Interview 19: Active Listening
This week we’re listening to Ana from Austria and Jonas from Switzerland, who is currently living in India. Do you find it easy thinking of things to say or questions to ask when meeting someone for the first time? Well, this was a ‘getting to know you’ opportunity for Ana and Jonas and the focus of the task was on their ability to ask questions about each other’s interests, studies, or careers, and to listen and respond naturally to what their partner had to say.
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March 26th, 2007 at 9:45 am
Congratulations on a job (remarkably) well done, Ana and Jonas!
Besides being an all-round solid performance in terms of CPE requirements -in my book you would’ve scored top marks for interactive communication-, what I particularly enjoyed about this edition of the podcast was the natural flow of the conversation; this goes to show that both of you are perfectly comfortable -or rather enjoy- using English in a social situations.
Ana, you seem well on your way to matching your CAE performance.
Keep up the good work and, Peter, thanks for making all this happen!
March 26th, 2007 at 12:38 pm
They’re not bad at all, but I can’t really say they’re the best I’ve heard or seen. Their conversation proves that they’re fluent in spoken English, even though they have some difficulties figuring out what to say and how exactly to say it. As far as their social skills are concerned, they demonstrate to an appropriate extent that they’re capable of having a reasonable conversation in a typical everyday situation, but in my opinion, they could have used some more complex manners of talking, I mean, they should have learned by now how to fluently express their thoughts in terms of formal language. To sum up, I’d give them both a B+, if I were to examine them.
April 14th, 2007 at 6:47 pm
I intend to participate in an interview quite soon, so, Stoyan Dyulgerov, I would be extremely grateful if you left a comment o my performance as well. I’m from Romania, if that helps. Hope I’ not bothering…
November 2nd, 2007 at 2:37 pm
Dear Sir/Madam,
Congratulations for you work.
I find your podcasts very helpful and I enjoy listening to.
The feedback is very useful, and trying to find the errors is a challenging task for me. It’s very good that we heard two times each clip with mistakes but we need more time between them for reflection.
I’m available for a skype interview.
Yours, Faithfuly,
Spyros
November 8th, 2007 at 1:54 pm
I think Ana and Jonas do very well in what must be difficult circumstances. They interact very well and both of them have very good pronunciation, with good intonation patterns and naturally show interest well. Their interaction is good and they clearly listen to each other well.
The only recommendation I’d make to them is that their English seems to lack some of the idiom that you might expect at this level, so perhaps this is an area they could work on, ie extending the range of their vocabulary.
Well done both of you!
April 28th, 2008 at 11:47 pm
Congratulations on your work!
This was such a lovely and interesting conversation…This dialogue provides evidence that both Jonas and Ana are very fluent and accurate when it comes to speaking english. I also appreciated their accent as well as their intonation which shows that they were quite relaxed and willing to get to know each other.
Well done!
May 5th, 2008 at 3:51 pm
Yes, it’s quite challenging when you know you are to be observed, and I also agree with what Pippa says that they didn’t use much of idioms. At this level speakers are expected to do so. But something that must be taken into consideration is that in a natural first contact, the conversation tend to go into that direction. They had no hesitation and excellent pronuntiation. Well done!! They were brilliant.
November 9th, 2008 at 7:33 am
yes i found this discussion preety interesting.ana & jonas englisuh is very flunt
May 12th, 2009 at 1:58 am
Very good podcast.
The feedback given is a real guidance for better listening skills.