IELTS Speaking for Success - 💃 Dancing (S05E05) + Transcript

Episode Date: December 22, 2020

Why do you think some or many people like dancing? Tell me about any traditional dancing in your country. Do you think traditional dancing will be popular in the future? Tune in and have a great day!  -  IELTS Speaking for Success PREMIUM: https://linktr.ee/sfspremium  Find an IELTS Speaking Partner: https://links.successwithielts.com/ieltspartner Transcript: https://successwithielts.com/s05e05 Our social media: https://linktr.ee/successwithielts © 2020 Success with IELTS Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, lovely. I'm Maria. And my name is Rory, and we are the host of the AIL Speaking for Success Podcast. Podcast themes to help you improve your speaking skills, as well as your listening skills along the way. We started this podcast because you want you to use high-level words and gorgeous grammar in your AILD speaking and in your English life. Now, Vanya is crawling on the floor right here, right now. We're not just laughing for no reason. Our producer is currently crawling around the floor. You can't see it on camera, but we can, and it's rather amusing. He thought he was being subtle as well

Such a joy Yeah Anyway Maria What brings joy to your life Well Vanya our producer Crawling on the floor brings a lot of joy to my life

And dancing Really? Oh cool Should we talk about dancing? Let's talk about dancing Rory Squatish dancing Rory

Do you enjoy dancing In my own limited way Yes actually So whenever I listen to music in the gym or the metro, I usually tap my feet and sort of bounce along to it. But I'm not a great fan of dancing wildly at clubs or doing the tango, for example. It's, first of all, it takes too much coordination and I'm really clumsy. It's like I have two left feet or something.

So it's not something that I do to a great extent, I suppose. When was the last time you danced? Probably ironically in the club, actually. I can't remember. I hardly ever danced these days. well, not when I'm sober at least. I think I went on a date once, actually, and we danced doing that.

That was quite nice. It was a little bit awkward, because, of course, I can't dance, but it was nice. I've not done anything like that before. Has anyone ever taught you how to dance? Many have tried, but all of them have failed. You'd have more luck, probably teaching me advanced physics, I think.

I think some people have this natural rhythm, but I just don't. So it's, if you like, sort of specific and tasks, then why not try? Why do you think some or many people

like dancing? Lots of reasons. It's a good way to exercise and it's like a mode of self-expression. People use it to attract people they're interested in. Although, admittedly,

I can't remember finding anyone enticing based solely on their dance skills alone, although it's possibly because I don't share that trait. What kind of dancing do people in your country like?

Well, I don't think there's a limit. I suppose in clubs there's like the usual tunes that people dance along to in their own way. But I think people dance to anything, don't they? Tell me about any traditional dancing in your country. Oh God, Highland dancing. Okay, I should explain. For people who don't know about this, first of all, Google it. It's fun.

And try. But Highland dancing is like folk or traditional dancing. Well, like how it is everywhere. terms of the complexity and coordination. I think it's quite well known, relatively. They force us to do it at school, which creates a great deal of resentment, though it does come in handy at weddings and other events if you can recall it well enough after a little refresher. Do you think traditional dancing will be popular in the future? I certainly hope so. I like the idea of future generations enjoying it. I just hope there's a way of teaching it that's less

forceful and more fun than the way we do it at school. So if any Scottish high school teachers are listening or watching. Could you, could you try and find a way of making it more fun for students, please? I would appreciate that, I think. My past self would. Rory, thank you so much. It's okay? Hopefully, we led our listeners on a merry dance. Rory, you need to show us some dancing, some traditional Scottish Highland dancing moves. I would sooner jump first and face first into a volcano. Maybe, maybe on Instagram, like we could do an Instagram story about it sometimes. Yes, you should put your kilt on and do some Highland dancing moves. I have it with me.

Do you want to see? Your kilt? Yeah. Oh my gosh. Don't have a little. Yes, absolutely. Oh, wow. This is a legendary moment.

Rory is taking out his kilt. We're not going to talk about underwear and kiltz and Scottish people wearing or not wearing underwear. So for like, I won't put it on, but I will show people because I was wearing it at a party this week. So here it is, here's my kilt. It's handmade. It is handmade, yeah, cost of fortune. Tata. I absolutely love my Tartan kilt, and I recommend that everybody get one.

So here's what it looks like. Beautiful. If you go to my Instagram, there's a video of my colleague and I, John, playing billiards, which some people watched live the other night, and you can see it in its full glory there. So check it out, I think it's a good idea. Yeah, you look really handsome and gorgeous in that tartan's. Only in the kilt, like not in normal life. I need some torn jeans.

