This is an All Ears English podcast, episode 170.
Do you have an English disease?
How to treat it like a doctor.
Welcome to the All Ears English podcast where you'll finally get real native English conversation and fluency for business and life.
We're We believe in connection, not perfection, when it comes to learning English.
Now here are your hosts Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer, and Aubrey Carter, the IELTS whiz, coming to you from Arizona and Boston, USA.
USA.
Today, learn five key medical terms that will force you to think about your own English learning plan through the eyes of a doctor.
Do you ever feel like your English is good, but not quite where you want it to be?
Maybe you can have conversations, but you still hesitate when expressing complex ideas.
Maybe you know what you want to say. but you can't always say it naturally.
If that sounds familiar, our B2 English fluency course was designed for you.
You'll learn how to speak more naturally, express yourself with confidence and finally stop feeling stuck at the intermediate level.
This week, you can save $50 on our basic plan or save $100 on our personal coach plan.
Go to allearsenglish.com slash B2.
That's allearsenglish.com slash letter B number two.
Lindsay, do you get sick a lot or are you usually a pretty healthy person?
I actually don't get sick that much.
When I was living in New York, I was getting sick all the time.
My roommate was getting angry with me.
It's hard to get mad. mad at someone when they're sick, right?
But I would actually just keep going to work because I didn't have any days off.
So she would get mad that I was still getting to work.
I was getting sicker and making her sick.
It was a big disaster.
Oh, that's tricky because you can only miss so much time at work.
So if it's just never getting better, you're getting a cold over and over.
Yeah, people end up just going to work, making the best of it.
I think it was the subway.
It was the subway.
My body was not able to kind of fend off or keep it bay all the...
All the germs on the New York City subway.
What about you, Aubrey?
Are you someone that gets sick a lot?
No, I'm really not.
I feel like my mom never got sick, or if she did, she hid it really well.
And same for me.
I don't get sick very often.
And even when I am, I feel like my symptoms are so mild that I can still pretty well get done what I need to do, right.
It's a Pretty rare.
Luckily some people, I feel like just they'll get a cold and then, right when they're over it, they'll get another one.
It's so hard.
Yeah, it's weird, right?
It's really weird.
But I guess that means that your life is in balance.
You know, you take good care of your health.
You probably eat pretty well.
And that's maybe right.
The vitamins that you're taking, drinking enough water.
I feel like all of that definitely helps.
Definitely.
But today we have a fun episode.
I love when we talk about other topics and how they apply to English.
Yeah, I think it's, I mean, health is so interesting to everyone.
So yes, definitely apply it to our language.
Yeah, let's do it.
So let's give our listeners.
We're going to have about five different medical sort of vocabularies, right?
Vocabulary words.
And we're going to apply that to English and see how you can use these ideas and get better at English.
So what would be the first one for today?
Yeah, we want to sort of approach your English like a doctor would, right?
Talking about if we have healthy English.
So the first one we're going to talk about is triage.
Doctors have to prioritize problems.
So you go to triage when you're first at an emergency room.
And the doctor will figure out what's wrong.
What's the biggest problem here?
How emergent is this?
Is this an emergency?
What do we need to focus on first?
So how can we apply this to language Lindsay?
It's a good question, so i think that this is where you might need a teacher or a tutor to help you, to help them tell you what are the most detrimental problems.
You may be able to figure it out on your own, but find the biggest mistakes you're making.
Maybe it's something with pronunciation.
Maybe it's a simple grammar construction you keep messing up that confuses people.
But you need to find a way to figure out, isolate that, and then just focus on that.
Right, Aubrey?
I think this is especially important for anyone preparing to take an exam like the IELTS exam.
Because if you don't know why you're getting the scores you're getting, or what you're doing wrong, you don't know what to study, you don't know what to focus on.
So you really need to have expert advice, feedback on essays, feedback on your speaking performance, so that you know exactly what to be spending time on.
Yeah, that's right.
And just speaking of that, we do have an awesome other podcast all about the IELTS exam.
