May 19, 2022 - IELTS BAND7

Cue card: A language lesson you enjoyed

May 19, 2022 Pooja Ph.D. CELTA

IELTS Cue Card Talk about a language lesson you enjoyed

Talk about a language lesson you enjoyed
You should say:

When it was?

What it was about?

What you did in the lesson?

And explain why you enjoyed this lesson.

A language lesson you enjoyed

Sample Answer

I’ve always had a deep fascination with languages. It certainly stems from the skills of my school teachers who made our lessons memorable. Today, I’m going to talk about a language lesson I loved.

I was in 8^th class. Our school provided classes in many foreign languages like German, French, Japanese and Italian etc. I opted for Japanese because my father recommended it to me. My first Japanese lesson was so much fun that I still remember almost everything about it. When our teacher entered the class, she greeted us in Japanese. She didn’t translate it in English or our local language. Initially, we were puzzled but then she drew the sun and two kids on the blackboard. We understood the meaning and all of us repeated the greeting after her. Then, the teacher opened a big box in which she had kept many things like chocolates, cold drinks, tea and a bottle of milk etc.

She started taking them out of the box one by one. She was saying the name of each item in Japanese and we were listening to her and repeating after her. Later on, the teacher just showed us the objects and we were supposed to recall their names. Everyone was actively participating in the lesson. In the next stage of the lesson, the teacher taught us how to order milk, tea or coffee in a Japanese café. She divided us into two groups. Some of us became customers while others became waiters. We practiced all the words that we learned in the lesson in a very interactive way.

Not only me but all my classmates enjoyed the lesson. I found it very interesting because of the way it was delivered. The teacher created a friendly and stimulating learning environment. Its pace was also perfect for our age group. If we hadn’t been involved in the lesson, it would have been a boring lesson. All in all, I can say that this first-class boosted our confidence immensely and motivated us to learn Japanese.

Another Similar Cue Card

Describe a thing you did to learn another language.

Which language did you learn?

What was that thing, you did to learn the language?

How did it help you and how you felt?

And do you recommend that thing for every language?

SAMPLE ANSWER TWO-

Language is among the greatest inventions of mankind. Just imagining a world without languages seems to bring chaos and haphazardness all around. Social order and stability is ensured by this medium of communication. If we just observe our past, it is wondrous to note that we learnt our mother tongue without any formal medium of instruction. It is an automatic natural process set in motion by environment. Although I never intended to become a philologist, but I had this inertia for different words and meanings. I knew English well and I had this penchant for Spanish. So, in my college days, I decided to learn Spanish.

I joined a language academy, where they take up a language from the very basics. With appropriate syntax, pronunciation and meaning understanding of most common Spanish words in academy, I built my fundamentals strong. Thereafter, a stage of stagnation arrived in my progress and I was not improving my spoken Spanish, in particular. It was then, when I decided to stay in a Spanish colony in our city, for few months. Getting surrounded by Spanish diaspora all the time, listening to the language Spanish only whenever a word is spoken and interacting in Spanish only, were the true game changers.

This idea of living among Spanish people was an instantaneous hit. Within a span of just three months, I was conversing in Spanish without any great efforts. To add to it, I even grasped the uncommon classical Spanish vocabulary. The result of the uniform harmony with the Spanish language in my overall environment, while living in Spanish people, was very fruitful. The shopkeepers and watchman in that colony were Spanish too, which necessitated me to even think in Spanish. I felt extremely happy witnessing my gradual but consistent improvement in Spanish.

I would like to recommend my test and trial approach with the learners of any language. Staying in airs stuffed with a particular language all around you, automatically brings you in sync with that. No doubt, academy is something mandatory, but apart from that, my idea for learning a language is very effective, especially the spoken one.

STRONG WORDS

Word	Meaning
Penchant	special bent/liking: My friend has the penchant for old classic movies.
Haphazard	disorderly: students in college generally keep their room haphazard.
Diaspora	scattered population with origin somewhere else: America is truly cosmopolitan in a sense, to have diaspora from so many nations

Follow-up Questions

Q. 1 Is learning a new language difficult after an age?

Sample answer: I can’t answer this with confirmation without actual evidences. Definitely, after an age learning appetite decreases to some extent. Learning a new language might not sound as exciting and hence motivating to a grown up man as to a young boy. This lack of interest, apart from the work pressures faced by an adult may hinder his learning process.

Q. 2 What factors make a language interesting to learn?

Sample answer: It is the accent, smoothness, tone and pitch primarily, which creates impression for a language. Apart from them, glory and status of the nation, to which a language belongs, also generates fan following. Influence of a language created by its major presence all over the globe is a big influence.

Q. 3 Can deepest emotions be conveyed by a language?

Sample answer: I would say speech itself comes with a limitation. Use of any language can definitely easen the process of emotions’ description, as done in poems, plays and other fiction. But, I still believe that language do not have the absolute adequacy to display all the emotions, in complete.

Q. 4 What are the advantages of learning a new language?

Sample answer: Learning anything new, in itself is a fun process. Language learning comes with the spoken, written, hearing and speaking tasks involved in it, therefore it further broadens our pleasurable experience. It is always an advantage staying in a country, if we are averse with its native language. This brings a sense of assimilation in an earlier differently looking ethnicity. It also enriches our experience of different civilizations and cultures.