1. The Shy Guy por Javier Gimeno Fernández, hosted at eoidramstories.blogspot.com.
The Shy Guy
Every night the shy guy laid on his bed thinking about tomorrow: “I won’t be shy, I must
strive to talk to people more”. But every morning, at the urban train he would do it
again. If he met any person known, he’d pretend to be on the phone. If he saw a girl
alone, he’d stare at the floor. Poor shy guy.
Day after day he questioned himself “If I were brave…” But one morning reading the
free paper he saw an ad which caught his eye:
Are you shy?
We’ll change your life
or
we’ll give you your money back!
“It’s now or never” he thought, and picked up the phone and called and spoke
to the operator.
And, of course, he wasted his time his money and his patience. If he had known this
was a rip off, he wouldn’t have phoned. So cross he got, he started to call the miracle
company on a daily basis. And for one long month, he called the customer interaction
centre. And in every single call he made, he had to explain everything again to a new
agent. But they all repeated the same: “I’m sorry, I’m not the policy maker”.
Thirty one days after the first call to the miracle company, silence was made by the
coffee machine at the office when the shy guy asked everyone “Any plans for the
weekend?”

2. The Shy Guy por Javier Gimeno Fernández, hosted at eoidramstories.blogspot.com.
STUDENTS LEVEL
Official School of Languages Intermediate 2 and above (adults)
TEACHING POINTS
Language focus:
 Pronunciation /aɪ/ and /eɪ/
o The story includes some rhyming with words including these diphthongs
(e.g. /naɪt/ /ʃaɪ/ /gaɪ/ /straɪv/ /laɪf/ /taɪm/; /train/, /deɪ/ )
o Students can be encouraged to read the story out loud (by themselves
or in class)
 Grammar
o revision of conditionals (second/hypothesis and third/regrets)
 Vocabulary
o really controlled, it should not be difficult for students at this level to
guess words from context (e.g. customer interaction centre, daily basis)
o some colloquial items (cross,rip off, dough) may need clarification
(vocab – teacher)
DISCUSSION
A few springboards for speaking:
o Have you ever had any experience with call centres? Please explain.
o If you owned a company, would you set up a call centre? Pros/cons
o Do you know anyone shy? What advice would you give to an extremely
shy person?
o Do miracle cures (or diets) work?