Take Their Advice, Too! (Bonus Episode 2)

A podcast for English learners!  Improve your listening skills, practice your pronunciation, learn new vocabulary!     
  
Well, hello!  It’s just me this time and I'm here to bring you a roundup of the latest collection of podcast episodes! 

Presenter = Sam @_emaileng (Twitter, IG), @emaileng (TikTok)     

Music = "Baby Bloodheart" by Mara Carlyle   @MaraCarlyle    www.maracarlyle.bandcamp.com       

Artwork = Penny Rossano  @pennyrossanomusicart (IG)     www.pennyrossanoillustrations.com 

Transcript

EPISODE 36 = TAKE THEIR ADVICE, TOO! (BONUS EPISODE 2) 

A very Happy New Year!

Hello! And welcome to Chat ENG, a podcast where people chat about how they learn and use English. My name is Sam, I’m a CELTA teacher and a performer, and I have a particular interest in pronunciation and expression.   

In each episode, non-native and native speakers will chat about their experiences with English, share their advice and, at the end, I’ll give some pronunciation tips for you to take away and practice.  

So – ready?  Let’s get Chat ENG!

Well, hello!  It’s just me this time and I'm here to bring you a roundup of the latest collection of podcast episodes!  Episodes 25 – 35 were all recorded and released – or dropped, I think - in 2022, and we covered a range of topics from how the brain works when we’re learning a language, to what tea to drink at certain times of the day, to how to play Disc Golf!  There were so many things I learned more about, and so many things I had no idea about - I hope you found them as interesting as I did!  And, just like all my previous podcast interviews, each person had their own perspective on either learning a language or self-improvement… so let’s listen again to what they had to say:

 
First: Let’s have some general language-learning and self-improvement advice from Anton, Aurora, Tamara, Valéria, and Viktor:

Anton (Ep.33 – RSVP ASAP?!)

[...] first of all, you have to be comfortable with, you know, where you are first, but it is very important to read and also to practice - because, as you know… as the saying says “practice makes perfect”. It is really important to use it, even though you might not know at first... it’s the lack of confidence or sometimes the fear that one might say it wrong, but it is very important to practice. Always practice, I think. 

Aurora (Ep.26 – Speak, and Speak, and Speak!)

I think one big thing that I would say - don't be afraid to make mistakes, you know? Because, first of all, that's how you learn and also, it's only by communicating - your brain has to put together all these different things for you to really be able to become more fluent in that language. So speak and speak and speak and it doesn't matter if there are mistakes, you know, you will learn from them, but people will still understand you. And while you are in that process, you will make mistakes until one day, you know, suddenly you realise you're not really making mistakes anymore,

Tamara (Ep.27 – Hello, Goodbye, Thank You and Sit Down!)

Well, really obvious but just try to use it!  Even if it's scary, even if there is a language barrier.  The only way to conquer it – it’s just to start to use it. Maybe start to speak with yourself in front of the mirror – nevermind - just to start. And the second thing, what's helped me a lot is, like, to watch series or movies with subtitles. I can read fast, so it's not interfering with my experience, but it helped me a lot to just get used to this - how it sounds and what means what, and some kind of, like, you know, not official language, but informal language - so yeah, it helped me a lot. It's fun, nice and you can do it, like, every time you do nothing over, like, cook or something!

Valéria (Ep.30 – I Went, You Went, Everybody Went!)

And… another thing that was very interesting when the internet came up, and there were those chat rooms or chat possibilities - find some chat groups. I know that there are some senior groups that, you know, older people - they’re kind of in need of some conversation, some chat and (a) past time, and they might be chatting with people, so just do it - be open.

It might sound cliché, and probably is, but learning a language is much more than words. It's much more than grammar, you know, and I have to say that my life has been great because I have the possibility to communicate with people from very different walks of life, and very different perspectives, you know - I'm very thankful

Viktor (Ep.35 – Discgolf? Wow!)

(Whole thing from me??)...and yeah, not saying too much about technicalities, like, what's the words you're using because you can communicate just by laughing, just by making sound, people... that's the thing - you don't actually need to be that good at the language to be able to be a sports commentator. A laugh can say so much more than whatever words you use.

