Week 3 · Session 1
Knowing it is your turn
Three signals that a question is coming at you.
~35 minThe real problem is the silence afterwards
3 minutes
Most students think their problem is not understanding the question. Usually it is not.
The problem is the two seconds after — everyone turns to look at you, you half-caught it, and the silence gets heavy. So you say nothing, and someone else answers for you.
This week gives you two things: the signals that a question is coming at you, and something to say in those two seconds so the conversation waits for you.
Three signals that it is your turn
6 minutes
- The pitch goes up at the end. A yes/no question rises — “Should we get dinner?” A wh- question usually falls — “Where do you run?” Both can still be aimed at you.
- Your name, or “you”, gets louder. “What about you, Sita?” The stress moves onto the person being asked.
- Everything stops. The most reliable signal of all is the pause. If the room goes quiet and people are looking at you, a question arrived — even if you missed every word of it.
That third one costs you nothing to learn and works every time. You do not need to have understood the question to know that one was asked.
Watch: questions inside a real conversation
12 minutes
Listen for the pitch. She points out a question where the voice goes down at the end, and another where it goes up. Both are real questions. She also decodes the -ed endings and a dropped T along the way — Workshop 3 material, arriving early.
Up or down
6 minutes
| You hear | The voice does |
|---|---|
| Should we get dinner? | pitch rises ↗yes / no question |
| Where do you run? | pitch falls ↘wh- question, still a question |
| You're coming, right? | rises ↗checking — answer expected |
| So you moved here in June. | falls ↘a statement fishing for confirmation |
| What about you? | falls ↘handing the turn to you |
Do not rely on the rise alone. Plenty of real questions fall at the end. The pause and the stare are more reliable than the pitch.
Record your voice note
3 minutes
“Describe a time when someone asked you something in English and you froze. What did you do?”
Save it as “Week 3 — Voice Note 1”.
Couldn't-Catch List
ongoing
This week, note every question you failed to catch, and whether you knew it was a question at all.