IELTS Speaking for Success - 🧘 Concentration (S09E13) + Transcript

Episode Date: August 6, 2023

Are you a focused person? What do you do to improve your concentration? How do you stay focused? When is it hard for you to concentrate? What may distract you? Tune in and have a great day! - Download ELSA Speak for free and get 7 days of pro membership for free: https://bit.ly/ELSAxIELTSSPEAKINGFORSUCCESS Get 40% off of one-year membership or 85% off of lifetime membership: https://elsaspeak.com/inf/IELTSSpeakingForSuccess/  Get exclusive episodes on IELTS Speaking parts 1, 2, and 3: https://linktr.ee/sfspremium Transcript: https://successwithielts.com/s09e13 Our social media: https://linktr.ee/successwithielts © 2023 Success with IELTS Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Lots of people think that to get a high score in Iod speaking, they need to be a native speaker and have a perfect accent. But that's not true. Exactly. Your accent is not important, but your pronunciation is. Is it clear what you're saying? Can they examine or understand you? Or do you stumble with words like bed and bad? Or live and leave?

We've partnered with an app called Elsa Speak, which focuses on helping people improve their pronunciation. Using artificial intelligence, Elsa speaks pinpoints your unique pronunciation errors and provides personalized real-time feedback. You hear a nice little if you did a good job and a helpful when you need to work a little bit harder. At the moment, there are over 7,100 lessons that are organized into the 22 key skills needed to master English pronunciation, but new lessons are added regularly.

And even better, there are study sets for different, ialt speaking topics. Yes, the app is completely free to download and is available on iPhone and Android. In the description of this episode, you will find two Elsa Speak links. One of them lets you download the app and get a seven-day pro membership for free, and the other link gives you an exclusive 85% discount for the lifetime membership. Download Elsa Speak using the links in the description. We're sure you'll find it really useful. Now let's dive into this week. episode. Hello, Sunshine. I'm Maria.

And my name is Rory, and we're the host of the IELD Speaking for Success podcast. The podcast aims to help you improve your speaking skills as well as your listening skills along the way. We've started this podcast to give you gorgeous grammar, fabulous vocabulary for your high IELD school. Our band 9th score. Rory! Come on, Rory.

Sorry, I wasn't paying it. attention. We're going to talk about concentration, Rory. Oh. What are coincidence. Concentration, dear listener, again, it's a comeback. We used to have concentration as a topic in IOT speaking part one, and now it's a comeback. AILD people do recycle these topics.

Maybe they don't have crazy topics, and they're sitting there, ILD people thinking, hmm, what topic should be put in ILD speaking, plant? jeans, tigers, owls, hmm, chairs, no, no, no, let's, let's concentration, let's just, have we talked about concentration before? You can tell I wasn't concentrating on the topic. Are you joking? We haven't talked about it before, have we?

Oh, dear, listen, this Rory. He's the host of the podcast, he doesn't remember any topics. Ah, yeah, yeah, these educated native speakers, out of control. It's because I'm busy doing Delta, and I'm, can't remember things that are not related to language. Speaking of language, you probably heard the ad in the beginning of this episode for an app called Elsa Speak, which helps you improve your pronunciation. Check out the link in the description to download it.

This is the easiest way for you to support us. It will take you only five minutes, but it will help us immensely. Thank you very much. Now, on with the episode. Let's talk about concentration. Are you a focused person? Oh, probably not as much as I would like to be. I mean, while I can get things done, my attention often wanders a lot in the process.

So, for example, when I have to do assignments for the course I'm on right now, I start off strong and then my attention drifts, and I wind up looking at my phone or something like that. What do you do to improve your concentration? Not much, to be honest. I should probably be more proactive in terms of taking action. But some things I do when I really have to, to concentrate, that is. are turning off my notifications or even just my whole phone if there's a lot of work I need to get done. How do you stay focused?

