📙 Part 2: Describe an art or craft activity e.g., painting, woodwork that you made at school

This episode's vocabulary

Subsequent (adj.) - happening after something else.

Precision instrument (noun) - a tool that can be controlled very accurately so that it produces very accurate results.

Shavings (noun) - small, very thin pieces of a hard substance.

Timepiece noun) - a clock or watch.

Alignment (noun) - an arrangement in which two or more things are positioned in a straight line or parallel to each other.

Secrete (verb) - to put something in a place where it is unlikely to be found.

Appreciation (noun) - the act of recognizing or understanding that something is valuable, important, or as described.

Shoddy (adj.) - badly and carelessly made, using low-quality materials.

-

Questions and Answers

M: Describe an art or craft activity, like painting woodwork that you made at school. Oh my God. So Rory is going to talk about that. And he's going to say, what he made, how he made it, what it looked like, and how he felt about this craft or art activity. Rory, are you ready?

R: I have a crafty answer for you.

M: Good. Have you woken up your inner artist?

R: Yes.

M: Okay, fire away.

R: It's quite embarrassing, actually. The only thing I ever made in technical class at high school was a wall clock. We made them in our fourth year at school. At least, I think it was fourth year. It must have been since I gave up the subject in the subsequent years. And that was definitely for the best. Anyway, it was put together using a variety of methods, using drilling and cutting, using a precision saw. It's this huge thing, it was taller than most of the students in the class. It's quite sharp and dangerous when you turn it on. And of course, we were sticking everything together with this sort of special glue that was designed for the material. On the subject of the material, actually, it was made out of something called acrylic. And I remember that specifically because it was so hard to cut. And it was very expensive. So the teacher would get very upset if any was wasted. They used to have these huge sheets of like acrylic poised against the wall. And even the smaller shavings would be saved as well if they weren't being used. So like I say, he would get quite upset if it was wasted. And I wasted a lot of it because I wasn't exactly mechanically or creatively gifted, I'm afraid. It was supposed to look like sort of Art Deco style timepiece with quite bright colors. But after about two months of doing this it emerged as sort of uneven mess, with everything out of alignment, and bits of glue, clearly visible where some joints made contact. Needless to say, I was quite embarrassed by it. And I think my parents sort of secreted away the end result somewhere after putting on a small show of appreciation. It took two months, although I appreciate, that sounds like quite a long time. But the reason for that was because I think we only had techy class, like once or twice a week. And by the time we got everything organized. And that did take a long time. You know you didn't have that much time to put everything together. But to be honest, we probably could have had all year and I don't think it would have made that much of a difference. It was a pretty messy experience. And I'm glad that I don't ever have to do it again.

M: What about your friends? Did they enjoy what you made?

R: They enjoyed laughing at what I made. I think I think there were a lot of pretty shoddy clocks put together that year.

M: Thank you, Rory, for your answer!

-

Discussion

M: Oh, dear listener, this might be a tricky one for you, right? First of all describe an art or a craft activity. What is a craft activity?

R: Oh, a craft activity is just something that you put together using your hands. It's something physical, and it generally has a purpose. So it could be making a clock or what else did we make in class?

M: It could be like something decorative, right? So like making some pirate boats from paper or a snowflake, for example.

R: Well, that has a purpose, though.

M: For Christmas?

R: It's something pretty.

M: For decoration. Yeah, yeah. Or it could be something like woodworks or make a wooden clock. Right. Like clock like actually, like supposed to work. Or it could be something, I don't know, like glasses. Like 3d glasses out of paper. It could be like anything really with some paper crayons or could be made with some flowers. So anything that you make at school with your hands and some paper, some I don't know. Wood, what else, plastic, some mugs, cups, anything really.

R: But if you're lucky enough to know a little bit about material then you could probably talk about the specific kind of material. So what kind of paper like will it be cardboard or blotting paper. Oh, we did a project with blotting paper in school, we drew like a black dot with black marker and then put it in water and it turned into all of the colors of the rainbow. That's quite cool.

M: Oh sweet. Yeah, do is not unfortunately here you have to decide now what craft you're going to be talking about. And you should choose very wisely for you to be able to talk about it, right. So don't choose anything complicated. So if you for example made some paper glasses, you can talk about that. Okay, I created 3d paper glasses out of plastic bags, I used colored lenses. These are the specific words I'm using, right. Glue was used. If you didn't create anything or you have no idea what to talk about, you should make it up and talk about 3d paper glasses.

R: Everybody's done origami? Everybody's done origami. There are children I taught in Africa that did origami. Like, come on.

M: Yeah, we do origami. We do it or we make it?

R: Well, you make origami figures. But you do origami activity.

M: There we go. Out of colorful paper. Right?

R: Sometimes. Is there not like special origami paper?

M: I think so. Yeah. Should be special. Yeah, there we go. So you can talk about that, again, you should decide. Rory talked about his technical class. And yeah, we call it like technical class.

R: Or tech or techie. Well, I also called it like extremely boring. It was the worst class ever. Mr. Watson, if you're listening, I'm really sorry, but technology just wasn't my thing. And here I am. On a podcast on the Internet of all things.

M: Yeah. I wonder what do you call these classes in your country. In Russia, we call it "trud". "Trud" and "trudovik".

R: Really?

M: Yes. "Trudivik" is the teacher. So it's like, like labor. If we translate it literally it's labor.

