In this episode, we will look at two different types of paragraphs to use in an English essay. Let's connect: https://linktr.ee/aliceconte --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/alice679/message

There are definitely some strategies you can use in speaking part 1 in the IELTS exam. This is what we are discussing in today's episode.  --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/alice679/message

In this episode, you will have the opportunity to answer some speaking questions. If you can, record yourself and listen back when you are done.  Let's connect: https://linktr.ee/aliceconte --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/alice679/message

In this podcast episode, we are going to discuss the differences between the modal verb MUST and the semi-modal verb HAVE TO. Let's connect here: https://linktr.ee/aliceconte  --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/alice679/message

Imagine this. In a hot, windowless room, young women are working side by side. They are workers in a factory in Bangladesh.1 Today they are making jackets. Together, they must sew hundreds of jackets every hour. That’s more than 1,000 a day. Each of these women will take home less than $3 for a whole day of work. One week later, these same jackets will arrive in the United States. They will show up in stores, where you can buy one for $14.99. These jackets are one example of fast fashion. When we say “fast fashion,” we are talking about clothes that are made quickly and then sold at very cheap prices. These clothes cost so little that many people can buy new outfits whenever they want — and then throw them away when they go out of style. More than 150 billion new pieces of clothing are made every year! Fast fashion may be cheap, but it has a dark side. Today, millions of people work in clothing factories called sweatshops. Many of these people live in China, Bangladesh, and other developing countries. These garment workers earn just a few dollars a day. And many of them are children or teenagers! In these factories, it is easy to get sick and to get hurt. Garment workers use dangerous chemicals to create and dye clothes. If they dare miss a day because they are sick, they might lose their job. Many people did not think about how their clothing was made until April 24, 2013. That is the day the Rana Plaza factory building in Bangladesh collapsed. The factory had too many floors, too many workers, and too many machines. This accident killed and injured thousands of workers. After the accident, many big clothing companies promised to do things differently. They trained two million workers on how to work safely. They brought in engineers to check their factories. The fashion industry is the world’s second-largest polluter! Here are a few reasons why: 1. Clothes are made using toxic chemicals. Dangerous gases are released into the air when certain materials (such as polyester) are created. 2. In the United States, 25% of all pesticides are used on cotton farms. Some of these pesticides can cause asthma and other health problems. Chemicals from these farms pollute fresh water! 3. The average American throws away more than 70 pounds of clothes every year. Most of this clothing is burned or left in a landfill, where it can take hundreds of years to break down. The industry uses up a lot of natural resources. For example, it takes 1,800 gallons of water to make enough cotton for one pair of jeans. That is the same as 105 showers! People are starting to see the ugly side of fast fashion. They are learning more about how their clothes are made. And the clothing industry is starting to respond. In the United States, many small companies are creating clothes out of recycled or organic fabrics. Other larger companies are encouraging customers to recycle unwanted clothing. Everyone must play a role. Learn more about how your clothes are made and think carefully about what you buy. It can make a real difference. Questions: Think about how making cheap clothes puts people and the environment in danger. Does this make you want to change how you and your parents shop? If so, how? The author says that everyone must play a role to create change in this situation. What role can you play? How can you teach other people to help make a difference? Let's connect:  https://linktr.ee/aliceconte --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/alice679/message

In this episode, we will discuss some techniques that you can use in the listening test when you have multiple-choice questions. Let's connect: https://linktr.ee/aliceconte --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/alice679/message

You don’t need to know grammar. You need to absorb it. In this episode, I will explain why and how. Book mentioned: How I Learn Languages. “You cannot learn language from grammar, but you learn grammar from language”. Link website: https://alice-conte.mailchimpsites.com/ You can have a trial 15-minute lesson and writing corrections: contact me at [email protected] --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/alice679/message

In this episode, we are looking at what you should do when you read your task 2 question in IELTS academic.  Let's connect: https://linktr.ee/aliceconte --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/alice679/message

What we talk about: Sentence Flashcards (Quizlet: check it here) Dictations (to do also without a teacher) How many words you should learn When to study them My website: https://alice-conte.mailchimpsites.com/ You can contact me here for any questions, enquires or if you want to book a lesson.  --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/alice679/message

TEXT:  Plastic bottles lying in the gutter. Grocery bags tangled in branches. Food wrappers scuttling across the ground on a windy day. Although such examples of litter easily come to mind, they only hint at the serious and growing problem of plastic pollution — a problem mostly hidden from view. The problem with plastics is they do not easily degrade. They may break down, but only into smaller pieces. The smaller those pieces get, the more places they can go. Many pieces wind up at sea. Tiny bits of plastic float throughout the world’s oceans. They wash up on remote islands. They collect in sea ice thousands of kilometers from the nearest city. They even meld with rock, creating a whole new material. Some scientists have proposed calling it plastiglomerate. Exactly how much plastic is out there remains a mystery. Scientists are hard at work trying to find out. So far, though, experts haven’t found as much plastic floating in the oceans as they expected. All that missing plastic is worrisome, because the smaller a plastic bit becomes, the more likely it will make its way into a living thing, whether a tiny plankton or an enormous whale. And that may spell some real trouble. INTO THE SOUP [5]Plastics are used to make countless everyday products — from bottles to auto bumpers, from homework folders to flowerpots. In 2012, 288 million metric tons (317.5 million short tons) of plastic were produced worldwide. Since then, that amount has only grown. Just how much of that plastic winds up in the oceans remains unknown: Scientists estimate about 10 percent does. And one recent study suggests as much as 8 million metric tons (8.8 million short tons) of plastic wound up in the ocean in 2010 alone. How much plastic is that? “Five plastic bags filled with plastic for every foot of coastline in the world,” says Jenna Jambeck. She’s the researcher from the University of Georgia, in Athens, who led the new study. It was published February 13 in Science. Of those millions of tons, as much as 80 percent had been used on land. So how did it get into the water? Storms washed some plastic litter into streams and rivers. These waterways then carried much of the trash downstream to the sea. The other 20 percent of plastic ocean trash enters the water directly. This debris includes fishing lines, nets and other items lost at sea, dumped overboard or abandoned when they become damaged or are no longer needed. Once in the water, not all plastics behave the same way. The most common plastic PET — is used to make water and soft-drink bottles. Unless filled with air, these bottles sink. This makes PET pollution tough to track. That’s especially true if the bottles have drifted to the ocean depths. Most other types of plastic, however, bob along the surface. It’s these types — used in milk jugs, detergent bottles and Styrofoam — that make up the abundance of floating plastic trash. QUESTIONS:  Summerise the article in your own words What is the main purpose of paragraph 1? In your opinion, are people aware of this problem? What are some potential solutions you could foresee for solving this plastic problem? Let's connect: https://linktr.ee/aliceconte --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/alice679/message