Rants & Raves! Expressing annoyance!
RANTS & RAVES - EXPRESSING ANNOYANCE
- Homework: LISTENING - Rants & raves about mobile phones, queuing, please & thank you, technology and at the shop. Retell the questions posed below after listening to these 5 speakers telling us about what drives them nuts. You'll have to do it in a simple way in no more than a minute oral production. You just need to jot down some key elements and then mediate the message by using some verb patterns as well as any other level stuff.
1. MOBILE PHONES
a) What doesn’t the speaker like?
b) Who does she say normally causes the problem?
c) Where does she think the problem occurs the most?
d) What does she suggest as the solution?
2. QUEUING
a) What do people in the USA call “queuing”?
b) What does “jump the queue” mean?
c) What do Londoners find shocking?
d) How has queuing changed in banks?
e) Does the listener think the change in queuing is good or bad?
3. PLEASE AND THANK YOU
a) What does the speaker say about using please in her language?
b) What is said more, “please” or “thank you”?
c) When does she say you should use “please”?
d) Why does she think it’s important to say “please” and “thank you”?
The speaker admits having no word for please in her own language. That's why when she first came to the UK, what struck her most was the number of times they utter/use those two magic words in the course of a very simple conversation. Apparently, thank you is used far more than please, but the important thing is to "overuse them" if you know what I mean. That's her main message. She actually encourages us to do so, or else (as otherwise) you are likely to be considered stroppy/rude.
4. TECHNOLOGY
a) What has decreased in the last few years?
b) What does the speaker like doing the most at the weekend?
c) How does he relax / de-stress / unwind at weekends?
d) What does he think about on Sunday night?
5. AT THE SHOP
a) Why does the customer want to return the boots?
b) Why won’t she get a refund? (What is the company policy on refunds?)
c) Why doesn’t the second shop assistant remember the customer?
- Get ready for...- SPEAKING - Oral production: Get ready to talk about your top 3 rants & raves. You can make use of some of the language below to express annoyance about those annoying habits and things or pet and peeves...:
- ...that irritate the hell out of us.
- ...get on your nerves.
- ...you can't stand.
- ...you can't bear.
- ...you can't put up with.
- ...drive you crazy.
- ...drive you hopping mad.
- ...make you hit the roof.
Sample: If
there’s one thing I can’t stand is people chewing noisily at the table. For
heaven’s sake! That’s the height of bad manners. Another thing that irritates
the hell out of me is anyone burping or slurping. At least, where I was raised,
this is not the done thing.
| Expressing annoyance - Pet peeves - Rants & raves |
Talking about manners - Social etiquette |
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