FRIENDS REUNITED

Click here to do a listening exercise based on an interview to the founder of the web site "Friends Reunited".

JOB INTERVIEWS?

Listen to some excerpts from some job interviews and answer the questions.

1- What are Roxana's plans for the future?

2- Why isn't Andrea interested in working on the night shift?

3- Is Andrei satisfied with his salary?

4- Why does Cecilia want to work in José Carlos's company?

5- What does José Antonio do?

6- What kind of companies has Mr Alfonso worked for?

7- What would Krashimir like to do after working for Karina's company?

8- Why does Esperanza want to go to London?

9- Why did Alejandro decide to work for Noelia's company?

THE VOWEL SCHWA (II)

Listen to these questions. Please note how, in fast speech, the speakers pronounce many of the questions with only three syllables. The rhythm is OooO in most of them. When the rhythym is different, it is witten in brackets.

1- What do you want?

2- What does he do?

3- Where have you been?

4-Where did he go?

5- What did he do?

6- Where do they live?

7- What did he say?

8- Where will they work?

9- What did you see?

10- Where have you gone?

11- Who did we meet?

12- Where will he sit?

13- When will it end?

14- Where have you been?

15- Who has she asked?

16- What do you do? I'm a doctor.

17- Where do you live? I live in Kingston, Jamaica

18-Where do you work? I work in the University Hospital.

19- Are you married? (ooOo) Yes, I'm married. My husband is a teacher.

20- What does he teach? He teaches History and Geography.

21- Where does he teach? At the Grove Road Secondary School.

22- Where did you meet him? (OooOo) I met him when I was on holiday in Florida.

23- When did you get married? (OoooOo) We got married in 1999.

PRONUNCIATION

VIDEO 1



1- Why is pronunciation important, according to the teacher? Good pronunciation is very important for good spoken communication

2- She says it's not important to speak like a native speaker. What is then a good pronunciation for her? What is important is that you're able to speak clearly and that you don't prevent other people from understanding what you are trying to say.

3- The teacher says there are lots of different accents. What's her accent? Standard Southern British English Accent.

VIDEO 2



1- What's her first advice to those who want to improve their pronunciation? To try to learn each different sound of English.

2- Why does she think learning the symbols representing the sounds is so important? Because that way we learn the sounds.

3- How many sounds are there in English? There are more than twenty-six sounds. In fact there are over forty different sounds in English.

4- Where can you often find these symbols? You can find them in dictionaries for English learners.

5- Why are slashes / / used? They are used to show that it is the sounds which have been written and not the letters, the transcriptions are written between slashes.

6- So, what's the teacher's advice about sounds and symbols? She says that if you want to improve your English pronunciation, you should learn the different sounds and if you want to learn the different sounds you should learn the symbols.

7- What's the point in learning sounds and symbols in English? If you know the symbols and the sounds you'll be ble to use many dictionaries to find the pronunciation of any word in English and you won't even need a teacher.

VIDEO 3

1-Why is the schwa sound so important in English? It's a very natural sound for Englsih speakers. Actually, it's the most frequent sound in English.

2- In which syllables is this sound often found? In unstressed syllables.

3- Write the examples the presenter uses and underline the syllables with the / ə / sound. Camera, accuse, banana, father.

4- She says schwa can also be the pronunciation of a whole word itself. Which word is it? cuppa (for a cup of tea).

THE VOWEL SCHWA (I)

Listen to the sentences and repeat. It will help you to get used to this difficult sound.