🧠 IIT Madras Notes

English Week 4 - Spoken English & Telephonic Skills

7 min read

English I - Week 4: Spoken English & Telephonic Skills

  • Core Idea: This week, we transition from the building blocks of language to its practical application in spoken conversation, with a special focus on telephone calls. We will learn about the rhythm of spoken English (chunking), common phrases used on the phone, and how to clearly describe and resolve communication problems.

📚 Table of Contents

  1. Fundamental Concepts
  2. Question Pattern Analysis
  3. Detailed Solutions by Pattern
  4. Practice Exercises
  5. Visual Learning: Conversation Flow
  6. Common Pitfalls & Traps
  7. Quick Refresher Handbook

1. Fundamental Concepts

🎯 1.1 Chunking: The Rhythm of Spoken English

Native speakers don’t speak word by word. They group words into meaningful phrases called chunks (or thought groups). Pausing between these chunks makes speech easier to understand and gives it a natural rhythm.

  • What is a chunk? A short group of words that represents a single idea. It can be a phrase, a clause, or even a single important word.

  • Pauses:

    • Short Pause (/): A brief hesitation within a sentence, often marked by a comma in writing.
    • Long Pause (//): A more definite stop at the end of a complete thought or sentence, marked by a period or semicolon in writing.

  • Example:

    • Word-by-word (unnatural): “Our / difficulty / is / not / with / regard / to / the / ultimate
”
    • Chunked (natural): “Our difficulty/ is not/ with regard to the ultimate// our difficulty/ is with regard to the beginning//”

📞 1.2 Telephonic Communication: Essential Vocabulary

Telephone conversations have their own special set of phrasal verbs and expressions.

Phrase / Phrasal VerbMeaningExample Sentence
Pick upTo answer a call.”I called him, but he didn’t pick up.”
Hang on / Hold onTo wait for a short time.”Could you please hang on for a moment?”
Hang upTo end a call.”Don’t hang up! I haven’t finished.”
Speak upTo speak more loudly.”I can’t hear you, could you speak up?”
Ring someone laterTo call someone again at a future time.”She’s busy now. Can you ring her later?”
Get throughTo successfully connect with someone on the phone.”I tried calling all day, but I couldn’t get through.”
Cut offTo have the call disconnect unexpectedly.”We were talking, and then we got cut off.”

🔊 1.3 Describing Communication Problems

When a call quality is poor, you need specific vocabulary to describe the problem.

  • “You’re not audible.”
    • Meaning: I cannot hear you at all, or your voice is too quiet.
  • “Your voice is jarring.”
    • Meaning: Your voice is making a harsh, unpleasant, vibrating sound, often due to a bad connection or microphone.
  • “Your voice is echoing.”
    • Meaning: I can hear your voice repeated a moment after you speak, like an echo. This is often caused by speakerphone issues.
  • “Your voice is breaking up.” / “You’re cutting out.”
    • Meaning: I am only hearing parts of your words, with gaps of silence in between, due to a poor signal.

2. Question Pattern Analysis

From the Week_4_Graded_Assignment, the patterns are highly practical and context-based.

Pattern #Pattern NameFrequencyDifficultyCore Skill
4.1Chunking SentencesHighMediumDividing a long sentence into natural-sounding thought groups using pause markers.
4.2Identifying Meanings of Telephonic PhrasesHighEasyAnswering True/False questions about the definitions of phrasal verbs like ‘pick up’ or ‘speak up’.
4.3Using Telephonic Phrases in ContextHighEasyChoosing the correct phrasal verb or expression to complete a sentence in a call scenario.
4.4Diagnosing Communication ProblemsMediumEasyMatching a description of a sound problem (e.g., vibration) with the correct vocabulary (‘jarring’).

3. Detailed Solutions by Pattern

Pattern 4.1: Chunking Sentences

  • Core Skill: Identifying the small, logical units of thought within a longer sentence.

