[0:01]Let's start off by talking about your job. Do you work or do you study? Um, I work as a cabin crew. It's been two years that I have been working as a flight attendant. It's good. What do you enjoy about your job? So, I feel like there's a lot of perks, but there are a lot of negatives to it as well. Like it's a physical job. It requires you to be a very healthy person. You need to exercise a lot, you need to work out, you need to look like you need to take care of yourself. You need to take care of your diet, but what I enjoy the most is that, you know, you get to go to all these places that you maybe would have only dreamed about. So, for me, I think that's the biggest perk that I can go to all these places, see all those landmarks that I have been seeing when I was a kid or meet all those people. Why does someone need to be fit and healthy to do your job? Uh, because it's a very physical job. Uh, you need to always be on your toes. There's a lot of walking. I mean, for me, on an average day, I walk about like 10,000 steps. Easy. Like 6,000 maybe on a flight, but then when you land, you go to the airport, you go to the hotel, and you obviously want to go out, have like, you know, some food or drinks. So I prefer walking, so usually on an average, I do like 10 to 15,000 steps. Uh, which I like as well, but then it also, you know, it's a lot of exhaustion because you're already tired. Uh, so I feel like it's a very physical job. It keeps you on the move, it keeps you running, I think. Do you think you will do that job for your whole career or would you like to do something different in the future? I don't think I can do it like for too long because it is again a very tiring job. It has its perks, but then I feel like I don't think I can do it for so long because sometimes it just gets to you. Every layover, every city just becomes the same. Every hotel becomes the same. Some days I really crave just sleeping in my own bed, you know, being with my family, that's it. Now let's talk about travel. What's your favorite travel destination? For me, I think it's Stockholm, Sweden. I never knew that place existed because my geography is super bad. But when I went there for the first time, I loved that place. I loved that place. It was the vibe of that place is, it's a very slow city, I think, as compared to Dubai. So I feel like people over there, they live a very slow life. You can just see people walking, you know, with their dogs and pets and children and it's just so nice to look at them living a very slow life and I feel like the weather over there is very nice as well. The sunset is like at 10 p.m., 11:00, so I feel like they have a longer day in the summers. So yeah, I really like that place. When you go on holiday, do you prefer to be active or just sit by the pool? Uh, I I want it to be a relaxing time because my job requires me to be on the toes every day. So for me, vacations are more like, I want to just sit back. I just want to relax, and I'm I'm more of a mountain person, so I just I just go anywhere for the views. So I just want to go, sit, and have a really nice view from my balcony, probably, if it's mountains, I would love it. Is food and drink important when you're deciding where to travel to? Uh, I'm not a foodie. I'm not a huge fan of food. So I would I'm I'm somebody who just eats to live. Like I would yeah, just give me anything, you know, I'm somebody who goes for McDonald's in New York, so, yeah. Are there any types of holidays that you really dislike? Dislike, um, not really. No. I feel like holidays or any sort of day that just gives you a little bit of free time from your daily routine. I think it's just you should just celebrate it, just just be happy about it. Now let's talk about birthdays. Can you tell me about your last birthday? Oh, yeah. Um, I never had a birthday party in my whole life. But last year I was like, why not, you know, if nobody's throwing me one, I will throw myself one. So that is what I did. I came up with the whole theme and, you know, bought all the banners, birthday girl and, you know, the things that you wear on your head, although I feel I felt for a minute that I was way too older for that, but I was like, never mind. I should just do it. So, and market off. So, um, I went back home to Pakistan and I gathered a few friends, I asked them if they could come and join me to celebrate my birthday, and I loved it. Can you remember a birthday party or a birthday gift from when you were a child? Um, not really. No. My memory is a little bit haste when it comes to my childhood, so I don't think I remember any. We used to celebrate, I know, I remember that, but any gift particularly, I don't think so. I don't remember. Can you remember any gifts that you've given other people on their birthday? Uh, for me, uh, always the handwritten letters was a very huge thing. Like I would, this was the first thing I would do if anybody's birthday was coming, I would just go and write a hand letter, a handwritten letter. That was the first thing I would do. A gift, yeah, maybe I would buy something, but that was like a mandatory thing that I would do. If you could have a dream birthday in the future, what would it look like? I always wanted to, like, do a dream destination birthday. Like I want to go some place and I want to be able to like invite all my friends, and you know, like sort of take on all the expenses as well. I don't want them to pay for anything, so I want to like invite them, and they they're just there to enjoy. So that's like my dream birthday celebration. I want to go to some place, ask them to come over, so we can just have fun. Recently, a lot of my colleagues, they were talking about this app called Class Pass, and every time I would ask them, where are you guys going for yoga or this, and that. And they were like, Class Pass, I'm using Class Pass, and I'm like, okay, and what's the hype about this one, you know? And then again, suddenly, this whole thing started coming up on my for you page, on TikTok, and