S06 - 6 Creativity

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Native English speakers answer exam-style questions about creativity.

It’s a great topic to cover as it touches so many other topics like art, childhood, work, psychology, loads. We have lots of top-notch collocations, a bunch of phrasal verbs, some super-useful verbs and a lovely homophone. 

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Music: Wholesome by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/5050-wholesome
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Transcript

Hello and welcome to the Real Exam English podcast. This episode is about creativity. It’s a great topic to cover as it touches so many other topics like art, childhood, work, psychology, loads. We have lots of top-notch collocations, a bunch of phrasal verbs, some super-useful verbs and a lovely homophone. 

As usual, you can get the transcripts for this episode on the Real Exam English website, realexamenglish.com

Let’s getting going with the questions:

What creative activities did you enjoy when you were a child?

I played outside a lot. We had a lot of trees in our yard, and I would create houses or little places in the roots of the trees. I also had a sandbox that I was going to dig to the other side of the world.

My mom was a seamstress and so I learned to sew clothes for my dolls early. I'm not going to say that they were good, but that was one of the creative things that I did.

How important is creativity in the workplace?

I think creativity in the workplace is very important because not everybody sees things the same way. And I think you have to feed off of each other to have a better product, to have a better idea. I actually think that conflict causes creativity in seeing how things could have a problem and addressing it. And I think those kinds of activities spark more innovation within a group.

Alright, really interesting verbs in this second answer. Firstly, we have the phrasal verb to feed off of each other. This means by working together they thrive or perform better, they help to get the most out of each other. Another example would be the singer fed off the energy of the crowd and put in a great performance. Interestingly, the speaker here says to feed off OF each other, which is technically not correct, but is quite common in spoken English, in the US in particular. 

Then she talked about addressing problems, lovely collocation and also to spark more innovation. We’ve had this verb to spark before, kind of meaning to ignite creativity, and it goes really well with the idea of innovation, to spark innovation, another top collocation.

In the first answer, we had a perfect example of homophones. These are two words that are spelt differently but sound exactly the same. Like I can see the sea. Her example here was my mom was a seamstress, so I learned to sew clothes. The first so is spelt so and the second one is spelt sew, and this second one is very often mispronounced by English learners. People usually say sew, the same way you would pronounce few or new, ok so that’s not correct, sew is how you say it, so there. 

Who is the most creative person you know personally?

Oh, flippin’ ‘eck. What a question. Who is the most creative person I know? Probably my older brother, Dean, he's quite creative. He owns his own company and doing some sort of like cloud software type thing. And like every Christmas I ask him what it is that he does and like he tries to explain it to me and I'm just like, yeah, right over my head. Not a clue what you just said there. Funny enough, Estie, my wife, she actually knows about it. So like when I introduced them both, they had a conversation and I was listening to them and I was like, someone knows what he does. Because like the rest of my family have no idea what it is that he does. Like he's He made a business in some sort of cloud software type thing. So yeah, he's very creative. He's very successful because of it. Other than that, yeah, that's about it, really.

Do you think creativity can be learned or is it something people are born with?

Oh, I would like, I reckon you can learn it to a certain degree, but I feel like the majority of it comes with birth, right? Like genetics and stuff like that. I feel like you're either born with that creative mindset. Like it's the whole question of nature versus nurture though type thing, isn't it? The way it all boils down to it. I think you can, of learn it but there's always that that glimpse of it where you you've either got it or you don't, you know what I mean, like some of it can be learned. For example, like Ronaldo with Messi the big question like Messi is naturally gifted and Ronaldo is taught gifted is what I I compare them both to but yeah so I feel I feel like both you can do both but I feel being born with it has its slight advantages over being taught it.

In the first answer we had the most British response to a hard question that you will ever here. He said oh flippin eck, what a question. Ok so flipping is a euphemism for fucking and heck is a euphemism for hell. Ok, so if you want to be more polite, instead of saying fucking hell, you can say flipping heck and it is much softer. Note the pronunciation too, it’s quite contracted, flippin eck. As I said, this is very British and would probably sound a bit weird coming from the mouth of a non-native speaker, unless you are living somewhere in the UK where they use this expression commonly.

Another useful phrase was when he was talking about his brother who has some sort of cloud software business and the speaker said it goes right over his head. This means it’s too complicated for him to understand. Like, when my friends started talking about the rules of rugby, it went right over my head. 

Then we had some essential vocabulary for talking about creativity and that was nature versus nurture, like is creativity naturally in a person from birth or are they taught it. That is where he gave his Messi V Ronaldo example, which is perfect, for those of you who follow football. Messi, as he said, is naturally gifted whereas Ronaldo is taught gifted. He said nature v nurture is what it all boils down to, meaning that’s what the important thing is here. Some people are just born with a creative mindset, another top collocation, flippin eck.

Can pressure or deadlines enhance creativity, or do they harm it? 

I think it depends on the situation. So sometimes I think it is good to be in a deadline situation when we have the dopamine adrenaline loop that helps us to get things done in a timely manner. But sometimes it can also squash creativity because we are under that pressure.

The dopamine adrenaline loop, wow, super fancy terminology, right. Anything with a loop is something that comes around again and again, so in this case you have a loop of dopamine and adrenaline, and she said this helps us get things done in a timely manner, meaning promptly or as quickly as possible. This would be great to include in an email to someone in a formal environment. Like when someone responds to you quickly or sorts out a problem for you, you can say, thank you for responding in such a timely manner, or thanks for resolving the issue in a timely manner. Really handy that one, for any of you who interact with international colleagues or clients. 

She also mentioned that deadlines can squash creativity, nice verb choice, meaning to kill creativity, or make it disappear. You could also squash a rumour, for example, or the leader of the country could squash a rebellion. 

