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Welcome back to a rather scary engVid.
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In today's lesson you are going to learn two things: Firstly, how to tell a scary story
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full of suspense and tension; and secondly, how to talk about a book as you might be required
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to do in an IELTS speaking test.
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So, what I have put up here on the board is different groups of words, so we've got adverbs,
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nouns, we've got verbs, and then phrases which you could use in a story of this type.
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So, I'm going to demonstrate how to use these words; and hopefully, you'll feel inspired
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to go off and write your own short story afterwards.
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I'd love to hear about it on the engVid Facebook page or just on your comments under this video.
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Okay.
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So, we're going to link the verbs with the adverbs.
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I should first off explain what exactly these types of stories are.
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So, we're looking at suspense stories.
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This is a story in which something, something dangerous, something scary remains hidden.
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We don't quite know what it is, but there's something out there in the dark that may do
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something scary.
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Okay?
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So, in a story like this, people are going to be "holding their breath".
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Yup.
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"The boy held his breath", if I was to write that in the past tense.
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Okay?
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"Held" in the past tense.
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"The boy held his breath.
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He trembled silently because he was on his own.
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He trembled silently, and shuddered."
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Okay?
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So, let's explain these words.
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"Tremble" means to shake.
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Okay?
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"Shudder" basically means the same thing.
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So, if I say it twice but in a different way, it just adds to the effect.
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Okay?
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"He trembled silently and shuddered with the thought of what lay next door."
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Okay.
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If I say exactly what is next door; that there's a yellow, spotted lizard, then the story becomes
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not scary.
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I need to keep the idea that we don't know exactly what is next door.
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"He crept", and now let's add another adverb.
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"He crept"-that would work well-"nervously".
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So, "nervously", he's full of nerves; he's, like, biting his teeth about what's going
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to happen when he steps out into the corridor.
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"He crept nervously out into the corridor."
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Okay, so I've used my verbs; let's see which other adverbs I could use.
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Okay.
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What about "cautiously"?
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So, "caution" is about taking care.
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So, if you are being cautious, then you're being very careful.
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If you're acting cautiously, you're doing the same thing.
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"He cautiously looked from left to right."
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Okay, so we've done "cautiously", we've done "silently", now let's do "suddenly".
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"Suddenly a bat flew past him", so one of those black, nasty, scary bird-like animals
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flew past him.
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That's going to be quite scary; we'll have that in there.
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"Unexpectedly".
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Okay.
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So, prefix "un" means not; "expect" - something we think is going to happen.
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So, suddenly something we don't think is going to happen happens.
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Unexpectedly what could happen?
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A door opened.
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Dunh-dunh-dunh.
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Okay.
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So, we've managed to use these adverbs, we've managed to use these verbs.
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These are the types of nouns that would be good in a story like this; in a scary story.
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"Unease".
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Okay?
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So, "ease", you can see the word "easy".
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"Everything's cool.
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Yeah, we can do it.
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10 out of 10 in the quiz after the lesson."
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A feeling of unease is: "Oo, what's happening here?
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How am I going to get 10 out of 10 in this lesson"?
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"Unease", it means discomfort.
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"Distress".
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Worry is what "distress" means, and you can add an "ed" to turn it into an adjective.
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"The distressed young girl."
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Okay?
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"Fright", this means fear.
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Obviously if I wanted to turn it into an adjective, I would put: "ened.
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Frightened".
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"Panic" is: "Ah!
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Help!
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What's going to happen?
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Ahh"!
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"Panic" - fear again.
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"Dread", this is a sense of not liking what is going to happen in the future; being really
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quite scared.
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So, you've got lots of different words here to express fear.
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A "cold sweat".
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So, that is a physical...
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That shows on the body how scared the person is that they're starting to sweat; that the
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sweat is cold.
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I should have a blue pen for this; a cold sweat.
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So, "sweat", when we're very, very worried and anxious and stressed, we may start sweating.
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A "draught", okay?
