📘 Part 3: Planning

This episode's vocabulary

Have an outline (phrase) – to have a basic plan. → It's good to at least have an outline of what you need to do.

Foreseeable (adjective) – able to be predicted or guessed before it happens. → Some things are definitely foreseeable and you can plan around them.

Anticipate (verb) – to imagine or expect that something will happen. → You can anticipate what other people might need or like.

Follow a career path (phrase) – to proceed along a sequence of jobs in your chosen career. → They're the ones who will be following those particular career paths.

Prone to something (phrase) – likely to suffer from an illness or show a particular negative characteristic. → Young children are prone to flights of fancy.

Flights of fancy (phrase) – imaginative but unrealistic ideas. → Children's plans can be flights of fancy, like wanting to be a dinosaur.

Make an informed choice (phrase) – to make a decision based on good information. → Adults can help children make an informed choice.

Commonplace (adjective) – happening often or existing in large numbers, and so not considered special or unusual. → Even if making study plans was commonplace, that still doesn't mean it would be popular.

Tend to (phrasal verb) – to be likely to behave in a particular way or have a particular characteristic. → Older people tend to have more experience.

Colored by bias (phrase) – influenced by personal and sometimes unreasonable judgments. → Their advice might be colored by their own bias and experiences.

Flying blind (idiom) – to do something without having the necessary information or experience. → It's better than asking no one and flying completely blind.

Transferable skills (noun) – skills that can be used in different jobs, companies, and industries. → Many degrees and courses have transferable or soft skills that could be useful for anyone.

Questions and Answers

Maria: Do you think it's important to plan ahead?

Rory: In the main, yes, it's good to at least have an outline of what you need to do. then there's less stress in deciding what to do in the moment, isn't there? I know people talk a lot about living in the moment, but some things are definitely foreseeable and you can plan around them.

Maria: What activities do we need to plan ahead?

Rory: Oh, all kinds of things. Usually the ones involving other people, so you can anticipate what they might need or like and how best to get it to them. Or of how to cope when those things aren't available or possible. I think the best example is for things like birthdays and birthday parties. You need to make sure you have enough food and drink and space for everyone involved. And you need to get a good gift. If you leave all that to the last moment, then it could all go horribly wrong.

Maria: Do you think children should plan their future careers?

Rory: Well, they're the ones who will be following those particular career paths, so they should have some say, at least, shouldn't they? I suppose all of this depends on how young the children are too, since young children are prone to flights of fancy and maybe cannot anticipate all the pros and cons of a different career. But, adults can help with that too, so they can make an informed choice.

Maria: Is making study plans popular among young people?

Rory: Having taught them for the better part of a decade, I'm going to say that is a hard no, which makes sense since their prefrontal cortexes haven't finished developing yet. So, none of the executive functions needed to make study plans are there. Of course, some young people might develop faster than others, but that is a rarity in my experience. Even if it was commonplace, that still doesn't mean it would be popular. I think they'd rather be out and having fun than sat at home making plans.

Maria: Should the children ask their teachers and parents for advice when making plans?

Rory: I don't see why not. Older people tend to have more experience and, I don't know, wisdom to draw on compared to younger people and teachers and parents are the most obvious sources of that. Of course, they're not perfect since they might be colored by their own bias and experiences, but it's it's better than asking no one and flying completely blind.

Maria: Do you think choosing a college major is closely related to a person's future career?

Rory: It certainly used to be, but it seems like nowadays, unless it's a profession requiring a lot of technical knowledge, like a doctor or an engineer, many degrees and courses have transferable or soft skills that could be useful for anyone. So you could choose to focus on anything and still come out with a lot of relevant experience.

Discussion

Maria: Right. So we plan ahead. Ahead. Head. Ahead. Plan in advance. And we usually have an outline of what you need to do. An outline?

Rory: Like a basic plan.

Maria: A basic plan. To have an outline of what you need to do. Because there's less stress. So no stress or less stress. Some things are foreseeable.

Rory: You can see them in the future. And that is related to planning ahead.

Maria: Foreseeable things. An event or situation that can be known about or guessed before it happens. We plan certain activities ahead. So we usually plan all kinds of things. Birthdays, birthday parties, weddings. So any activities where other people are involved. So we can anticipate what can go wrong, for example. So we can anticipate. Anticipate is also like about the future. We anticipate, we imagine or accept that something will happen. C1 again, see dear listener. Band eight, 8.5. Anticipate something. So we plan ahead to anticipate what other people need, what can go wrong, anticipate problems. And if you give an example, you just use things like holidays, birthdays. We plan things like ta ta ta and ta ta ta. And also use modal verbs to sound less direct, like people might like, not like people like, but people might like, it could go wrong, not just it's it will go wrong. It could go wrong. It might go wrong to sound more academic and professional. Children plan their future career, or maybe not, they should not do this. What do you think?

Rory: Well, they can try. Why not let them try? There's no harm in this.

