IELTS Speaking Practice - Topic of STUDYING

hello there my friend how are you good to see you i hope you are staying safe i'm delighted to be here this morning to see well to see you and also to be giving this lesson today the lesson is all about study and studying we're going to be looking at studying at school teachers university hobbies whatever kind of study idioms language fun and games i think it's a really important topic one that i think you will enjoy so without any further ado let's get straight into it [Music] [Music] hello how are you nice to see you here thank you so much for joining me today and for joining all of us around the world um study you know in ielts if you're preparing for ielts speaking after the examiner asks you your name almost the next question is do you work or are you a student and if you're a student you must know how to talk about your studies it must be one of the most important topics in ielts speaking um not only that but there are other topics in part two and part three that can talk about studying right a school you went to um a teacher that you've had maybe a hobby you know if you study french in your spare time maybe a skill that you've learned concentration a routine getting up early in the morning studying all of those kind of overlap with this hugely important topic so today we're gonna we together are gonna learn how we talk about studying studying um with some nice grammar lovely vocabulary and some interesting idioms as well to help you out now just to remind you if you uh if it's the first time if it's the first time here i also have a website called the keith speaking academy um and i'm just going to show this to you very briefly because it could be quite useful to know after the live lesson i take the notes from today and i upload them onto the website and you can get them on the website let me show you over here it's called the keith speaking academy you've got lots of information about the ielts test format evaluation topics different parts of the test um there's also resources if you want you've got a tools for study a vocabulary guide pronunciation guide study plans lots of stuff as well as obviously my courses you can find out about my fluency course my ielts preparation course but the free live lessons this is where you should go to find out about the notes so after the live lesson later today after two or three hours you can um study the lesson or download the notes and that's me isn't it i guess to download the video that's me as well i'm also here telling you about the library which is a new initiative i have um the library i put some pronunciation files from the live lessons so you can practice pronunciation visualization so you can relax and enjoy studying and some ebooks so if you're interested you can join that it's only three dollars at the moment the price may go up so get it while it's cheap and you can get there you go pronunciation files visualization and my ebook so all of that on the keithspeakingacademy.com there you go just to let you know that exists it's out there um so good keith swigging academy what else have i got to tell you i've got to say hello let me see i'm ignoring all of you in here let me just check on my comments book book box narja from sri lanka hello nice to see you yazura good morning always good to see you armin good to see you as well peter c from taiwan hello peter you know peter i lose i used to live in taipei it's a lovely lovely city um we've got timor adam off good morning with the sun shining and the sun is shining here as well dipesh good morning magdee from egypt great to see you here jada is asking where are you from where am i from jada where are you from i'm from manchester in england but and i live in santander in spain in the north of spain and i've been living here for three years um timor welcome tran min hello nice to see you here so listen we've got people from all around the world vietnam egypt i've got some from iran here uzbekistan always have a big crowd um if you're into facebook you can follow me on facebook you can also join the um the uh the what the facebook group it's called the keith mastermind community um if you want to join us there lots of exciting stuff going on sometimes it takes a few hours for us to accept you because we filter we make sure we don't get any spammers in the group or we try and make sure um so don't worry if it takes a few hours for you to be accepted but you will come in it looks like this if i take all of this off the screen um keith mastermind community it's great i mean there's lots of stuff going on there's um different questions people asking grammar questions people sharing word lists there's um other stuff what else is going on people scratch well doing youtube videos sharing those as well there was a lovely post here i like this somebody ask ask a question about this funny old picture and one question was why are the children not using their mobile phone at the table it's weird that's so great oh great lovely i love it so listen come and join the facebook group um you can just search for keith ielts in facebook you'll find us there for sure so today what's happening let me just give you a quick rundown of what we're going to do today we're going to look at studying and we're going to look at vocabulary first of all give you lots of vocabulary to help you talk confidently about studying um and then we've got a listening task so i don't know if it'll be this much fun but it's a listening task about school and study after that we'll move on and look at some study techniques because not only do you need to know how to talk about study it's always useful to learn or to pick up to pick up means to learn something it's useful to pick up some new study techniques so we're going to look at three over here over here three study techniques today that you may know you may not know we'll find out of course we have a little look at some idioms there's always some useful idioms for example do you know this one to draw a blank to draw a blank it's a really interesting idiom um i wonder if you know it yeah maybe you do maybe you do so we'll be looking at that come away come down why doesn't it come down there it does it comes back oi stop being in the spotlight and then finally we're going to review we've got a little kahoot for you to review um it's a fun game at the end to do a bit of review so that's what we've got today um all of that studying let's begin at the beginning uh i'm just looking at your comments i need to stop getting distracted let's jump straight in right we've got study so when we talk about studying right um there are different tenses we can use let's start with the basic present simple right i study so if if the examiner does ask you you know do you work or are you a student yes i'm a student actually i'm a student at university and i study french now that would have been true for me so for example yes i'm going to add something here i'm a student at right make sure you get this right it's not on you're not sitting on top of the building are you you're a student at university and you don't need the unless you say the name of the university i'm a student at university and so you would only say the if you said i'm a student at the university of oxford at the university of sheffield which is where i went but generally there's no the i'm a student at university and i study french so that's what you do that's the present simple right you can also say i'm studying french which just it means the same but the emphasis is that you're doing it now it's the same meaning it's now but the emphasis is it's an activity in progress continuing hence the present continuous right so you can say i'm studying french and you can also say i've been studying for let's say for two months let's say you just began studying i've been studying for two months so you can use the present perfect continuous i've been studying for two months this tense is just it's now but you're looking back at how long so i began studying in where are we in july july august september which is now so i've been studying for two months okay so you can actually say any of these they're all correct there's just a slightly different feeling or nuance but they're all correct the thing to notice which is important is you say if i've been studying for two months if you say since you don't say two months because four is with a is a period of time right but since is a point in time since july that's the really important grammar bit since is with a point in time there we go so we might say i'm a student at university um i you know i study french and i've been studying french for two months that's it perfect excellent english just do the pronunciation with me and listen to the intonation i'm a student at university i study french or i'm studying french notice that stress i'm studying studying i'm studying french it's like a bam bam it's like when you're