No, but the killed, yes, this is the thing, the real thing. Okay, when we talk about dancing, so you can say dancing or dancing. We say dancing, because we are for British English, right? We do? Do I say dancing? Dancing. Dancing? Dancing.

Dancing, yeah. Yeah. Cool. But you can say, like, dancing, dancing, doesn't matter. No one cares, yeah. Yeah. It's clear. Okay, so we say go dancing, or you can say take dancing lessons.

Right? When we talk about different kinds of dancing, we can say hip-hop belly dancing. Belly, you kind of dance with your belly. Do you? Can you? No, I can do belly dancing. I can do tango. I dance tango. But again, different types of dancing, right? For Russian listeners, you can say ballet. It's not ballet. It's ballet. Or maybe it's easier to say the tango. The tango, yes. The Argentinian tango.

I can't. Like, you do that, though. don't you? Yeah, yeah, I've been doing it for quite a while. That's cool. I wish I could dance. It must be, it's a super cool thing. Like, I've seen you, I'm on Instagram doing it. It looks nice. Then you can mention like Flamenco, Salsa, stupid dancing is also dancing. Wild dancing. Wild dancing. And Roy, you've said that I'm good at wild dancing.

It's pretty much like stupid dancing in a club. But also some questions could be about like folk dancing or traditional dancing. Yes. And make sure that you do know some folk. dancing. Well, or at least try. I mean, not every, does, does every country have a traditional dance? Yes. I know that Russian does. And also like, the, the girls do like, ta, ta, ta, la la, la, like this. Do they? Yeah, yeah, yeah, we do have some traditional dancing. But in, for Russian learners, you can mention ballet. Yeah. Or if you don't know, then you could say my country doesn't have a

tradition of dancing. And then at least you've used some high level vocabulary. Yeah, and then you can say many people are into hip-hop, into salsa, flamenco, and then bachata. So, yeah. Rory, you've said that you tap your feet and bounce along to the music. Yeah, if anyone sees me on the metro with my earphones in, then they'll understand, like, I'm sort of just like doing this, bouncing from side to side and tapping my feet. Like, that's the closest you'll probably see me to doing full dancing. If you're not into dancing, you can say, I'm not a great fan of dancing, it's okay. Or if you can't dance, then you could say, I have two left feet, which is an idiomatic expression for, I can't dance.

So pretty much like, I have two left feet. Yeah, I'm clumsy. Well, in my case, it's like, I have no feet because I just fall around. Like, it's not attractive. Some people look really good when they're dancing, and I just look like a dumpster fire. You look great when you're doing it. Rory has never seen me tangoing, but he has seen pictures on Instagram of you doing it. You're good when you're doing. Yeah, I need to upload the video. Okay, you can also say that I'm a bit awkward when I'm dancing.

Awkward, again, it's like, you can dance wildly or dance awkwardly. Yeah, awkwardly. And for a great example of that, just watch me on the metro. Some people just have this natural rhythm. Yes. So you have a natural rhythm. It's like your body just naturally follows the. beat of the music. I do not have this. I have a natural, I don't know, disharmony. Charisma.

You have a natural Scottish charisma. Does that make up for being a terrible dancer? No, I don't know. No, I'm pretty sure that you are very good at wild dancing and stupid dancing. Are you sure about that? I don't know. I just feel, I feel your dancing vibes, Rory. Okay. Yeah. Um, dancing could be a good way to exercise. It is a good way to exercise. So you can stay So you can stay in shape? In shape. And it's a mode of self-expression, you said. Yeah, so it's like a, it's just saying it's a way of expressing yourself.

But instead of saying a way, you say a mode, which is a higher level piece of, well, vocabulary is part of an edymatic expression. Dancing is also the language of the soul. Did you know that? It is. It is. Oh, I thought music was the language of the soul. Dancing is the language of the soul. Okay, I've been corrected. You can talk about your dancing skills.

Or your lack of dancing skills in my case. You can say, like, I'm an excellent dancer, I'm not a great dancer, I'm a professional dancer, I'm a brilliant dancer, or you can say, I'm not a brilliant dancer, you know. We also said, oh, actually, can we talk about grammar for a second? Yes, let's talk about grammar, dancing grammar. Yes, in particular, and most people, well, some people might have noticed this in our other episodes, I use question tags. Can we talk about question tags? So a question tag. Now, this is where I do grammar. So if I don't explain it well, Maria's going to yell at me. So a question tag is where if you have a positive part of, if your first part of your sentence is positive, then the ending will be a negative question. So it's like saying, you're good at dancing, aren't you? And then that's, first of all, it's good for grammar structures. It's quite an advanced grammar structure actually. And the second thing is it gives you a chance to express your ability. to use pronunciation flexibly as well.