Ok guys, I have a preposition quiz for you today, I reckon every single student of English needs to practice more prepositions! So, I’m going to give you 10 sentences that include the word created and you have to say what preposition follows the word created. I’ll leave a blank in the sentence where the preposition is.

Ok, let’s go, the first few are kind of easy.

1.       The spreadsheet was created on Monday.

2.       The software was created in Vietnam. 

3.       Two different machines were being created at the same time.

4.       A new crown was created for the king. 

5.       The video game was created with the newest technology.

6.       The perfume was created from rare flowers and spices. 

7.       The vaccine was created under government supervision. 

8.       The tradition was created during the Middle Ages. 

9.       The handmade chair was created without using any machinery. 

10.  This quiz was created by Trevor

Alright, how was that for you guys? You can let me know in the comments on your podcast player. I think it wasn’t too bad right. So, let’s continue with our questions:

Do you consider yourself a creative person?

Yes. And interestingly, I had the opportunity to study with Dr. Feldman, who really defined creativity in two different ways. So the creativity of changing the world, where something happens and you can never go back to the way it was before, such as the internet, and then creativity with a lowercase c, which is just your daily life of being open to new experiences and responding to them.

How important is creativity in the workplace today?

Creativity in the workplace is really essential because it allows us to look at a problem, not as a problem, but a solution waiting to happen and inviting everybody's mind to contribute to a kind of an elegant solution that we hadn't thought of before.

We hadn’t thought of before, that’s the past perfect there, remember that’s for something before something else in the past. The first answer had some top-notch organisation. She started off with a sentence adverb, interestingly, then, I had the opportunity to study with Dr Feldman, who really defined creativity in two ways. Ok, so she used the relative pronoun, who, here to provide extra information about Dr Feldman. I have a question for you guys, as this is extra information about Dr Feldman, or non-defining information, should the sentence have a comma before the who or not, so the sentence again was -  to study with Dr Feldman, who defined creativity in 2 ways. What do you think. Yes, it should have a comma, remember for non-defining relative clauses to use a comma when writing, or when speaking to give a little pause before you say who, or which or whatever. 

She continued with So the creativity of changing the world, where something happens and you can never go back to the way it was before, such as the internet. Another relative clause there, where something happens, and for an example she uses such as the internet. Finally, she talks about creativity with a lowercase c, which is being open to new experiences. So, yet another non-defining relative clause, with which this time. Ok, so if I was an examiner marking this answer, I would give it top marks in terms of organisation, there’s lots of variety on show. 

Do you consider yourself a creative person?

I do, not in an artistic way, because I was never great at art or painting or drawing.

I think in terms of my creativity comes more from ideas in work and in life. In terms of language, in terms of how you speak, how you talk, how you converse with somebody, I think it's good to be able to have a conversation that engages people.

And I think creativity helps that. I think you have to be able to engage and bring somebody into a conversation. And if you don't have a good creative mind, if you can't engage with people, I think that will suffer.

Just a quick comment here, and it’s about this verb to converse with somebody. I was giving a word formation exercise in a C1 class recently and this word came up and caused people problems. So, you all know conversation I’m sure, so the verb form is to converse. For instance, the noise in Spanish restaurants often makes it difficult to converse, so everybody just ends up shouting at each other, isn’t that right Spanish listeners! Just kidding, I’m sure that the listeners of this podcast only converse at a reasonable level, right?

Do you think creativity can be learned or is it something people are born with?

I think it can be enhanced. I think that some people are naturally gifted in that particular way and that it comes automatically and other people need to hone the skill a little bit. So I don't necessarily think it can be learned, learned, but I think with practice you can acquire more.

Another quicky here, we had that expression naturally gifted again, and she said that these people need to hone the skill a bit. Fantastic verb this, meaning to sharpen or refine a skill or ability. For example, I took English classes with Trevor to hone my conversation skills. Or I spent the weekend surfing at the beach to try to hone my surf skills. 

Can pressure or deadlines enhance creativity or do they harm it?

Depends on the person. There's no right or wrong, right? So for me, I can procrastinate. If it's like, say you want me to write about something that I'm not really into, I may procrastinate a bit, but once the deadline is there, it's like, oh, I'm going to get started. So that'll speed me up, but it can also freak me out. Like if it's really, really like, I'll be, oh, I don't even know how to do this. I don't know. Like you have till January 30th to paint this portrait. Oh, the deadline's gonna make me very, very sad. So, oh, I hate to be like wishy-washy about it because everything is just so to each person.

Totally.

It doesn't mean like, but because it bothers me, it might not bother you. It might be the thing that drives you. My daughter loves deadlines. Like, tell me when it's got to be done, then I'll do it and I'll make it happen. And I'll do it early so I can feel good about myself. For me, if I don't have that deadline, I might push something back.

Alright, a few phrasal verbs here to get into. Firstly, she said that deadlines speed her up, which is of course means they make her go faster, but also she said they can freak her out. Meaning they can cause her stress, maybe she gets a bit panicked by them. Then, at the end she said that without deadlines she might push something back, meaning to do it later. Another example welative ould be, hey I have to go to the doctor this morning so can we push our meeting back to this afternoon. 

As she was talking about different people’s reactions to deadlines she said, I hate to be, like, wishy-washy about it. Wishy-washy is a great expression, meaning to be unclear or vague or weak. Like, politicians make wishy-washy promises about how they will change the country. Or if you give wishy-washy answers in a job interview, the hiring manager may think you don’t know what you are talking about. 

Ok guys, that’s all we have time for today. Hopefully the explanations weren’t wishy washy and didn’t go over your head. It would be great if you picked up some language that you can use the next time you converse in English, you might spark up an engaging conversation with someone, where you are both feeding off each other. Flipping eck, enough!

Ok guys, till next time, take care

Trevor