Words for Feelings: Beyond Happy and Sad
When I arrived in Sydney in 2005, I could say I was 'happy' or 'sad'. That was it. But feelings in English are precise — there is a difference between homesick and lonely, between overwhelmed…
Tag: speaking
Question Tags: Checking, Confirming, Connecting
Positive sentence → negative tagShe works here, doesn't she?
Small Talk at Work: Starting Conversations in English (B1)
🎙 From the classroom: Working at The Ivy in Sydney, I learned that small talk wasn't small. It built the relationship before the transaction. A guest who felt genuinely noticed would order a better bottle,…
Giving a Presentation in English: Structure and Signposting (B2)
🎙 From the classroom: I've given dozens of training briefings to hotel teams in Sydney — shift handovers, product launches, standards updates. The teams who remembered information were the ones who could anticipate the structure.…
Job Interview English: Tell Me About Yourself (B2)
🎙 From the classroom: I've been interviewed in English in Australia, and interviewed over fifty people for front-of-house positions in Sydney restaurants. The candidates who stood out didn't have the best CVs. They had the…
Speaking: The Information Gap — A Task That Actually Works (A2/B1)
🎙 From the classroom: My most successful speaking task in Brittany was simple: I printed two versions of a map of Réunion. Student A had the beach. Student B had the volcano. Neither could see…
Presenting in English — Phrases for Every Stage (B2)
I've presented in French, English, and Bengali. The difference between a presentation that lands and one that falls flat is usually not the content — it's the signposting.
English for Business Meetings — Phrases That Work (B2)
I ran team briefings in Sydney with staff from 12 countries. The meeting phrases below kept everything on track — and on time.
English for Job Interviews — What to Say & How (B2)
I was interviewed in three languages for jobs across three continents. Here's what I learned about what actually works in an English job interview.
Expressing Opinions in English — Beyond ‘I Think’ (B2)
Spending years in French and English debates taught me that HOW you say what you think matters as much as WHAT you say.