly we've got the present perfect right i have taken a decision to attend your class every day that's the best decision you will ever make in your life apart from choosing your spouse don't tell them i said that came to a decision is correct yes i came to a decision i took a decision i arrived at a decision i make a decision to build a house yeah same thing be careful right because if you say if you use the present simple i make a decision it's a regular thing you do often right i have tea every day i make a decision to build a house every day probably not so present perfect i have made i have made a decision to buy a house because it's a one-off if you use the present simple it sounds like it's a regular habit right great it's good brilliant skeptical to decide right moving on reach yes parabolic feelings great reach a decision yes we've reached a decision yeah that's often again it's a bit like come to a decision for me that's often a group of people like a panel of judges the panel of judges have reached a decision and you are the winner um great chiang huang is moving us on to collocations i like it because i am going to move on to collocations a snap decision is a quick decision love it snap decision quick decision unanimous decision means everybody agrees everybody in the group yeah i like that i'm going to move on to that in just one moment very good brilliant and hadi says i've made decision i've made remember the ah it's probably just a typo i've made a decision to stop eating junk food good for you you're gonna eat roses instead i'm joking brilliant paddy excellent very very nice good so um i'm going to talk about yes i'm going to talk about this one no i'm going to wait a moment before i do that let's have a look at some collocations just while we're here i'll just take a couple of moments because we brought up those collocations there let's just do a quick brainstorm with all you wonderful people collocation so we can say a snap decision which is yeah quick a quick decision uh you nanny must decision is everybody agrees what else can we say what else can we say about decisions right any ideas what other kinds of decisions can we make or collocations with decisions insightful decisions right louise yes we can say decisive person absolutely a tough decision yeah nice color a tough decision from uh muhammad dar jani nice a tough decision great can you see that yes what other collocations a big decision executives have reached a unanimous decision to streamline the business and i like that right now that's very very nice and that is very good for nowadays right because today this is exactly what's happening um as businesses move online there's lots of streamlining going on yes a big decision a big oh why do i get that funny color a big we can say important decision nice great nikhil top marks i've made a decision to improve my english speaks my english skills fantastic susan susan thomas hello susan i know it's not susan right susan wise decision let me take that one off here a wise decision excellent anything else decided to take a hasty decision good or bad decision yeah good bad bold wise yeah let's put that good bad make a bold decision that's great bold meaning very very brave a rushy decision almost now this one louise you're almost there not rushy but a rushed right rushed decision we'd use the adjective the participle as the adjective it was a rushed decision yeah i took a rushed decision and many decisions are rushed in fact they have to be sometimes we're going to talk more about that later actually about how to be a good decision maker okay nice let me move on from that i gotta move on to that question i wanted to ask you this is my question right i'd like to ask you what decisions do people make every day right have a think i've mentioned some but think of some others decisions that people make every day give me a comment down below let's have a look at some ideas for this question let's have a look right tomorrow he says what to wear brilliant clara says the time they wake up brilliant absolutely this is a good one what do i dress today be careful with dress here what do i wear today right that would would be it what do i wear today not what do i dress great nice well this is interesting how to start the day what do you mean aishwarya do you mean what shall i do or what shall i think because right you can think oh today i'm going to be positive and do everything i want or you think oh today it's raining what a horrible day everything's going to go wrong i want to stay in bed right you can make a decision in the morning on your attitude or maybe you're talking about things that you do but good idea either way what to wear we've said what to eat peter says what to eat for lunch right for lunch and your lunch is just a typo that's all right what to eat for lunch yeah these are the big decisions in my day yeah burak says to wake up early or not nice nice girls always decide to go on a diet no they don't do they well some girls do yes but do you decide that every day maybe you're right i remember my sister growing up and she would go on a diet every day right the diet begins today then in the evening ice cream and cake next morning right the diet begins today then in the evening ice cream and cake yeah maybe you do that every day i don't know there's a nice collocation there life and death decisions from um that's nice lovely what