📙 Part 2: Describe a time when you needed to use your imagination

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

Maria: 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?

Rory: 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.

Maria: Do you often have to use your imagination?

Rory: Yeah, being a teacher is quite a creative job.

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Discussion

Maria: Thank you Rory for your imaginative answer. Yeah, you guys, so you have to describe a situation when you needed to use your imagination. So Rory talked about his camp experience, but what else can you talk about?

Rory: Oh, any time where you had to think on your feet, and indeed that was one of the phrases that I used.

Maria: Yeeh, to think on your feet, you are kind of thinking being on your feet. But when you think on your feet, you think about something right here right now.

Rory: Yeah, very quickly in the situation that you're in.

Maria: Spontaneously without preparing anything?

Rory: So maybe a time when you had to make up something of your own, create your own materials, this kind of thing.

Maria: Or when, for example, at university you didn't do your homework and then you had to create something or when you I don't know, think about it. Right. So you can make it up. And make it up, you can imagine the situation when you had to use your imagination. Ha ha ha ha. And now we've given you two synonyms. How to paraphrase imagine something. So think on your feet. I had to think on my feet or I had to make something up. Rory also mentioned I had to come up with something. Is it the same? Make something up and come up with something?

Rory: Well, make something up is...#nbsp;

Maria: Broader?

Rory: A bit broader and a bit more chaotic than come up with something, you come up with an idea that you can make up a story, for example.

Maria: Yeah, I had to make up a story or I had to come up with different activities. I had to come up with different options, with different stories. Can you say conjure something up.

Rory: Oh, that would be good. Center something from nothing.

Maria: Yeah. Could you give us an example?

Rory: Sure. I conjured the plan for the whole week from nothing.

Maria: Mhm. Yeah. So you can, you can say that you will rely on your imagination or. I have a lack of imagination. I'm not an imaginative person. Yeah. Like you may not be imaginative or it was a product of my imagination.

Rory: The thing is you could talk about a time when you needed to use your imagination. It doesn't have to be a time when it was successful. You could talk about a time when you failed to use your imagination as well. So you had to, but it wasn't very successful.

Maria: Yeah. For example, you went on a date with your imaginary. Oh, my God, this is horrible.

Rory: Stop.

Maria: Oh, actually, I have my friend with me. Bob. No, no, don't don't do that. The examiner will look at you weirdly, in the same way as Rory sometimes looks at me thinking I'm totally nuts. Rory, you did use some adverbs, surprisingly. Surprisingly is an adverb, for example. Admittedly.

Rory: Yes.

Maria: Give us some more examples.

Rory: Admittedly, which is just like saying, speaking honestly or it's like saying but. But obviously but is a very simple connecter.

Maria: Yeah.

Rory: Yeah.

Maria: Linker.

Rory: So here admittedly means like OK, there was hard work but admittedly and then you explain why it was in a nice location.

Maria: And then thankfully, thankfully I also had an idea of blah blah blah. Thankfully an idea came up to my head or popped into my head.

Rory: Mhm.

Maria: Yeah, thankfully. So you see, this is how you can make your answer band nine using adverbs. So surprisingly, admittedly, unfortunately, not quite easy adverbs, you know, but they do add some spice into your answer. Rory, so who got creative with you?

Rory: The kids that we were working with, they got creative with me. Yeah. And so I wasn't the only one that had to be creative but they also had to be creative.

Maria: Yeah. And you can say, like I or they have visual imagination, they have a vivid imagination, you can say vivid when you see visuals or you can say like, you know, I don't have vivid imagination. A vivid imagination or just without any article. I have a good imagination, I have a vivid imagination.

Rory: It's always a because it's imagination. Um.

Maria: I have a great imagination. Yeah?

Rory: Yeah. I'm just trying to think of any circumstance where you might not need to.

Maria: Or, for example, you say, I don't have a I have a poor visual imagination. So...I never use my imagination.

Rory: You still need an article.

Maria: Do you? Really? Are there any people out there who never use "the" imagination? I don't think so.

Rory: They all work for a certain language school in Moscow.

Maria: That's it.

Rory: Bye!

Maria: That's over. See ya!

Rory: Thank you for listening! Hopefully our answers have encouraged you to get imaginative with your vocabulary.

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