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Uber on our way! hello hello dear listener and welcome into IELTS speaking part two.
Describe a time you made a promise to someone?
You should say what the promise was, who you made it to, whether it was easy or difficult to keep and explain why you made it.
Rory is here to give us his story.
Rory's story. Rory Off Heave Our.
Showtime. I don't usually make promises, not because I don't think I can keep them, but because life has a habit of getting in the way, and I like to hedge my bets.
However, some promises are pretty easy to keep, like the one I made to some colleagues while I was teaching in Bishkek.
I'd been staying with them for a month last year, and I was delivering a teacher training course and some lessons for them and their school and by and large it all went to plan and we were celebrating at the end of the whole thing when someone from our group asked if i would ever think about returning to the country and for me that was beyond question.
I had such a great time that i absolutely would and i promised that if i was invited back I'd be very happy to see them all again.
When it comes to who i made that promise to specifically it was the director of the school and a cohort of teachers I've been working with to deliver the course I'd designed for them.
Not only had I enjoyed the teaching but I liked to follow -up on my projects and coming back was an ideal way to do that.
It would also break the monotony of my day to day back home as well, so I saw no downsides to giving them my word on the matter.
Of course I'd have to be invited back and there would have to be a need for me being there but that be out of my hands and fairly obviously so.
Well I didn't think much of making the promise I did think it would be difficult to come back for a while given how time and resource intensive such projects are but actually in February of this year I was invited back by the school and I was able to keep my word and I was really excited to go back and see everyone there and if I hadn't made that promise I'd have still agreed to return but I don't think the emotional connection would be so strong promises tend to have that effect on people I suppose.
And do you sometimes break your promises?
I can't remember the last time I broke my broke a promise to someone so no. This episode is brought to you by State Farm.
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see you soon! Yay, thank you Rory for your story.
So dear listeners, the task is to describe a promise you made to someone.
We make promises to someone, we promise something to somebody, or we make a promise.
Then, we keep a promise, if you've done what you told people you would do, so you keep a promise.
Or if you don't do what you've told them to do, you break a promise.
Do you have a story with a promise?
If not, feel free to lie.
Imagine that ok, I've promised to go to this birthday party, but I didn't… Oops.
Accident. Sorry. A very good start is to say that you don't usually make promises.
If I make a promise, I have to keep it.
Or you can say that I don't make promises, I can't keep.
Because life has a habit of getting in the way, life is getting in the way.
Like you make a promise and then life happens, you can't keep your promise, you feel bad, the person feels bad and like what's going on?
Rory, if I say I like to hedge my bets, smells like Band -9.
It's just an idiom that means that you protect yourself by supporting more than one result.
So here I was saying that yes I'll come back if I'm invited and so if I'm not invited then it's okay but if I I'm invited then that's amazing too.
So hedge my bets to protect myself against loss by supporting more than one possible result or both sides in a competition when you avoid committing yourself, in a difficult choice.
For example, like, they hedged their bets by saying they might invite you, ok?
Oh, hello there! Chat GPT here.
Let me help Maria and Rory explain.
To hedge my bets means to protect yourself from the risk of failure by not relying on just one option or decision.
It's like having a backup plan or doing multiple things to increase your chances of success.
For example, if you're not sure which job offer will work out, you might keep talking to both companies to hedge your bets, so you're not left with nothing if one falls through.
Yeah, to avoid making a decision between two things.
I'm hedging my bets, I'm applying to two universities at the same time, for example.
Some promises are easy to keep.
And I'm gonna tell you about one promise I made to some colleagues.
So Rory made a promise to his colleagues.
Then you give context.
Oh, it's annoying just because the task takes up most of the collocations that go with promise So here it says and make a promise and keep a promise and those are usually the main ones.
So the only really obvious collocation left is break a promise or keep your word or break your word. I kept my word that's a very good synonym or I broke my promise I didn't keep my promise or I kept my word. And to give a context you can say that I was staying in Bishkek I was delivering a teacher training course or I was traveling around Europe I was staying in this hotel I was doing something and then like we talked and I made a promise I said I would okay so future in the past like we talked about it and I promised that I would do something in the future I was invited so I did it when it comes
to whom I made that promise to, I made a promise to my colleagues, who did you make it to.
