Talking point: Numbers

This week's talking point is numbers. Before getting together with the members of your conversation group, go over the questions below so that ideas flow more easily when you meet up with your friends and you can work out vocabulary problems beforehand.

• What are important numbers in your life? (vg. '2' the number of children you have)
• Do you have a head for numbers?
• Do you find maths fun and easy?
• What do you use numbers for in your everyday life?
• Do you know anyone who's hopeless/excels at numbers?
• What do you remember about your maths teachers at school?
• Why do you think maths is often unpopular as a school subject?
• How would you make the subject more accessible and popular?
• Have you got a lucky number and why is it lucky?
• Talk about a time when an ability or lack of ability to do maths helped you or caused problems for you.
• Do you agree with Benjamin Disraeli's idea that "There are three types of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics"?

Answer these questions which all have idiomatic expressions with numbers:
1 On what occasions do you go out dressed to the nines?
2 Do you often leave things to the eleventh hour, or do you prefer to be well-prepared?
3 Do you know anyone who only looks after number one? Describe them.
4 Do you really think life begins at 40?
5 Can you think of real-life examples for the expression 'a stitch in time saves nine'?

To illustrate the topic you can watch this BBC report on the latest trend of maths tuition in the UK.