else other decisions what to wear which clothes right so a lot about clothes and eating interesting what to eat um people okay this is a nice one from mohit people make several decisions every day such as what to wear to work or where will they have their meeting right where will you have your meeting exactly okay brilliant so these are decisions that people make every every day what to wear what to eat what to cook what to think maybe great so there's lots of things we can talk about there now then let me bring in some language related to this so decisions we make every day right what to wear what to eat some of them are big decisions some of them are smaller decisions but either way when you make a decision you have a choice and you we can say we have difficult choices right when it comes to what to cook or what to eat we do we face difficult choices shall we eat healthy or should we eat fast food junk food things that we like so we can talk about tough choices or difficult choices nice language we can also say we need to weigh up the options so the options basically are the choices right option choice and really what we're saying is evaluate the the choices but this is much more natural to say whoops way up the options the idea of if i can make myself bigger the idea of you've got two things right you weigh up you do a balance is it going to be this one or this one my hands are very big is it going to be malaysian tea or is it going to be english tea right and you're weighing up the options weighing up the options nice great language similarly you can say well we need to weigh up the pros and cons right well if i'm gonna have fast food or healthy food well shall i shall i eat fast food i need to weigh up the pros and cons the pros are it'll be tasty and i'll be happy the cons are it's not very healthy i might get fat heart disease and die early it should be a simple decision right but it's not so we need to weigh up the pros and cons or we should consider all options consider just means think about consider all the options think about all the options there's so much uncertainties a nice word uncertainty you know certain sure uncertain not sure uncertainty the noun there is so much uncertainty so when we're talking about decisions this might be some nice language that you want to use brilliant decisions people make every day it does remind me you know the choices thing it reminds me of me when i lived in america when i left university this was all donkeys years ago and i went to america for a year right it was what i guess we call a gap year in europe we often take a year off before starting a job i took a gap year in america and i ended up working in america and i worked in a restaurant which was a very interesting experience but when i first arrived in america and i went to the restaurants it was mind-boggling like confusing how many choices there are right you sit down and you have you know you want your breakfast in the morning and uh they had the full fried breakfast um i mean you can have pancakes but i i opted for you know there was the bacon the eggs and the bread and the waitress was like so would you like brown bread or white bread uh brown bread please and would you like um butter or margarine uh margarine please yeah good and your eggs do you want them fried uh boiled pickled poached uh fried okay and you want them sunny side up or up not upside down i didn't even know what sunny side up meant when i first went to america sunny side up or um what was the other one sunny side up or when they do it both sides over easy i had no idea sunny side up over easy i was like what what is over easy and she went oh on both sides right sunny side up what's that and it's of course it's when the anyway the eggs facing up sunny side up right would you like salt and pepper yes okay would you like the sauce on the side can i just have the food i'm starving and the choices right there were so many choices it oh mind-blowing it reminds me of the paradox of choice and if you've not heard of this right you should go and look it up the paradox of choice it's a great there's a there's videos there's um let me share it with you there are videos there's a ted talk all about it there's a book called the paradox of choice the paradox of choice is the following the paradox of choice is if we've got more choice you will be happier right right in the old days when you wanted to buy um a pair of jeans you went to the shop and you bought a pair of jeans and you thought oh that's the only thing i can have can i not have anything else well no but if you go to the shops now you can choose do you want slim leg slim fit flares wide leg um you know all sorts of styles do you want this brand that brand you want black john blue john dark blue do you want with the holes in it you've got so much choice so the paradox of choices the more choice you get the happier you are however in reality the more choice you get the more unhappy you are because you can't choose i don't know just give me a pair of jeans there's too much choice that is the paradox of choice go and check it out go and have a look for it it's really really interesting great good now before i move on to the next bit what's going to be coming up next yes i've got a question for you all but just let me check in with you see how you're all doing exactly i think shakun has got it in a nutshell the more the choices