Next: How about something a little more specific - this time from Suzanne about practicing your speaking skills with non-native speakers, from Lucy about swapping your usual vocabulary to English word by word, from Eric about preparing for a Question and Answers session, and from Jaimee about what to do if you don’t understand someone’s reply: 

Suzanne (Ep.25 – Sress The Right Syllable!)

And this, I think, is a good tip which I apply: Students have an obsession with the fact that they have to practice English with native speakers all the time. No! no! “oh, but what if I learn their mistakes and what have you?”  On balance, you will do way better just getting that extra practice. My German got immensely improved with me hanging around with my Turkish friend, and we knew that we would make mistakes but we were chatting all the time. And because we're chatting all the time, we quickly knew, you know, what vocabulary was…we were still missing. And it was just all this practice, and I knew, of course, we weren't speaking perfectly but my fluency improved dramatically because our shared language was German. (Yeah, fantastic!) And did I end up speaking German with a Turkish accent? No, no, I didn’t!

Lucy (Ep.31 – Mate! You dropped the T!)

But there are techniques I found helped me, and one of them is - talk about household items a lot, so that when you need to refer to something in the home, you can start building sentences in the other language with the aid of someone else, but also exclude your home language. So a bit like a total immersion, but what I used to do was only exclude 1 word a day. If I was feeling very confident, 3 words a day. You're never going to forget your home language - you don't need to make a mental note of it and use it to remember it anymore, not now that you're an adult. So, you can just get rid of it. Just park it and bring in a new word or 3 words every day, because I find that very digestible, and I find habit seems to reinforce, and that's one thing that we know from looking at the brain - if you build a habit, if you keep doing it, even when it feels impossible, do it badly. By all means - make a mess of it! But keep doing it.

Eric (Ep.28 – Clarity Over Brevity!)

[...] I tell them to prepare for the questions. Prepare, you know, one really great question that you would ask if you were in the audience, one tough question, one silly question that they misunderstood and so you may have to restate the question so that it's a meaningful question. And then one other question from wherever and just kind of anticipate those. 

Another trick I teach them is to do the A-B-C, skip D, and then go to E. And somebody smart in the audience will say “what about D?” and ask that question you didn't… you skipped over or you didn’t…  And then you have the slide already prepared.  So, if you say I really need eight slides, and it's only seven minutes - okay, have the extra slide in your back pocket. And if somebody asks you, you're ready! 

Jaimee (Ep.29 – Sorry, Could You Repeat That?)

I've tried to feel… yeah, I mean, I feel proud that I tried initially, and they're still quite difficult, especially when suddenly someone rapid fire responds to you, and they've spoken so fast and so… and if it's on the phone, that's really tough, because you can't see their mouth, you can't sort of do…you're getting a lot of information by body language, as you know, you know, that's so helpful. So, but I, you know, I just learned the words for “Please could you say that again slowly?”.

And Finally: A special thought from a special episode about tea...

Satu (Ep.32 – Very Delicious Tea?!)

Somehow tea is kind of comforting for me and I always wondered why I take the tea cup with both hands. (Yeah). I don't know. It's, yeah, it's (an) easy drink after you hike outside because of the cold weather - it's really nice to have a cup of tea...

So, to recap:  Practice makes perfect, so always practice; don’t be afraid of making mistakes because people will understand you; practice with yourself in front of a mirror and use English subtitles on shows or films; find multi-generational chatrooms online to practice your English; don’t worry too much about the technicalities of the language, as a laugh can say more than words; speak English with non-native speakers as much as native speakers; exchange 1 -3 words a day from your mother tongue to English; prepare for different types of questions that you might face when giving a presentation and remember to have question ‘D’ in your back pocket; and know how to say “Could you repeat that, please?” or “Could you say that more slowly, please”. Oh, and, as Satu recommends, hold your cup of tea with both hands and feel warm and comforted!  Phew!  That’s a lot… but all very, very helpful!  

I very much look forward to chatting to more people in 2023, so while I get busy interviewing, do explore the all the episodes in full at either chateng.buzzsprout.com or via your favourite podcast platform.  And my advice - just like the first roundup episode – is to take this group’s advice, so over to you!     

So there we are!  The transcript of this episode is available to read on the podcast’s webpage, so take a look!    Join me again soon for more pronunciation and grammar tips, more advice and, most importantly, more chatting!   My thanks again to everyone in 2022 and, for her music, my thanks as ever to the wonderful Mara Carlyle.   Bye for now!