📙 Part 2: Describe an unusual holiday/vacation you had

You should say: When and where you went, who you went with, what you did there, and explain why it was unusual.

This episode's vocabulary

Unenviable (adj.) - an unenviable duty, choice, or situation is unpleasant or difficult.

Counterproposal (noun) - a proposal offered as an alternative to a previous proposal.

To jump at something (phrasal verb) - to accept something eagerly.

To roll around (phrasal verb) - (of a time or event) to happen.

Adventure (noun) - an unusual, exciting, and possibly dangerous activity, such as a trip or experience, or the excitement produced by such an activity.

Fortnight (noun) - a period of two weeks.

Excursion (noun) - a short journey usually made for pleasure, often by a group of people.

Knackered (adj.) - very tired.

Time off (noun) - a period of time when you do not work because of illness or holidays, or because your employer has given you permission to do something else.

Questions and Answers

R: Well, for once I find myself in the unenviable position of having too many unusual vacations to talk about. Although, I suppose the one that stands out the most would be actually my most recent one to Italy. To give you a little context, I mentioned casually to one of my friends who is a school principal that it would be cool to try and do a small professional development event and have some fun with the kids at her school in the summer. After I made that suggestion, though, she paused and said, hmm, counterproposal, why not come here in January for two weeks while I'm away, and you can observe the teachers and teach whole classes. And that was a pretty cool idea. So I jumped at the chance to go. So, when January of this year rolled around, I went off to Italy. Specifically, I went to this township called Aversa, which is near Naples, and I taught at one of the best private schools in the region for just over two weeks. And as with most of my adventures, I went by myself. But I stayed with my friends on arrival. Thank heavens, because, well, they were so generous with their time and their space, finding accommodation in that kind of town that's actually decent quality would have been a nightmare. The fortnight was divided into two parts, one week of mostly teaching where I did 40 hours worth of that, in addition to writing and going to the gym. And then we went on various excursions like one to this massive shopping complex, that was pretty cool. I was pretty knackered by the end of that, to be honest. So then, when week two started, I was pretty happy that it was just a lot of observations of all the teachers and meeting the directors of the school to talk about future work. I suppose it was one of the weirder holidays because most people don't really associate time off with working. But I really liked my working holiday. And evidently, the kids I worked with too. They enjoyed it too because some of them even asked to keep studying with me online. And I think that's a pretty good sign of success. If I hadn't done this, well, I'm not sure what I'd have done. Probably have had a really normal and boring January and who wants to do that, ey?

M: And do you often have unusual holidays?

R: Oh, yeah. I'm becoming known for them.

Discussion

M: So, dear listener, an unusual holiday. Okay? Do you have this holiday in your life? If not, just imagine it. Okay? So unusual? What do we mean by unusual? Maybe you swam with sharks. Okay?

R: Which I also did.

M: Oh, yeah, Rory did that, okay, check. Or maybe you just went up Mount Everest. Okay? For fun. Or kind of, actually, that's a usual story. Yeah? Okay, but something should be unusual. Maybe an exotic country or an exotic city, or maybe some exotic activities you did there. Okay? But kind of like, prepare your story. Rory started off with I find myself in the what position?

R: Unenviable position. An unenviable position is collocation and it just means that you're in a difficult position that not many people would want to be in. And it was difficult for me because, well, I've had so many unusual holidays that I don't really know which one to talk about, or I didn't but then I picked the one that I wanted.

M: Unenviable, dear listener. Unpleasant or difficult. So I don't want to have this in my life. For example, an unenviable choice. I don't want to make this choice. Okay?

R: But I did make the choice in the end.

M: Yes. And you can say that one holiday that stands out would be blah, right? Or, I'm gonna tell you about a holiday that stands out. Stands out? Like I really remember it. It's kind of it's different from the other holidays I've had. So the one that stands out would be my trip to Italy or my holiday in Italy.

R: And it's a phrasal verb which makes it even better.

M: So I had this holiday in the summer. So in the summer or in summer, also you can say. Or in winter, in summer, in spring.

R: In January.

M: And Rory told us a story about how he got invited to go to Italy and teach in a school. And Rory calls it a holiday. Okay, dear listener?

R: It was a working holiday. I enjoyed it. I had a nice time.

M: Yeah. Sweet.

R: You can see the pictures on my Instagram. It's really cool.

M: So I practically jumped at the chance to go there. Okay? So if I jump at the chance to go somewhere, I just like, oh, yes, I'm gonna go and just like you go there. You use this chance.

R: And it's usually I practically jumped at the chance to go there. That's the whole expression.

M: And then you continue like, when January of this year rolled around...

R: So when January came. It's usually used for talking about a time coming, I think. When January rolled around, or when the event rolled around, or that time of the year.

M: Yeah. But you said like you went there in summer?