boxing you go jab jab studying french the stress stress studying french i'm studying french you can change it to your subject right i'm studying accountancy bam bam i'm studying accountancy lucky you i've been studying for three years yeah great um if you're studying if you've been studying for three years you probably say i'm in my final year you might say that as well i'm in my final year or you might say i'm in my first year i mean my first year my second year i'm in my final year i know in america they have these fancy cool words like sophomore i'm a sophomore or i'm a fresher or i'm a i don't know i don't even know what they mean i think sophomore is a second year student is it i think so i'm not sure we don't use them in england um you can use both in ielts you can talk about sophomore and about a fresher the examiners will will know that um or you can just keep it simple sorry like this and say i'm in my first year or i'm in my in my second year great good excellent let me just check in with you see how you're doing are you following me right good you are because people like bazamal zwayi bazamal say i'm a student of i.t at the university of i.t in tripoli perfect absolute perfect he's got at and he's got the university of fantastic great um okay let's see any others good christina says i've been studying with keith for half for half than a year for half a year right let me help you out here for half a year excellent christina angela i've been studying with keith for half a year wow that's great i'm very pleased nice who else have we got say hiya i'm a student at the university of berger and i study physics perfect absolutely brilliant nice now just says i've been studying french since last month okay since last month okay perfect um nice very very nice i've been living in new zealand for over five years xiaohuan just showing us how to use four for over five years since and four great vania says i'm a student at senior high school and my major is science again that's excellent that's a very american thing my major is we don't tend to say that in england but it's absolutely fine i've been a high school student for approximately three years fantastic love it okay some really nice language there let's move on because we've done the introduction now you may want to go on and start saying well how you feel about your studies and your ability so things like of course i like it because so i like french because well why do i like french i think it's really useful for my future career there you go that's a bit more interesting i think it's really useful and then let's develop the answer a little bit remember in part one you should develop your answer a little bit not a lot right you're going to speak maybe for 10 up to 20 seconds maybe so you can add some extra information make it a bit more interesting right i like it because i think it's really useful for my future for career you could make it more complex i like it because i think it's going to be really useful for my future career right notice the four becomes for my for my future career future career i think it's going to be useful for my future career let's make that more complex that's nice it's going to be and i would split this up whenever i write answers to be honest i don't usually write answers i usually speak first and then write what i said if you write first it's not natural it's very hard to be natural but what i like to do is to split into chunks and so i get the phrasing right because when we're speaking we don't speak in correct sentences we speak in chunks i like it because i think it's going to be really useful for my future career can you see it's and and you can use that to help you pause i like it because i think it's going to be really useful for my future career chunk pause chunk pause chunk pause chunk pause and also it helps you get the intonation correct or better i like it because i think i think it's going to be really useful for my future career i stress i think it's gonna be really useful stress so this chunking and this way of putting your answer like this is so much better than a sentence right with comma full stop you don't need comma and full stop you just need chunking intonation anyway so we can say i like it another really important thing is when you talk about being good at or bad at so many people get the preposition confused right the preposition is like in on at under over right those are prepositions i'm good at something i'm good at french [Music] i'm not bad at french actually [Music] uh english is so interesting right so in english if somebody says i'm not bad at it means quite good it's quite a positive thing um english i think often in in england we don't like to say oh i'm good i'm really good at that we tend to say i'm not bad the french and that probably means they're really really good at french but a lot of english people are kind of yeah maybe humble or don't want to show off and they would just say yeah i'm not bad at cooking i've just got one michelin star yeah for my hotel yeah my 12 hotels across the country yeah yeah i've been cooking for 25 years i'm not bad at cooking come on you're a star you must be fantastic at cooking the important thing is at right i'm good at french if you want to say that you can of course you know you don't have to be pretend you're english i'm not bad at french or i'm bad at something i'm bad at french i'm bad at uh italian oh i know a little bit of italian i remember bonjourno ciao but i'm really bad at it uh dear yes anyway at the key message is at right so i wonder what you guys what are you good at when it comes to studying right when it comes to studying what are you good at and what are you bad at grav i'm good at eating come on when it comes to studying narja says i love english and to be honest i'm not bad at english there you go that's nice great mr keith is really good at teaching english thank you so much dorsa says i'm good at programming zeenat join the club i'm bad at italian it's nice because the bad that you can make you can link right i i'm bad that i'm bad at italian titanium that's italian italian nice right ahmed bahad nice to meet you as well sir good to see you here hui trung says uh i'm not bad at doing puzzles right yeah not bad seems like speaking chinese i know i think you have the same humble or humility in chinese salimov says i'm good at korean nice excellent fahren says i'm good at bengali i'm bad at math okay and so on and so on you get the idea excellent nice so that's how we talk about your ability now some very important words when it comes to studying right and these i notice these words get confused and mixed up a lot to memorize let's just say them first to memorize come on time to practice to memorize to remember to remind okay similar but different let me see i'm sure you guys probably know the difference to memorize is to to learn something by heart that's quite idiomatic to learn by heart is to take something some information to put it in your head so you can speak out without looking at the information right to memorize some people are very good at good at memorizing ing some people are very good at memorizing telephone numbers some people are good at memorizing names i had some friends at school who were very good at memorizing facts figures names of the kings and queens historical dates all of that they were great at memorizing at school we had to memorize poetry we had to learn certain lines by heart we had to learn some of the shakespeare quotes by heart we had to learn oh oh you had to learn french idioms by heart as well right i've still got it in my head you know i'm as i'm i'm soaking wet um let's get back to the point still here because we had to learn them by heart as children so learning by heart and memorizing is getting the information here so you can speak it out without looking so to memorize that's the first one some of you like neha says i'm good uh i'm good memory at math i'm good memory now okay here let me help you out i have a good memory for something this is slightly different right so i'll add this onto our list but i'm good at memorizing or i have a good memory for i'll i'll show you this in a moment guys don't worry so i have a good memory for maths formulas right slightly different it's the same meaning but different ex different choose an easy word different words there you go different words different semantics i'm good at memorizing names but i have a good memory a good memory for names they're both good they mean the same you're learning by heart excellent i like it very very nice maybe another example tran says i'm not really good at memorizing vocabulary apart from your spelling of vocabulary that's an excellent example thank you very much i sometimes memorize my passwords because i'm always forgetful right good excellent because i'm forgetful yes so to memorize i'm good i sometimes memorize my passwords somebody on facebook says i'm bad at