IELTS Plus: Episode 62 - Museums and Galleries

Greetings everyone and welcome back to another episode of the IELTS Plus English podcast. Today's topic is museums and galleries. I think I mentioned in last episode that this museums and galleries topic divides students in this academy. There are those who really enjoy this topic area. They regularly go to... art galleries, museums. But there are others who don't. And I'm in that category. I don't think this is going to be a particularly strong topic area for me.

So I think I'm going to have to really draw on my experiences from school where I did go to museums. So we'll see how that goes today. I've got another language-related challenge today, like I did last week. Last week, we focused on these adverbs that are useful for transitioning. They replaced and so but. This week, I'd like to give you three idioms that I think are the three easiest idioms.

to just drop into most answers. Of course, we don't want repetition. You can't keep using the same idiom. But if you drop these three idioms in one exam, wow, what a great... addition to your English and a great way to upgrade your score. So let me tell you my three favourite idioms. Number one is over the moon. Now, by the way, I'm not saying these are the most impressive idioms. I'm saying these are my favorite. I genuinely use them and they replace very easy words. So rather than say pleased.

or happy over the moon what a great easy idiom to drop into any answer you know you today perhaps we'll talk about we will definitely talk about museums And I could say that when I went into this museum and saw how many incredible exhibits they had, I was over the moon. Very useful idiom. The next one is costs an arm and a leg. Something costs an arm and a leg. Again, it replaces a very easy vocabulary, which is expensive and...

I think that's really easy to drop into an answer. I went to this museum in Madrid. I was so excited. But it costs an arm and a leg. Easy. And I think you could go back through all of our topics and you could put that in a lot of answers. It costs an arm and a leg. The last one is a piece of cake. It's a piece of cake, but very often, especially, I suppose, British English, we say a piece of cake. A schwa sound there. Piece of cake. A piece of cake.

And a piece of cake means very easy. Getting into that museum was a piece of cake. Doing whatever it was. was a piece of cake. It means it was very easy to do that thing. So those are three idioms and I'm going to try to get them into my answers today, all three of them. OK, so listen out for them. That's an additional challenge for me and you. Listen out for three easy idioms that you can use in your IELTS. Talking about language you can use in your IELTS.

We have a lovely language list today. Artifact, preserve, ancient, contemporary. These are some really impressive words that you can impress your examiner and boost your score. And it's available in the IELTS Plus Total Speaking textbook, available to you. on www.britplus.net. So go there, check it out. It's helped some students. They've given me some great feedback and I hope it helps you too.

Okay, I suppose I should give you a challenge before we start. I'm going to go off script again today and I'm going to ask you, what's your favourite museum? gallery in your country now the reason I'm asking this is I'm curious because maybe I will visit your country in the future and I'll check my comments and ah

This student said this country's best museum is here. So I'm going to put that on my holiday itinerary. So that's what I want to know from you is what's your favorite museum or gallery? in your country? Let me know in the comments. You can do that on YouTube, of course, but you can also do that on Spotify because I do check the comments there as well. Let's get started. Part one, question one. Do you enjoy visiting museums and galleries? Quite honestly, I do enjoy it, but I rarely do it.

I find in Korea there are some good museums and galleries. Some of them do cost an arm and a leg, so I tend not to go to those ones. But if there's an interesting exhibition... then I'm very happy to go and visit that with my family. Okay, maybe there was an idiom in there. Hopefully you caught it. When was the last time you visited a museum or gallery?

I don't know the last time I visited one, but the one that comes up in my memory is when I went to Paris. Maybe seven or eight years ago, I went to Paris and I went to the Louvre. uh in the middle of Paris and it was a wonderful experience it's Something, it's a place I had always wanted to go, almost like a bucket list item. So when I arrived at that iconic pyramid of glass.

in the Louvre and I went down into the museum. I was over the moon and I really enjoyed my experience, but it was exceptionally busy. Okay, well. That's part one done. By the way, that's another way to improve or upgrade your language is it'd be very easy to say, very busy. It was very busy. But what did I say? I said exceptionally busy. Just a little tweak from very to exceptionally or very to tremendously. And that's a really good way of upgrading your language.

