First, watch the video through to get the gist of the teachers' conversation.
Now watch the video more carefully and pay attention to the following characteristics of the speech:
- Fillers to gain thinking time: You know; erm; I don’t know
- Use of really to emphasize the adjective and the verb
- Showing agreement: Absolutely, I agree; Yeah I agree; That’s true; True; Right; Exactly!
- Use of just to emphasize the verb
- Use of actually to introduce a piece of surprising information
- Use of 'hedging' before expressing an opinion so as not to sound too dogmatic: I think
- Use of ambiguous language: kind of like
Now it's over to you. If possible, get together with a friend or relative and discuss modern architectural structures in your city or country. What do you think of them? Do you prefer the old ones to the new ones? Can you think of instances of buildings that have been changed both for the better and for the worse? Don't forget to use some of the features of spoken English that we have studied in the lesson.
You know what is really interesting, of course everything is interesting to me, is that with different architectural structures, especially when they try to be modern, sometimes it works, and sometimes it just doesn’t.
Often times, they want to replace the old with something brand new, bright and sparkly. But the object that was old has more character, or even is more durable.
Absolutely, I agree.
Yeah I agree that sometimes it looks like the architect is just trying to break convention for the sake of breaking convention but I must say I’ve been really impressed recently with some of the, erm, buildings I’ve visited which are environmentally-sustainable…
That’s true.
… with erm, you know, they’re designed in such a way to save, save energy, save, I don’t know, water in some cases, the, you know solar panels are getting more and more frequent, and, erm, that’s got to be a positive side, erm, you know, taking into account that architecture can actually be not that environmentally-damaging,
That’s true.
But I must say as well that it is sometimes good to go to more modern movie theatres, for example, than going to old ones seeing that the seats might be more comfortable, than the old ones.
That’s true.
True, two hours, long hours!
I think you have to have a happy medium in between the two, you know, you can use the old aspects, and take what you’ve learned [Right.] into more modern buildings as well.
It can really add to the atmosphere. For instance, I recently went to this amazing theatre which used to be a slaughterhouse, a huge, huge slaughterhouse. And they’ve turned it into..., it sounds horrific [Yeah.], and they haven’t changed anything. It’s kind of like the, er Tate obviously which has kept all its industrial settings and somehow, that really lends to the, the atmosphere and the, erm, the, the character of, of the place.
It’s also part of Reduce, Re-use, Recycle, right?
Exactly!
Which is always very, very good.
Very good!