memorizing figures and names yes oh with nadja i'm going to skip because i keep picking your comments keep coming up it's a little it's a little bit like the youtube algorithm it seems when i click on your comments once it comes back up again and again some people are good at memorizing birth dates birth dates yes or birth days birth dates is okay i think we would generally say birthdays no birth dates is good because you're thinking you're talking about the date right you're talking about birth dates because you're memorizing the birth dates forget my correction ignore me okay excellent good so we've got that was the first one right to memorize really important word so to memorize i memorize something or i'm good at memorizing i have a good memory for names to remember is to basically to recall something to recall so you something happened or you have some information and right now it comes into your head oh i remember your name is john oh i remember you live in london right oh i've just remembered i need to call the gas man so to remember is to recall something into your head right to remember to do something i must remember to call my sister later i can't remember your name i'm sorry okay that's to remember now to remind is to tell someone not to forget to remind someone is to tell them don't forget to do something um i will remind you to hand in your homework tomorrow for example right um at the end of the class i at the end of the class i will remind you to check the website so you can download the pdf so to remind somebody to do something some want to do something so that's a slightly different meaning right that's telling somebody so to remind is basically to tell it's but to tell someone to remember something okay good those are the slightly different meanings um so let's just have a quick review of what people have said just a few examples um she reminds me to pick her up at 4pm okay yep good she reminds me to pick her up at 4pm so that sounds like she does that every week or every day she reminds you you may want to say in the past you know she reminded me to pick her up at 4 pm let's remind we've got memorize from zainel i could not memorize the date of special events and this one which is from deadline i like to remind you the time so to remind you something the time of the meeting you're almost there deadline almost really nice example make a small change i like to remind you the time of the meeting but again i like sounds like i do this every day like it's a habit and i think it's probably just right now i'd like i think that's better right oh i'd like to remind you the time of the meeting it's six o'clock okay good pradeep says i will remind my kid to attend his art class nice good youtube reminds me to attend keith's english speaking class yep it gives you a reminder right a reminder so excellent so you can have remind as a as a noun as well a reminder sorry that's the noun youtube gives me a reminder give you a reminder excellent remember remind memory let's move on another very common um confusion is about exams and let me just take these down so the difference between to take or to sit an exam to pass an exam and to give an exam okay so which one should i put in here right if i say i blah blah blah my ielts exam yesterday should it be i took i passed or i gave what should it be have a look in the answers what keith have a look at the comments i need some water well interesting right some interesting answers gave toke took sat i took took gave interesting gave took okay here's the answer yesterday i i took my ielts exam yesterday right the only person who can give an exam is a teacher the teacher gives you the exam but you take the exam students take meaning right to do basically so to take or to sit both of those are good you can take or sit exams that's what students do students do exams or they take or sit a teacher gives an exam and to pass means to do to do well in an exam equals not fail fail there you go so that's to pass an exam so of course in my example i know that you can't say i passed my ielts exam yesterday you can't because you don't know because ielts takes two weeks to give you the answer so you don't know if you've passed right sometimes in the facebook group see people say i passed my ielts test yesterday and i'm thinking no you didn't maybe you failed you don't know ah you took your exam yesterday and you hope you will pass but you don't know what you can say is i passed my exam my ielts exam two weeks ago i'm so happy now that's possible yes because we know that ielts after two weeks you get the results so you must get your results to pass the exam right that's it so just be careful with the difference between to take or to sit which is the most common one to pass or to fail right those are the two other ones when you do well or not as an exam and very rarely are you going to use this the only people who talk about this is teachers really the teacher gave us an exam there we go fantastic right so oh hello let me take you off just for a moment um the last one i've just noticed i've got one more before i move on is this one and this is related to exams and it's this one to cram for an exam to cram is a really interesting word to cram four and it's used a lot in study um to cram for an exam is to study very very hard in a short space of time let me find my buttons to study our hardin harbin in the north of china to study hard in a short space of time you know the typical thing right you you've got your exam in two months time and you spend the next two months watching netflix and then the day before the exam you start studying and you study for 12 hours the whole night you're drinking coffee you stay up the whole night you study for 12 hours you cram for the exam cramming for exams is a terrible idea it rarely works and even if you pass the exam you've missed the whole point because the whole point is not to pass the exam the whole point is to learn for your future life so don't cram really it's a waste of time avoid cramming for exams right people are cramming yeah mom do i cram for exams all the time i know people do i know i think it's such a terrible habit but i know it's a reality to cram to study hard in a short space of time that's it man you've got it yes this is a nice expression k-k-d-i i crammed not in sorry i crammed four so just think of four i crammed for my ielts exam by burning the midnight oil so that's when you stay up late drinking coffee or red bull to stay awake burning the midnight oil very nice language very nice olga i've crammed for my math exam i'm bad at maths the reason you're cramming is not because you're bad the reason you're bad is because you're cramming yeah jessica i totally agree it's not good to cram for your exams at last minute yes this is a new another good expression at the last minute and thank you jessica because this is nice to show everybody at the last minute i don't know why we say that it's singular right it's the very last minute at the last minute um but it's a very good expression thank you jessica let's add that i often study at the last minute the last minute so in the singular at the last minute sometimes when we're going out my wife will say i need to change my dress and at the last minute she says i need to change my dress and i say we've been getting ready for half an hour why didn't you think about this earlier and at the last minute she says oh i need to change my dress it's the wrong color and then we have another half an hour anyway i'm not one to complain but so that's it cramming nice brilliant good um so i'm just looking around oh we've got more things to do we've got more things to do more interesting things first of all i do need a little drink so the other day somebody um i can't remember where i think it was on facebook was asking me um how important are idioms and phrasal verbs it's a good question and my answer was idioms are important because idiomatic expressions are in the band descriptors so they are evaluated but i said don't sweat too much don't worry too much because we don't use lots of idioms when we speak right you know in a 15-minute conversation you may drop in i don't know two or three idioms maybe more idiomatic expressions and those are kind of wider um so i don't stress too much about idioms i think they're useful but don't you know don't learn lists of hundreds of idioms just learn some that are going to be useful for you what's interesting though is that within idioms you've also got phrasal verbs and phrasal verbs are not always idiomatic but sometimes they are idiomatic so they have a different meaning from the words together so i think phrasal verbs are also very very useful um to to learn or to pick up there you go to pick up is a phrasal verb to pick up is when you pick up the pen right but the idiomatic phrasal verb to pick up something is to learn something by almost by chance i went to france i actually lived in france for