Hello, and welcome back. Now, I know it has been a while. I haven’t made any new lessons in the past
couple of months. I’ve had a lot on my plate. I’ve had a lot of projects going, even though
I’ve been reading all of your comments and responding to as many as I can almost every
single day. Well, I’m back now, and I’m back today
with the first in a series of lessons on advanced spoken English. These lessons will help you to improve your
listening ability, and most importantly, your speaking skills, both for everyday communication
and if you’re preparing for an exam with a speaking component like the IELTS. Now, I’ll make sure to put the text of what
I say up on the screen, and I’ll also make sure to highlight any useful vocabulary that
you can take away from this lesson. Now, the way we’ll do this is we’ll take
a topic, and I will be interviewed on the topic, sort of like in an exam. That is, somebody will ask me questions and
I will answer those questions as naturally as I can. That is, I’m not going to try to simplify
my answers. I’m going to answer as I would in real life. Now, in this first lesson, I thought we’d
take the topic of work. So, we’ll start by talking about my work
and what I do, and then we’ll move on to more abstract and advanced questions. Now, after the conversation ends, we will
discuss the most important vocabulary items from the conversation. So, if you’re ready, let’s begin. Let’s talk about work. Tell me about what you do in your job. Well, I’m an English teacher. It’s probably more accurate, though, to
say that I’m an ESL teacher, ESL being short for English as a Second Language. I specialize in teaching English as a Second
Language to adults. Even though I’ve taught classes for children,
the bulk of my experience has been in working with adults, especially in business English
and exam preparation courses. Now, recently, my focus has shifted to teacher
training and doing research in the field of language acquisition. That’s the study of how people learn languages. Do you like your job? Absolutely. I love my job. See, teaching is something that I’ve always
gravitated towards naturally ever since I was a kid. Now, whenever there’s an opportunity to
share a piece of knowledge that I have with somebody and see that person take that knowledge
and use it to make their life easier or better in some way, I eagerly take that opportunity
to teach. So, teaching is something that I enjoy immensely,
and it’s the perfect job for me. What was your dream job when you were younger? Well, that’s a tough one because like most
people I wanted to be different things at different times. I remember wanting to be a pilot when I was
a little kid. I had a lot of toy planes that I would play
with. As a teenager, I would daydream about being
a celebrity. But the first job that I can probably say
was truly a dream job for me was computer programming. I was probably in my late teens when I got
into it. That’s when I discovered the joy of coding. Because if you think about it, the job of
a software programmer is essentially to solve problems in the context of computers or information
technology. So, it was that problem-solving element that
really drew me to programming. Now, even though I ended up becoming a teacher,
I still see my present job as a series of challenges that need to be overcome. And that’s really what keeps me going. Do you think most people work in jobs that
they love? Probably not. Why not? Because I think you have to be incredibly
fortunate to have grown up in the right circumstances that allow you to discover what really drives
you to be able to make a career out of it. I think that the traditional route that most
people take is that they graduate from college and then they either take the best-paying
job that’s available to them at the time, or they take the job that they think offers
the brightest career prospects for the future. And a lot of people do so out of financial
necessity. Because you have to put food on the table. That’s the primary concern. Do you think it’s important for people to
enjoy what they do in their job? I think so. I think so. I mean, whatever your job is, there’s always
going to be some things about it that you find unpleasant. There’s things that I don’t like going. I don’t like having to write up student
reports. In my previous job, I had to sit through a
lot of meetings, and I used to hate doing that because I thought those meetings were
a waste of time. I thought they were unproductive. So, it’s unrealistic to expect that everything
you do has to be enjoyable. I think, instead, the key is to have enough
challenging tasks in your job, or at the very least, finding a way to do mundane tasks in
a way that challenges you. I think you have to look at it like a video
game. Because when people play video games, what
they do is every time that they play the game, they try to get a higher and higher score. So, I think that they key is to keep challenging
yourself. What kinds of activities do people find challenging? In their jobs? Well, it depends. I’d say it depends both on the job and the
kind of person that you are. Because like I said, I like tasks or activities
that require me to use my analytical ability, tasks that have that problem-solving element. But another person might like a job that’s
more social because for them, it’s about the human dimension. And, you know, having to work with people,
and getting things done through working with people can be challenging in its own right. And so, I think it depends. What happens when people don’t find their
job challenging or satisfying? Well, it becomes hard to get out of bed and
drag yourself to work every morning. Because if you hate your job but you continue
