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Page 53 - exercise 10

Discussion - Ways of learning

Part A - Listen to Todd and Lucy describe how they developed two skills. How did they learn? Complete the chart.

1 - Learn to play a musical instrument.

Todd - I play the guitar. I haven’t played for very long. maybe about two years. The way I learned was by practicing by myself with a how-to video my girlfriend bought for me. It takes a lot of patience to teach yourself how to do something, especially a musical instrument, but it works for me. I’m still learning, and I can practice as little or as much as I want and I’m slowly getting better and better. There are even free video lessons online I check out sometimes.

Lucy - I could never teach myself a musical instrument. I need a teacher and one who makes me practice. That’s how I learned the piano. I started taking lessons when I was in middle school. I’d go to a neighbor’s house after school, twice a week and she’d teach me for an hour or so. She was a good teacher, strict, but she knew how to get me to play. I suppose it helps that I’ve always wanted to play the piano. I don’t take lessons anymore, but I still practice at least once a week. You know that saying, if you don’t use it, you lose it.

2 - Become a good conversationalist

Todd - I guess I learned how to communicate with people when I was a flight attendant. I worked as a flight attendant for five years. The most important thing you have to do in that job is to talk to passengers, especially during long flights, you learn to talk about all kinds of stuff and you find out just how interesting some people’s lives are. I think the key to being a good conversationalist is to be sincerely interested in other people and to try to get them to talk about themselves as much as possible.

Lucy - I had always been really shy. I was the sort of person who could go to a party and never talk to anybody. And when you don’t talk to anybody. It’s hard to make friends. Anyway, my sister suggested I take an acting class. She said it might help me become more outgoing, so I did it. I was really frightened in that first acting class. But you know, it really helped. The teacher was very kind and taught me that I could talk to anybody just by pretending I had confidence.