Example Problem:

Mark the correctly chunked version of the sentence: “Let us leave aside slogans let us leave aside words which frighten people”

TAA in Action:

  1. Triage: This is a chunking problem. I need to find the most natural-sounding breaks.
  2. Abstract: A chunk is a group of words that “belong together”. I will read the sentence aloud in my head and listen for natural pauses.
    • “Let us leave aside slogans” - This feels like a complete thought. A definite pause would fit here.
    • “let us leave aside words” - This is another thought.
    • “which frighten people” - This phrase describes the “words”. It should be connected.
  3. Act:
    • The first main idea is “Let us leave aside slogans”.
    • The second main idea is “let us leave aside words which frighten people”.
    • Combining these, the most natural structure is: Let us leave aside slogans// let us leave aside words which frighten people//. The provided correct answer uses a slightly different but still valid chunking: Let us leave aside slogans/ let us leave aside words which frighten people//. The key is that “words which frighten people” is kept together as one chunk.

Final Answer: Let us leave aside slogans/ let us leave aside words which frighten people//

Pattern 4.3: Using Telephonic Phrases in Context

  • Core Skill: Matching the meaning of a phrasal verb to the situation described in the sentence.

Example Problem:

Choose the appropriate option: “Deepthi is not here. Could you please ______.” Options: Speak up, Hang up, Hang on, Ring her later

TAA in Action:

  1. Triage: This is a phrasal verb in context problem. The situation is that the desired person is unavailable.
  2. Abstract: I will evaluate what each phrasal verb means and if it makes sense as a request in this situation.
    • Speak up: “Speak louder.” This is irrelevant.
    • Hang up: “End the call.” This is rude and doesn’t solve the problem.
    • Hang on: “Wait.” The speaker just said Deepthi is not here, so waiting is pointless.
    • Ring her later: “Call her again at another time.” This is the most logical and polite suggestion.
  3. Act: The best fit for the context is “Ring her later”.

Final Answer: Ring her later. (Note: The provided assignment answer key has a different correct answer, ‘Hang on’. This could be a context where the speaker wants to check if Deepthi might be returning soon. However, “Ring her later” is also a very common and logical response).

Pattern 4.4: Diagnosing Communication Problems

  • Core Skill: Connecting the technical term for a call issue with its plain English description.

Example Problem:

Geetha, while speaking to Mary, hears a vibrating noise. Choose the best sentence Geeta should use. Options: Your voice is echoing, Your voice is jarring, You have to speak up, You are not audible.

TAA in Action:

  1. Triage: This is a communication problem diagnosis. The key symptom is “vibrating noise”.
  2. Abstract: I will match the symptom to the correct vocabulary.
    • echoing: Hearing a voice repeated. Not a vibration.
    • jarring: A harsh, unpleasant, vibrating sound. This matches the description perfectly.
    • speak up: A request to be louder. Not about vibration.
    • not audible: Cannot be heard. Not about vibration.
  3. Act: The word for a vibrating sound is “jarring”.

Final Answer: Your voice is jarring.

Memory Palace: Week 4 Concepts

  • Chunking (The Road Trip):

    • Think of a long sentence as a long road trip.
    • You don’t drive the entire way without stopping. You drive from Town A to Town B (one chunk), take a short pause (/), then drive from Town B to Town C (another chunk).
    • At the end of the trip, you take a long stop (//). Speaking in chunks is like driving from one logical stop to the next.

  • Telephonic Phrasal Verbs (The Phone’s Life Cycle):

    • The phone rings. You pick up (answer it).
    • The other person asks you to wait. You hang on.
    • You can’t hear them. You ask them to speak up.
    • The connection fails. You get cut off.
    • The conversation is over. You hang up.

  • Call Quality Issues (The Bad Radio):

    • Jarring: The radio speaker is blown and makes a horrible BZZZZT sound. It’s a physical vibration.
    • Echoing: You are in a canyon and hear everything twice
 twice
 twice.
    • Breaking up: The radio signal is weak, and you only hear ---every---other---word---.
    • Not Audible: The radio is turned off or the volume is at zero. You hear nothing.

Graph View

Recent Features

    Backlinks