📙 Part 2: Describe a skill that you learned when you were a teenager

You should say: What the skill is, who you learned it from, why you learned it, and explain how you felt about learning it.

This episode's vocabulary

A good/great deal (phrase) - a large amount.

Tearaway (noun) - a young person, usually male, who behaves in an uncontrolled way and is often causing trouble.

Vaguely (adverb) - in a way that is not clearly expressed, known, described, or decided.

To sew (verb) - to join two pieces of cloth together by putting thread through them with a needle.

Apron (noun) - a piece of clothing worn over the front of other clothes to keep them clean when doing a dirty or messy job, especially cooking.

The latter (adj.) - the second of two people, things, or groups previously mentioned.

Precision (noun) - the quality of being exact.

To pan out (phrasal verb) - to develop in a particular way or in a successful way.

Formative (adj.) - relating to the time when someone or something is starting to develop in character.

Appalling (adj.) - very bad.

Questions and Answers

R: Well, I was a teenager a long time ago, and I'm not sure I learned a great deal back then, to be honest, since I was a bit of a tearaway. But one thing I vaguely recall is learning how to sew in my home economics class. Specifically, we had to learn how to put together this apron in the first half of the year. So we could wear it when cooking in the latter half. The class was taught by our home ec teacher, Miss Christie. And dear god was it one of the most boring experiences I've ever had in my entire life? She was so focused on precision and doing things perfectly that it just sucked all the fun and joy out of everything that we did. I mean, she was like that for cooking as well. To the extent that I lost interest in both skills for the rest of my life. Any development I made was extremely limited after that experience. Anyway, back to sewing. This was another case of the curriculum being far behind the times in all honesty, because they talked about being able to make and mend your own clothes. And in the age of fast fashion we have now, this seems completely useless and pointless, especially to a young teenager like I was at that time. It might have been better for us. In fact, I have no idea what might... What a better alternative would have been, frankly. But we definitely shouldn't have been learning it just because some government document said we should have been. If I hadn't had this experience, I might have been more keen on the idea of making and mending clothing later in life, although it's never really come up. And things seem to have panned out rather well regardless. So it was a formative experience nonetheless, even if it didn't have the intended result. And to this day, I still have extreme problems with sewing things together. Well, to the limited extent that I have to do it.

M: And what about your classmates? Did they enjoy this subject?

R: There were two groups of us, the ones that hated it, and were appalling, and the ones that loved it and did extremely well.

Discussion

M: So, what skills do we learn as teenagers?

R: Well, I talked about what I learned at school, and we could talk about what we learned in home economics or domestic science classes. But if you're in a youth group, then you might also develop some skills there. And a lot of children do things like karate and martial arts. So they could also talk about this too.

M: Okay. And how do I say like, I am going to talk about karate or I'm going to talk about sports, right?

R: If you were good at it, yeah. I mean, I did jujitsu when I was younger. And I do it now, but I'm much better now than I was when I was a child. I hated it when I was younger.

M: Yeah. So because it's a skill, right? Also kind of swimming, driving, cooking, and playing the piano, dear listener. And you can start it off with I was a teenager a long time ago. I'm not sure I learned a great deal. So I didn't learn much. I'm not sure I learned a great deal. A great deal? Like a lot of things. I was a bit of a tearaway.

R: You talked about this before, but that's just someone that is especially a younger person, who doesn't really follow the norm in terms of behaviour and behaving themselves very well.

M: One thing I vaguely recall, is learning how to sew. Rory... So I vaguely recall, like I vaguely remember. I don't remember well, okay? But still, I remember some bits. Yeah, like one thing I vaguely recall, I vaguely remember is learning how to sew. Sew, dear listener. Sewing. What do you do when you sew?

R: You bring pieces of material together with some kind of thread or another piece of material.

M: So like two pieces of cloth, like of material together. You have a thread and a needle. And usually, kind of, we, we can sew clothes, right? Or if you have a hole in your trousers or a hole in your T-shirt, you kind of like you sew. Rory learned how to sew. Can you imagine our Rory? At school, in my home economics class. So maybe you also have this subject at school. Home economics. They teach you how to cook, and how to fix things at home. And Rory was taught how to sew. Why?

R: Why was I taught this?

M: Yeah, boys.

R: Yeah, I think in a lot of education systems now, this doesn't happen. Or it does happen. Where girls go to this one class to learn to cook and so on. Or boys go to learn how to use technology. At least it would have been like that a long time ago in my country, too. But it's not like that now. Everybody does the same thing together.

M: We've had to learn how to put together this apron. So apron is a piece of clothing that you usually put it on when you cook. Wow. So kind of you had to sew an apron, Rory.

R: Yeah, you had to make one. It's not actually that difficult, to be honest with you. It's just I was not very interested in it because I was a young boy and I didn't really care about that kind of thing. And I'm terribly sorry to miss Christie, who was my home economics teacher at the time. But it was a horrendous idea to make young children do that. I cannot imagine why they thought it would be a good idea or turn out any differently from how it did.