So you can have go upward intonation like aren't you or downward intonation, aren't you? Like upward for if you're asked the question, but down for you already know the answer. And that's quite important, I think, to show in an IL speaking example. Yeah, because pronunciation is one of the criteria, so you should show the variety.

Yes, and that is one easy way to do it. Yeah. And where did you use this tech question? I can't remember. I use it all the time, though. Okay, let's give an example. For example, do you enjoy dancing? Well, it would be like, you enjoy dancing, don't you?

Or I could say, like, everybody enjoys dancing, don't they? Yeah, exactly, yeah. So everybody enjoys dancing, don't they? And it's interesting that everybody is they. Yeah, because we're not sure. Like, he, she, that's what they. Most people just say they. Some people really do.

They stop themselves to say he or she, and it's like really awkward. even though it is grammatically correct, I think. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So is dancing popular in your country? And you go like, whoa, everyone enjoys dancing, don't they? Yeah. Oh, and you said, I think I said it for, you said you talked about traditional dancing.

And I was like, well, most countries have traditional dances, don't they? Beautiful. Band 9. Yeah. Yeah. Or at least on our way to Band 9. Please don't think that just using question tags will get you band 9 for pronunciation. Yeah, you should use them naturally.

Mm-hmm. But not always. Not always. But you can see lots of examples in the recent episodes. I did it on purpose. but it's the first time we talked about it explicitly. So you can go back and check how they're used. Yeah, absolutely.

Was my grammar explanation good? Rory, it was fabulous. Oh, but you do grammar a lot better than I do. Yes, I do. That's true. But you did very well. I'm proud of you. I'm proud of you. That's my boy.

We mentioned that you can create a great deal of resentment if you're being forced to learn her to dance. So that's quite a good collocation as well to create resentment and a great deal of it. Yeah, and resentment. What is it? You feel unhappy. It's not like anger or hatred, but it's, you still, it's like, I don't like this thing. But instead of saying I don't like it, like I resent it, or I'm resentful or I have resentment about this kind of thing. But the word is pretty strong.

You stress it, for sure, yeah. But I think we can bring our merry dance to a close, can't we? Yes, and I have a beautiful quote from Albert Einstein himself. We dance for laughter. we dance for tears we dance for madness we dance for fears we dance for hopes we dance for screams

we are the dancers we create the dreams I think that's a good note to end on isn't it that's beautiful bye Rory do you enjoy dancing in my own limited way yes actually

so whenever I listen to music in the gym or the metro I usually tap my feet and sort of bounce along to it but I'm not a great fan of dancing wildly at clubs or doing the tango, for example. It's, first of all, it takes too much coordination and I'm really clumsy. It's like I have two left feet or something. So it's not something that I do to a great extent, I suppose. When was the last time you danced? Probably

ironically, in the club, actually. I can't remember. I hardly ever dance these days. Well, not when I'm sober, at least. I think I went on a date once, actually. And we danced doing that. That was quite nice. It was a little bit awkward because, of course, I can't dance. But it was nice. I've not done anything like that before. Has anyone ever taught you how to dance?

Many have tried, but all of them have failed. You'd have more luck probably teaching me advanced physics, I think. I think some people have this natural rhythm, but I just don't. So if you like sort of specific in tasks, then why not try? Why do you think some or many people like dancing? Ah, lots of reasons. It's a good way to exercise, and it's like a mode of self-expression. People use it to attract people they're interested in. Although, admittedly, I can't remember finding anyone enticing based solely on their dance skills alone,

although it's possibly because I don't share that trait. What kind of dancing do people in your country like? Well, I don't think there's a limit. I suppose in clubs there's like the usual tunes that people dance along to in their own way, but I think people dance to anything, don't they? Tell me about any traditional dancing in your country. Oh God, Highland dancing. Okay, I should explain.

For people who don't know about this, first of all, Google it. It's fun and try. But Highland dancing is like folk or traditional dancing, well, like how it is everywhere, in terms of the complexity and coordination. I think it's quite well known, relatively. They force us to do it at school, which creates a great deal of resentment, though it does come in handy at weddings and other events, if you can recall it well enough after a little refresher.

Do you think traditional dancing will be popular in the future? I certainly hope so. I like the idea of future generations enjoying it. I just hope there's a way of teaching it that's less forceful and more fun than the way we do it at school. So if any Scottish high school teachers are listening or watching, Could you try and find a way of making it more fun for students, please? I would appreciate that, I think. My past self would.