Instagram. I was like, is it just like, you know, my, I don't know, AI or like algorithm like, messing with me, or should I just actually look into it? So I went on Google and, you know, Instagram, and I was just looking on people who had reposted about this one. So, and they were like some super nice positive reviews, and I was shocked. I was like, or maybe it's just a marketing thing, you know, where they pay you, basically, to put on all these nice reviews. But then I was also looking for something, uh, where I can just, you know, I wouldn't have to like look for different studios every time, different places to go for yoga because I was actually thinking about going for a yoga certification. So I want to get into that routine of doing yoga. So, that's when I decided to join Class Pass. And I kid you not, it was, I think, the best decision I have ever taken. Uh, I just came back from Singapore, like, 2:00 a.m. this morning. And I did take a class for yoga in Singapore, and that was amazing. Like it was one of the best classes I've ever had. It just, and also, I mean, yoga makes me feel good anyway, but that class was like so full of energy and all those different people that I was meeting for the first time in that class, and the convenience I think that app gave me, you know, to book a class anywhere in the world, I think that's amazing if you're working as a cabin crew. So I would I think I would do that again if I am on a layover, because usually sometimes you get so lazy that you don't want to do anything. So I think that would be something that would get me out of the bed. So we've been talking about a product or service that you reviewed or looked at the reviews, and we're going to continue to talk about online reviews and customer service and things like that in part three. What kind of person do you think writes a lot of online reviews? Personally, I think somebody who is very particular or is a pessimist, I think. Uh, they want to either let the world know what happened to them or just, you know, uh, make sure that what happened to me doesn't happen to someone else. I mean, it's kind, but I don't think like you should be doing that a lot, because I see some people, they want to review everything. Like everything. You will see that one person talking about everything, and mostly, it is negative. So, yeah, those people, I think, they're not very happy with their lives. I'm sorry if I'm being so candid. Now, let's talk about customer service. Do you agree that customers are more likely to complain these days compared to the past? I believe yes, because of the platforms that are being provided, and how convenient it has become to write a review or just let them know about your opinions or feelings. I feel like it's, yes, 100%, very, very easy for people to complain. And less likely for them to say nice things about a product or a service. How important is it for companies to take these negative reviews seriously? It is very important, yes, because if you are a developing company, if you're a young company, and if you really want to grow, it is definitely very important to take in all this negative complaints and see how you can improve. But I also believe in a way, you shouldn't give all the authority to the customers to dictate how you want to run your company, because you are the CEO here, so you should know how to do it. Do you think some companies that provide reviews, such as Google, have too much power over companies? Maybe yes, like I would say it's a 50-50, because at the end of the day, a consumer is the one who decides if he wants to use that product or a service, but mainly, if you are giving somebody the first impression that it's not a very good product or service, so people are less likely to go for it, you know, if Google or all these places are the first places that they're going to go and read maybe three or four negative reviews, that's when they decide they're not going to go for this one. So I feel like it's a 50-50. So I'm going to give you some feedback on part one, part two and part three, and then we're going to talk about your scores and give you feedback and how how you could improve. So, I really liked the way that you addressed, um, part one in a very informal way. You're using lots of idiomatic language and lots of informal language and things like saying, you know, I'm always on on my toes and I'm not a foodie and you know, and it it was like talking to a native English speaker. A lot of people think that you get a higher score for using really academic formal language, that's actually not the case. You you would get higher marks for using more informal language, like you did, um, because it's actually more difficult. Anyone can learn a list of academic phrases, it's very, very difficult to learn those idiomatic phrases, like, like these. Sometimes it just gets to you. Okay, and what's the hype about this one? I kid you not. Those type of phrases are only really used by native English speakers, and therefore they're more difficult for a learner to access, and normally the last thing a learner will will learn, um, before reaching, you know, not native speaker level, but a very, very high level of English, and you do that in most of your answers, which is really, really good. You also did it in part two, and I also liked the way you speak with emotion, you're very enthusiastic, and that can help you with pronunciation, believe it or not. Because pronunciation, you divide it into two. The first part of pronunciation, which is the most important, which is, can I understand what you're saying? I can understand every single word. So you're from Pakistan, so you have an accent, but there's no, nothing wrong with that. I think it's much better to speak in your own accent clearly, than to try and sound English or American, it just sounds weird, and and it yeah, it it can sound a lot worse. Um, but the second part of pronunciation is what we would call higher-level pronunciation features. Part of that is intonation. Intonation means