Describe an experience when you spent time with a child

Band 8 Sample

So, I’d like to tell you about an experience when I spent time with a kid. It was when I was about 15 years old and I had to look after my brother’s 2 year old son, who is my nephew. It was on a weekend one time when I was visiting my brother and his wife and their son. My brother’s wife was at work that day and he had to go out to the shops to pick-up some groceries to cook for dinner, but instead of all of us go together, he decided that it would be much more convenient if he went alone and I stayed at home to look after my nephew while he was gone. At first I was a bit shocked that he came up with this idea because I had never looked after a small child on my own before and I was a bit nervous and didn’t know what to do or what to expect, especially if something went wrong. But my brother reassured me that he would only be gone for about 30 minutes or so and that everything would be fine, and if I needed to contact him in an emergency then I should just call him on his mobile phone. So I reluctantly agreed.

Anyway, so my brother went off to the supermarket and I stayed at home with my nephew. At first I think I just put on one of his favourite cartoons on the TV to try and keep him occupied for a while, but this only worked for so long. After around 15 minutes, he got bored of that and wanted to do something else, so I then went and got all of his toys from his bedroom and brought them out into the lounge room and tipped them on the floor. We then made a big mess playing with his toys for about 10 mins before he quickly became bored again. So then after that I went to the kitchen and found some of his favourite snacks and we sat back down to watch cartoons again on the television and eat the snacks. After about 5 minutes though, thankfully he fell asleep until my brother arrived home. So, all in all, it was a fine experience I guess. I was quite relieved that nothing bad happened and I realized that it wasn’t that difficult to look after small kids.

Vocabulary highlights:

1. kid – child
2. look after – take care of
3. pick-up – to collect, get or buy
4. groceries – items of food used to cook eg. fruit, vegetables, meat, canned food, dry noodles etc
5. convenient – when something is used or happens at a time or place that is easy, or useful
6. shocked – feeling very surprised or upset
7. reassured – to comfort someone to stop them from worrying
8. reluctantly – not wanting to do something, and therefore doing it slowly
9. occupied – busy
10. for so long – for a period of time
11. relieved – happy when something unpleasant or not nice has ended