the more complicated the decision-making exactly that great ah rabia i appeared in the speaking module today and it was all about making oh well it was a shame in a way because this was too late for you but never mind olga says right oh hang on where was that come back where did you go i've lost you right right you are says olga this one is a nice expression we might be spoiled by choices yes so there's this expression either it's i'm spoiled for choice and that is a great one i'm going to add that to my somewhere i'm going to add it here i am spoilt for choice or let's say we because i'm talking generally we are spoiled for choice nowadays nowadays great expression means too much choice or too many choices it can be both countable and uncountable we are spoiled for choice great expression too much choice let's say let's make countable too many choices but choice can be both countable and uncountable that's nice brilliant good i'm being confused now yeah sorry there you go jt says it very very well as well too many options lead to confusion basically that's it that's it brilliant good great lots of things there i'm going to move on i'll come back to you all in a moment so yes i've got a question either i'm going to knock you out of the game just for the moment here's a question for you next let's have a look at this question today who is better at making decisions children or adults right it's a good question who is better in your humble opinion right who do you think is better at making decisions let me know kavita says cavita come back adults are better clara says depends on the subject this is nice from somebody on facebook and i'm sorry that i can't see your names on facebook the young generation don't think twice lovely nice expression they don't think twice they make their decision in a hurry yes very very nice oh happy holiday in dubai great good you've made it excellent jade dip says children right fardo says adults kishin says not only adults but adults of course katrina says children now tabism the voice of wisdom absolutely says it depends on the type of decision that has to be made yes right good interestingly in contrast ray ban says adults are always good oh it's a it's a very dangerous thing to use the word always right adults are always good at decision making because they have lots of experience well that's true they do have the experience yes but urax says it depends on the topics for sure uh who gets laurie says i think adults can make better decisions right good and why so why let's have a look at it why why are they who is better at making decisions and why because that is going to come up if you don't say it there's the the in the exam the examiner will probably ask you well why why do you think so so think about your reasons as well right okay so always remember that in this kind of a question you need to give opinion plus reason that's always a great formula give your opinion and a reason and it's always nice to put in an example because you can just show off more language okay brilliant now okay so here we've got an opinion and a reason children i believe because they will pick what they like without making comparisons spot on very nice yes good um blinding lights says adults often rely on facts and they can weigh up the pros and cons lovely what a star student you're already using these expressions just add in there the way up the pros and cons weigh up the pros and cons great remember i'm going to be testing you all at the end of the class on things like articles prepositions expressions so make a note thank you very much for that good we've got a similar one here uh obviously adults obviously another dangerous word obviously adults is they can assume pros and cons in advance when you say assume i'm not sure what you mean there they how do they assume i wonder if you mean assess that makes sense they can assess the pros and cons in advance right remember the let's put that in there so everybody gets it this is your gift to everybody the pros and cons they can assess or weigh up the pros and cons in advance great what else have we got cloudy stars it says without a doubt adults are better because they have experience of life right they have we would say life experience right but yeah that's fine absolutely fine brilliant good so some great ideas really really nice um i'm going to pull up some ideas here and share a few thoughts with you about language as well so we might say okay um children are very intuitive so let's begin first of all let me look at the language children are very intuitive intuitive what a lovely word intuitive can you say that intuitive so two in two active intuitive almost into uh tiff intuitive nice there's a w in there into one into active intuitive yeah intuitive just means they have intuition um they they decide on feeling right they use their feelings right they decide with feelings rather than logic that's the basic idea right they decide with feelings so children are intuitive so we could say that they follow the feeling that's a great expression holy moly great expression keith get out of the way they follow their gut feeling the gut is your here your belly i can't show you my belly that's my belly here your belly or your stomach but be careful the expression is not belly not stomach the expression is gut feeling gut is a more biological medical term it's inside your gut those of the of you