So when it comes to who I made that promise to, it was my friend or my parents, the director of the school, I thought that it would be easy for me to do or I thought that it would be nice to do like future in the past. like when you were making a promise you thought that it would be something or I would feel nice or I would be happy to do it, I would be happy to help out for example to come back to the place in the imaginary future.
Yeah. Although it turned out to be a real future.
And then you can say I was able to keep my word so I kept my word I managed to keep my word I was able to keep it and the task says like a time you made a promise.
Yeah but actually if you broke that promise dear listener, you can also say like, well unfortunately life got in the way and I broke my promise, I couldn't keep my word. So that's also possible.
And then you can talk about your feelings.
I was really excited, I was pleased, people were happy.
We had this emotional connection.
Yay!! I was on top of the world.
I'm on top of world.
I'm on top of the world." Rory, what helped you to organize this answer?
Logically? Coherently?
Um well, having made a promise helped me organize the answer but I think it was important to explain the context behind it.
So, normally I don't make promises but here is one that I made at this time because and then I explained why and then I introduced the different points with when it comes to who I made the promise to, because I had to talk about to whom I made the promise and then thinking about whether it was difficult to keep and here I said I did think it would be difficult to come back but then this other thing happened.
So using emphasis with do or did here.
And then I rounded off by talking about what would happen if I hadn't made this promise or what would have happened if I hadn't made this promise.
But here it's a very minor thing, the emotional connection would not have been as strong.
But still I got in a very advanced conditional sentence before the end.
Yay. And Rory, what do people usually make promises about?
Like I made the promise to visit my friend, for example, yeah, I made a promise to come back.
Or many people promise to keep in touch with each other when someone leaves, sometimes that doesn't happen.
Yeah, true. Or when people invite you to some places, right?
So for example, I promised I'd go to the theater with you, or I promised I'd go to this party and then I know the person falls ill unfortunately and has to break the promise.
You're a Good listener.
But you choose a story that you can talk about easily and happily.
Alright? Thank you very much for listening and we'll get back to you in our new episode...
About promises for part three.
We promise we'll see you in part three.
There we go there's a promise that I kept or a plan to keep.
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Describe a time you made a promise to someone.
You should say what the promise was, who you made it to, whether it was easy or difficult to keep, and explain why you made it.
I don't usually make promises, not because I don't think I can keep them, but because life has a habit of getting in the way, and I like to hedge my bets.
However, some promises are pretty easy to keep, like the one I made to some colleagues while I was teaching in Bishkek.
I'd been staying with them for a month last year and I was delivering a teacher training course and some lessons for them in their school and by and large it all went to plan and we were celebrating at the end of the whole thing when someone from our group asked if I would ever think about returning to the country and for me that was beyond question.
I'd had such a great time that I absolutely would I promised that if I was invited back, I'd be very happy to see them all again.
When it comes to who I made that promise to specifically, it was the director of the school, and a cohort of teachers I'd been working with to deliver the course I designed for them.
Not only had I enjoyed the teaching, but I liked to follow up on my projects, and coming back was an ideal way to do that.
It would also break the monotony of my day -to -day back home as well, so I saw no downsides to giving them my word on the matter.
Of course, I'd have to be invited back, and there would have to be a need for me being there, but that would be out of my hands, and fairly obviously so.
While I didn't think much of making the promise, I did think it would be difficult to come back for a while, given how time and resource -intensive such projects are.
but actually in February of this year, I was invited back by the school and I was able to keep my word and I was really excited to go back and see everyone there.
If I hadn't made that promise, I'd have still agreed to return, but I don't think the emotional connection would have been so strong.
Promises tend to have that effect on people, I suppose.
And do you sometimes break your promises?
I can't remember the last time I broke my promise to someone, so … no.