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A "draught" is when we have air blowing through under a door, for example.
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Okay?
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It's sort of the wind coming through.
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"A cold draught of air blows through."
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It just helps to set the scary atmosphere.
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Phrases.
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Now, these are all phrases that you would put at the start of a sentence.
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"Without hesitation, the boy strode into the next door room.
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He opened the door, and he saw", whatever he saw.
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"Without hesitation".
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"From the shadows", when we're going a little bit more slowly.
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Sorry.
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I'll just explain this: "Without", so that means no; "hesitation" means waiting.
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So: "Not waiting anymore, the boy decided to go and find out what was out there".
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"From the shadows".
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So, if we have a light, so there's a light there and I'm here, my shadow is that sort
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of dark thing that's kind of like a reflection of me.
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Anything in the shadows is something unknown; slightly spooky.
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"From the shadows, what was happening?"
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Something unknown.
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We just don't quite know what is behind the door.
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"Out of the corner of his eye".
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So: "Out of the corner of his eye".
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So, this is the idea that the boy half-sees something, but he's not quite sure exactly
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what.
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"All of a suddenly"...
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"All of a sudden".
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Okay?
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"Suddenly", it just means that, but it...
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"All of a sudden", it's just another way of saying: "Suddenly", but with four words instead
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of one.
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"In alarm", okay?
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This means scared, fear, worried.
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Yup.
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"In alarm".
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You know what an alarm clock is?
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An alarm, it's like the boy's got an alarm clock going off in his head.
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Right.
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Let's work out how to talk about a book that would satisfy the IELTS speaking test, too.
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Back in a moment.
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Here we have a sample question for talking about a book.
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"Speak for 1-2 minutes about a book you have enjoyed reading recently."
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These are the kinds of things...
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So, these bullet points are what you must include when you're doing one of these speaking
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tasks.
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"What kind of book is it?
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What is it about?
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What sort of people would enjoy it?
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And explain why you liked it."
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What I've done is I've put up some useful phrases here that you could use if you were
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talking about a book, and then you could change them slightly if you were talking about a
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film or television program.
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"This book is in the genre of"... "genre" means: What type of book is it?
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So we were, earlier in this lesson, looking at suspense writing.
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So: "This book is in the genre of suspense", but you could have horror, romance, detective,
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war, childhood; all sorts of different book genres out there.
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"It's about..." then roughly say what the book is about.
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For my story: "It's about a woman who gets fed up with her husband."
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"The main character is..."
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Say something about the main character.
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"The main character is called Mary Maloney.
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She is a very particular...
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She is a very careful type of character, but eventually she erupts into violence."
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Okay?
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Like a volcano, she erupts.
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"The plot is as follows"...
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"Plot" means what happens in the story.
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"As follows" means I'm about to tell you what the plot is.
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"Duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh".
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Okay?
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You put in there the story that you are talking about.
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"Anyone who likes..."
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Well, what type of other sort of book genres might someone who likes this book be interested
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in?
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Are they going to be people who are interested in detective books?
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Are they going to be people who read biographies?
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Maybe you can list a particular book that...
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That you enjoy.
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"...would enjoy this book".
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"I loved this book because..."
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What's...?
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What's the most interesting thing about this book?
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Is it the plot?
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Is it the character?
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Is it where it's set?
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Is it the language that is used?
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I don't know; you'll have to decide that.
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"The..."
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Now, what you need to put here is either: "The beginning", "The middle", "The end".
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Okay?
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I'm going to talk about a Roald Dahl short story.
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"The beginning was particularly...
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Was most effective because it really made you question: What is going to happen next?"
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Okay.
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So, I hope you've got some useful phrases for talking about a book, there.
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A couple of good suspense stories for you to read: Edgar Allan Poe, The Tell-Tale Heart
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or the Roald Dahl short story, Lamb to the Slaughter.
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Both are excellent.
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And good luck if any of you are doing your IELTS speaking.
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See you very soon.
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Have a go at the quiz.
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Until next time, bye.