a year and i picked up french so it's not really studying but it's learning by doing and by experiencing it so i picked up a lot of french i picked up some new expressions when i was there so phrasal verbs are interesting and i think they're they're very very useful i'm going to share with you some phrasal verbs now these are less common but i think they're interesting right let's see hello guys hello guys phrasal verbs to buckle down it's a lovely phrasal verb to buckle down the buckle am i wearing no i'm not wearing a belt the buckle is part of the belt let me show you on let me see if i can show you on google right if you bear with me oh you don't need to do that oh well never mind buckle buckle buckle down buckle on a belt so if you can see if i can make it a bit bigger maybe go to images come on so can you see the buckle on the belt is the part of the belt it's the metal part of the belt that fastens your belt so the buckle without the buckle your trousers fall down but that's the buckle right you can see here it's a silver buckle buckle most buckles are metal there there's a very ornate buckle look at that there's a huge buckle on this one so these are the buckles of the belt now to buckle down is a bit similar to the expression to tighten your belt but not exactly so to buckle down you can imagine is to is to um to buckle it's the idea of doing something with a lot of determination imagine the buckle is really tight and it's difficult to buckle but if you buckle down then you do a task with determination so typically with studying my parents would often say to me come on keith it's time to buckle down so in the on the weekend saturday and sunday i'd be relaxing i'd be watching television like in the morning and my dad would say come on you've had enough television it's time to buckle down do your homework so you have that kind of situation for example i've been procrastinating well what a great word that is procrastinating that means kind of to be lazy kind of not exactly but close enough i've been procrastinating but now it's time for me to buckle down and start studying seriously so that's it to buckle down great expression right in the in the exam you could say well you know i'm a i'm a french i i'm studying french i've been studying for two years um and i study at the university of sheffield i've got exams next week actually so i've been buckling down the last few days getting ready for the exams beautiful language very very nice yep very good excellent anad says come on guys buckle down our preparation for the ielts exam yes so to buckle down without a noun so you don't buckle something down there's no there's no object here um so you need to put in two verbs but this is really good and that because this shows everybody how to use it okay so with buckle down there's no object you don't buckle down something it's just you buckle down come on guys buckle down and prepare for the ielts exam right you see so there's no objects there's no it brilliant good you can do this this is good uh where oh hang on where are we somebody had it it was fun fam i should buckle down for the ielts exam yes i should buckle down for something that's great so you can say as in my example to buckle down and do something or buckle down for an exam four ielts yeah so you can also say four that's great really good g lang yep very good point i like it i think it can be used in writing but need to fit the context yes so phrasal verbs can be used in writing um just remember that a lot of idiomatic expressions tend to be spoken but as you say gilang pero mata it depends on the context with the right context yes you can use it excellent very good point next one so we've had to buckle down the next one is to pick up and i think i explained this to you already right about learning something but not studying formally it's learning kind of informally let me let me knock over my mouse here we go to learn informally to learn something informally come on low i'm speaking guandon to learn informally where did you learn to cook so well i picked it up by watching youtube videos so you can pick up things when you're learning informally lots of people pick up things on youtube right lots of examples there good to pick up something you can pick up something like i picked up french many people pick up languages when they go and visit the country um they don't formally study or go to class but you can just pick it up by speaking to people right and by looking at the signs reading newspapers you can pick up the language reading newspapers keith what century are you from people still do read newspapers right i mean the paper newspaper still exist but less and less good to brush up to brush up on something this is a nice one again it's all about studying so to brush up to brush right to brush your hair to improve and exist an existing knowledge or skill so if you already have a skill or knowledge but you want to make it better then you brush up on and we normally link it like it's brush up on brush up on chapon say that chapon chapon brush upon brush up on brush up on my italian i need to brush up on my italian right great i haven't spoken french for years i really need to brush up on it i haven't spoken french for years i really need to brush up on it i haven't spoken french for years i really need to brush up on it okay again that idea of of chunking right that i was talking about before i should try and make i will try and make my answers more like this right i need to brush up brush brush up on my italian that's another one i need to brush up on my italian or i need to brush up on my italian you could put it all together right if you're good if you've brushed up on your english you can put it all together so pick up brush up on nice very useful i think nice expressions to use let me check in i'm sure you've got some examples here guys right kathy this is really interesting what you've said here since two weeks ago i'm brushing up on my german speaking now wow there's a lot of interesting things here kathy it's a really good sentence and you're showing us two really important things one is the idea of since now we don't normally use since with a goal right much more normal is for the last two weeks right rather than since and ago we don't normally say that for the last two weeks i'm brushing up on and again because it's now but looking back for the last two weeks i would use the present perfect continuous right i've been brushing up on for the last two weeks i've been brushing up on my german speaking right two interesting things the the four and the i've been doing something kathy brilliant sentence it's a really good example and i think now we've got a really nice model for people to follow for the last two weeks i've been brushing up on my german speaking i learned german at school kathy for about two years and all right all i remember of my german is these very very very long words it seems like they put words together and i remember words like the strazenbag strazenban which was something like the moving tram bus stop and it was an amazing language but really difficult but lots of fun great um here's a nice one deadline again yeah that the algorithm is working i haven't practiced chinese for a long time it's time to brush up on it i love it i love the last sentence it's time to brush up on it and your whole meaning is perfect is really really good i will just make a very very small change just to help you and everybody i haven't practiced with the chinese for a long time for a long time that's your chunk for a long time if you can get that chunk you're you're set right i haven't practiced chinese for a long time it's time to brush up on it brilliant very very nice we've got one more over here one more um phrasal verb about studying and it's to pour over to poor p-o-r-e to pour over the same as the same pronunciation as to to pour some water right into the cup different meaning the same pronunciation to pour over is to study normally books or paper or documents with a lot of attention for example um i've been pouring over my french course book lately so i have a french course book well i don't actually but i used to but for an example i've been pouring over my french course book lately right um i've been pouring over these reports for my boss hey where have you gone so it's something you're you're studying with a lot of attention but it's normally paper documents i mean it can be digital documents um but it's not like it's not a movie it's not an audio it's just something you read normally i've been pouring over these reports for my boss stuff like that right so these are all phrasal verbs gosh let's see i've poured over my chemistry books fantastic brilliant um naja again i've been pouring over not on i've been pouring over my english course right i've been pouring over [Music] i always pour over english books gnaw at them love it very very nice well done uh good this book belonged