General English Level 3 GELEV3 Unit 01 Topic 03.doc  LANGUAGE FOCUS 02 Talking about ability In this activity you are going to learn how to talk about things you can do, and how well you can do them. 1. Can, good at, know how to Philip and Maria say: Philip: I can play golf quite well too. Philip: ….. and I know how to play baseball. (Philip can play baseball.) Maria: I’m good at basketball and volleyball. (Maria can play basketball and volleyball well.) Maria: I’m hopeless at tennis…. (Maria plays tennis very badly.) We use know how to/don't know how to to say we can or can't do something. We use good at/bad at to say how well we do something. We also use hopeless at to say we do something very badly. LOOK can know how to can't You They We don't know how to play am good at am not good at I am hopeless at golf. table tennis. Examples 1 Listen to the examples. 1. I know how to play piano. 2. They can play golf quite well. 3. She's good at swimming. 4. He's very bad at football. 5. We can't swim! 2. Could, knew how to In the past: We use could/couldn't and knew how to/didn't know how to. Maria says: Maria: I could swim when I was five. Maria: I didn’t know how to breathe in the water… 19 QUESTLANGUAGE