who follow healthy eating will know all about the gut biome follow their gut feeling right which is they decide with feelings it's the same thing right they follow their intuition exactly the same i'll just add that to make it clear great expression um children decide quickly they don't deliberate yeah children decide quickly they don't deliberate deliberate means hesitate excuse me hesitate and you know being ielts students you know all about hesitation hesitation or deliberation they don't deliberate the can you say that deliberate they don't deliberate children decide quickly they don't deliberate good two phrases two chunks children decide quickly they don't deliberate lovely great now then i before i i was talking about you may have noticed i said oh obviously that's a dangerous word always that's a dangerous word right why is it dangerous it's dangerous because words like always and obviously are very direct and they're general i'm gonna have to disappear aren't i general or generalizing let's say they're very direct and generalizing um you know children are always very intuitive well hello that's not true right that is a stereotype children follow the feeling well hello actually no that's not true not all children always follow the gut feeling so language wise it's okay but actually it's much more natural to hedge using hedging so hedging if you don't know it is to make something less direct so hedging is to make something less direct and i'll that's a bit of a grammar word but bear with me and hedging sounds more natural and less memorized because when you say children are very intuitive it sounds like you've been to keith's live lesson you've written down the phrase and you've memorized the phrase and in the test you say children are very intuitive they follow their gut feeling now that sounds memorized to me it's good language but it's not natural spoken english much better would be hedging which is this children can be very intuitive they tend to follow their gut feeling children are more likely to decide quickly they don't deliberate right so this hedging makes it less direct and it's more general and it's more natural you know children are very intuitive well hmm well children can be very intuitive right that's natural english that's much much better so i wanted to show you this because i think it's useful because remember remember remember you're doing a spoken english test and it's very tempting to write things down and speak the written word but this kind of language is much much better okay they can be they can be they tend to or are more likely to that's three simple little hedging devices there are many many more but today that's enough okay um so that's children what about adults we could say well the same thing right you might say well adults are more analytical analyzing they weigh everything up they look at things from all angles right the angle up down across they look at things from all angles that's a nice expression as well actually from all angles now but let's hedge let's make that much much more natural making it much more natural we can say let's just take that one out adults tend to be more analytical they often weigh everything up not always right they often weigh everything up they're more likely they're more likely to sneeze excuse me i'm sorry they are more likely to look at things from all angles right lovely natural spoken english so don't just learn the phrase learn the hedging tend to often can are more likely to right does that does that make sense let me check in let's see if i've lost you maybe i've lost you i'm not sure does that make sense thank you sir bless you thank you that's so funny like i can sneeze in spain and like halfway across the world somebody says bless you thank you so much um yes sort of okay yes yes completely agree good leslie that's nice very nice okay sort off to me yeah sort of yeah this is quite a difficult thing to get i'm kind of throwing two things at you i'm throwing language and i'm throwing meta language or hedging language which is kind of more natural don't worry i'm going to be repeating lots of this as we do the live lessons okay please explain the meaning of weigh everything up yes to weigh everything up is to assess everything they often weigh everything up assess everything assess like evaluate look at the good and the bad some people when they make decisions they actually write down all the good things all the bad things and then they decide right some people do that okay right susan good question sir when i have something personal can we say i always yes you can and always especially in a personal thing is usually for a habit that we have right um i always get up at six o'clock i always have uh toast for breakfast but it's also it can be used for a bad habit right especially in the present continuous oh i'm always getting up late i'm always missing the bus um oh i'm always doing that it's like a bad habit so yes you can it has slightly different connotations but yes okay there's lots of stuff there um don't worry too much about it nice so i'd like to look at next a couple of idioms idioms about decision making i wonder if you guys know any idioms about decision making we've actually said or discussed a few today already so what do you guys know any idioms about decision making lien says i hope you can keep this live stream yes every thursday i've been doing it for