📙 Part 2: Describe a job that is useful to society

This episode's vocabulary

Hassle (noun) - (a situation causing) difficulty or trouble.

Diversity (noun) - the fact of many different types of things or people being included in something; a range of different things or people.

To constitute (verb) - to be or be considered as something.

Orderly (adverb) - well arranged or organized.

Knowledgeable (adj.) - intelligent and well-informed.

Energy-saving (adj.) - designed to make economical use of electricity, gas, or other forms of energy.

To transmit (verb) - cause (something) to pass on from one person or place to another.

To reconstruct (verb) - reorganize (something).

On an individual basis (phrase) - considering each person or thing separately rather than as part of a group.

Costly (adj.) - costing a lot; expensive.

Questions and Answers

R: Well, I'm a teacher, so of course, I'll say my job is pretty important to society. Basically, it involves helping others to become good at something. I mostly teach English these days, so I focus on helping people to get better at using the language to communicate effectively. I've been doing my job for over 10 years now, so I hear about it all the time. But even before that, it was always on the periphery. I always heard about someone teaching English and working abroad with people all over the world to make a difference. And of course, before then, my dream was to be a teacher, though I wasn't sure about what kind I wanted to be then. I focus on English, but different teachers help people develop their skills and knowledge in different areas. There are people who pass on knowledge and skills related to all kinds of topics, and being able to that effectively saves people so much time, money and hassle, because they can access it much more easily than if they did it by themselves. And when it comes to the kind of person that gets into teaching, I think that's a pretty broad group of people, really. As far as I can tell, no two teachers are alike, and there's a diversity of opinion in terms of what constitutes best practice. But generally speaking, it seems like they're all reasonably orderly and knowledgeable people who have an interest in others, just based on my experience with them. I suppose it's so useful for the time and energy-saving qualities, especially in larger groups. If you can transmit or reconstruct knowledge and skills with a large number of people in a short time, then that saves a lot of work that might otherwise never have been done, or that has to be done on an individual basis, and that can be quite costly.

M: And what about your friends? Do they think it's useful?

R: My friends that are teachers probably think it's useful. Yes.