Maria: Follow their career paths. So children will follow their career path. Path like a road. And the expression is to follow your career path. To follow your career road. And it depends on the age of children. Young children are prone to to something. So to be prone.

Rory: If you're prone to something, it means that you're more likely to do it or it's expected of you.

Maria: Yeah, be prone to do something, to show a particular characteristic, usually negative one, or be affected by something bad. For example, he was prone to depression as a teenager. So he was always, usually depressed. And that's C2, dear listener, that's a phrase, which is C2 band nine, to be prone to something. For example, she is prone to bad behavior. She behaves badly usually. And here Rory says, young children are prone to flights of fancy.

Rory: Yeah, but that just means like excessive daydreaming or fantasizing about how things could be, or not having realistic expectations.

Maria: Yeah, like children are prone to flight of, flights of fancy. So ideas with a lot of imagination, not practical ideas. So they just imagining things. So that's why they can't make decisions about their future career because, yeah, I want to be an astronaut, I want to be, a dinosaur. And adults can make an informed choice. Adults can make an informed choice. A choice which is not a flight of fancy.

Rory: So it's not like we're just making this choice without any reasons. We're just, well, not we're just, we are using evidence and thinking about things before we do anything.

Maria: Young people make study plans. And then Rory uses this, well, because the the prefrontal cortexes haven't finished developing yet.

Rory: Everybody knows this about young people. Your prefrontal cortex is the part of your brain, it's at the front and it doesn't fully develop until you're 25 years old. And that's good to know or important to know because that's the part of your brain that is for making really complex decisions.

Maria: Yes, dear listener, prefrontal cortex, okay? Children's prefrontal cortex isn't developed yet. That's why they are not able to make study plans. Their brain isn't developed yet. Isn't developed or hasn't developed yet?

Rory: Oh, both. Because one is like an adult looking back through time. And the other is talking about how they are in the moment. So both are okay.

Maria: So it's not commonplace that children can make informed decisions. Like commonplace, it's something like common. Happening often. Like electric cars are commonplace.

Rory: Well, maybe not the same. Commonplace just means lots of people are doing it. Popular means lots of people are doing it and they enjoy it or like it.

Maria: Yeah, that's true. So common or commonplace are synonyms.

Rory: Very important for your IELTS exam, especially in writing part one, where people write the word popular to describe something that is done frequently, but there is no information about whether the people enjoy it or not.

Maria: Yeah. The safest way is to use common, not popular. Children ask their teachers or parents for advice. To ask someone for advice. When they make plans. So we make plans, we plan ahead, and we make plans. So all the people tend to have more experience. Again, you see, we don't say older people have more experience because again, not always. We say older people tend to have more experience. Usually have. And teachers and parents are the most obvious sources of experience. To be a source of experience. But their advice might be colored by their own bias. Again, we are very soft, cautious, careful, might be colored, so maybe colored, maybe not. To be colored by their own bias. Bias is like when a person doesn't like something, they will say negative things about it. Bias is, C2, like preferences. Usually political bias, different newspapers are negative about certain things. Or a person could be biased against somebody. That's why teachers and parents, if they don't like something themselves, their opinion, their advice might be colored by their own bias. So they may not be objective. They will tell you only one side of the story.

Rory: They'll say, yes, that's a great decision to become a lawyer. Even though they know nothing about that.

Maria: And if you do that and you know nothing about what you are doing, then you are flying blind. Or flying completely blind.

Maria: To fly blind.

Rory: Just to do something and you don't know what you're doing.

Maria: Could you give us another sentence with fly blind?

Rory: Yes, absolutely. When I started to go to the gym, I was flying blind because I had no idea what was going on.

Maria: Yes, exactly. When you choose your main subject to study, it's called a major. So my major was English. Rory's major was literature, was it?

Rory: At university? No, it was politics.

Maria: Oh, politics. Oh, okay. Okay. So, Rory's main subject was politics. And here Rory gave us an example. Like a profession requires a lot of technical knowledge, like a doctor and engineer, a specialist knowledge, technical knowledge. Then a major, your major is important. But if not, then your major is not really important because you can transfer soft skills to other subjects.

Rory: And if you can transfer the soft skills, they are transferable.

Maria: Transferable. Soft skills can be transferable. So you learn soft skills, you develop soft skills at university, how to plan, how to write, how to cheat, how to communicate with people.

Rory: How to use AI to write your essays.

Maria: Yeah, all these things and they can be transferable to other spheres of your life. Time management, communication skills, computer skills, ChatGPT skills.

Rory: Using AI to manage your time.

Maria: Yeah, but seriously, using AI is like, is an important skill. Yep. Right, dear listener, how are you doing? Are you okay? Are you fine? Yes? Good. Lovely.

Rory: Do you feel more informed about the subject of planning?

Maria: Thank you very much for listening. We'll get back to you in our next episode.

Rory: Bye.