doing it, then it means that you’re doing that only for the paycheck that it brings
in every month. And that kind of motivation, doing it just
for the money is hard to sustain over the long term. And people of my generation, us millennials,
are probably a lot more sensitive to this that our parents were. Because it’s very common nowadays to hear
people talking about retiring early. That’s the idea that you save up a lot of
money with a view to retiring as quickly as you can. So, they want to escape the rat race? Exactly. You know, they don’t want to spend their
lives slaving away in a corporate office just to make ends meet. They want to get out of the rat race. Do you think it’s a good thing for a person
to retire early, say at 40 rather than 60? Well, sure. I mean, if that’s what you want to do, then
it can be great. You can do all the things that you’ve always
wanted to do with your life. You can start checking off your bucket list. Now, there’s an –and I don’t say this
in a bad way– but there’s an obsession among millennials with travel. A lot of people nowadays want to explore the
world, they want to experience different cultures, taste different cuisines, things like that. So, if you retire early, then you’ll get
to do that. Although, I would think that if you have found
your true calling in life, then you would never want to retire because what you do then
becomes such a fundamental part of your identity, that you’d never want to give that up. Maybe as you get older, you might start to
work less, but you wouldn’t want to give it up entirely. Do you think people will work less in the
future? Maybe. It’s conceivable that as technology advances
people will work less and less in the future. Who among us could say that we don’t depend
on a great deal of technology just to keep us afloat in our daily lives? Because I know for a fact that my own life
would come to a standstill if my fridge or my washing machine or my microwave oven stopped
working, at least until I found alternative ways of doing those things. But I think that even more than as individuals,
as societies, so much of what we take for granted today runs on a foundation of technology,
and if that broke down, then we’re looking at large-scale chaos in society. Why do people use so much technology in their
everyday lives? To make their lives easier. See, I think the ultimate aim of technology
is for human beings to not have to do any work at all, where we just chill on our couches
and order our robot servants about to get whatever we want. Would that be a good or a bad thing? Well, if it made people lazy and if it made
useless to the point where they couldn’t get anything done without the use of machines,
then it would be a bad thing. But, if people used automation to automate
more routine or tedious tasks to free up time or resources that they could use to become
more productive and to solve problems –I keep going back to problem-solving– but
if people can use that to solve problems and to think more, then I think it would definitely
be a good thing. all right I think that's a good place for
us to end this conversation let's now go on and discuss the most useful and the most important
vocabulary from this lesson all right I'm back here with this document now before we
discuss the vocabulary I just want to suggest that after you watch this discussion that
you go back and listen to that conversation again because it will help to really reinforce
the vocabulary in your head and another thing you can do as you rewatch the conversation
is you can pick particular sentences and practice saying them after me because that will help
you to improve your pronunciation now I'll make sure to make this document available
for you to download I'll put a link in the description I'll also include the entire transcript
of the conversation so that you can read it in your own time okay let's discuss the vocabulary
now item number one is to gravitate to or gravitate towards this means to be attracted
to something sth means something so to be attracted to something or to move towards
something and this expression comes from the word gravity and how in physics you know two
bodies are naturally attracted to each other this is the sentence that I said in the conversation
teaching is something I've always gravitated towards naturally ever since I was a kid meaning
that I've always been naturally attracted to teaching okay number two that's what keeps
me going this expression means to give energy or enthusiasm to continue doing something
I see my present job as a series of challenges that need to be overcome that's what keeps
me going meaning that's what keeps me motivated okay number three is fortunate this is an
adjective that simply means lucky I think you have to be incredibly fortunate to have
grown up in the right circumstances so I'm saying you have to be lucky to have those
circumstances number four is put food on the table this is an idiom it doesn't actually
it doesn't refer to actually putting food on the table it just means to provide food
and other necessities for your family you have to put food on the table that's the primary
concern I said it in the context of people taking the best paying job that's available
to them they do that because they want to provide for themselves and for their family
they want to put food on the table number five is unproductive this is an adjective
and it means not producing much not giving benefits or results I thought those meetings
in my previous job were unproductive I thought they were a waste of time because they weren't
very useful in the interest of consistency I'm just going to make this a lowercase n