like a year so i think i will keep going yes with age comes wisdom yes says leslie that's true with age comes wisdom [Music] uh that's great girl dead inside hedging is much more the the the spoken hedging what i've said today is much more about speaking you can hedge in writing but it's different there's a different kind of language so we're just focusing here on on the speaking aspect and that the words like can tend to are more likely to i think definitely much more spoken generally speaking okay can we use idioms in ielts speaker yes of course you can you must or you should use some idioms or idiomatic expressions up in the air that's a good one we've got here up in the air which means something is not not decided right it's up in the air brilliant um muhammad says i'm in two minds i'm not into sorry it's in i'm in two minds yeah meaning i cannot decide very nice how do you pronounce that there's no vowels yasmine to sit on the fence very good when you can't decide sit on the fence great make up your mind also very good we looked at earlier yes trust your intuition that's good we talked about intuitive children can be intuitive they they often trust their intuition the elephant in the room maybe decision making yes maybe maybe yes to be in a dilemma that's a good one yes i'm gonna add these i'm gonna steal them and add them to my list i don't know what to do with a little bit of context brilliant nice thank you very good thank you very good no thank you very much brilliant what else have we got sofia nice to be at a crossroads crossroads is the road where you've got to choose do i go east west or north or go back south the way i came good uh decision making have a change of heart yeah to be in a dilemma we said have a change of heart yes great let me have that one as well i have had a change of heart i know you can't see this don't worry you'll see it all in a moment great okay all different idioms on the fence review all options sit on the fence we've got yeah make up your mind okay let's um mouse come on my mouse has stopped never mind let's have a look over here so some idioms to talk about decision making okay we might say i have made up my mind it's idiomatic because you don't make your mind you don't construct a brain i've made up my mind i've decided i'm in two minds about this one i am in two minds about something okay so make sure you notice the prepositions i will be testing you later so that means i've got two opinions two choices i can't decide there's all for years and i'm at a crossroads and by the way thank you sophia who has provided lots of ideas for this lesson as well i'm at a crossroads um you know you've got decisions or choices to make i'm in a real dilemma thank you very much for that one which basically is i don't know what to do we don't have to say real but it sounds a little bit more natural i'm in a dilemma i'm in a real dilemma just sounds a bit more natural like gordon ramsay i'm gonna sneeze again hang on oh dear right i can't decide for the life of me for the life of me um it really just means i can't decide at all well i cannot do it at all for the life of me ah excuse me the temperature has really dropped over here that's why i've got this thick jumper but it's getting a bit nippy i've had a change of heart which is where i've changed my mind right i've had a change of heart you have not had a heart transplant it's just an idiomatic expression that i've changed my mind i was going to do that i've had a change of heart i'm now going to do that one great brilliant so all of that thank you taiwai great some nice idioms there very very very nice okay now i'm going to move on and what's coming up next oh we've had a look at that ah okay before i'm going to do more model answers in a moment so you can start thinking of some questions you would like to ask me um but some model answers before i do that one of the interesting questions was um how do you become a better decision maker how do you become better at making decisions because some of us are very indecisive right and we don't know we can't make decisions quickly we find it hard to make a snap decision how can you become a better decision maker well there are two links i'm going to share with you and in the notes later you can check these links in full but two of them are quite interesting if i come down here we've got one from the career development organization indeed and other from medium.com medium if you don't know it's a bit like well it's just full of information it's a great great website um i'm gonna show you this one actually the second one and i'm just gonna talk you through because it's quite short and it will just show you um three ideas about becoming a better decision maker right how to be a better decision maker and i found it quite interesting and i'm just going to share it with you very very briefly later you can go and have a look yourselves right but sign in no i don't want to sign in oh go away um i don't think i need to sign in do i no i don't think so right now then because my mouse is broken would you believe it would you adam and eve it come on seriously first it's the microphone and then it's the mouse and they just say no i'm not going to work which means i can't make it bigger or maybe i can make it bigger hang on yay yes look at this you make around 35 000 decisions every day isn't that amazing 35 000 decisions every day most of them