Hello, Lovely, I'm Maria.

And my name is Rory, and we are the host of the AIL Speaking for Success Podcasts.

The podcast aims to help you improve your speaking skills as well as your listening skills along the way.

We started this super podcast because we want you to use high-level words and gorgeous grammar in your everyday English and

your IOT speaking exam. Rory, are you working less now? No, I'm actually working about the same

amount, unfortunately. I think it's going to be like this for a while. Oh, you always slave away. You need

to go out and meet new people. Oh, it's a coincidence because today we're going to talk about meeting new people.

Yes, in speaking part one, they can ask you questions about meeting new people.

Rory, do you often meet new people?

Um, well, actually, contrary to the joke at the beginning, I probably meet new people on a daily

basis, or at least I used to, because I did placement testing.

So in order to do that, I had to go and meet students and talk to them about English and

what they wanted to achieve.

So I actually did that quite regularly.

How do you feel about meeting new people?

Well, it's cool, because obviously it's a new experience every time, but it's also quite difficult sometimes because it's hard for me to keep track of people's names.

And the other thing is because of the work that I do, sometimes people know me before I meet them.

And then that causes, well, it's like an imbalance and

information flow, isn't it? Because they know everything about you and you don't know anything

about them. But on the whole, it's a positive thing, of course. You meet new people and make new

friends. Are you able to decide whether you like the person by the first meeting? Well, according to my star sign, I am, and apparently, well, I think there might be some truth to that, actually,

because every time I've met someone knew that I didn't quite like and I had a little uneasy feeling about,

...