IELTS Speaking for Success - 🤾‍♀️ Watching Sports (Part 1) + Transcript

Episode Date: August 5, 2026

Get access to our episode archive: https://successwithielts.com/ Rory absolutely hates watching games, but his answers are still Band 9! Discover how to ace topics you find boring, learn idioms like 'bored to tears', and find out why Maria is talking about cheese rolling. 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

This episode is brought to you by Accenture. When your advertising operations fall out of sync, everything else follows. Spotify and Accenture are working together to reinvent the rhythm of ad sales, using automation, analytics, and smarter workflows to simplify campaign delivery and access better data across the business. The result? Less time spent on operations, more time connecting brands with the moments and fandoms that matter most. Learn more at Accenture.com slash Spotify. Hello, Sunshine. I'm Maria.

And I am Scotland's Minister for AILD scores, Rory Fergus Duncan. And we are the hosts of the AILD Speaking for Success podcast. The podcast dreams 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 and super vocabulary for your high AILD score. Your bad nine score. Oh, Rory, you are what now? Scottish word?

I'm Scotland's Minister for AILD. scores. Minister for IELTS scores. We have a minister for everything these days. We might as well have one for IELD scores. It's me. So Rory is an IELTS minister. Ministers are in the government, right, dear listener.

But we don't have any IELTS ministers. It's a joke. Ha, ha, ha. And Rory calls himself an IOTS minister. So in the next episode, he will call himself an IOT's president. I should, but I'm not actually going to do that. Yeah, just like a minister now, okay, not present. Okay, I'm going to be an IEL's president.

President of IELT. What about football? Lori, have you been watching the World Cup? What a great segue. No, sorry, no, I've not. I'm not really into sports programs. Hmm. Shall we talk about...

Not football, dear listener. Sports programs, sports games. Do you like to watch live sports games? I don't like watching sports, whether they're live or recorded. I've never been able to get into watching them, regardless of whatever sports on. I just don't really have any connection with that sort of thing. Have you ever watched a sports game in a stadium? I did, yeah. About 25 years ago now, a bunch of us went to see Scotland versus Croatia for a World Cup qualified.

It must have been in, I think, 1998 or something like that. Anyway, it was a long time ago, and I was bored to tears about the whole thing. Who do you like to watch sports games with? I wouldn't put anyone through that if I didn't have to. But if I were to watch them, then it would be with my best friend. At least if we were together, we could crack a few jokes and have a laugh about how dull and incomprehensible it all is. What kinds of games will you watch in the future? I don't plan to watch any at all, really.

I can't imagine anything I'd rather not do with my time. I suppose I might swing by to watch the World Cup final if it's on when I'm working, but only to stay abreast of events that my students might talk about. It wouldn't be to watch the match out of enjoyment. 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. You see, the listener, Rory isn't into sports. He doesn't like watching live sports games. He's just, you know, but it's okay. So he answers the questions. He explains why. So that's absolutely fine.

It's okay about other topics as well. The examiner can ask you questions about watches, headphones, but if you don't like them, okay, fine. About flowers, if you hate flowers. So, you know, this is the strategy. Just to answer the question, say why you are not into it. Okay. First of all, sports programs. Rory, do we say sport programs?

Do we say sports programs? It could be sport programs, but most people say sports programs. Sports, right? Yeah. Yeah, because like different kinds of sports. Sports, yeah, different games, like tennis, football, rugby, cricket, swimming, what else, baseball, basketball, volleyball. I love how you ask me as if I know. But whatever they are, then that will be what we watch.

But let's imagine that you are someone who does watch sports games, then you should probably know what they are called, like, a football match, a rugby match, a game of tennis, I suppose. What else are there? Yeah, we call them sports games, sports programs, and we watch live sports games. Like you go to the stadium, you're a football fan, you go to see a match, you go to the stadium, you put on some nice clothes, you're with your beer or your popcorn or whatever, a hot dog. So you go there to see a lot. life game. Life. Okay, live game. You can say I'm, I don't like watching sports, whether it is live or recorded. I prefer to watch a recorded game or sports, right? Or I enjoy a

life show, a life game. So I don't really have any connection with that, with that sort of thing, right? Because it's rubbish and it's boring. Sorry. Yeah, well, that's fine. If the examiner asks you about flowers, let's talk about flowers or pets, you say, ooh, I don't really have any connection with that sort of thing. I don't like flowers.

Okay. Yeah, or like fixing things. Do you enjoy fixing things? Oh, I don't really have any connection with that sort of thing. It's not my thing. Or I'm into football. I enjoy watching a match with my friends. Or I am into swimming, I'm into tennis.

I'm a big fan of it. I'm a big fan of tennis. I'm a big fan of swimming. Or the Olympic Games, for example, winter Olympic games or summer Olympic games. Or you can say the World Cup, so football. I enjoy watching the World Cup. Very often, the examiner asks a question in the present perfect. Have you ever watched?

Have you ever done? Have you ever read? Have you ever had? So you can say, yes, I have. So have you ever watched a game in a stadium? Yes, I have. It was when I was at school. Or you can answer using pass simple.

