IELTS English Podcast – Speaking Topic: Technology

Intro
Hello, everyone, I am Jack, your IELTS teacher.
And welcome back to another episode of the IELTS Plus English podcast.
We are going through a period of really fun topics for me,
this, as I told you before, this is a 40 topic curriculum.
And of course, there are good topics and bad topics, hard topics and easy topics.
But for me right now, this is a real golden period.
We did society – very interesting, sport – something I do a lot.
And today we’re doing technology, which is something I am so interested
in, and it’s the thing I love to spend my money on. You know,
some people might spend their money on clothing, on food, on experiences.
I love technology.
So looking forward to today’s topic.
Remember, I do have ten vocabulary expressions that goes with this podcast.
You can find that at www.jacks-english.com
And if you’re in Korea and you’re familiar with Naver,
you can go to my Naver Cafe Jack’s English
영국 영어, and you’ll find everything there that you’ll need
for all of the podcast episodes so far.
To start off today’s episode, I want to think about
two very interesting words which are on today’s word list
because it divides people into two groups those that are very interested
and comfortable with technology and those who are not.
Perhaps they’re scared of technology, or they just don’t like technology.
And the first group are called technophiles.
The second group are called technophobes.
I’m a technophile, a technophile.
That means that I’m really interested in technology.
Technophobe is someone who doesn’t like it, doesn’t really want to use technology.
So how about you? What are you?
Are you a technophile or a technophobe if you’re listening to the podcast?
Think about your answer.
If you are on YouTube, then let me know in the comments below.
Let’s start with some IELTS
part one questions to get me warmed up. I certainly need it.
So our first question today is:
Do you enjoy using technology?
Do you enjoy using technology?
Yes, I really enjoy using technology.
I use it in, I think, all aspects of my life.
Whether it’s work, I’m using my laptop, my phone
equipment for my podcast or sports.
I like to look at my phone to analyse
whatever sport I’m doing or at home with my entertainment.
So technology is a huge part of my life.
OK, so let’s do another one.
Part 1 -What gadgets do you use on a daily basis?
I have a number of gadgets I use on a daily basis.
The ones that come to my mind immediately are my phone, my laptop,
my e-book reader, my camera.
But the one that’s really sticking out for me this year is my e-book reader,
which is quite a new piece of technology
OK, I’m warmed up.
Let’s do a part two, and this looks pretty comfortable.
Describe an important gadget in your life.
Describe an important gadget in your life.
So I’m just going to talk about the thing that comes to my mind first,
and I think I can talk for a long time.
So two minutes starts now.
I’d like to tell you about my phone.
Just last year, I got a new phone.
I’ve always had kind of okay phones, but last year I decided to upgrade
to kind of a top of the range. Apple Phone,
which had… it is the new iPhone 13,
and it has all the new technology, the good camera, etc.
And I was very excited
because I like photography and videography so I was excited to have this
that I can carry around with me day to day.
And it didn’t disappoint.
I was really impressed.
I still am really impressed by how good the camera
is, how quick the phone is, how easy it is to use.
You know, it’s quite
an intuitive design, so it’s quite easy to learn how to use it,
contrary to what I was told – a lot of people said Apple phones are difficult.
So let me tell you a little more about my phone.
The important thing for me was the camera, because as I said, I do like
videography, particularly, I want to take good videos of my daughter
and I want to take photographs of the changing seasons, this kind of thing.
So that was really important for me when I made this decision to to buy the phone.
In my opinion, it’s definitely the
best phone I’ve ever had, I’ve had several phones,
and I’ve liked some of them, I’ve always used Samsung.
But this is definitely the best phone I’ve ever had,
and I assume in the future I will stick with Apple,
but we’ll see I’m not going to be very stuck to one brand.
In the future. I will continue using this for a long time.
I do like to use my phones for as long as possible.
I don’t want to just keep switching every year or two. So I will…
OK, there you go.
Now I think that was OK.
I did try to use a few words in my list.
I was actually a little put off by some drilling sound in the background.
I don’t know if you can hear that on the podcast. We will see.
But yeah, someone is doing some building work
in this building, so it’s a little bit put off by that, but no excuses.
I was quite happy with that answer.
Let’s do some part three.
I think the the biggest technological development that comes to
my mind is the phone, the smart phone, because it was a real game changer.
The reason I say it’s a game changer is because of the smart phone.
A lot of other technology became obsolete.
For example, the MP three player, the digital camera,
there’s several things that we used to need.
The other one is a satellite navigation in our cars.
We used to need these.
But nowadays the smart phones
have made them obsolete, meaning we don’t need them anymore.
So I would say that the smart phone
is the best example of technology that’s changed our lives.
Good. OK. Pretty good answer.
I think I would like to have an example in there, like personal to me.
So, you know, if you’re thinking about lengthening your answer in part three,
really try to think about, are you giving your examples. That can be very powerful.
I’ll try to do that in the next one.
So the next question is, do you think people rely too much on modern technology?
Part 3 – Do you think people rely too much on modern technology?
Yes, I think so.
I’m not sure it’s such a big deal, but yes, I think people
rely a lot on modern technology.
For example, people rely on modern technology for writing
auto correct feature.
So I think a lot of people’s writing skill is going down.
You know, there’s not so many good,
naturally good writers or people that have practised writing a lot.
Another one that comes to my mind is our reliance on maps
has made people very bad with direction and reading maps.
And when I say reliance on maps, I’m of course talking about our
Google Maps on our phones.
So perhaps people’s sense of direction,
finding our way, that’s getting worse nowadays.
Good. Let’s do one more.
Part 3 – How effective is the use of computers in the classroom?
I think computers can be a good thing,
but I’m not convinced.
I’m not convinced how useful they are yet, because
let’s talk about technology as a whole.
I find that phones are a distraction.
I find that iPads are useful in the classroom,
but you’ve got to use them well.
You’ve got to have a very specific reason for using them in the classroom.
The thing that I would be interested to look into as a teacher
would be using more computer systems
in my academy to keep student profiles
and to show their progress and graphs and these kind of things that,
for me, a very interesting kind of performance analysis.
Now I’m going very deep there,
but for me, as a teacher, that would be very interesting.
OK, good. That last answer was not really me trying to follow
an IELTS structure; that was actually my genuine thought.
But of course, in the IELTS exam, if there’s something you care about
and you’re really interested in, use it.
You know, talk about the things that you’re interested in
because that can allow you to provide a lot of language to the examiner.
Good. OK. I think we’ll leave it there.
Another nice topic, and I will be back next week with the next episode.
So have a wonderful week.
Study hard review today.
Preview the next topic, and I’ll be back very soon.
See you next Wednesday. Bye bye.