from al ah island tran this book belongs to my sis so i need to pour over it asap right because you need to give it back to her right okay brilliant anything else so here and that's this is a nice example but let's change it i was pouring over four no okay so we need to take away four you don't need four to pour over something i was pouring over my assignment right so i was studying my assignment very carefully but my teacher didn't like it that is nice that's very very nice good and thank you very much excellent so gosh i'm going to move a little bit because i realize we've spent a lot of time actually we've been studying here we've been pouring over the vocabulary for about an hour oh dear that's far too long um we've done a lot a lot of vocabulary i want to move on and do something a little bit different so what i'm going to do next is let me find out what's next it's the listening task excellent so we've got a little listening task for you all to do um we're going to begin with a fun question for you i want to find out what you think this listening task is about me right so i wonder if you can guess whether these sentences are true or false let me show you so here we are this is let's call it an ielts listening task it's all about schools and study um can you guess whether these are true or false and you can just write one t or one f in the chat box i'll read them through to give you some time and then just put your answers in the chat box this is before listening right i'm just asking you to guess whether you think it's true the listening is about me at school holy moly keith loved sitting quietly at his desk in school true or false he found it tricky to learn things by heart hmm true or false remember learn by heart is to memorize things number three he preferred biology to foreign languages prefer something to something true or false he preferred biology to foreign languages number four he would burn the midnight oil cramming before most exams now i've told you about the midnight oil right is when you're studying very late at night probably drinking black bull um he would so that's me this i used to in the past i would burn the midnight oil cramming before my exams i told you i don't like cramming but maybe when i was at school things were different maybe number five he passed all exams with flying colours true or false write down your answers and let's have a look at some of them gives me a chance to sip my team [Music] let's share some of your ideas so we've got okay it's not working siam says number one is true okay sanju says number two is false that's very kind of you um adelia says number one is true number three three fabrizio says number three is false okay art lover says number four is false you would cram right yeah you're assuming that i was a good student at school right zayneb says it's also false also thinks i was a good student ash says number three is true i prefer biology yeah it's interesting because do remember that as children at school we may be a certain way but often as adults we change right possibly or is that just a red herring number five krishna says very true he passed all his exams with flying colors with flying colors means very very well right to pass your exams very well tamanna also says it's true well um let's have a look has anybody got yes zin may me anger's got all number one false interesting good number two true he found it tricky yep to learn to pick to learn things by hard good number three true i prefer biology ah that's right interesting number four you think is false about cramming and you think i passed all my exams with flying colors very very interesting okay so obviously i'm not giving you the answers um but what i'm gonna do is play an audio a listening passage i want you to listen and check your guesses okay so listen to this passage and check your guesses if it's right or not okay then let me put this in what's the best way for me to do this because you want to still see the questions don't you okay what i'm going to do i'm going to try this this might work oh it might but it might not okay might not work listen carefully i'm also going to be testing your memory here we go let me tell you about my studies at school i was a bit of a slow learner at school to tell you the truth maybe i just wasn't very academically inclined i preferred moving around and doing things sitting at a desk for eight hours a day certainly wasn't my cup of tea i also found it hard to memorize dates and figures and names the teacher never gave us any good learning strategies they would just say here's your list of 20 facts now go and learn them by heart however my academic performance improved the older i got when i turned 11 i went to a grammar school that's a school that is partly subsidised by the government and takes in students based on their ability i was especially good at the arts but weaker at sciences the language teacher forbade us from speaking english in the french class it was so much fun like being a spy talking in code whenever i set an exam i did pretty well i didn't use to cram too much i just prepared well in advance some students spend hours pouring over their books the night before an exam i never understood that what was the point what a terrible way to spend the evening before an exam overall my results were solid but i never really passed my exams with flying colors that said i did well enough and got into university i was thrilled to bits and that is where my education really took off right so interesting right some of you were very very close some of you were right and some of you were off the mark as a student i was not as good as you may think or maybe not i mean to be honest i i was a very run-of-the-mill student right at school run-of-the-mill student just means a very ordinary student i was never top of the class i never failed i was always in the middle of the class right in the middle every time so very run-of-the-mill student i did okay but not fantastic it was when i went to university that things took off that's when i really understood about learning and studying and why it was important so you could say i was a bit of a late learner i learned very very late coming back to the answers then um let's see well let's come back and just check now you've got some new answers yes this is your real school yes it was it was a photo of my real school that was where i went to school in oldham oldham grammar school um next in in manchester next to middleton that's where i went to school it's a nice school right answers keith loves sitting quietly at his desk and says false oh sorry i'm on the wrong person and and says false okay uh christina also says false number two so correct number one was false um i didn't like sitting quietly at my desk i mean who can enjoy sitting at a desk for eight hours it's crazy what we do to children why do we do this to children i don't know number two christina says true he found it tricky to learn things by heart ah yeah and dorsa agrees number two is true that's correct i did find it difficult to memorize things number three dorsa says is false he preferred biology sky says number three is true no number three was false i preferred foreign languages i really enjoyed french it was like because we had to speak in english sorry we were not allowed to use english in the class so it was like being a spy the teacher made it very fun for us number four he would burn the midnight oil was false sky says false and which i struggled to pronounce correctly last time too also says false well done that's correct number five you say is false ah it was false right that it was false i did not pass with flying colors just very run of the mill very run of the mill so those were the answers right false true false false false those were the answers um i was a run-of-the-mill student let me add that one for you a run of the mill student equals just a normal kind of average student there we go i got much better later i got much much better at university but i was not a weak student but a run-of-the-mill student at school for sure i'm just going to show you very briefly the the text here that the the tape script if you like just to point out this was about me let me tell you about my studies at school so a slow learner some interesting collocations for you right i was a slow learner right um i wasn't academically inclined is a nice collocation so that means you're good at studying in the academic way so some people this is an important point right some people are good at learning things maybe by using their hands and building so people who study apprenticeships and to be a mechanic or a plumber they're really good at learning but they learn by doing and using their hands other people are really good at learning by reading and studying books that is academically inclined uh it wasn't my cup of tea it's an expression i'm sure you know if you study with me i found it hard to so this is