Other than what I just said, I suppose I remind myself of how much better things will be once I have my task out of the road. Like, in the case of the assignments, for example, I think about, oh, when it's done, then I can do something fun like read or play computer games. when is it hard for you to concentrate Oh when people are blithering away to me And I'm clearly trying to do something like reading a book I can't stand it when someone comes up to me and asks What are you reading and I have to say well Nothing now that you're talking to me

It's really annoying So when people distract me is the big thing What else may distract you Other than other people I think phones are a pretty big attention in time sync, regardless of what you're doing on them, or just intrusive or random thoughts, and of course the obvious things like sudden noises or unexpected events, and all of them can draw your attention away from things. Thank you, Rory, for your focused answers.

I hope everybody was concentrating on them. DeLisner, we do have our premium episodes for you, speaking part two and three. This week, in our premium episodes, Rory is describing his daily routine that he enjoys, and in speaking part three, we are talking about daily routine in general. Do check them out, the link is in the description, okay? And also we have our phrase of up course. The link is also in the description. Yeah, dear listen.

So we say to be concentrated on something, to concentrate or focus on something, to be a focused person, right? What other synonyms can we have? I'm focused, I'm very focused. That's it, paying attention to something. Yeah, pay attention to something. While I can get things done, so get things done. So do things, you can say while I do something, or you can say while I get things done.

My attention often wonders. meaning your attention is somewhere else. You're not focusing on what you should be. Yeah. So what's the pronunciation is I called? Wanda, wonder, wonder. Wander? Well, I say wonder.

Wander. Yeah, wonders. Kind of like walks away. Yeah? So your attention is somewhere else. And also a synonym is my attention drifts. Could you give us another example with drifts? Like, drifts like walks away from the thing I should.

be focusing on. If someone is talking to me without saying anything interesting, my attention tends to drift or my mind drifts or my attention wanders. My attention wonders. My mind tends to drift or wanders away from my work, right? And when I want to get things done, I could wind up looking at my phone, wind up doing something or end up doing something. And you know how it's done, dear listener.

yeah, you start doing something and then kind of you look at your phone and you end up writing texts or you end up browsing through your Instagram account. So wind up doing or end up doing something are really nice phrase or verbs for you here. I should be more proactive in terms of taking action. So to be proactive, not to be passive, but to be active. Yeah? To think in advance and be ready to. deal with things.

Yeah, like take a proactive role. So take action. Yeah? Change something. But Rory is not so proactive in terms of improving his concentration. Hmm? I'm not. I could be more, but I'm not.

I turn off my notifications. So on your phone, you have notifications, which pop up all the time, yeah? So turn off my notifications when I need to get some work done. You see, I need to get it done. Or there's a lot of work I need to get done. Real nice phrases. So to get things done, I've got a lot of work to do or there's a lot of work I need to get done. Rory reminds himself of something.

So you can remind yourself of something or like to do something or like I should remind myself to turn off notifications. Well, I could do that, or I could remember it in the moment. But grammar-wise, is it correct? Like, remind myself to turn them off. Yeah, remind yourself to do something. I have my task out of the road. Hmm.

But that just means it's done, or it's no longer a problem. Is it an idiom? Getting something out of the road? Oh, absolutely. Yeah, because we are talking not about the road when you drive, but kind of to get it done. Could you give us another example with this? What, for talking about concentration?

Oh yeah, for example, or just work, studies. Yeah, when I'm working, I like to get all of my jobs out of the road in one go. So it could be hard to concentrate when people are doing what, blithering away. But that just means they're talking away about nothing in particular, or nothing interesting. Yeah. So blizzard, de listener, is informal,

and it's mainly used in the UK. So it's British English. So blizzard away, to talk about something not really interesting. So, oh, he's always blithering about his dog. He's like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You can also say, bleather, blazer away. Blither or beleather.

Or witter. You're whitering away about, Nothing. Yeah. High level verbs for you. So when people are blizzard away to me, I am distracted or I get distracted. So when people are blizzard away to me and I'm clearly trying to do something, I get distracted. I hate it or I can't stand it when.

So this is like a chunk of language, a chunk of a fixed structure or a phrase. I can't stand it when when someone comes up to me and asks, oh, what are you reading? Is it a good book? What's your name? Yeah, so can you imagine Roy is reading? And you come up to him and says,

oh, Rory, what are you reading? Well, are this guy from the podcast? Well, that doesn't usually happen when I'm trying to read. That usually happens when I'm on the train, so that's not a big deal. Yeah, Rory's famous. Goes on trains and he gets recognized everywhere.