are unconscious and habitual yeah every decision you make big or small stands to alter the the trajectory of your life or the path of your life right and it goes on to talk about this um but it says decision making is a skill that can be learnt there you go decision making is a skill that can be learned and here are three things quite interesting that you might consider the first one you have to change your identity i'm indecisive i always make bad decisions i always pick the wrong one notice the use of always yeah i always it's a bad habit i always pick the wrong one um and if you make bad decisions you relate to them to your thoughts and the idea here is that if you think you're bad at decision making you will be bad so if you're always thinking i'm rubbish at this i'm rubbish at that then you will be rubbish the idea is change your thought process change your thinking and start thinking i'm good at making decisions i can make decisions and sure enough you get better at it right that's psychology interesting all about the sense of identity and building a sense of identity where you believe you can do something interesting number two he says you have to make mistakes intentionally anytime i had to make a choice or form an opinion my go-to line nice my go-to line was i don't know that's what i told myself because i was so afraid of making the wrong choice that i ended up making non interesting right so the idea here is to make mistakes is not just to think to be afraid of mistakes right don't be afraid of making mistakes or making the wrong choice but actually just to decide and if you make the wrong choice it doesn't matter they talk a lot about making a quick choice because the longer you take the more difficult it is and if you just make a quick choice and you well if you get it right great if you make a mistake it doesn't matter you get used to making a mistake and this helps you make decisions better interesting right number three don't rely on positive outcomes for happiness most people aren't okay right now they believe they will be okay once they achieve some distant goal in the future so they live a life of outcome dependence interesting they need a promotion or more sales in their business to be happy and so people don't make choices because they're afraid of the negative outcome they think i make a choice the outcome will make me happy or unhappy whereas if you don't rely on the outcome to make you happy if you are always happy it doesn't matter about the outcome and then you can make decisions more quickly and better more effectively according to the article right very very interesting and then they give a takeaway at the end but listen it's a nice little link i just thought i would share that very very briefly with you i found it interesting and quite quick just to pick up some ideas about decision making great so i'm going to move on if there's any more comments oh some nice expressions here again yes i'll have to add these later i'm in catch 22 nice can't eat your cake and have it roman i can't have my cake and eat it i can't have my cake and eat it great flip flop yeah talk about flip-flopping like moving over leslie says so that's making a u-turn barking up the wrong tree louise says what if an idiom is local like only american english well try and use idioms that are not local it doesn't matter too much because in this day and age of globalization most examiners will know them um but yes it's a very very good question that at times it can be a bit problematic so try and use more general ones rather than very very local ones that's a good question yeah great dilemma yeah some people say dilemma i say dilemma but you can say dilemma to vote with your feet yes is to decide by staying or leaving or some great expressions here to nip it in the bud to see eye to eye oh there are so many expressions i can't go through all of them there are lots of them and it's fantastic so i and we with sheila who's going to help me a little bit and maybe zulu for year we're going to collect some of these um expressions and try and put them all into the notes at the end great just to remind you right if you're watching at the end of the lesson you can go to my website in case you don't know go to um the key speaking academy and you can collect not that sorry that's the pop-up you can get the free live lessons here you can go and collect the notes oh stop it you can go and collect the notes down here from the last class you can download the notes the last ones are all in alphabetical order now so you can go from a b c and you can download the notes or just read them online if you prefer so just to let you know the notes are there for you to collect sometime this evening it takes us more about four or five hours to get them together and put them online for you later all tomorrow lovely it's model answer time do you have a question you would like to ask me about decision making and i will try and give you a model answer as you're doing that i'm going to try and fix my mouse so in the comments try and write down your uh your question mice i've got the sniffles it's not good is it ah why am i sniffling oh my so many expressions we could make a book with all of these expressions right okay we've got one here from lou describe a decision you have made recently okay let me write that up um just bear with me bear with me this comes down here yes fantastic thank