📙 Part 2: Describe a skill you can teach others

This episode's vocabulary

Flesh sth out (phrasal verb) - to add more details or information to something.

Underpinning (noun) - support, strength, or the basic structure of something.

Put sth in/into sth (phrasal verb) - to spend a lot of time or effort doing something.

Key (adj.) - very important and having a lot of influence on other people or things.

Tenet (noun) - one of the principles on which a belief or theory is based.

Lay sth  out (phrasal verb) - to explain or describe something in a clear and detailed way.

-

Questions and Answers

M: Rory will describe a skill he can teach others. He will say what it is, when he learned it, how he taught others and explain how he felt about it. Are you ready to rock and roll? Off you go.

R: I can teach others how to teach English, I suppose. Although, I should say that's not very difficult, to be honest. It's not really a very difficult skill to acquire. I learned it through a combination of theory and practice and, well, like direct observation, I suppose. So when it comes to the theory site, I read a lot of textbooks and course books about teaching, and I looked things up on websites to flesh out the whole, well, theoretical underpinning behind what I was actually putting into practice. And then, well, like I say, I actually put it into practice and I got feedback based on what worked best from colleagues and from the students reactions themselves. And you could see that almost immediately. Alongside that I also, like I say, I observed what others were doing and I borrowed ideas from them too. And I taught it to other people much in the same way, to be honest. I recommended a variety of sources on theory and I pushed people to try and change certain things or even just to try certain things out, and letting them see how it actually works. Or if it didn't work for them, then it didn't work and they would learn from that when they reflected and got feedback. As I said before, the key tenets aren't that hard, to be honest. It's essentially what is the subject and what is the material that can be used to teach and how can that be adapted and laid out in a logical plan to teach in the time given, I suppose, to the students in question. Of course, most people must also understand that they won't get it right every time. And that's a process that they should be willing to. Well, sorry, it's a part of the process they should be willing to accept. It's a useful skill to have because I think it means that you grow past being a teacher and you can actually help other teachers with their work as long as you can maintain a certain level of patience. Although I should say that being able to maintain your level of patience isn't something that's unique just to teaching or teacher training.

M: Do you often teach other people things?

R: Well, I used to, but my course is winding downer, so I don't need to do that so much.

-

Discussion

M: Rory, thank you. So the task is to describe a skill you can teach others. So teach and learn, these verbs are easily confused and make sure you don't mix them up. So when you teach people, you teach them stuff you give them.

R: It's the direction of the information. If the information is going into your head, you're learning. And if the information is coming out of your head and into the others, then you're teaching.

M: Like a teacher, teach. We teach people or teach something to people. So I taught it to them. Right. Or I teach something to children. I teach English to children. Or I can teach you how to cook. Right. But when you are learning. So I learn things from your teaching basically. Right. OK, cool.

R: And if you ever have to. Well, if you ever have this task, can you talk about teaching in general? You just need to know that there's basically two elements of the theory and practice.

M: Oh, there we go. There we go.

R: Theory is the idea.

M: Nerdy stuff.

R: It's not nerdy. It's easy. It's it's how you break it down in to be able to tell it. So the theory is the ideas and the practice is what you actually do. So you need to describe both and then talk about them.

M: Oh, OK. So just make sure that you have a skill that you can teach others or you just make it up. So a skill like how to drive a car, how to swim, how to cook, how to listen to this podcast, what else, how to make jokes about Rory and his hair.

R: How to listen to this podcast is a good one because basically it's like, listen, check the transcripts, do the quiz, practice with the answers. You have the theory and then you have the practice. See, told you there is a pattern.

M: Yeah. We acquire skills. Acquire, we get skills, we learn skills or a posh word is acquire skills. Skills could be useful., practical, what else, useless.

R: Technical.

M: Oh, technical. OK. You maintain your level of the skill.

R: Or you don't or you lose the skill.

M: You lose, you lose the skill. Or you can maintain your level of patience because here you talk about how you can teach this skill to other people. So you should maintain your level of patience.

R: By putting it into practice, which is... What would it be? An idiomatic? Well, the broad categories idiomatic expressions. Phrasal verb for, well, just to put something into practice for practicing things. Like to do the practice basically.

M: Putin. And another phrasal verb is flesh out..

R: Yes. Which I didn't use.

M: You did.

R: Did I?

