Introductions

Welcome back to the Course everybody. We’re going to move into a new section of the course today and this section is Section 4 which is all about structuring the response or really focusing on individual paragraphs in your task one response in this first lecture in this section. We’re going to look at accurate introductions. Having a look at some formulas and templates for producing quick and high quality introductions so let’s get started by focusing on the speed and length of these introductions. Just like in task to introductions in Task One should also be short to the point concise and not take up too much time. This shouldn’t be planned. They shouldn’t come as part of your plan and they shouldn’t do anything besides paraphrase the language in the task to achieve these aims. The best approach for Task 1 introductions is to just memorize a few templates which can be modified accordingly. For most situations and then this lecture is going to focus on these templates. So as usual we’re going to look at a different template for a different type of task. And we’re going to start by looking at graphs with the trend as usual. Here’s this familiar bar chart now. So here we have a title of this bar charts. The graph below shows the air conditioning unit sales in two different countries over seven months between April 2010 and October 2010. Summarize the information by selecting a revoting the main features and make comparisons where relevant. We want to focus on the top part here. Now there are two ways that a task like this can be paraphrased. The first way is that we can use how many or how much. The other way is that we can use the number of or the amount of we’re going to look each of these in turn now. Now the former is easier. The graph illustrates how many air conditioning units were sold in the UK and Australia. Notice that we have turned air conditioning unit sales like a big compound now there and we split that into a noun and a verb. Units were sold. The latter is a bit harder but it is better its a bit more advanced. The graph highlights the number of air conditioning units which were sold in the UK and Australia. So the difference here is that we have a relative pronoun in the form of which. So the one above if we’re using how many or how much we will not use this relative pronoun. This means that if you use the latter template youre actually fulfilling the need for a more complex sentence by using a relative clause. Finally we can also try to keep in mind the large number of verbs which can replace a show. So instead of saying The graph below shows just like we have in the task we can say the graph highlights illustrates describes demonstrates depicts or outlines. Now when using these structures try to consider three questions. Almost like a checklist is the topic countable in which case we should use how many or the number of such as in the case here. Or is the topic uncountable. In which case we should use how much or the amount of check number one check number two is the subject active like how many people visited Warsaw people visit places it’s an active subject. Or is the subject passive. How many radios were sold radios were sold because radios don’t sell themselves so that check number two. The final thing to check is do you want to use the how much oil many structure in which case no relative pronoun is used. Or do you want to use the the number or amount of structure in which case a relative pronoun can be used. Go through all of those things in your mind as you are going through your introduction finally thinking about dates and durations. The latter half the second half of the introduction should focus on these aspects. Places dates durations she remember an easy way to paraphrase is to simply change between an and two from and to or vice versa. So you see between an and in the tasks use from and to and another useful technique is to turn the nouns of numbers into adjectives. OK so consider this over seven months between April and October. That can be paraphrased as a seven month period. So here we’re using 7 month like an adjective and that is why we are not adding a plural s on the end of month a seven month adjective period. Now from April to October and don’t try to paraphrase exact locations but do consider maybe if you can switch word order for example instead of a European school we could say a school in Europe. So let’s look now at an example which incorporates all of these elements together. The graph illustrates the number of air conditioning units which were sold in Australia and the UK over a seven month period in 2010 from April to October. This introduction incorporates all of the elements that we were just speaking about. Now let’s have a look at a comparative graph. Here we have the tie to the chart below shows how much energy is provided by four different sources in Italy and the table below shows how much of this energy is used for different household purposes the introductions for comparative graphs can be very similar to those photographs with the trend. But these don’t usually feature generation so we just avoid the curation language. Again we simply need to choose between the number or amount of and how much or how many you can see that the task itself uses how much. So we instead should use something else so what we will use is the amount of because it’s uncountable energy is uncountable. So we’re not using the number of we’re using the amount of. Also remember that you can switch out shows the verb shows we can do that with compares. This is only when dealing with comparative graphs. So be careful. Let’s have a look at an example. The chart compares the amount of energy which is provided by four different sources in Italy and the table compares the proportion of this energy which goes towards four different uses in the home. Now the second part of the introduction is a little bit harder but it’s simply a case of paraphrasing the language and the wide your vocabulary the easier this will be. This I will look at a template for a process task here we’re looking at the prices of honey production usually with processes it’s a case of just having one or two set structures which you can rely on in any situation. Try to keep things simple. There’s no reason you need to get complex here. Now my favorite structure is the following the diagram highlights the process by which this is such a modifiable structure and you can see this in the following examples the diagram highlights the process by which bees make their honey. That’s an active subject that bees make honey. Let’s have a look at a passive one. The diagram highlights the process by which car doors are manufactured. And finally the diagram highlights the process by which someone complete their lifecycle. OK so really easy to modify. And it’s just a case of memorizing that structure. Again remember to paraphrase any verbs you see highlighted illustrates describes etc. and nouns if you see the word diagram you might use the word illustration or picture of course only do this when necessary. You know you wouldn’t paraphrase the word Salmon. Salmon is salmon regardless of how you look at it and maybe you can switch up the word order if required. Finally let’s look at a template for maps now maps a little bit trickier because they do feature a number of different variables. A lot of the time however you can use the earlier generation templates when describing differences over periods of time. So remembering the between and and and to and from. You can use that here a lot of the time and the rest of the introduction should be a case of simple paraphrasing via synonyms. Don’t get too complicated here. Now have a look at this. You might recognize this one. The two maps below show an island before and after the construction of some tourist facilities you’ll see that I have color coded some of these words because these are the words that I’m going to paraphrase all of the others. I’m going to keep the same the two maps below. Compare an island prior to and following the development of tourist infrastructure. So I haven’t changed the word order. I haven’t changed the grammar. I’ve kept everything pretty much the same. I’ll just use synonyms. Now this is really just a matter of wide vocabulary having a wide range of vocabulary. This is not something that you can learn overnight but it’s something that can be helped along and you can acquire most quickly by reading frequently it’s something that I come back to again and again in my task to course try to read for at least 20 minutes in English every day. Take notes on any of the language that you don’t understand. Try to see if you can work out how to use that language and read it from a variety of different sources. Young adult novels newspapers magazines internet blogs as long as you’re committing yourself to 20 minutes of reading a day you will notice an improvement in your vocabulary and you’ll be able to produce interesting and creative introductions using the templates like we have done here in the next lecture. We’re going to look at the next paragraph which is the overview.