For example, have you ever watched a sports game in a stadium? I did about 25 years ago. And I went to see a football match or I went to see swimming or tennis for a chess. game, I don't know. It was a long time ago. I don't remember when it was. I was bored to tears. Rory was bored to death during a football match. So you can say, yeah, it was really dull, boring. I was bored to death. I was bored to tears. Or it was super exciting. I was excited. I watched a match during the World Cup. I was ecstatic.

I was like super happy. Could you say you were over the moon? I was over the moon, yeah. Once I went to this football match during the World Cup, I saw Brazil play, for example. I watch sports with my friends, with my family, or I watch sports alone. Or again, I'm a football fan,

and my pals and I, my buddies, my friends and I usually go to see football, to cheer for our team, like support our team. Just make sure you say to watch the football, because you don't look at football. We watch things that are moving, like watch a movie, watch a football match, but we look at things that are still like look at a painting. In the future, I don't plan to watch any games at all. Okay, fine. Or in the future, I'll watch some football games, I'll watch tennis, I'll watch Winter Olympic games, I'll watch the World Cup.

Again, they'll listen. Like, what spots do you like? You can also talk about, I don't know, karate or wrestling. Just name some interesting sports. Unusual. Like, what unusual spots do you have? Cheese rolling. I'm not sure that gets much coverage, to be honest. Okay, okay, there we go. according to brittanica.com Britannica is this

you know, Bouchish encyclopedia. Yeah, we're looking for something different. So they say Quidditch. Oh, for heaven's sake. Yeah, but it's not a sport. It's like from Harry Potter. Oh, okay.

Do people play Quidditch? I'm not giving this any airtime. I think it's just sad. Rugball, it's wrestling, basketball and rugby. All in one thing. Oh, hockey, by the way. Oh, yeah. Yeah, you could watch a hockey match.

But actually, cheese rolling is, well, according to Britannica.com, is considered a sport. Cheese rolling. It's amazing. You know, it's in Gloucester. Gloucester. It doesn't look like that, but that's how you say it. Gloaster, England. So, you know, like they have this huge cheeses, like a cheese is like bigger than a ball.

So they roll it from the mountain, from a small hill, and they catch this cheese. Yeah, just Google, cheese rolling, England. You would watch that video with your friends? I watched it with my friends. Oh, really? Did you? No, no, I'm saying this is, you could say that in the exam. I was watching cheese rolling with my friends, you know? Yeah, online, you know.

This is a game that is often very, very. funny for spectators, spectators, like, people who watch the show, and painful for participants. Because kind of, you go downhill, you chase after a round of cheese from Gloucester. Gloucester. Gloucester. It's a region in England. Yeah, so the cheese is huge, and it travels 70 miles per hour. So the cheese is pretty fast and the person who gets to the bottom first wins the cheese.

Oh my God. Right. Okay. Oh, underwater hockey. There we go. Dearly, listen. Underwater hockey. There's a totally normal sport that everyone's watched for sure.

Absolutely. You know, like in the swimming pool, they're underwater and they play hockey. Amazing. Amazing. Underwater hockey and cheese rolling. Dear Listen, now we give you Ben 9 ideas because everybody will talk about football and tennis is boring. So you say cheese rolling. In the future, I plan to watch cheese rolling with my friends, which is an interesting game from England. Yay. And then I'm going to go into underwater hockey. Love it. You see? So you've become so interesting to the examiner.

The examiner will jot down your ideas, write them down. And then after you leave, they will Google what cheese rolling is and if underwater hockey exists. Yeah. Or if you don't enjoy games, you say, I can't imagine anything I'd rather not do with my time. Which means I don't want to watch any games in the future. A nice structure. I'd rather not watch anything. I'd rather play video games.

I'd rather go out. I'd rather read a book. So I'd prefer to do it. I'd rather read a book. Not I'd rather to read. No, no, no, no. I'd rather read a book. I'd rather listen to a podcast, you know.

Or I'd rather watch football outside. Right. Thank you very much for listening. We'll get back to you in our next episode. Okay? Bye. Underwater hockey, really? I know, right?

Yeah, Britannic is nuts. This episode is brought to you by Accenture. When your advertising operations fall out of sync, everything else follows. Spotify and Accenture are working together to reinvent the rhythm of ad sales, Using automation, analytics and smarter workflows to simplify campaign delivery and access better data across the business. The result? Less time spent on operations, more time connecting brands with the moments and fandoms that matter most. Learn more at Accenture.com slash Spotify. Do you like to watch live sports games?

I don't like watching sports whether they're live or recorded. I've never been able to get into watching them, regardless of whatever sports games. sports on. I just don't really have any connection with that sort of thing. Have you ever watched a sports game in a stadium? I did, yeah. About 25 years ago now, a bunch of us went to see Scotland versus Croatia for a World Cup qualifier. It must have been in, I think, 1998 or something like that. Anyway, it was a long time ago and I was bored to tears about the whole thing. Who do you like to watch sports games with?

I wouldn't put anyone through that if I didn't have to. But if I were to watch them, then it would be with my best friend. At least if we were together, we could crack a few jokes and have a laugh about how dull and incomprehensible it all is. What kinds of games will you watch in the future? I don't plan to watch any at all, really. I can't imagine anything I'd rather not do with my time. I suppose I might swing by to watch the World Cup final if it's on when I'm working,

but only to stay abreast of events that my students might talk about. It wouldn't be to watch the match out of enjoyment.