R: No, no. I suggested going there in the summer. But then she made the counterproposal of coming in January.

M: Ah, okay, okay.

R: So it was much sooner than I'd planned.

M: Off I went to Italy. So when May rolled around, off I went to the Maldives, off I went to the sea.

R: Is off I went to part of grammar structure.

M: Yes.

R: What have I done? Did I reverse the word order?

M: Yeah.

R: Ooh, what's that called?

M: Inversion.

R: Nice.

M: Like a type of, yeah.

R: Yeah. Is it advanced? Will it get you a band nine score?

M: Super advanced. Oh, absolutely, dear listener. It's super advanced. So you can say like in spring off I went to Italy. Like in summer off, I went to the mountains. Specifically, I went to Rome or I went to Naples. So name the city. And Rory went to one of the best private schools in the region. Ooh. Nice.

R: It was very nice.

M: To have his adventures. Okay? I went there by myself. So I went alone. I went there by myself. But I stayed with friends on arrival. So on arrival? When I arrived, I stayed with a family or I stayed with some relatives or friends. Rory's friends were really generous with their time. So to be generous with time? They gave Rory a lot of time. They spent their time on him.

R: Well, they spent their time with me. I like to think that they wanted to spend time with me as well.

M: Finding accommodation would have been a nightmare. Okay? Like finding a place to stay finding a hotel would have been a nightmare. But Rory didn't have to find any accommodation. He stayed with his friends. I stayed there for two weeks, or I stayed there a fortnight. Okay? So a fortnight? Like two weeks. And this fortnight was divided, was broken down into two parts. One week Rory was teaching, yeah? Oh my gosh, 40 hours?

R: Yeah, it was mental.

M: I went on an excursion to a massive shopping complex. What? Did you go on an excursion to a shopping complex?

R: Yeah, it was very nice.

M: You didn't go shopping there. It was like a tour.

R: I did go shopping there.

M: Ah, okay, good. In Italy, especially.

R: Yes.

M: It's a sin not to go shopping in Italy.

R: Or to eat the food.

M: So you can say I went on an excursion or on a tour to the mountains or to a museum. Yeah? And in Rory's case, it was a massive shopping complex. I was pretty knackered by the end of the tour or the end of the excursion. So I was knackered? I was really tired.

R: I was really tired. It was, that was a really exhausting week. But it was absolutely worth it.

M: I suppose it was one of the weirdest holidays in my life. Or one of the weirder. So weird is strange. Unusual. So we can say like, I suppose, I reckon, I think it was one of the weirdest holidays ever. Or Rory used one of the weirder holidays, one of the stranger holidays. Because Rory had...

R: Many weird holidays.

M: Because yeah, Rory had even more unusual holidays in his life. So you can say that I took some time off. So I had this holiday, I took some time off. I took some time off and I went to Italy. And it was a working holiday. So I kind of I worked and I had a holiday. Yeah, and then you can ask a question, kind of like a rhetorical question, like who wants to do that? Yeah? Like, who would, who doesn't want to do this, yeah? So it was a nice holiday. So who doesn't want to do this? Rory, you want to comment on your story.

R: I do want to call it on my story. Two things in particular, the first thing is the process of planning it out. Now, this is a slightly different kind of way to do it, because you might have lots of ideas about your story. And you can mention that as well. Like I had lots of ideas because I've done a lot of different things. But I'm going to talk about this one, it stands out. And then you launch into the story, to give you a little context. So that would be about explaining why they went there, which isn't part of the question, but it's still related to the actual topic. And then talking about what happened when January rolled around. So at the time of year came. And what you did. So I said the fortnight was divided into two parts. You could say the same. It was divided into different activities. And then rounding off with our two favourites. First of all, answering the final part explains why it was strange. I said it was weird. And what would you have done as an alternative, or in my case, what I didn't do? Now, that's the structure and the process moving from one to the next. But there are also things that I have highlighted or I want to highlight because I went to an IELTS webinar recently, Maria. And they were talking about the value of things called lexical sets. What is it, Maria?

M: Well, a lexical set is just like a bunch of phrases. So a group of phrases.

R: A group of phrases connected to a...

M: Certain topic.

R: Yeah. And so our topic is holidays. And I went through the transcript. And I had a look for different things that were used, or different phrases that are used to talk about holidays. So we had vacations and in the summer, being away, jumping at the chance to go on holiday. Finding accommodation. The word adventure is also connected to this idea of having a holiday and things like excursions and having time off as well. So that's another aspect of this. Specifically the vocabulary. That the examiner is going to be looking for. So thank you very much British Council IELTS webinar. That was something that guided my process when I was thinking about what to say as well, I needed to have these words included somewhere.

M: Hey! Thank you very much for listening, dear listener. And we'll get back to you in IELTS speaking part three about holidays. Bye!

R: Bye!

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