you very much lou i've got it copied i think i have do i yes yes there you go something's wise is locked unlock there you go right um this sounds like a part two question does it describe a decision you have made recently if it's a part two can i just take a few seconds to think give me a minute give me a bit of water oh okay so um well a decision that i made recently um is to do with a purchase that i made so the background to this is basically i have a website and uh in running the website it uses different software to run smoothly and i have been toying with the idea of buying some special software to make the website quicker to make it load more quickly and i was in two minds about it because the software i wasn't sure if it was trustworthy and i wasn't sure if it was good value for money so as i often do i'm i'm not really a very intuitive decision maker right i i don't really follow my gut i much prefer to do a bit of research um to kind of weigh up the pros and the cons of different things i even write down sometimes the good and the bad points and then i'll having kind of a weighed everything up i will make a final decision and sure enough that's what i did here i did you know quite a bit of research on the company and the software i looked at the reviews of other customers and then in the end i decided to go for it i took in the end i actually took a snap decision although there was a lot of research behind it and i chose to buy the software and to run it and i'm very happy with the purchase i made it seems to work quite well and run smoothly so yes that was a recent decision that i made hmm right interesting right i was in two minds about it i actually a lot of the expressions just popped into my mind because i've just studied them it's very useful yes um weigh everything up the way the pros and weight up the pros and cons it just all came into my mind what a great lesson that really helped me thank you keith right great question thank you lou for that question let's have one more oh um oh have decision making changed over the years oh i'm not sure maybe this one maybe this one i'm going to go with this one why do people choose to procrastinate or why do people procrastinate right i'm not sure if yes normally i think in ielts i would say why do some people procrastinate let's do that i'm going to rephrase the question slightly but um it's basically the same question right why do some people procrastinate good question um okay i'll jump straight in i think that sounds more like a part three right so i'll try and see if i can follow my opinion reason and example okay well why do some people procrastinate i i think it's just a case it's just a matter of some people being a bit lazy um possibly some people are lazy and so they just they find it easier to put off decision making rather than making snap decisions and i think sometimes the root cause of that is that they're afraid of the result they're afraid of making mistakes if i choose a what happens if it's the wrong choice and so they would much rather not decide and so they will just sit around procrastinate deliberate and do anything to avoid making a decision um for example i know a lot of people when it comes to making online purchases they do that maybe they've had a bad experience where they've bought something that wasn't good and turned out to be bad quality and so in future they're reluctant to make a choice because they're afraid they'll make the wrong choice they'll regret making that choice and so it's much easier just to procrastinate in those kind of situations wow okay so i think yes i think i gave an opinion um and i think i gave the reason about being afraid of making mistakes i think i gave an example about purchasing online making mistakes that way once bitten twice shy that kind of thing great brilliant good guys i'm gonna move on because it's already quarter past eleven there are some great questions there but i've done a couple of answers there i'm going to move on in the last five or ten minutes to do um some somewhat some review vocabulary review it's kahoot time hooray uh puja thank you very much for your comment that's very very nice great mohammed guma welcome sir very nice to see you here first timer great so we're going to um we're going to move on and do a bit of review i want to find out if you've been paying attention have you been paying attention have you been making notes um because it's time for kahoot and kahoot if you don't know is it's a game we're going to play together and in this game we're going to review the vocabulary from today's lesson some of the vocabulary to help you get it stuck in your brain so you can start using it when you go to practice right so just let me set it up i just need to set up the game what you need to do is to go to the website www.kahoot.it right go to kahoot.it that's the website um www.kahoot.it or there is a mobile app you can get the kahoot mobile app [Music] it looks like some cartoon character called keith says oh no i didn't take notes oh dear oh dear don't worry um you can get all the notes later of course but this is going to test your vocabulary so let's find it let's get kahoot set up and let's get going it's got some really nice music as well as somebody has said groovy music in kahoot we're gonna have four questions and these four questions are gonna test well lots of different stuff about how much