a really useful expression i found it difficult to i found it hard to do something right it's very common english construction in many languages it translates differently but in english i find i don't know why you fight it's not like you're looking for it but i find it hard to or i find it easy to do something um we talked about here learning strategies and in a moment we're going to talk about learning techniques it's nice learn them by heart yeah my teachers they would just say here you are go and learn my heart no help at all academic performance is a nice collocation you might want to say to turn 11 that means to become 11. when you go from 10 to 11 you turn 11 when you go from 19 to 20 you turn 20. in england when you turn 21 it's a big event it's because you become i don't know you become an adult um we had i was good at here's a nice adverb i was especially good at right instead of saying really good which is okay you can say i was especially good at the arts the arts is like languages uh history um maybe geography and the sciences is the others the biology physics chemistry so very often at school we divide our studies into the arts or the sciences actually in reality they're not that separate but at school we separate them so the language teacher forbade us which means to forbid or to stop doesn't allow um like being a spy remember we say to sit an exam yeah we to take an exam remember that collocation i didn't use to cram you remember the meaning of cram right to study very intensely for a short period of time and another the opposite is to prepare in advance or to prepare well in advance that's a long time in advance some students spend hours pouring over their books there you go nice phrasal verb pouring over their books um i never understood that what was the point it's true what a terrible way to spend the day my results were solid which means good right not great but good and then pass your exams with flying colors means to pass very very well to pass with a very good score that's to pass with flying colors nice expression idiomatic expression that said i did well enough to go to university i was thrilled to bits very happy and that's where my education took off so to take off is to get better and better we often talk about a company taking off getting better my studies are taking off getting better and better yeah in this context to take off has many meanings but here it means to get better okie dokie there you have it um do remember all of these notes you can get on my website the free live lessons just go to my website later not now because the notes are still here right but later maybe three hours after the live lesson go to the key speaking academy and you can get the notes there that's the listing great i've got a couple more things to do before we finish up what else are we going to do first of all let's just check in what we've done we've done the listening task next study techniques i'm going to touch on three study techniques because i think this is useful not just for you to talk about but to know you may know some of these right but let's find out i'd like to talk first of all about the study technique of mind mapping and i think the easiest way for me to show you is just to show you a really good website for this the moderators if you can share the links the first one with the guys with the students with everybody there mind mapping dot com literally so let me show you on the website oops no no come back what's it done it's gone crazy it's gone mad football crazy right here we go so let me just switch to here this is the the website um called mindmapping.com so mind maps look like this you may have used them um the idea is that you can summarize important information in a system that looks like your brain you're like what my brain looks like that yes your brain looks just like this um so what your brain does is basically it takes something in the center and then it has lots of little folders connected by neurons and this may connect to other things so the important thing is the information you have in your brain you learn by connecting one thing to another and then when you learn something new you connect it to something you know and then you connect it so everything's connected a bit like the folders on your computer and that's how we learn by connecting things in our brain to things that we know mind maps are perfect for that because they help you store information that your brain can access easily easily um did i say easily that's an interesting word easily and what's more by using colors images and pictures it helps you remember um and then short words one or two words or three words so what you do basically i mean just to let you know is you enter the main topic like capital letters capital cities you brainstorm the topics and then you got lots of branches like london paris new york you can then create sub topics to give more detail then you can rearrange the topics you can add images colors and then these notes you take notes to your topics and attach research files if you want this website actually it tells you about the benefits it's faster it's easy to rearrange this is actually telling you about software free mind mapping software if you want to do this on the internet or on your computer there's lots of software you can do you can get to do it some interesting information there basically but the whole idea of mind mapping i think is a fantastic one i use it a lot i use it when i'm listening to a lecture and i take notes in a mind map because to be honest who's going to go back and read lots of paragraphs it's so difficult doing a mind map as you're listening to your teacher is a really good way of doing it so my challenge to you can anybody do a mind map of today's lesson if you can do a mind map of today's lesson and go to the facebook group this one it's keith mastermind community ielts speaking go and find us go and join the group and share your mind map of today's lesson that's my challenge for you i love mind maps i do really think they are really effective right now the next one i'm going to look at with you is something called spaced practice and for language learners this is something that we use a lot but you can use it for any any topic at all again moderators if you can share the link to the uh this is learningscientist.org spaced um practice is where instead of cramming it's the opposite of cramming so instead of cramming everything really tight you learn over a long period of time you spread your learning over weeks or months space practice is so important for language learning you cannot cram language learning you can't cram a language and hope to get a good score in the test you need space to practice so when you learn a new word it doesn't stay here you need to repeat it the next day and then it goes deeper then you need to review it some weeks later so that it goes from your short-term memory to your long-term memory and space practice is so important for that there's a lot of research around it i think it's seen as one of the most powerful ways it looks like this right let me show you space practice so you've got your exam right at 9am you've got spacing on day one you'll study then day two and then day three so you're you're studying over different days before the test it's different from cramming so cramming is day one you just cram everything you do everything in one day and then you've got the exam space practice is you practice over days or weeks before the exam it's very very simple this it's an interesting article right it basically tells you what space practice is it's the opposite of cramming it gives you some tips on how you should do it set aside time every day make it a habit review information from each class um and that you have shorter learning sessions so instead of studying for like 12 hours you may study for 10 minutes or 20 minutes okay so and then it says but cramming works no that's what students say then it tells you why cramming doesn't work so space practice is really good if you use um flash cards like anki or um which are the other ones anki tiny you are tiny tiny cards there's quite a few different apps that have flash cards and that they use space practice so they show you the cards you practice them you learn them if you get them wrong in your next session the next day they come back up so you get spaced practice over time it's really nice so for language learning it's the key space practice the last one i'll share with you is the cornell technique again a very very well researched and famous technique it's one that i use sometimes um i kind of adapt it but you know you do whatever works for you with all of these techniques don't think you have to follow them step by step if you want to adapt them a little bit do make it work for you right the cornell approach if you've never heard of it let me just show you is about taking great notes it's a great way to take notes