M: Yeah, so I had to make this blah, and then I could wear it when cooking. You see? Very convenient. Kind of they teach you how to make clothes, and then you wear these clothes. The class was taught by our teacher. Yeah? So I was taught how to sew. The class was taught. And then Rory gets quite emotional. Dear God...

R: Dear God, it was the most, or, sorry, it was one of the most boring experiences of my entire life.

M: Yeah. So you can say it was the most boring experience I've ever had in my entire life. Okay? So this class was super boring. And Rory's teacher was focused on precision. So when you learn a skill, you kind of need to be precise. So the teacher was focused on precision.

R: You need to do it perfectly.

M: And doing things perfectly. Ooh, and kind of when it comes to sewing, like, yeah, there are a lot of moments when you can mess it up.

R: Are there though? I feel like you can always go back and change things. But this teacher was not like that. It was like you do it, you do it this way. You must do it this way. It must be done. And I'm just like, okay. But of course, if you're a young person, you don't necessarily have that same belief.

M: Yeah. And it sucked the fun out of it.

R: It really did.

M: So, yeah, I didn't like the teacher, the method. So it took the fun out of learning this skill. It sucked the fun out of it. Right? Could you give us another example of this? That's a good phrase.

R: Well, I don't know. It depends on your tastes really. But if anyone is constantly complaining when you're doing something that will probably suck all the fun and joy out of it, even if you're enjoying yourself because other people are just moaning all the time.

M: I lost all interest in both skills. So I was taught how to cook, how to sew, or you can say I was taught how to swim, but I lost interest in it because it was dull, boring, and the teacher sucked all the fun out of it.

R: It was very boring.

M: Yeah, and Rory lost all interest in cooking for the rest of his life, dear listener. And now you know the story. Now you know why Rory cooks his eggs in the microwave. That's why. Thanks to Miss Christy!

R: I'm sure that wasn't her intention at the time. But that's what ended up happening.

M: Oh, yeah.

R: Poor Miss Christy, she probably thinks like she's the worst person in the world now. It's not your fault, Miss Christy. It's just I was a terrible student. That's what the problem was.

M: And this subject is in the curriculum. School curriculum. So if you talk about something you learnt at school, so this is in the curriculum. This is part of the curriculum or the school program.

R: So things that you have to learn.

M: Yeah. And also, you can say like, mend your own clothes.

R: Repair them.

M: Like repair your clothes. Yeah. And Rory said that now it seems completely useless and pointless (there's no point), especially for a young teenager. So can you imagine a modern teenager and teach this teenager who is into gadgets, artificial intelligence, and robots, like how to cook, and how to sew? Well, you know, maybe useful.

R: It's not gonna go well. However, imagine that you're talking about a skill that you do like and find useful, then you would say it's not pointless, and it's not useless or it's useful. And it has a point.

M: You can say that I could have been more keen on the idea of learning how to swim, for example. Or I wasn't keen on the idea of learning how to swim. Like I was not a fan of this. Yeah? Or I was like really keen on swimming, or on learning how to swim. And it panned out rather well. So if something pans out, what happens?

R: It, well, the end result is pretty good. Well, if we're talking about how it pans out, then we're talking about the end result. If it pans out rather well, then the end result is good. But if it doesn't pan out well, the end result is not so good.

M: Yeah, like if you talk about something negative, then like kind of it didn't pan out well for me. Like I didn't enjoy it. Yeah? Boring. What helped you to structure this answer?

R: Just going back to the task, really. Although, I did add an explanation at the start just saying I cannot talk about this in much detail because I'm vaguely recalling it. And I was a teenager a long time ago. And also, I didn't learn much, so I just prefaced it. I didn't say I'm going to talk about sewing. I said, I'm going to talk about sewing but I cannot remember it very well. And then I went to the specifics. Specifically, we had to learn how to and then what we had to learn. And I talked a little bit about the cooking to explain why the teacher was so bad or why my experience with her was not so good. And then I got back to sewing. I said, anyway, back to the sewing. And then I rounded off with my conditional as well.

M: Yeah, what would be your second choice? What would you talk about? What skill?

R: I can't think of another skill. I think a lot of people learn how to swim. I could talk about that. I didn't learn that when I was a teenager though. So I would have to think about when I was learning how to swim and how that would have been if I'd learned when I was a teenager. So that's one thing. But most people learn things like martial arts or how to swim or how to do some kind of sport. That's a skill. You might learn how to cook from your parents or play a musical instrument.

M: Driving, maybe, or like riding a bicycle. I don't know. Operating some kind of vehicle, dear listener, a scooter. Okay? But is like playing football, playing volleyball. Is it a skill?

R: It is if you do it under the guidance of someone, yeah.

M: Also, dear listener, snowboarding, or skiing is a skill, right? So learning how to snowboard is a skill. So there you go.

R: Do you know how to snowboard?

M: Oh, I think I've done it twice or three times. It's quite cool.

R: Nice. Do you have a cool helmet?

M: Oh, I did, yeah.

R: Oh, fancy.

M: So, dear listener, make your choice. What you can talk about here? Okay? Choose something easy for you to talk about and feel free to lie. Okay? Thank you very much for listening! Bye!

R: Bye!

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