IELTS Speaking for Success - ⌨️ Typing (Part 1) + Transcript

Episode Date: April 27, 2026

Get access to our episode archive: https://www.patreon.com/ieltssfs Do you bang down the keys or prefer to write by hand? Rory reveals how he learned to type without any conscious effort and discusses the pros and cons of keyboards versus good old-fashioned pen and paper. Tune in and have a great day! - Book a class with Rory here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://successwithielts.com/rory⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Transcript: https://successwithielts.com/ Find an IELTS Speaking Partner: https://links.successwithielts.com/ieltspartner Our social media: https://linktr.ee/successwithielts © 2025 Podcourses Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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And I am Chief Chewing Gum tester, Rory Duncan, and we are the hosts of the AILT Speaking for Success podcast, the podcast that 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 super grammar and fabulous vocabulary for your high, IELD school. Your bad nine school. Oh, look at you. So you're a chewing gum tester now.

Yes, we've moved on. I got bored of being a professional dance instructor. He was a dancing teacher and a dancer last time. Now he's a chewing gum tester. You know chewing gum, yum, yum. And he just tests different tastes of chewing gum. But Rory is an English teacher. So he's lying.

Lying, again, lots of lying. Just out of boredom. And Rory, what's he doing now? What are you doing? What's going on? I'm just typing an email to a student. Oh, about chewing gum? Not about chewing gum.

Just about learning. Not about chewing gum. So you're a teacher now and the chewing gum test. All right, okay. A bunch of lies. Shall we talk about typing? Let me type down some good vocabulary for it. Do you prefer typing or handwriting?

I'm pretty fine with both, to be honest. though if it's a short message I can send online to someone easily enough then I just type it to get it done and dusted as soon as possible if it's a longer written piece like an essay then I like to write it by hand to organise my ideas

before making it look all nice and official when I type it up How do you improve your typing? I don't know I just got used to over time really there wasn't any conscious effort involved I do remember the first time I was able to

partially touch type and do it without banging down the keys like an old-fashioned typewriter. I was pretty pleased when that happened and I've only gotten better since. When did you learn how to type on a keyboard? We didn't really have any specific classes for that at school. It was just something I picked up over the course of my childhood. I suppose it helped having a computer at home and parents who were, well, reasonably techno-literate for the time as well. Do you type on a desktop or laptop keyboard every day?

I suppose I must do. Since I'm never far from my laptop and I'm always on it for something that requires something using keys, even if it's just playing video games. And if I'm not doing it on there, I'm definitely doing it on my phone. There's something else here now, something new. From exclusively on Paramount Plus, It's the series Stephen King calls Scary as Hell

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As you know We now release all of our premium content for free and it's available for one month. After one month, it goes into our super secret archive. To sign up for the archive, click the link in the description below. See you soon. So, do you listener, typing is when you use a laptop or your computer and you type things. You can handwrite things or you can type things.

So you can say I prefer handwriting or I prefer typing. or I use a pen or I use a keyboard. And you can say I'm fine with both. So the examiner asks you, do you prefer typing or handwriting? You can say, I'm fine with both. So both typing and handwriting are fine for me. If it's a short message, I can send it online. I can type it up.

So you type it up. But that just means you type it up or type it out. You can write something up or write it out, as well, many prepositions. If it's a longer piece, like a piece of writing, like an essay, I write it by hand.

So you say to write something by hand, using your hands to write, using a pen. You can say I prefer to write with a pen. Or I never write anything by hand, I only type. That's a good paraphrase of handwriting.

Write something by hand. You don't say write something with my hand or with hand or on hand. Oh, but you've missed something. Two things, in fact, because I type things up or I type things quickly to get them done and dusted as soon as possible. So if something is done and dusted, it's just completed and you can move on to the next thing. But we also type things to make them look nice and official, not official and nice. So these are binomials. We've talked about these before, but they're pretty good.

We don't say official and nice. We don't say dusted and done. It's done and dusted official. Or, sorry, nice and official. How do you improve your typing? How do you improve your typing? Go to a typing instructor? Like, you just improve your typing by typing.

Okay. And you can say like, oh, to improve my touch typing. Oh, yeah, you can say like, I learn touch typing. I trained myself to use the keyboard. You can say just I type regularly. I typed regularly. I took a course on typing. I used proper hand position.

So if you position your fingers, you know, in the right way. And it helps you to type faster. Okay. You can say I used some online tools, typing academy. me, or not type in.com. Is that a thing? Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's just a real thing. Yeah, so pretty much, you can say, I didn't do anything.

I just kept typing or, yeah, I learned the positions of the letters on the keyboard. I trained my fingers. So pretty much it's just training your fingers and knowing the proper position of your fingers so you can type faster. and some people they type slowly first, but then they start typing faster. Regular practice. When you bang down the keys, the keys here are buttons on the keyboard. We have a keyboard, and when you type, you kind of touch the keys of a keyboard.

So when you bang down the keys, you kind of do it with force, like bam, Bam, bam, bam. Kind of your fingers are too... Very loudly. Some people find it very annoying. I don't have a problem with it, but other people find it irritating. Yeah, but it also depends on the keyboard. You know, some keys are quite noisy.

Some people have keys or keyboards which are designed to make that noise because they find it therapeutic. Because they're nuts. I'm nuts. I'm totally nuts, yes. Because you're nuts. Hi, I'm Maria and I'm nuts. Yum, yum, yum, nuts. And I am asylum inmate Maria Bolashenko. And Rory is a chewing gum tester.