and to review um to review them so basically can i show you something take notes by hand so writing them down there is some research about how this helps people memorize things the cornell method is looks like this okay so on your piece of paper you divide your paper into three areas okay four areas but the top one is the title you take notes in the right hand column you write keywords and questions in the left hand column and you make a summary at the bottom okay now the idea is you take notes on maybe a lecture that you're listening to or a book that you've read you use bullet points so it's not paragraphs it's not long paragraphs it's more bullet points and short notes and then so here i think you can see more clearly right the cornell notes so you record during the lecture that's step one step number two after the lecture you write down some questions about your notes and then what you can do is you can basically cover up your notes you take a piece of paper you cover the notes and you look at the questions and you try to ask the questions and answer you try to answer the questions so basically you're testing yourself so if you've written notes about learning english with keith and you've written down some phrasal verbs you've learned you then write some questions about those cover up your notes and test yourself and then step four is reflect you reflect on the significance of the facts what are the principles how can i use them it depends on the notes that you're taking right but you can then reflect and review and then at the end you write a summary at the bottom and the the facts or the uh the activity of writing a summary helps get the information into your head that's it in a nutshell that's the cornell technique you can go and check out this website um think insights dot net it gives you a lot more information about how to use the method and so on and so forth again you may want to adapt it um the whole idea of testing yourself is a really powerful way of learning and the idea of thinking about your notes so not just writing and just reading one of the weakest ways to learn is just to read your notes some students do that they just go i'll just read my notes again you have to engage with your notes you have to do something with your notes whether it's thinking about it what does that mean for me what what's the the fundamental principle here whether it's asking a question like the cornell method and testing yourself or whether it's writing a summary of your notes so you've read your notes put them down write a summary it's do you must do things with the information it's when you're doing things that you're learning not just passive reading right that's it lots of um well three not lots three different techniques study techniques that you can talk about right maybe you can talk about this in your ielts test but more importantly you can probably practice as well you can go away and practice mind mapping space practice and the cornell technique lovely okay good now then where are we what was that study techniques i'm going to move very briefly on to look at some idioms okay um and then we'll switch and finish up with kahoot so idioms let me share with you some idioms about studying okay to burn the midnight oil we've talked about this but basically it means to stay up late at night to study too tasty what's happening okay so that's to burn the midnight oil feel the rhythm when you're speaking it i think it's good to always practice speaking to burn the midnight oil to burn the midnight oil i'm moving along gonna move out of the picture um oh that was last week not that one to pass with flying colors it's the same to burn the midnight oil to pass with flying colors it's the same rhythm to pass with flying colors equals to i told you before to pass with a very good score not just a good score a very good score in england we often talk about a good mark in america they talk about a good grade to pass with a good grade or a good mark or a good score you can use all of those to be honest now if an exam was easy i know they very rarely are easy but if an exam is easy you can say that exam was a breeze like a breeze is a gentle wind that exam was a breeze or a walk in the park that exam was a walk in the park and you're going to be laughing at this example my ielts was a walk in the park which just means very easy you're like keith come on you're kidding me ielts is not a walk in the park there you go let's make it true my ielts was not a walk in the park my ielts test was not a walk in the park the exam was a breeze so to be a breeze or to be a walk in the park great hatties says i hope ielts will be a breeze yes afnaf says where are we where are you i've lost you oh well never mind it's as easy as pie yes something's very easy it's good yes okay nice next um to scrape a pass this means to pass but only just almost fail but actually pass so the pass mark was let's say 70 i got 71 i scraped not scrapped ah come on auto corrector i love you and i hate you i scraped a pass so it's a scraper pass is to only just pass for example the pass mark was 70 percent i got 71 i scraped a pass to scrape [Music] is when you it's like scratch not like that scratch scrape is you need a special tool i wonder if my daughter has oh she normally has every tool i need but there's a special tool i'll use my mobile phone and when you do that right and you're scraping something off scrape the maybe the the food off a plate not exactly it's because that will damage the plate when you're doing woodwork right you'll be scraping the wood with a special tool so it's being really close to something hence the idea of scraping a pass you're close to failing but you manage to scrape a pass barely passed thank you very much that's the word i'm looking for i barely passed kdi good to get avoid getting borderline marks is the same idea right to avoid scraping through okay scraping a melon yeah you can scrape a melon exactly yes this is nice i'm deep very nice um i used to scrape a pass in mathematics it's still a bug bear for me yes and andy you pointed out of course in it we scrape hidden codes yeah they're scraping in codes i've used that in the um facebook book bug developer tool scrape off the cement from the floor that's the idea you guys are explaining so much better than me can we use to be a breeze in other contents contexts um like what i'm wondering we talk about exams being a breeze um so when manchester city beat arsenal yeah that match was a breeze it was a breeze yes yeah we can say that was easy um so when somebody wins a competition or beats somebody you can say it's a breeze so i think the short answer is yes you can use it in different contexts yes okay um and i've got one or two more to draw a blank to draw a blank um is when you well to go blank to draw a blank is to to let me see i'm going to change that i'm going to change it to go blank because that's probably more useful for you um is when you can't think of anything to say and this happens to a lot of people in ielts speaking right you go blank you just can't think of anything to say in the middle of the test i went blank right in the middle of my interview i went blank you just you just couldn't think of anything to say what do you do when you go blank ha very simple you breathe first pause for about two seconds and then try try not to think about the past you just think i'm here i'm now go forward go forward go forward um so if you go blank you just and try and say something if you can't say anything you just go i've gone blank just say i've gone blank and the examiner will move on to the next question i'm sorry i've gone blank at least you're showing off your english and then you just go to the next question um it doesn't matter if you miss a question because your time is not lost it's not like the questions disappeared you get another question so don't worry too much if you go blank in the ielts speaking test and to rack your brains is to try and think of something and we do this when we're brainstorming you try and rack your brains oh i'm trying to think of what's the name of that person i met yesterday oh i'm terrible at remembering names i'm just wracking my brains or you know i don't know what to do in the class tomorrow i'm racking my brains thinking of something to do so it's to try and think of something to rack your brains so guys all of these we can be using when we're talking about studying good yes draw a blank means not being able to remember something to have no idea at all namaste namaste to you too great lovely thank you very much for that so guys we've done the idioms right we've been through idioms and i'm just going to move on to the very last thing which is we're going to run through a review we're going to play kahoot today i think we missed it last time but we're back on with kahoot if you don't know kahoot somebody tell them what to do you need to go here stay with me right but also go