miércoles, 7 de enero de 2015

Talking point: Repairs and renovations at home

Today's talking point is repairs and renovations at home. 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?

  • Are you good at DIY (do it yourself)? Do you know anyone who is? Do you know anyone who's completely useless?
  • Have you ever... assembled flat-pack furniture / painted you house or flat / changed a wheel on a car / fixed something in your home (vg., a leaking tap, a bulb) / set up a home cinema system or your PC?
  • Choose one of the odd jobs above and describe how you went about it: When/where did you do it?; why did you do it and not anybody else at home?; did anyone help?; how long did it take?; what problems did you have?; did you do a good job?
  • Who do you turn to if some job needs doing at home and nobody in your household knows or wants to do it? Would you be ready to pay a handyman to do it?
  • What tools do you have at home to do odd jobs around the house?
  • What DIY stores are there in your area? Do you often go there?
  • Have you ever been to Ikea? Do you find it easy to navigate around the store? Do you find the strange names given to products (Snille chair) helpful? Do you like the food? If you have ever bought self-assembly (or flat-pack) furniture at Ikea, did you find it easy to put it together?
  • Would you be ready to learn how to fix appliances so as not to pay someone else to do so or have to throw them away?
To illustrate the point, listen to the 6 Minute English lesson Restart Party Project, where people learn the forgotten art of fixing objects so as not to  throw them away.

You can also watch this BBC video along the same lines.



You can also watch the video Ingvar Kamprad Success Story about the person who started Ikea.