1 Siblings who share a bedroom tend to be less selfish. 
  
2 Children who have been brought up as the baby of the family are often fussy eaters. 
  
3 Firstborns, who are accustomed to accepting rules, are better behaved at school.
  
4 Middle-born children, who grow up with a younger and older sibling, can be argumentative. 
  
5 Only children who spend a lot of time alone tend to be very creative. 
  
6 The youngest child, who is used to being the centre of attention, usually has a good sense of humour.
  

1 My sister always leaves her clothes on the floor, is very annoying! 
2 In my family, the person cooks the most delicious food is my grandmother. 
3 I’m jealous of people parents let them do whatever they want. 
4 The only place  I can get some peace at home is in the bathroom. 
5 My mother, thinks I’m still a baby, worries when I go out late. 
6 I’ve got several cousins living in the same town as me.

SPEAKING FOCUS

Introducing the anecdote 

(Right, so) I’m going to tell you about (a great day out …) 
(OK, so) this is a story about (a day I’ll never forget.) 
This took  about (a month ago …) 

Sequencing events in the anecdote 

/When/Just after (we got there, the sun came out.) 
/To begin with, (we were the only people there …) 
As/While (we were sitting there …) 
Suddenly/ of a sudden, (the weather changed.)

Describing events vividly 

Predictably/ expected, (other people soon started …) 
Unexpectedly/Out of the , (it started pouring with rain.) 
Luckily/Fortunately, (after it stopped raining, the sun came out again.)

Finishing the anecdote 

Without a , it was (one of the best days I’ve had in ages.) 
When I look back (on that day) now, I feel … 
It turned out to be (an unforgettable day out.) 
Strangely/ enough, (the best days are often the ones you don’t really plan.)

Introductions
a It’s easy to forget that 100% of adults alive today were once teenagers like us. As a young man, my ‘sensible’ father was a real rebel. He rode a motorbike and got a tattoo at the age of sixteen.
   
   
b In his famous book, American author John Gray said that ‘Men are from Mars, women are from Venus’. Does this also apply to adolescents? Are younger men and women really so different from each other?
     
     

Conclusions
c As I began by saying, men and women differ in many ways, but individuals also differ regardless of their gender. We should be wary of stereotyping, respect each other and cooperate to use our strengths for a common good.
     
     
d So, as a regular teenage girl, am I really that different from the boy sitting opposite me in class? Perhaps not. Whether we will become more or less alike in later life remains to be seen.
   
   

1 Because they want to look stylish, many adolescent boys also enjoy shopping for clothes. 
  
2 Because they attend mixed schools, most adolescent boys and girls receive the same education. 
  
3 Because I grew up with three sisters, I know something about the differences between boys and girls. 
  
4 Because they are stereotypes, such statements do contain an element of truth, of course. 
  
5 Because I have always got on well with boys, I think I understand some of their attitudes.