📙 Part 2: Describe a short-term job you’d like to do in a foreign country

This episode's vocabulary

Pipe dream (noun) - an idea or plan that is impossible or very unlikely to happen.

Spell (noun) - a period of time for which an activity or condition lasts continuously.

Skill set (noun) - the range of things that someone is good at, especially things that are useful in a particular job.

Brain drain (noun) - the situation in which large numbers of educated and very skilled people leave their own country to live and work in another one where pay and conditions are better.

Immediacy (noun) - the fact that something seems real and important, so that you feel involved with it.

Misguided (adj.) - unreasonable or unsuitable because of being based on bad judgment or on wrong information or beliefs.

Sustainable (adj.) - able to continue over a period of time.

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Questions and Answers

M: Rory is going to describe a short term job he'd like to do in a foreign country. He's going to say what type of work he'd like to do there, what country he'd like to work in, and he's going to say why he'd like to work there. Rory, are you ready to rock and roll?

R: Let's go.

M: Yay, off you go.

R: I've thought about this a lot, actually. And it's probably sort of a pipe dream, really, when I think about it, but when I had a brief spell in Haiti, I spoke to one of the people running the hostel I was staying. And we spoke about running a teacher training program at the local university for English teachers in the capital city. Anyone who knows me is aware that I'm very enthusiasticabout teacher training. And it seems there aren't many people who have the skill set that are prepared to work in such places. Haiti is like a third world country, and they have lots and lots of problems with infrastructure and civil disturbances, which make setting things like a sub extremely difficult. And I actually picked Haiti since I felt it would be a place to have the most benefit to both itself and the people who live there. They have teachers, but the key issues lie in both, the lack of professional development infrastructure in the country, and in the brain drain happening, because people with the means to often just leave, and they take their experience and knowledge with them. Of course, there are other places, but Haiti was where I was at the time. So I suppose the immediacy of the surroundings played a part in that too. Another reason I picked teacher training and not teaching is because lots of people already do this thinking they're doing the right thing. But this is actually quite misguided as some people actually take work from local teachers or undermine their work in the process of trying to help. Moreover, many of them have no idea what they're actually doing. And that has the end result of making things even worse for the students who are already facing all of these problems. Teacher trainings are a lot more sustainable, since local teachers can take the knowledge and use it in their lessons. It's like old people, it's, sorry, it's like the old saying about teaching people how to fish, you know. You can give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day. But if you teach a man to fish, then he can eat for a lifetime. And I think that's true in the case of teacher training, as well.

M: Rory, thank you so much for your answer. How lovely is that? Teach a man how to fish and he's gonna be fishing for the rest of his life, right?

R: Something like that.

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Discussion

M: So the exam task asks you to describe a short-term job. So we can have a permanent job and a temporary job. So here, you should talk about... Here you should talk about the temporary job.

R: You could talk about a short-term job not a temporary one.

M: No, but temporary and short-term are like the same thing. No?

R: Well, my understanding is... The way I see it: temporary is... It's funny because temporary, to say temporary lasts longer than something, it sounds funny. A short term job is something that only lasts for maybe two or three weeks, but a temporary job could last like six months or something like that.

M: Oh, right.

R: It's a really small distinction. And to be honest, I've just made that up in my head. There's nothing to stop you using them interchangeably.

M: Yeah, so temporary, not lasting or needed for very long.

R: You could go to Haiti and do teacher training for a couple of weeks.

M: Yeah, I can run a CELTA course there. Yeah, and short-term - lasting for a short time. So like

short-term memory. So pretty much you should talk about a job you'd like to do somewhere for a

month, two months or three months, right? Something like that.

R: Yeah.

M: Okay. And you can pick Scotland as your choice over foreign country if you're not in Scotland.

R: It's not a foreign country for me.

M: Well, but for me it is. Okay. So I can, for example, go to Scotland and sell whiskey or I can make whiskey. I can work as a whiskey maker. Huh? Brew whiskey.

R: You distill whiskey distilled.

M: Distill your brew, like beer, you know? No, but I'm gonna be brewing whiskey. This is going to be a new technology, new methods of making whiskey.

R: But that won't work. That's not how you get a high alcohol yield. Anyway, we're going off on a tangent.