R: Oh, my God, it is labor.

M: Manual labor. Yeah. And girls usually cook and boys do some...

R: In Russia?

M: Yeah.

R: In the 21st century?

M: I did that, I did the cooking.

R: Oh my God, this is some 1950s level stuff. Like that's what my parents used to do. In the UK if you make girls do cooking, and boys do technical stuff, that's illegal.

M: Yeah, well, but that was a long time ago. Maybe now things have changed.

R: I hope so.

M: I don't know. Teachers, if you're listening and what's going on in Russian schools?

R: Vanya is shaking his head. That's crazy.

M: Hasn't changed? Okay, anyway, girls cook, boys do this wooden...

R: My brother did Home Economics. And that was the cooking class. And he was the only boy in the class. He had so many girlfriends that year.

M: Anyway, so the topic asks you to describe an art or craft activity, such as painting or woodwork. So Rory told us about a wall clock, which is what, woodwork. i

R: Sort of like plastic work, I guess. It's more like a plastic disaster to be honest with you.

M: But Rory mentioned really specific instruments that he used like...

R: Well, the drill and the precision saw. The precision saw is like a line... If you imagine like a vertical like most saws you hold, like horizontal and you move them back and forward. But a precision saw moves up and down. And you have to like move it very carefully through it. And you have to be careful or you'll cut your thumb off.

M: Did your teacher give you a saw?

R: No, this was a machine that we used under strict supervision because you can take your hand off like if you're not careful.

M: No, I think it will be illegal in Russian schools.

R: They're very expensive.

M: Wow. Okay. Yeah, you see, again, dear listener, you should use some specific vocabulary. Maybe Google a craft that you made at school or make it up, choose a craft that you are okay talking about it. Because for a high score, you do need specific vocabulary, unfortunately. So yeah...

R: Origami.

M: Origami. But again, are there many words you can say about origami, though?

R: Origami paper, folding design. Precision, you have to have a very precise way of putting together or it comes out looking like some sort of formless blob.

M: Oh, a formless blob.

R: Anyway, we should stick to the vocabulary. Because there's a couple things. You should mention the tools anyway, the material and I did, and but it's also important to talk about the style. I talked about Art Deco style. I still don't really know what Art Deco is. But that's what I was aiming for. And...

M: Bright colors.

R: Yeah. And how people reacted. Oh, yeah, how I felt about it as well. And I said, well, I mentioned the word embarrassing twice, so I guess you can discover what that means.

M: I was quite embarrassed by it or I was very proud of it.

R: Yeah, my parents pretended to be proud of it because they put on a show of appreciation.

M: They put on a show put on a show, they pretended, they enjoyed it, but they didn't.

R: Yeah, t's okay. Mom and Dad, I forgive you. I have I have to forgive myself as well.

M: Yeah, if you made something which was ugly, it's okay. You can say oh my, my fingers are thumbs, right? I'm all thumbs.

R: All thumbs, I guess? Is that what the expression is?

M: Yeah. All thumbs. UK - all fingers and thumbs.

R: Well that doesn't make sense because of course, you have fingers and thumbs.

M: Or, if it was very awkward and you are awkward with your hands you can say oh, I am all fingers and thumbs. I can't do anything properly. I can't make this origami figure. Everything is like shapeless. Everything is like a shapeless blob. What did you say this?

R: Formless blob.

M: Yeah, you can say that. Because craft is about handmade things. So you can say, Oh, really you know, I'm all fingers and thumbs. So I can't use my hands to create things.

R: Regardless of what you talk about, you're probably want to like follow the structure that I used where like, when I said what I made, I introduced it saying like, it's quite embarrassing, actually. You could also say, I'm quite proud of it, actually. And then move into like the only thing I ever made. And then I talked about how it was made. And then I talked about the material. And I introduced that point missing on the subject of material actually

M: It was made out of blah, it was made out of plastic paper.

R: But that's a good way of like introducing things. You should say like, oh, on the subject of that.

M: Yep.

R: And then the same way if we're talking about what it looked like. I was like it was supposed to look like so that was the plan. It was supposed to look like this.

M: It was supposed to be a clock, but it turned out a shapeless blob.

R: And there's only one synonym for clock, which is timepiece.

M: Oh, you don't say timepiece?

R: Yes, you do.

M: You do?

R: Timepiece is a band nine wall. No, you discuss someone's timepiece. Or the time.

M: I like the timepiece that you made? Yeah, Iike this?

R: Yeah. You wouldn't say that in normal conversation. But we're talking about an IELTS exam, band nine vocabulary. Timepieces.

M: Yeah. But if it's unnatural, it's not going to be band nine.

R: Well, you could talk about timepieces. It's usually to talk about watches though.

M: It was supposed to look like a sort of Art Deco style timepiece, but it turned out to be a mess. Okay, yeah, in this sentence it's quite okay.

R: That's great. That's a great sentence. It was supposed to look like and then you've got like nice words like Art Deco style timepiece. And then you just have mess.

M: A blob, a shapeless blob.

R: It was shapeless because it was out of alignment, which means that everything was not fitting together.

M: Cool. Thank you very much for listening! Thank you for tuning in! And I will see you in speaking part three where we're going to talk about handicrafts and art in general.

R: Bye!

M: Bye!

-

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

Our Instagram:#nbsp;bit.ly/instagramswi

Our Telegram:#nbsp;bit.ly/telegramswi