when your voice goes up and your voice goes down. We use intonation to signal how we feel, and we use intonation to signal meaning. So, for example, when you came in late today, um, if I said, Hey, come on, come on in, sit down. My voice is going up. But imagine I say the exact same words, hey, come in, sit down. So the words are exactly the same, but do I feel different? One is I'm happy. Don't worry, it's difficult to get parking here. The other one is I'm annoyed. So exactly the same words, but completely different meaning depending on the tone. But one way that we help students, um, with their intonation, with their voice naturally going up, is to be be more enthusiastic. Um, because if we are bored and we are serious, we will speak in a very monotone, flat way. But if it's hey, how are you doing? I'm very excited to talk about this. And you do that so naturally, like we didn't tell you to do that, that's just who you are as a person. Um, you seem like a very bubbly, happy person. Many people will watching will say like, how can I do that? You know, I'm I'm under a lot of pressure, I'm very stressed, I need a high score. The more preparation you do, the more confidence that you can have, the more you can be yourself. And and people watching even if it's a very, you know, we were asking you about online reviews, not the most exciting, um, topic in the world that that to talk about, but you did do that. You know, you were talking more enthusiastically about that. So I was very, very impressed with that. Part three, again, also, also good. I mean, it's difficult to talk about those topics. I was throwing more difficult topics at you. Um, one way that you could, um, possibly develop your answers a little bit more would be to go a little bit deeper on the examples. So you were saying, well, there's all these platforms that do reviews. So maybe pick one of them. That could be Google, that could be Facebook, that could be Trustpilot or, or whatever it is. If you can't think of them, like don't, but it just makes it easier for you to to discuss that and talk about that a little bit more detail. But you you did that a lot, like you were talking about Class Pass, you were talking about Singapore, and the yoga, like you were going into a lot of detail and showing examples naturally. It's just if you got stuck. So sometimes they will, especially at your level, if they think you might be like a band eight, band nine, in part three, they will throw really difficult topics at you. Because they want to test you and they want to stretch you. Like, is can this, is this person a band eight or about 8.5 or about nine? They won't throw easy stuff at you, they'll throw more difficult stuff at you because you're capable of doing that. So if that happens, always give an answer, and one easy way to develop your answer is to go deep. Excuse me, on those examples. Okay? So to give you feedback on the marking criteria, your fluency is excellent. The you can speak, you know, naturally without pausing, without hesitation. The only times when you do pause or you do hesitate is when you're thinking of an idea. You're never pausing and hesitating because you're searching for the right word or the right grammar, or you don't know how to say it in English. It's always just thinking of of, uh, the the content rather than the the language, if that makes sense. So no problems with fluency at all. Um, I haven't tested you too much on really difficult topics, but I think you you would be fine. Your pronunciation is very, very impressive, crystal clear, and you're using those higher-level pronunciation features like intonation. You also use a lot of things like connected speech, for example, you don't say, I went to a yoga class in Singapore. I went to a yoga class in Singapore. Like you're linking sounds and words together very, very well like a native English speaker would. It's very, very impressive. Your grammar and your vocabulary is also very good. Your vocabulary, you have a wide range of of vocabulary. I love how how much idiomatic language you're using. Sometimes you will use it a little bit inaccurately, but it's tiny little slips. Like you were saying, I'm on the toes rather than on my feet. So a native English speaker would say like, I'm on my feet all day, not on the toes. So on your toes means that like something is about to happen, and you're not So, but it was a tiny slip out of many, many other correct usages of idiomatic language.
[17:00]And we'll put some on the screen here. Your grammar as well, you have a very wide-ranging, uh, grammar, and you can use like any tense, any, any grammar structure. Again, kind of similar to the on on the toes. You do make tiny little, um, errors, but they're they're what we would call slips. So it's I make slips, and I'm a native English speaker, and I teach English for a living. Everybody makes little grammatical slips from time to time. So some, for example, I think that you made a little article mistake from time to time, um, but it's not like every time you need to use articles, like the A and you make that mistake. I do not believe this would be classified as a "systematic error." That would require errors almost every time an article is used. It's like once in 15 minutes, you will make that tiny little mistake, very similar to how a native English speaker would make those kind of mistakes. That's why in the marking criteria for Band 9, the top band for grammar, it actually says they only make minor slips very, very infrequently, and that's what you do. So overall, I can't give you a huge amount of negative feedback because you did very, very well. And what I've done for you guys is I've analyzed hundreds of Band 9 transcripts from our successful VIP students, and I've put the 100 most used words into a PDF for you. If you want that, go to the description or the pinned comment, and you can download it for free. If you want to see another very high-level student, you can click here, or if you want more help with speaking, you can click here.
