Ground Control to Major Tom is the first line of ‘Space Oddity’ – a David Bowie classic. It tells the story of an astronaut in space and it’s a fantastic song to practice your English with. My students love it! Hope you will too. The copyright on the music has been cleared by YouTube, so teachers, feel free to share it with your students. RIP David Bowie – what a great story teller and what
Do you need to know how to sell in English? Then this English sales training video is for you. When you want to describe your product or idea, you need to describe its features. But if you want to sell your product or idea, you’re going to need to explain its benefits – the things that will make your customers want to buy. We can help you. We’ll show you how to turn features into
Jay and Vicki think paper airplanes are great fun. (Vicki calls them aeroplanes in British English) Perhaps they’re having too much fun? What are you making. Oh. A paper airplane. Oh cool! Do you want to make one too? Yes. Here. Oh thank you. Well, that’s true. But you know it took…. Who did that? To learn more about how we use the verbs make and do in English, click here. To see more speaking
This short English conversation demonstrates the difference between the words interesting and interested. Notice that Vicki is surprised when Jay says ‘I am very interesting in this book’. It’s a strange thing to say. It only makes sense if Jay is one of the characters in the book or the book is about him. Interesting Book Tapescript This is a very interesting book. Uhuh. And I’m very interesting in this book. What? This is a
The trust game is a game you can play where one person falls back into another’s arms and trusts that they will catch them. You’ll see Vicki and Jay play it in this short conversation video and you’ll also learn the word untrustworthy. Trust game tapescript I need to learn to trust you more Vicki. How can I do that? Oh, we could play the trust game. The what? The trust game. Turn around. OK.
There’s a question we often ask when somebody has lost something: When did you last have it? In this short English conversation video Jay has lost his keys. Notice the question Vicki asks. Lost keys conversation script I can’t remember where I put my keys. Well, when did you last have them? Click here to learn the difference between the verb lose and the verb miss. Click here to learn the difference between the verb lose
This is a very short English conversation that illustrates the meaning of the verb ‘lay’ in English. Hey, stop that man! Put up your hands and lay down your weapon. Click here to learn the different meanings of the verbs lay and lie Click here to see more English conversation videos for speaking practice.
This short conversation illustrates two formal questions we use to ask for opinions in English. English learners sometimes ask ‘What’s your opinion?’ without realizing that it is a formal way to ask the question. ‘What do you think?’ is more common and would sound more natural most of the time. Note that in the video, ‘What’s your opinion?’ is used in a very formal context. What’s your opinion script Welcome to Education Today. And tonight’s
If someone is trying to sell us something and we don’t want to buy it, we can explain we’re not interested. It’s another way of saying ‘I don’t want it’ in English. It’s just a little more polite and businesslike. You can see how we use the phrase in two different English conversations here. Conversation 1 This is our first new product. What do you think? No, sorry. Not interested. OK, we also have this. No,
With a little help from Jay, Vicki amazes Jason with a card trick in this English conversation. Can you work out how she did it? The conversation features the words amazing and amazed. Note that amazing is used to describe the card trick and amazed is used to describe Jason’s reaction to it. Card trick conversation script OK, Jay. Pick a card. Remember it. Right, Jase. Shuffle the cards. OK. Jay, your card is the
