1Write about your family, and use some new vocabulary.

1. If you don’t know your father or mother’s job, or your brother’s major, look it up. You are going to be talking about them for the rest of your life. So, start getting smoother now.

2. After you write it, read it out loud and record yourself. Then listen to yourself.

3. As you read it out loud you will probably find some mistakes. Fix them and read and record it again.

4. Put a family photograph in if you can. This makes your conversations more intersting.

There are five in my family: my father, mother, an older brother, a younger sister, and me. My

father is an engineer for Sony. My mother is a nurse. She works at a children’s hospital near our

house. My older brother is a junior at UCLA majoring in chemistry and my younger sister is in the

sixth grade. We live in Anaheim, near Disneyland. My hometown is Boise, Idaho. We lived there

until I was ten, then we moved to L.A.

My parents are traditional and a little old-fashioned in their thinking. However, they are

modern about technology. My father always has the latest iPhone or whatever. He’s very good

with computers, and so is my mother. My parents are strict about grades, but not about curfew.

I’m not close to my brother, because our age gap is five years, but I am close to my sister. We fight

a lot, but I’m very protective of her. We talk a lot.

2Write about your hobby or interest or talent.

Be specific: where, when, who, how often, for how long, why.

Do you have a hobby?

My hobby is skateboarding. I love it. I started skateboarding when I was 10, so I’ve been at

it for about five years. When I first started I fell down a lot, and I was black and blue all the time.

But now I’ve got the hang of it and I’m pretty good. There’s a real good skateboarding place near

my house and I go there every afternoon after school. I’m usually there all weekend long. When I’m

not skateboarding I’m usually surfing the internet and reading about it. My parents like it because

I’m always in the neighborhood, and it’s easy for them to give me birthday and Christmas presents.

They just get me something to do with skateboards. I tried soccer for a while, but I’m just more of

a loner, I think. Anyway, I really like it, and I have a reputation as a good skateboarder. Hopefully

that will help with the girls.

3

Write a paragraph describing your school personality and use new vocabulary.

You can write about the personality you have, or wish you had.

If you have no personality, write about your school.

I’m a freshmen at the the University of San Francisco and I have a really short attention span.

I cannot concentrate for more than one hour, and after that I need a break about every ten

minutes. I never cram before exams because I just cannot stay focused long enough. My grades are

OK, but I’m not a brainiac like my big sister. She makes straight A’s and hardly ever studies. I used

to be a slacker, but now that I see how well my parents treat my big sister I am going to study

harder. They are really lenient with her but strict with me. So these days I never procrastinate and

always try to prepare ahead of time. Luckily, this semester my major professor is an easy grader so

my grades should be good. In high school I was a loner because we had just moved and I did not

know anybody. But now I have a lot of friends and I joined two clubs, the math and computer club.

I have a part-time job at Burger King on the weekends, and that really motivates me to study

harder. At the end of this semester we have to pick our minor or second major, so I’m giving that

some serious thought. After I decide that, I’ll have some time to relax and goof off. Life-altering

decisions are difficult.

4

Describe your family's looks, and maybe personality.

Everyone in my family looks pretty much the same, but we are all built differently. My

father is tall and slender. But when he’s wearing a soccer uniform you can see that he is muscular.

He’s about 6 feet tall (183 cm). He has short, dark brown hair that he combs back. His skin is a little

tanned because he is an outdoor person. My mother is average height, about five feet four (163

cm), and much prettier than average. She has wavy black hair that goes down to her shoulders,

and she looks a little like Anne Hathaway. She has a light complexion and she hardly ever wears

makeup. She worries about her weight and is always on a diet. To make her look slim, she usually

wears high heels. My older brother looks like my father. They are like two peas in a pod. He is

athletic and muscular. He loves sports. He is a little taller than my father, about six foot one. He

also has short thick hair, but he does not comb it. It looks like a mop. My younger sister looks just

like my mother. They have the same face, but my younger sister is slender like my father, though

much shorter. She is only five foot two. My sister has long, straight dark hair and she usually wears

it in a ponytail. She also has a light complexion , but these days her face is breaking out. She’s self-

conscious about that.

5

Write about food, restaurants, sports or exercise.

I am not a picky eater. I will eat anything. Also, I prefer a lot of ordinary food to a small

portion of expensive food. All food tastes great to me. I’ll only go to a ritzy restaurant if someone

else is paying. On the other hand, my best friend is a vegetarian and she likes fancy food. She likes

her food fresh, and she never eats leftovers. The odd thing is, she’s also a chocoholic with a big

sweet tooth. She’s always eating chocolate and stuff from Dunkin’ Donuts. We often go to Pizza

Hut because they have a nice salad bar for her and I can get deluxe super supreme pizza. We also

go to TGIF because we like their festive atmosphere. Being a hostess at TGIF looks fun, but it must

be a hard job because I have never seen the same hostess twice! Ha. Being perky is tiring, I guess.

My mother works, so she likes to relax on the weekends and we usually get food delivered or

eat out. Sometimes we’ll get a couple of large pizzas delivered and eat leftovers all weekend.

When the pizza runs out I’ll nibble on chips and dip all Sunday afternoon while I watch TV. When

we eat out it’s usually at a Mexican restaurant. I love their nacho appetizers. I never have dessert

because I’m always too stuffed.

6Write about this summer vacation.

Maybe you can use some vocabulary from other units.

This summer my family will go to Montana. It will be peak season so my father made

reservations last year. We’ll go the first two weeks in August. My father likes to travel light and he

likes roughing it - backpacking, hiking, camping, white water rafting, things like that. My mother is

the opposite. She packs for everything. It’s fun to watch them argue when packing. (Mom always

wins.) My father is into sightseeing and has every day planned, and he likes to get souvenirs from

every place we go. Mom’s idea of a good vacation is to sit by the pool and read. She’s always

worried about getting ripped off at a tourist trap, so she always haggles with the merchant. (She

wins.) We have tentative plans to camp out, but that depends on the weather.

Before we go on vacation I’ll go to a computer academy in the afternoon. I want to learn

Photoshop, and get really good at MS Word and Excel. My father says those programs are really

important. The academy is high tech and the other students are interesting to hang out with. It

gets me out of the house and around a lot of people. Frankly, I get bored watching TV and playing

computer games all day long. But I won’t study too hard because my dad says it’s important for

me to recharge my batteries during school breaks. I totally agree.