Let's do a part two. Same as usual, get two minutes on the clock. And the question is, describe a museum or gallery you have visited. Okay, this is going to be challenging. Let's go. So two minutes on the clock. OK, let's start now. I'd like to tell you about the British History Museum. When I was. maybe 11 or 12 years old. I think 12 years old. I was in high school, maybe the first or second year of high school, and we went on a school trip to the British History Museum.

It was, of course, an entirely educational experience for us students. And it was related to the things we were studying. I think at the time we were studying ancient Egypt. And yeah, I think that's the main memory for me was when we went to the ancient Egyptian exhibit and just looking at all these. artifacts and uh various you know the the cases for mummies i can't remember all of the words for these things off the top of my head but

The different artifacts from ancient Egypt are so beautiful. You know, there's a lot of gold and different colors. So it's a really memorable experience, but it was such a long time ago. Let me tell you a little more about the British History Museum. It's an incredible museum, huge. with some amazing exhibits and they've managed to preserve some incredible artifacts from history. I mean, really ancient history.

So it's quite an experience for anyone. And by the way, certainly when I went there, it was free. Obviously, there's a lot of things you can spend money on, such as in the souvenir shop, but the museum itself is free. For me personally... It was a very important experience because I was able to enjoy it with my classmates and we could get some kind of guidance. I think. OK, good. Okay, I was pretty happy with that. By the way, it's coming to me now. Of course, I freestyle these answers.

And I'm sort of doubting myself. Am I right? Is it the British History Museum that has the ancient Egypt exhibit? We will see because I'm going to leave this in the podcast, of course, but after I finish shooting this episode, I'm going to go and check on the internet. Am I saying the right things? Am I mixing some museums up? Of course, although I want to be accurate, in IELTS, it doesn't matter. Your accuracy in terms of, you know, is this museum right or wrong?

Doesn't matter. The examiner is only listening to your English. So don't worry about that. Let's go to part three. How can schools and educational institutions... make use of museums and galleries? Wow, that sounds a difficult question. I think that just most importantly, they have to be proactive at making school trips. where they go to various museums and galleries. I think in school museums are perhaps more interesting to children.

in terms of learning about history. I think if they can get a curator in the museum to guide them and give that extra experience and extra knowledge, that's... fantastic i think that's what i experienced as well when i was young as i said in part two we went to the british history museum and i believe it was a curator who spent some time with us and explained some of the exhibits

Okay, next one. Should museums and galleries be free to the public? I don't have a strong opinion on this. I would say that ideally, yes, that a... government, that the country can fund these galleries and museums and have it as an important part of the culture of a country? So ideally, yes, but... If you have to pay a small fee to maintain these museums and galleries, to pay the curators and ensure everything is run well...

I think that's reasonable as well. So it depends on the country, but ideally, yes. Okay, last question. Nowadays, I think technology is... having a big effect on everything we do, but definitely in museums and galleries as well. I think the obvious one is that you no longer need a human curator or guide with you, you can stick your earphones in and have some, it could be a recording or I suppose nowadays with AI.

it could react to what you're seeing you know that there would be some qr i think there is something like this QR code and then you can just hear for each thing that you look at. So, yeah, I think that that aspect of technology, I wonder what AI will do for this area and whether... we will be able to you know nowadays we have these apple vision pro that type of thing so these um glasses with where it can react to what you're seeing and information drops down

I don't know. I'm thinking about various things, but I think technology can have a huge impact on the way we enjoy things like museums and galleries. Good. Okay. Not a great answer there. I didn't love that. But I think overall, that was a reasonable episode. What I didn't do was use a piece of cake.

And that's because I forgot. I'm very sorry. It is one that's easy. It's a piece of cake to use that idiom in your IELTS. If I look back, certainly... technology enhancing experience i might say it's a piece of cake to use um or to enjoy an exhibit while using technology. Or perhaps it's a piece of cake to apply technology to museums. Something like that. Anytime you want to use Easy, you can upgrade it to a piece of cake. But as I said earlier...

Don't repeat too much. It just sounds like you memorized. a limited set of idioms and you're just trying to use them. So that's everything I have time for today. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. And next week, we have nature and wildlife. Lovely. a topic i love i love nature um so that's next week's topic i hope you have a fantastic week and i hope you study tremendously hard this week and see you next monday for nature and wildlife See you then.