M: Yeah. So you said that it's a sort of a pipe dream? Yes. So a pipe dream is, It's like a dream that you have or an idea of doing something but you'd think it's probably not really going to happen. So I have a pipe dream of teacher training in Haiti. I'd really love to do that. But I don't know if I have the time or the resources. I have things to be doing. It would be cool to do. I'd love to go back to Haiti. It was so nice.

M: And you said Haiti, Haiti like these islands. Beautiful islands. Haiti.

R: Yeah.

M: And you had a spell in Haiti.

R: A brief spell in Haiti. So if a spell was like a short period of time in a place as well. It's not something that you do with a witcher or wizard.

M: And you can say like I'm very enthusiastic about something you'd like to be working with. For example, I'm very enthusiastic about kids or when working with people, I'm really enthusiastic about cleaning schools, painting, drawing. Brain drain.

R: Out of nowhere. Brain drain. Brain drain is a phenomenon where people who are, well, people with lifelong qualifications like doctors, lawyers, business executives, they all leave a country because they have like, gained enough money to leave. So it's a problem in Haiti, because lots of their well to do people are leaving. Well to do just means they've done very well for themselves, they have lots of money, they've got lots of skills, and they go to America, or they go to the UK or somewhere like that, because the standard of living is higher, and they can afford it there. Russia has a similar problem, actually.

M: Yeah, yeah, we had like brain drain at some point in time.

R: The slowness of your speech makes it sound like it's happening now. One can only imagine what has caused that in Russia. Moving swiftly on...

M: Brain drain.

R: You could say that there's a brain drain in sort of Russian regions as well, because lots of people come to Moscow.

M: Right, from small villages.

R: Yeah. So a brain drain doesn't have to just be in a country, it could be from one region to another, for example.

M: Okay. All right. Yep. And the last question from the card, from the cue cards, we can call it a cue card, the card that the examiner gives you during speaking part two. So this card says why you'd like to work there. And you can go another reason why I picked blah, blah, blah, why I chose. So chose - picked. So another reason why blah, blah, blah, is that blah, right? This is how we speak, blah blah blah.

R: I probably could have been more explicit saying how short term it would be. But I guess the whole thing is short-term. I don't think people live in Haiti for a very long time if they can live elsewhere, but sad, it's a nice country go there on holiday, seriously. People are lovely.

M: Yay. You can also say I'd like to do this for two months, right?

R: Sorry, just while we're recording this, I really want to do this now. I might actually send an email to them and see if they're interested.

M: Hey, do you remember me, I used to work here.

R: I worked in Haiti like... When did I work in Haiti? 2018? November 2018. Very briefly, only

10 days.

M: 10 days? Wow.

R: Yeah.

M: That's a short-term job. You can say I worked as a teacher, or I'd like to work as a lawyer or...

R: Would like to work as a teacher trainer.

M: Sales manager.

R: Work as a teacher trainer. Seriously, if you're in like any training position, this is actually quite good.

M: Because you have the sea and lovely people and nice foods. You're surrounded by the ocean, right?

R: Yes.

M: Beautiful.

R: It is so nice. It's the Caribbean Sea.

M: Yeah. Also, dear listener, if you're sitting there wondering what short-term job can I do? So

you can be a...

R: You could do like voluntary work,.

M: Voluntary, right..

R: I'd love to be a volunteer in a charity.

M: Like for Greenpeace, for example.

R: Yeah.

M: Like to save whales? To pick up rubbish.

R: I don't know if they have whales in Haiti. But there's lots of rubbish that needs to be picked up.

M: Okay.

R: Replanting forests in Haiti. They've deforestation there. So they need to plant new forests.

M: Right. That's a lovely short-term job. Voluntary, right? You can also speak about being a

volunteer. So I'd like to volunteer. I'd like to be a volunteer and go to small Russian villages to help

people with their...

R: English?

M: Alcohol problems.

R: Why are you looking at me when you say that.

M: I don't know. Your face gives me this vibes.

R: My face makes you want to drink? My face should make you want to learn English.

M: Yes. Right. So dear listener, now make sure that you pick one job, one short term job that you

want to do in a foreign country. Thank you very much for listening. In the next episode, we're

going to be discussing jobs, and working, and international companies in general. Bye!

R: Bye!

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