Well, at least I'm telling the truth, Rory, okay? And you are lying. Love it. I might be crazy, but at least I'm telling the truth. Exactly. Yeah, deal is now, I'm just telling you the truth. I'm a bit crazy, so, you know. I learned to type on a keyboard.

at school. We didn't have any specific classes at school, but I started using a laptop. I started using a computer. I picked up typing over the course of my childhood. So I picked it up. I learned something. I picked it up. Or you can say I picked it up from my friends. I picked it up at school. Like pick something up. Learn it. Medium power. 15 minutes. Sounds like Ojo time. Let's play.

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For Jeff, trying any salsa is like playing Russian roulette with a flamethrower. Luckily, Jeff saved with Amazon and stocked up on antacids, ginger tea, and milk. Habaniero? More like habanier, yes. Save the everyday with Amazon. It's important to point out that picking something up involves usually not conscious learning. It's something that you do while you're doing something else. For example, people talk about picking up a language or picking up bad habits.

It's something that you don't really think about to do it. Yeah, for example, like when you go to China, you may not learn Chinese, but you can if you pick up some Chinese. Yeah, you pick up some phrases. Having a computer helped me. start a sentence with ING. Having a computer, typing on a computer, help me to learn how to type fast. And I had some techno-literate friends, for example. Technoliterate, this means that people knew something about technology,

so they were in the know how to use computers a long time ago, like literate. Literate is actually a C2. Not bad for a chewing gum tester. So literate means a person who is able to read and write. But you can say computer literate. So a person who knows how to use a computer well. Tech literate. And you can say like, I was tech literate as a child or I wasn't.

No, I'm not so tech literate. But have you ever, like, do you have a person, maybe some of your friends or your parents, your family, who can't type or who types with two fingers? I mean, maybe my dad, but that's just because he doesn't do it so much. He repairs things instead. Yeah, because I think like most people can type now. Maybe somebody, like somebody from a village, like older people, but generally... These villages with no infrastructure. Yeah, like no computers, no connection. Well, well, there are many villages, you know, in the mountains, for example, in some kind of, you know, faraway places. What a privileged existence that must be. I would love that. Yeah, but mostly people are fine with typing. And at work, like, we usually type different documents.

You can say, I type lots of documents. And we say, like, I type on a keyboard. Right, the listener. I type on a keyboard. A laptop keyboard, a desktop keyboard. So, like, if you have a big computer, so a desktop keyboard. And you say, like, yeah, I usually use my desktop computer or laptop.

Can I say I usually type on my phone? You could, yes. Although that's not really related to the question here. It's talking about typing on a desktop or a laptop keyboard. However, I mentioned it just to point out that I'm doing it all the time, regardless. Yeah, kind of deal with, if you don't use your desktop or laptop, you can say, like, oh, I don't use a desktop or a laptop. I just use my phone, my smartphone.

So I usually type on my phone. When else do you type? You type on your phone, you type on a keyboard. I don't think you really use a typewriter anymore. Does anyone use a typewriter? No, I don't think so. Why? Maybe if you're a writer, but yeah, everything is like done on a computer. Right, do you listen. How fast do you type?

Like, are you a fast typer or are you a slow typeer? Like, Rory, do you type fast? Usually. I'm especially on my phone, but not on a keyboard. I suppose it's the moderate speed, just because I'm old and I need to check my work. I can touch type though, so I think that's a pretty good skill to have. But touch type means like using your phone. No, well, it could be. Touch typing means that you type without looking at the keys. Instead, you just look at what's on the screen. Yeah, you see, listen, touch type. Like, yeah, you kind of like, you don't look at the keyboard, but you're looking at what you're writing. So, like this. You can do it on your phone.

It's usually associated with a computer or maybe a typewriter if you live in the 1990s or 1980s. And now here's a joke for you to wrap it up. So, the joke is about hand writing. Listen, when you write something by hand. So the joke is, I took a handwriting test and the results came back. Doctor. Rory is explaining the joke.

Okay, so doctors have notoriously very bad handwriting. So it's difficult to read. And so if you take a handwriting test and it comes back, you're a doctor. That means that your handwriting is very untidy. Yeah, I think, listen, in every country doctors, if they, handwrite something, it's impossible to read, you know, because they usually write very fast and it's kind of just like this. So yeah, I took a handwriting test and the results came back like, you write, you are a doctor, right? Or kind of like you're right as if you were a doctor. Right, dear listener. Thank you very much for

listening and being with us. We love you, we hug you, and we'll get back to you in our new episode. Okay. Bye. Bye. Okay. When I sell my business, I want the best tax and investment advice. I want to help my kids, and I want to give back to the community. Ooh, then it's the vacation of a lifetime. I wonder if my head of office has a forever setting. An IG private wealth advisor creates the clarity you need with plans that harmonize your business,

your family, and your dreams. Get financial advice that puts you at the center. Find your advisor at IGPrivatewealth.com. Do you prefer typing or handwriting? I'm pretty fine with both, to be honest. Though if it's a short message I can send online to someone easily enough, then I just type it to get it done and dusted as soon as possible. If it's a longer written piece like an essay,

then I like to write it by hand to organize my ideas before making it look all nice and official when I type it up. How do you improve your typing? I don't know. I just got used to it over time, really. There wasn't any conscious effort involved. I do remember the first time I was able to partially touch type and do it without banging down the keys like an old-fashioned typewriter. I was pretty pleased when that happened,

and I've only gotten better since. When did you learn how to type on a keyboard? We didn't really have any specific classes for that at school. It was just something I picked up over the course of my childhood. I suppose it helped having a computer at home and parents who were, well, reasonably techno-literate for the time as well. Do you type on a desktop or laptop keyboard every day? I suppose I must do. Since I'm never far from my laptop and I'm always on it for something that requires something using keys,

even if it's just playing video games. And if I'm not doing it on there, I'm definitely doing it on my phone. phone.