[0:00]Hi, how are you? It's Wednesday, so that must mean it's time for another IELTS Plus English Podcast.
[0:11]Today's topic is education. Now, this is a really, really common topic, so it's something that you should be prioritizing if you're preparing for the IELTS test. If not, if this is just for your general English, then for everyone, it's good to be able to talk about education. Now, before we start, if you enjoy this podcast, whether you're listening or watching on YouTube, I would really appreciate your like, your subscription, and perhaps a comment to tell me what you think. If you enjoy it or if you'd like to say anything about today's topic. So education, I think we'll just go straight into our first question. Part one, of course, did you enjoy studying in school? Yes, I quite enjoyed studying in school. I think that's quite an honest answer. Um, I particularly enjoyed studying when I was younger in elementary school and middle school or junior school as it's called in England. As I got older, I struggled, but once I found my motivation in university, that's when I was able to study very hard and enjoy it. another question. Do you prefer studying alone or with friends? Now, this is easy for me to answer. I enjoy studying alone. The reason I enjoy studying alone is it allows me to concentrate. I don't get distracted by other people. I I enjoy, actually, I don't even care about whether it's quiet or not. You know, I can study alone in a coffee shop that's very noisy, but the important thing is I don't have anyone talking directly to me and I can focus on my work. And that's it. I'm warmed up. I'm ready to go and now we get into the real stuff. So, as you know, this is an IELTS podcast, so we're going to do a part two question. And I just want to remind you of my structure before I start because I think if I remind you of the structure I'm going to use, then you will be able to listen for it carefully and realize how I structure this two-minute answer. If you're taking IELTS, it will be very useful for you. If you're not, hopefully it helps you talk at length about any topic. So, here's what I want you to listen for. I'm going to introduce what I'm going to talk about by saying, I'd like to tell you about blank. I'm then going to move to the past. In the past or when I was young, then I'm going to move to the present. Let me tell you a little more about blank. Then my opinion, for me, personally, and then the future, in the future, I hope. So these are the kind of sentences you've got to listen out for. Obviously, I haven't prepared today's answer, but I always have that structure in my head. So, let's list, let's see what part two has in store. Describe a subject you enjoyed studying at school. Okay. Um, right. Let's do it. So I need my two minutes on the clock. Let's start. I'd like to tell you about my favorite subject, Drama. When I was young, I always liked drama. I liked acting. I liked performing in front of people. I wasn't the most confident person, but for some reason, when I was on stage or when I was in front of my class, I felt very confident and very comfortable to act or perform in some way. Not sing, I'm an awful singer, but uh, yes, I I I really enjoyed the performance aspect. Let me tell you a little more about that class. This class had 30 students. It's, uh, the teacher was young and very kind, and it was, I think, twice a week. We had drama class, and I just I really enjoyed it. Every class, it was a different thing. You know, we had to do little um plays or little scenes that uh I had to come up with characters. It was really enjoyable and on top of that, I actually got an A star. That's the the the top grade you could get in England. I got an A star every semester or every term. So, yeah, that was the class. For me, personally, it was my favorite class and it was kind of a way of relieving stress between the harder classes such as math or science. Um, the the classes that required a lot harder study. Um, it also allowed me to get closer to my classmates. It sport was also a way that I could get close, but particularly mixing with the other gender, um, it was a really important class for me. In the future, I hope to do a little more drama and acting, if there we go.
[5:42]Two minutes up. So, one thing I want to mention about that, um, as you you could probably hear my structure, but I had to adjust something and this is something you can always do. In the present section, if the topic is past, just talk about the past. So when I said let me tell you a little more about, I chose about the class, the drama class. Of course, that's past tense, so you've got to keep talking in the past tense. Very important. Good. Well, we move on to the the last part of today's podcast, which is part three. We have three questions today. Let's see if we can do all of them. Has education in your country changed in the past 10 years? I'm going to talk about Korea because I'm more familiar with Korea. It it I think it's changed a lot. The one thing I've noticed particularly is before, when I looked at the private academies, I saw a lot of English academies, maths academies, even some kind of some art academies, that kind of thing. But nowadays, there's a big shift towards, um, computer science, programming, things like that, particularly programming. I think nowadays, parents feel that uh, programming could be the language of the future, and they are keen to put their kids through that and to start learning programming language as early as possible. So I would say that's one of the biggest changes in the past 10 years. Next question, how important is it to have a university degree? Oh, this is a really tough one. Um, I I would say, based on my experience, and depending on your country, it's not that important to have a university degree. The reason I say this is when I when I meet people and I I deal with people in business, and see the skills of people around me. I'm I'm 34 now. Um, so, you know, dealing with kind of people in their mid-thirties, late thirties. I don't feel a difference between those who have gone through university and those who haven't. Of course, it depends on the person, but I feel like nowadays, a combination of of reading a lot, taking online courses, and experience can be enough to sort of overcome, uh, the university degree. Overcome so to catch up and even surpass people that are taking a university degree. So I would say no, university degree is not that important now. That's controversial, the answer is over, but I'm sure some people will disagree and disagree. So I tell you what, if you are watching on YouTube, or you're on some platform where you can comment, let me know what you think. Do you think it's important to have a university degree? You can disagree or you may agree. Let's see. Okay. I hope you like my answers today. Uh, I tell you what I didn't do very well at all. And I've just realized this, but, um, I'm happy with my answers, but I didn't use my keywords. So, um, you know, I've I've used a few of them, but let me just quickly to wrap up, go through a few of the most important keywords. Um, number one, I would say play truant is important. Um, that's playing truant is to, and you need to use the verb play, means to skip school, stay away from school or even work in some cases. So that's important. Um, I'd say another one nowadays is distance learning. Now, of course, when we talk about how education has changed, distance learning is a huge change. Distance learning is where you study online rather than going to the institution. Um, a couple more that I'll mention, fall behind. Fall behind is one of today's keywords and that means, and it's a it's a phrasal verb. Fall behind means that you are not staying in line with the ability of your classmates and you are going further back, so you need to catch up. Finally, crammer. There are academies like I have here, my academy, but a crammer is where you're very quickly and intensively learning something.
[10:37]So maybe in a couple of months you're preparing for an exam. So those are the keywords I would focus on from today. Um, but there are 10 for you to enjoy. This, and I didn't say earlier, but this is available on www.jacks-english.com. And uh, you can find the free materials. I'm sure you already know this, uh, and plenty of other free stuff there. If you are in Korea, please go to Naver Cafe. Yongok Yongok Jack's English and you'll find everything there and a lovely community. So thanks for listening to today's uh, topic, which was education, and uh, I will be back next week with another really important topic, environment. So I hope you have a fantastic week and I'll see you very soon. Bye bye.