to kahoot.it and on there you're going to be able to see um play the game just before we play the game i just realized i forgot something i was going to tell you something and i've lost it but never mind it was for those of you who use your mobile phone to download apps um i've been talking about an app quite a lot lately and it's this one it's elsa right and i talk about it a lot because i actually really really like this app as a language learning tool um it's for pronunciation so it has oh look at that it has lots of things for pronunciation but also if you go through in the new features you'll find that i'm actually in there the ielts speaking challenge um last week i did a video all about ielts part two all the phrases you can use in ielts part two that was on the youtube channel this challenge actually goes through those and more to practice the pronunciation so you can get it in uh elsa if you've not been on to elsa it's e-l-s-a it's basically a mobile app it's it's really really nice you can get the links i'll put the links in the description below you can always see them but go and check it out and go and check out the challenge that i'm doing and you can practice there elsa do basically it you can use the the app for free but it's very limited but if you then pay you can pay a yearly membership or a lifetime membership i'll give you some links with discounts below you can go and check it out and practice and practice with me it's great so i just wanted to let you know all about that go and see the elsa challenge it's happening but right now we're going to come back to our kahoot so let me get into kahoot we're going to review the words from today remember you need to go to kahoot.it put in your name and then also put in the pin number don't ask me your name but you can ask me the pin number so where are we it's this one over here let's play i'll put this on the screen so you can actually see what the pin number is kahoot is loading we're going to play the classic game get ready to join can i make it a bit bigger there you go there's the pin eight two eight two oh four two so you just need to go to w www.kahoot.it and put in the game pin 8282042 people are already coming in there we have it hello mr keith there's another mr keith sunny bunny great crazy boy so go in there don't worry if you can't get in you can still participate and put your answer in the chat box that's okay great i'll give you a minute to join how many people have got in 168 okay i'll just give you a few more seconds give me time to drink up um great we've got enough people in there that's fantastic let's start let's go straight in as soon as i say that there's a rush of people for the door okay let's begin remember you can also participate by just putting your answer in the chat box studying i'll read the question and the answers number one i've been studying french blank i was 12. for when since or as i've been studying french blank i was 12. you've got 30 seconds to answer five four whoa not bad not bad so oh 110 of you got since which was correct great i've been studying french since i was 12. remember since is for a point of time um when 37 people said when you can't use when here because it's the present perfect continuous which is from now looking back you could only use when if it was i studied french when i was 12 in the simple past but not here okay well done the vast majority nice so the first one up was harry 1208 we got ning in second place and hanin in third place keith senpai is in he's in fifth place question number two i'm really good blank memorizing answers in on for at i'm really good blank memorizing answers 10 seconds fabria well done well done adella well done 151 of you got at fantastic that's really good you're all paying attention you're all you're all really good at english so well done it's at um just a point by the way in ielts speaking please do not memorize your answers i just realized my example might look like i'm telling you it's a good idea it's a terrible idea to memorize answers please do not memorize answers in ielts speaking the key is flexibility let's move on harry's still at the top and he's at second place kichi has moved into third place great here we go number three he passed his exam with blank colors bright flying strong excellent he passed his exam with blank colors phone ff well done emmanuel well done zayneb well done i'm expecting oh i am expecting such a good score that is fantastic 161 of you got flying colors so of course the other words exist right you can talk about bright colors and strong colors but for this idiom it's to pass an exam with flying colors of course meaning that you pass very very well nice good so who's at the top harry is like he just won't move king carriers at the top on his second kichi third in fact it's exactly the same results and twen lin is the highest climber up 60 places let's see if we can knock harry off his throne question number four the last question i didn't do very well in the exam but luckily i just managed to blank a pass scrape cram fly or rack dong well done pooh well done mohiuddin well done maura nice that's also very very well done 122 of you got scrape so i managed to scrape a pass yes so don't get confused with the other words to cram to study a lot to fly flying colors and to rack your brains but here is to scrape a pass which is just about make a pass to barely pass well done it's the moment of truth is harry still on the throne well keisen pie has moved up he has moved up and now wow look at that he's still there harry 1208 congratulations uh fantastic result well done that is very very very very good i love it great now then let we let me come back where are we here we are good i found you again so very very interesting today we've been talking about the so important topic such an important topic um studying right in ielts speaking whether you're a student talking about schools about teachers about ways of studying it's all there i hope you've learned lots of new language some idioms you can use i hope you've picked up some new study techniques you can go and check out and try do remember in a few hours you can go to the website the key speaking academy and pick up the pdf from today's live lesson and see what we're doing there and what else come and join us on the facebook group if you'd like to be motivated participate in some interesting activities practice your english meet a speaking partner and so on and so on um and also if you've enjoyed today's lesson then do think about my online course ielts speaking success get a band 7 plus it's a complete course it's different from youtube um totally different videos it's a much more structured course based on model answers it's got lots of language and vocabulary to take you up to the level that you need for a band 7 and above lots of practice as well so you can go and check it out the links will be in the description below moderators if you can share the link that will be fantastic so people can go there you can check it out if it's right for you go ahead brilliant that's it ielts speaking success get a band 7 plus thank you very much for joining me today it's been a really really fun i've really enjoyed it i've enjoyed sharing the language with you and some ideas it's been interesting listening to your ideas and suggestions um you know you're making great progress and i can see from today's kahoot that you're all paying attention and learning stuff step by step i hope your ielts test maybe it won't be a breeze but i hope you will pass with flying colours i hope even if you scrape a pass that you get the score you need to go ahead and do what you want whether it's study abroad immigrate or get a new job i wish you all the best take care my friends and uh stay safe and i will see you next time round oh i just remembered next week there is no live class i do apologize i'm unable to be here next thursday so we're gonna miss next thursday the week after in two weeks that will be the next live class but you can watch my videos on saturday this saturday i've got a video coming out it's all about improving your listening skills and speaking skills really good for ielts speaking check that out on saturday um and i will see you soon take care my friend all the best now bye [Music] [Music] foreign

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Keywords: ielts speaking, ielts speaking practice, ielts speaking lessons, live lessons for ielts speaking, ielts speaking practice live lessons, free ielts speaking practice online, ielts speaking common topics, free ielts speaking lessons, ielts speaking vocabulary, ielts speaking study topic, ielts speaking study or work, ielts speaking study and work, ielts speaking study vocabulary, ielts speaking study answers, ielts speaking study part 2, ielts speaking part 1 work and study

Id: ggtFU4_X_lg

Length: 114min 4sec (6844 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 16 2021