cuz everything else here is lowercase okay let's move on to number six number six is
mundane it's pronounced mundane mundane is an adjective that means ordinary or routine
and because something is ordinary or routine it's uninteresting or boring the sentence
from the conversation is you have to find a way to do mundane tasks in a way that challenges
you alright number seven is the expression with a view to this is an idiomatic expression
and it means with the aim of it's the idea that you save up a lot of money with a view
to retiring as quickly as you can that is with the aim of retiring as quickly as you
can number eight is rat race this is quite a popular idiom and it refers to a lifestyle
in today's modern world in which people constantly compete with each other for money and power
especially in their careers in their work life so this refers to how people in today's
world are engaged in such competitive jobs even to just provide for themselves and for
their family so the sentence is they want to get out of the rat race now here they refers
to Millennials if you remember from the lesson the word millennial refers to people who were
born between the Year 1980 and 2000 that's what I meant when I said Millennials the millennial
generation now myself being born in the 1980s I'm a millennial okay number nine is slave
away this is another idiom and it means to work very hard for little reward they again
Millennials don't want to spend their lives slaving away just to make ends meet so they
don't want to work very hard just for a little reward now if you're wondering what make ends
meet means that is our next item to make ends meet is one more idiom it means to make just
enough money to buy food and other basic things they don't want to spend their lives slaving
away just to make ends meet okay let's move on to number eleven there are two items in
number eleven because they're so connected in this context that I didn't want to separate
them the two items are check off and bucket list to check off means to mark something
as correct or finished usually a checkbox a checkbox is a little square box that you
can tick you find it on forms and on websites so if you check off a checkbox it means that
you mark it as correct or finished a bucket list is a list of things you would like to
do before you die now you know some people say I'd like to visit this or that place at
least once in my lifetime or I'd like to go skydiving or surfing at least once before
I die so the sentence is you can start checking off your bucket list meaning that if you retire
early you can start doing all those things that you want to do number twelve is obsession
obsession means you’re always thinking about a particular person or thing there's an obsession
among Millennials with travel okay number 13 is calling it's often accompanied by this
word true we say this or that job is my true calling or we talk about finding your calling
your calling is the job that you were born to do that you are destined to do I would
think that if you have found your true calling then you would never want to retire that is
if you have found the job that you were destined to do and you would never want to give it
up number 14 is great deal this idiom has nothing to do with business deals it simply
means a large amount who among us can say that we don't depend on a great deal of technology
that is a lot of technology to just keep us afloat in our daily lives afloat is an adjective
it means floating on water and not sinking so as we saw in the sentence from the previous
example I said who among us can say that we don't rely on a lot of Technology just to
keep us afloat I'm not actually talking about floating on water here I'm saying that if
that technology stops working then the consequences can be disastrous almost as if we would sink
in the burden of our daily lives all right number 16 is come to a standstill this means
to stop completely I know for a fact that my own life would come to a standstill if
my fridge and my washing machine stopped working that is my life would stop completely and
I wouldn't be able to do anything number 17 is take for granted this is a popular idiom
and it means to think that something will always be available and because you think
something will always be there always be available you don't appreciate it fully so much of what
we take for granted runs on a foundation of technology that is a lot of the things that
we think will always be there in society those things actually run on a technological foundation
the word chaos is a state of total confusion and disorder if that foundation of technology
broke down then we're looking at large-scale chaos in a lot of confusion and disorder because
nothing would be working in society number 19 is chill or chill out this means to relax
the ultimate aim of technology is for humans to chill on our couches and order our robot
servants about any Jetsons fans here alright number 20 is free up free up means to make
time or resources available for use if people use automation to automate routine or tedious
tasks to free up time and resources then they could become more productive and they wouldn't
have to spend a lot of time doing the same tasks over and over again alright that brings
us to the end of our vocabulary discussion again I'd like to remind you to go back and
watch the conversation again so that you reinforce all this vocabulary you can also download
this document from the link in the description if you like this lesson let me know and let
me know if you want me to make more lessons on advanced speaking I hope you enjoyed this
make sure to LIKE and subscribe as always happy learning and I will see you in another
lesson