Oh, Rory, could you sign? Only in Turkey so far. Oh, cute. I should get Turkey. Will I get recognized, do you think? Oh, probably. But what if we're just walking there together? Roy, do you think people recognize us?

Just in the middle of Istanbul? I think they might. Really? Yeah. Yeah, so I can't stand it when people are making loud noises. I can't stand it when children are running. all around me, so I can't stand it when something happens. And this distracts me, or I get distracted by this.

And talking about distractions, we can say that phones are pretty big attention sync. So phones are time sync and attention sync. Time sync, right. It just means that you invest a lot of time and attention in them. And it doesn't go anywhere, it's just you're looking at it in that cell. Yeah, could you give us another example? What else could be distracting? Video games.

Video games are a huge time sync and attention sync, and you don't really get anything out of it. So it's a bit negative, so something that's like, a waste your time, usually an activity. It requires a significant amount of your time, so you just waste it. Like, Instagram is a pretty big attention, and time sync.

And then the phrase is regardless of something. A very good phrase, you can use it in IEL's essays, regardless of what you are doing. So regardless of your age, of your nationality, Instagram does distract us. What else distract us? Intrusive random thoughts. So if something is intrusive,

it's where it shouldn't be. It kind of, it annoys you. you, kind of makes you uncomfortable, like intrusive thoughts. You know, all these thoughts, you kind of feel like, come on, stop it. So, like intrusive questioning, for example, or too many questions, uncomfortable questions, intrusive lighting, like lights, maybe like are too bright, intrusive thoughts, random thoughts, kind of some crazy thoughts in your head. They're quite distracting, well, they distract you from something. Also, sudden noise. or loud noises, unexpected events, yeah.

And these things can draw your attention away from things. So you can say loud noises, draw my attention away from things. But that's just the same as losing focus. Yeah, sometimes I lose focus because of sudden noises or loud noises. Or it's really distracting. Or their noises, yeah, are really distracting. So you don't listen to music when you study your work? Well, I started to and then I stopped for some reason.

I should probably go back to that. There's a lo-fi pop or rap music that's pretty good for that kind of thing. So, dear listener, hopefully you were really focused on the vocabulary and grammar and our topic. You can also listen to our other episodes about concentration, just like browse through the history and find concentration topic, and again just out people recycle these topics so it's a comeback. Rory, you wanted to say something? Oh, I was just going to say, if you weren't paying attention,

then you can get access to the transcripts of the episode, probably using one of the links in the description below. So Rory, no jokes about concentration, nothing, like no fun, no ha-ha, Maria stop all these jokes, no? Just dull and boring now, right? What is? Our episodes, no jokes. Oh.

Sometimes we have to be serious. And what better time to be serious than when we're talking about concentration? Yeah, dear listener, so this time we were too focused on, you know, explaining things. We'll try and be more ironic and hilarious when we're back next time. Bye. Bye. Are you a focused person? Oh, probably not as much as I would like to be.

I mean, well, I can get things done. My attention often wanders a lot in the process. So, for example, when I have to do assignments, for the course I'm on right now. I start off strong and then my attention drifts and I wind up looking at my phone or something like that. What do you do to improve your concentration? Not much, to be honest.

I should probably be more proactive in terms of taking action. But some things I do when I really have to, to concentrate, that is, are turning off my notifications or even just my whole phone if there's a lot of work I need to get done. How do you stay focused? other than what I just said, I suppose I remind myself of how much better things will be once I have my task out of the road. Like, in the case of the assignments, for example, I think about, oh, when it's done, then I can do something fun like read or play computer games. When is it hard for you to concentrate?

Oh, when people are blithering away to me and I'm clearly trying to do something like reading a book, I can't stand it when someone comes up to me and asks, what are you reading? And I have to say, well, nothing now that you're talking to me, it's really annoying. So when people distract me is the big thing. What else may distract you? Other than other people. I think phones are a pretty big attention and time sync, regardless of what you're doing on them. Or just intrusive or random thoughts.

And of course the obvious things like sudden noises or unexpected events, and all of them can draw your attention away from things.