M: Flesh out. Yes.

R: Oh, cool. I must have used it when I wasn't thinking.

M: So you said I read a lot of books about teaching and looked things up on the websites. Another phrasal verb look things up on to flesh out the theory.

R: The theoretical underpinning. I remember now.

M: So when we flesh something out, what do we do?

R: Just expand what it is. So if you flesh out an idea, you have the idea and fleshing it out means how you're going to put it into practice, what the possible problems might be. This kind of thing, make it into reality or at least experiment with the idea.

M: So if I put this theory into practice, I flesh out the theory.

R: Yes.

M: Oh, well, that's nice.

R: Well, that can be part of it. You could even just think about how you're going to put it into practice. And that's continuing the process of fleshing out the idea. It doesn't have to be about reality. It's just about adding more information to the original component. Are people going to understand that? Yes, the transcripts are available. The transcript are available on our website.

M: And Google is available and the Internet is available so just go and research. OK.

R: We have other vocabulary to be getting on with.

M: Um, yeah. How about we just focus on the linking words? Because there are a couple of linking words that you can use when you talk about any speaking part two. Alongside.

R: Yes. Alongside that.

M: That. Yes, comma.

R: So it's like in addition to this, but in addition to is for writing. Alongside that is for speaking mostly.

M: Yeah. Usually we say like and or what's more, besides. But that's kind of all simple. We are aiming for band nine score. So alongside that, I checked out blah blah. Yeah, alongside that.

R: We can also in terms of structuring our answer, we can refer back to what we said by saying like I taught it to other people in the same way. And in the same way just means based on what I already talked about.

M: Yeah.

So hopefully your examiner was listening and they should be listening.

M: Yeah, they are all ears. They are supposed to be listening to you very active.

R: And if they weren't listening, you can say, as I said before, the key tenants aren't that hard. Paraphrasing.

M: Yeah. As I said before. Yeah. Would you use the present perfect? As I've said before. Or you go more American. American Rory living in Russia.

R: There's a small difference in meaning. As I said before is like part of this conversation. As I have said before could be part of any conversation in the past.

M: Oh, wow, I see. Are you getting this, dear listener? Wow.

R: But that's like based on British English. If it's American, then they just do what they want. We really shouldn't have given them their freedom. Look at what they've done with it.

M: OK, we on this podcast, we prefer British English because Rory's from... Oh, actually Scottish English and Russian English. So can we have a word for Scottish and Russian English together?

R: Could we talk about the structure of the answer?

M: Yes, so as I said before, and this makes your answer more logical and coherent and coherence influences one of the criteria.

R: I had to talk about how I felt about the skill.

M: How did you feel about the skill?

R: Well, I didn't actually directly say I feel about it this way.

M: I said, like, it's a useful skill to have so I feel it's useful. But I didn't say that. I just said it's a useful skill to have because blah, blah, blah. This is my opinion. So this is my feeling. But it's a more advanced way of saying it because you're not taking the words from the prompt, you're making it up in your head.

M: Oh yes. For high score you should paraphrase the prompt.

R: Exactly.

M: The prompt. The task.

R: Yes.

M: What about though?

R: Well, it's another connecting word, isn't it? So in this case, it's I can teach people how to do this and then I pointed out like though meaning but. Though just to mean, it's not that difficult, so it's like, here's the thing I can do, but it's not a difficult thing to do.

M: Yeah, though or although. They're the same.

R: Yes, basically. Well, there is a small difference in meaning because there's a difference in form, but you can use it to mean the same thing here.

M: In the previous episode we talked about ultimately. Could you give us an example of and use the word ultimately in the middle of the sentence for a higher score.

R: Well, what can I say? Well, so, ultimately, while it's not a difficult skill, it is a useful one.

M: It is ultimately useful one.

R: I was going to say that was my second option.

M: It's ultimately a good skill. There we go, band nine.

But so is also a good way to introduce the end of the story as well.

M: So that's all.

R: And indeed so, dear listener, that is all. We'll see you in part three when we talk about, well, teaching again.

M: If you're listening to this on Patreon, please make your comments about this episode and tell us which words you like, which grammar structures. Just give us your thoughts.

-

Make sure to subscribe to our social media to see some of the “behind the scenes” stuff:

Our Instagram: bit.ly/instagramswi

Our Telegram: bit.ly/telegramswi