This episode’s vocabulary
To be light on smth
phrase — to have or use something sparingly.
To think on my feet
idiom — to think and react to events very quickly and effectively without any preparation.
To get (creative)
verb — to reach or cause to reach a specified state or condition.
Flexible
adj. — (of a person) ready and able to change so as to adapt to different circumstances.
Questions and answers
Rory will describe a time when he needed to use his imagination. He'll say when it was, why he needed to use his imagination, what he imagined and how he felt about it. Could you start speaking now, please?
Yeah. Um, recently I worked at a camp for children whose parents wanted them to study English in the New Year holidays in Russia. To clarify, that's a ten day period that usually means rest and relaxation. However, for me, it meant more work. Admittedly, more work at a four star hotel in the Russian countryside. So it wasn't so bad, but more work nonetheless. It meant the same for these children who were doing the course. So it's a bit of a shame because I think they should have had a break, but they were actually very nice. One of the issues was, we were quite light on materials at the place. We only had chairs, tables, pens and paper, no whiteboards, limited printer access, no computers except for one or two laptops. With this in mind, I had to think on my feet and come up with different activities for the students that didn't involve any worksheets or fancy materials that might involve... I don't know, colored paper, for example, because of the absence of said printer. And which I think a lot of teachers might think that would be a complete disaster, but actually far from being a total disaster, it was quite fun. We used a lot of work with dictation, for example, and gallery walks and quizzes and we used recordings from my phone. Thankfully, I also had an idea of how the week was to progress and the project the students would make. So it was easy enough to encourage them to get creative with me and present something truly their own. Well, it was a little stressful for me at first, since I'm used to having unlimited access to materials at the school I usually work on. It reminded me of the importance of being flexible and how to do it. I still felt glad when it was over, though, and I took a well-deserved rest afterwards. So lots of eating and sleeping.
Do you often have to use your imagination?
Yeah, being a teacher is quite a creative job. -