Education and Learning
Describe a new skill you would like to learn.
You should say:
- What it is
- Who you want to learn it from
- How you are going to learn it
- And explain why you want to learn it.
Model Answer
Today I would like to share with you about a skill I have always desired to learn, which is speaking German.
A couple of years ago I had such a fantastic trip to Europe, and I was deeply impressed by the beauty, uniqueness and modern style of the capital city, Berlin. I was wandering around all over the city in many different shopping malls to find my dad his favourite black Nike coat. I was fortunate enough to finally find it in the Kaufland shopping mall, however, when I flew back to Vietnam, I realized that I had bought the female
size. So it was after that incident that I decided to try my hand at learning German.
The first reason that makes German such an attractive language to learn is that it is pretty much the second most common language spoken in Europe, for example, in Denmark, Hungary, Poland, Austria, and so on. And secondly, German bears a close resemblance to English, and shares pretty much the same alphabet, so I think that might make it a little easier to learn. Additionally, if I learn German, in the future I could certainly apply for
a scholarship to study in Germany’s great education system.
I think learning a new language can also be really handy when travelling, can make you more decisive and can bring you multitudes of cognitive advantages such as becoming smarter and avoiding Alzheimer’s disease when you get older. And last but not least, I think life would be much more exciting if you can speak multiple languages.
So, sometime in the near future, if I can handle my work and study load, I’d love to give learning German a go.
Vocabulary Highlights
- deeply impressed by – having a very strong positive effect or influence on your feeling about something
- uniqueness – one of a kind, or rare
- wandering around – walking around without a fixed route or destination
- incident – an event, usually unpleasant
- try my hand – to try something
- bears a close resemblance – is similar to
- handy – useful
- decisive – the ability to make decisions
- multitudes – many, a lot of
- cognitive advantages – benefits for your brain
- handle – deal with
- to give learning German a go – to try to do or learn something
Describe a lesson that you enjoyed.
You should say:
- When it was
- What it was about
- What happened
- And explain why you liked it.
Model Answer
Well, I would like to share with you about a really pleasant experience in an English class I had at my university.
During one of our grammar lessons, the regular teacher was sick so the school had to send in a teacher to cover her place. And the substitute teacher, Thomas Hall, delivered an amazing lecture in English about how he thinks we should all learn languages through watching films.
Throughout the two hours, he explained to us the process of learning a language and how films can serve as an effective way to immerse yourself in a language. Basic elements like vocabulary and grammar can be easily absorbed if we focus on dialog in a TV show, and so in the long run, our overall language skills can be improved. This method helps us to learn any language effortlessly and in a short period of time.
At first, we were all sceptical about the ideas he introduced, however, after watching a short video to practice and doing a trial test, we were all convinced that learning by watching movies was not hard at all and we could apply this to enhance our performance at school.
I enjoyed this lesson so much because I find this method to be particularly effective for me. I always felt unmotivated when learning by traditional methods and my results were never desirable. But when I tried learning English using my favourite movies, you know what? My English got better and better and very soon I was able to remember thousands of new words and write really complicated essays. Now, I can even proudly say that I have mastered the English language.
Vocabulary Highlights
- pleasant – enjoyable or nice
- substitute – to use something or someone instead of something else
- serve –be used
- immerse – to be completely involved or surrounded by something
- elements – a part of something
- absorbed – very interested in something
- focus – to concentrate on something
- dialog – the conversation or words that are spoken
- the long run – after or over a long period of time
- effortlessly – easily, without trying
- sceptical – to doubt something
- trial – a practise test to see if something works
- enhance – to make better or improve
- unmotivated – to not want to do something
- desirable – the result or affect that is wanted