attention you've been making or paying okay let's come in so kahoot is now ready brilliant we're going to play the classic i'll get ready to turn the volume down get ready to join so go to www.cahoot.it the game pin that you need to put in is one six five three nine zero three that's one six five three nine zero three okay people are signing in which is great to see [Music] just give you a minute [Music] [Music] here we go [Music] okay let's get this game started so basically it's multiple choice there's a question and you have to choose a b c or d or you choose basically the color on your screen let's go and you have 30 seconds to answer let's do it decision making i can't decide [Music] it's [Music] oh yay well done exactly i'm in two minds brilliant 123 people got it right that's very very impressive and excuse the typo i did spell decide incorrectly sorry there's a typo there let's find out who's on the leader scoreboard eng speaks is number one mimi is in second place and justine rasulov is there in third place let's get on to the next question before deciding you should weigh blanks [Music] wow fantastic 117 people said way up absolutely right well done lots of you are paying attention to weigh up the pros and cons excellent next leaderboard mimi has stolen into first place jemmy is in second and tonksy is there in third place okay so this is getting the right answer and the fastest person so hands on your buzzers next question she hasn't decided yet she is sat on the blank she is sat on the blank road gate wall offense [Music] the answer is fence yes be careful there some of you if you say sit on the road sit on the gate sit on the wall all of those can be said but idiomatically they're not right the idiomatic expression that you cannot decide is to sit on the fence she is sat on the fence nice one i'm very impressed will i be impressed with the leadership you miko you've stolen into first place how did you do that out of the blue out of nowhere yumiko came in first place jemmy second and tonski is still third right guys it's the last question number four of four i'm going to follow my blank feeling [Music] i'm going to follow my blank feeling gut stomach belly abdominal [Music] whoa that is so impressive that is amazing 152 of you got the right answer well done oh good that makes me feel good because obviously you're learning something great well done now then where does that leave us on the podium zlonski you're still in third the moment of truth [Music] how do you so guys this brings us to the end of today's lesson thank you very very much for joining me um if you are on youtube you can always turn on the subscription and the notifications i also publish a video on saturdays this coming saturday is gonna be a mock test um it's an interesting one it's from india and you can see that on saturday the youtube channel and of course i do the live lessons every thursday 10 o'clock spanish time here on youtube or on facebook um check out the facebook page keith speaking academy come and see what's happening there as well and just to let you know if you like the lessons and you want to learn more with me i do have a fluency course um it's on udemy if you go to my website which is uh iel speaking success no it's not it used to be it's keith speaking academy it's the key speaking academy you can find out the information about the course there there are two courses there's ielts speaking success get a band 7 which is a complete in-depth course to prepare for ielts speaking the other one over here is just focused on fluency grammar based curriculum helping you improve your intonation and fluency so you can find out all about those at the keith speaking academy and lots of information about them if they are right for you then go for it otherwise you can just keep coming here and study with me on the live lessons on youtube brilliant it's been a pleasure as always being here today we've been talking about decision making i hope you've got lots of ideas vocabulary and idioms to help you build your confidence great if you have ideas for other classes you would like me to do do let me know in the facebook group we did discuss a few ideas so i've got some for the coming classes but if you feel there are ideas that you want to discuss or topics just tell me in the comments contact me message me on facebook or just send me an email as well at keith keithspeakingacademy.com great it's been great fun today thank you very much all of you for joining me i hope that next time my microphone will be better and up and running again fingers crossed i really do hope so in the meantime um have a fantastic weekend make lots of good decisions and i will see you soon take care all of you my friends nice to see you all as always bye

Channel: English Speaking Success

Views: 49,126

Rating: 4.9300547 out of 5

Keywords: ielts speaking, keith speaking, keith speaking videos, keith speaking academy, decision ielts, decision ielts speaking, decision ielts speaking topic, decision topic in ielts speaking, ielts speaking recent, ielts speaking recent topics 2020, ielts speaking choices, ielts speaking success, ielts speaking tips, ielts speaking practice, ielts speaking common topics, ielts speaking success 2020, free ielts speaking practice, free ielts speaking practice online

Id: DyGtN2LW2Vw

Length: 86min 10sec (5170 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 03 2020