Task 2: Talking about a Personal Experience
In Talking about a Personal Experience, you narrate something you experienced and explain why it mattered. You have 30 seconds to prepare and 60 to speak.
Work through each lesson and mark the module complete when you finish practising.
4.1 Choose a story you can tell
You do not need to choose your most extraordinary experience. Choose one you can remember clearly and that answers the prompt precisely.
During preparation, note:
- When and where it happened.
- Who was with you.
- What happened first and what changed.
- How it ended and why you remember it.
4.2 Keep the timeline clear
Use the past for completed events:
"We arrived early, found our seats and waited for the show."
Use other tenses when the meaning requires them:
"I still remember that evening because it taught me to stay calm."
The present is correct here because it expresses a reflection that still applies. The goal is not a target percentage of past-tense verbs, but a clear chronology.
4.3 Organize the story
A flexible structure is:
- Context: When, where, and with whom.
- Development: Main actions in order.
- Central moment: Problem, surprise, or decision.
- Outcome and reflection: What happened at the end and why it matters.
Useful connectors include at first, a few minutes later, while, when, eventually, in the end, and looking back. Suddenly and out of the blue are valid, but do not always mean exactly the same thing: the second emphasizes that something was unexpected.
4.4 Complete example
Prompt: Talk about a time when a trip did not go as planned.
Last summer, my wife and I took a train to Montreal for a weekend trip. We planned to arrive before lunch and spend the afternoon exploring downtown.
About an hour into the journey, the train stopped because of a mechanical problem. Nobody knew how long the delay would last. We were frustrated, but we started talking to another couple who were also visiting the city.
We eventually arrived three hours late, so we changed our plans and had dinner with them near the station. Looking back, the delay was inconvenient, but meeting two new friends made the trip memorable.
What to notice: The verbs maintain the story's sequence, and the reflection explains why the experience was memorable. The response does not depend on an idiom.
Mini-test
Control verb tense
Which version maintains a clear sequence?
4.5 Speaking practice: Tell and reflect
Prompt: Talk about a time when someone helped you solve a problem.
Prepare for 30 seconds and record up to 60 seconds. Then review:
- Did the story have a beginning, change, and outcome?
- Is it clear who performed each action?
- Did I use connectors without excessive repetition?
- Did I explain why I remember the experience?
Go further: Record it again, removing a general sentence and adding a concrete detail.
Turn a memory into a response
Practise storytelling with a new prompt.