B1 English Listening Practice - Creativity – YouTube Dictation Transcript & Vocabulary

1.hey everybody welcome to this b1 english listening practice video you can use this video to practice your listening and comprehension as i speak before we start remember to sign up for our one dollar listening practice seminars at polyglossa.com and download my free listening time podcast so you can practice your listening skills [Music] so today i'm going to talk about creativity i feel like this is a topic that doesn't get discussed much outside of certain artistic communities however i think it's something important that plays a role in all of our lives first of all let's try to define creativity one of the definitions i found was the following the use of the imagination or original ideas this is exactly how i'd describe it when you produce something original whether it be an idea solution game or work of art you're being creative so that would mean that the opposite of being creative is doing things or copying things that other people do or tell you to do in many situations this isn't a bad thing there are a plethora of situations that don't call for creativity in these cases the best thing to do is to follow orders plans or processes that are already laid out for you when you're on the job it's probably not good for you to always try to be creative you might actually end up making things worse that way however there are many situations in which creativity is good and so we should try to foster that in ourselves and in our children i mentioned children because in my opinion creativity is an essential part of being a child for example when i was a young kid i played outside practically every day with my neighbors and the games we played involved a lot of creativity on our part we had to imagine certain scenarios think of rules to follow and invent many aspects of these games as we went along this called for creative thinking because we had to make these games interesting and fun however nowadays this type of play isn't quite as popular as it used to be sure many kids invent games and play outside but it's becoming increasingly normal for kids to spend hours in front of a screen every day their source of entertainment comes from what they're shown on this device and so they don't have to be creative to have fun some people might not consider this that big of a problem but i do i've worked with many kids in different contexts and i've definitely seen the importance of creativity in kids lives i've taught many kids that don't have this tendency to be creative and in my opinion this has had some negative effects on their lives in many cases these kids have worse communication skills and they seem to have less self-confidence however on the other hand i've known some kids who probably had too much freedom in their creativity and this also seemed to have some negative effects for example these kids sometimes had trouble following rules in summary i think that we should create an environment for our kids that fosters creativity but i also think that we should rein in that creativity at times so how can we train our creativity and become more creative in general i think the best way to do this is to do creative activities there are plenty of artistic activities that we can try our hand at for example you might want to try drawing or painting i'm certainly not good at either of these but i do engage in them from time to time and i think it really benefits me it takes me out of my comfort zone and forces me to think and move in a way that's not too familiar to me another creative activity that you might want to try is creative writing not many people engage in this activity on a regular basis but they should it makes you think of words and phrases that you might not normally use and it forces you to describe things in a way that you're not used to needless to say fiction writers are some of the most creative people out there i'm sure there are also many other activities that you could think of that could help you train your creativity okay now i'm going to ask you three questions about today's video write your answers in a comment down below number one what's the opposite of being creative number two what's one reason why many kids don't play creative games nowadays and number three what's one activity that you can do to train your creativity all right before we go remember to sign up for our one dollar listening practice seminars and download our listening time podcast to practice your listening skills and of course subscribe to the channel click on the bell and follow us on instagram i'll see you next time you