So guys go over, Aubrey is over there with Jessica, who was an examiner for 14 years.
So you guys are getting some amazing tricks from Aubrey and Jessica.
And what's the name of the podcast?
Where can they go?
And if you're ready for feedback from an examiner, you know that would help.
We also have a course you can get at allyearsenglish.com slash keys, K-E-Y-S, which is amazing.
So good.
Yeah, the IELTS is a really good example of where you just...
You don't know what you don't know, right?
And you can't know that something is important until you've been told that and taught that by a trained professional.
So that's a great example where you just can't do that by yourself.
So triage.
Whatever our focus is on, this really is key to figure out, you know, where are my weaknesses?
What are my challenges?
I need to know what I should focus on first and how to do that so that my time is effective.
Yeah, it's so true.
It's so true.
So the next one is so common.
And I think this vocabulary is going to serve two purposes for our listeners.
We have a little analogy going, which is kind of fun, guys.
But you also have vocabulary you may need when you go to the doctor.
So that's great.
Totally right.
This is multi-useful.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So what's the next one?
Very common.
Yeah.
So the verb is diagnose.
And this is just where a doctor, a medical professional, will examine you, find out what's your problem.
And the diagnosis is this is your problem.
This is your disease.
This is your illness.
They let you know what that problem is by examining you closely.
Yeah.
And coming back to the IELTS example, you and Jessica also do mock speaking tests for our students who are in the Three Keys IELTS online course.
So you're able to verbally do that too, right?
And you write it down in a chart and you say, this is what I've heard.
This is probably the score you're going to get.
This is what you should focus on.
So kind of the diagnosis.
You're able to give that diagnosis by doing a mock speaking exam, giving you the scores that you would get on each section.
So you know for vocabulary, for pronunciation, for fluency and coherence what you would score, what you would need to change right.
We can give you that diagnosis of your score and, according to those scores, what you need to do to improve, And same with writing, right.
Those.
The feedback you can get on your essays, gives you that diagnosis of why you're getting the writing score you are, so that you can improve it and get the score you need.
Yeah, it's true.
And for whatever reason, if your teacher's not giving you a diagnosis, make sure you ask for it.
I know a lot of students do ask for that.
They say, what's my weakness?
What should I focus on?
Make sure you ask for it because you've got to push your teacher to the expectations that you have.
And a lot of times students will make the mistake of assuming their diagnosis is grammar.
Oh, I make grammar errors.
And at least for the IELTS exam, that's usually not the problem.
That's not what's pulling your score down.
It's these other scoring sections right, almost everybody's scoring a six on grammar and even if you're not preparing for IELTS, you are probably seeing this in yourself like yeah, I feel like my problem is grammar and often that's That's not it.
There's so much else going on.
Is it your confidence?
Are you spending time studying the right things?
Are you exposing yourself to real English, to natural English, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Because I think a lot of our listeners you know, as they were learning English growing up, grammar was the only thing that was focused on.
Grammar was learning English.
You had a textbook, you had chart, you had grammar conjugations right on the board and you were just memorizing and rehearsing and reciting, right.
That's not learning English.
That's memorization.
Right.
That's what feels normal to us.
It's what we're used to.
And it's hard to break that habit and realize there's a better way.
Don't you hate it when you're trying to buy something online?
And when you finally make all of your selections and get ready to check out, your credit card is nowhere to be found.
When this happens, I love seeing the purple pay button at the top of the checkout, because I know I won't have to dig for my card.
This simple purple button is one of the best features in all of the online shopping world and can make a huge difference in sales for your online business.
Shopify is the e-commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world and 10 of all e-commerce in the US.
From household names like Skims and Thrive Cosmetics to brands just getting started.
Get the word out like you have a marketing team behind you.
Easily create email and social media campaigns wherever your customers are scrolling or strolling.
Best yet.
Shopify is your e-commerce expert, with world-class expertise in everything from managing inventory to international shipping, to processing returns and beyond.
See fewer carts go abandoned and more sales go... with Shopify and their Shop Pay button.
Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at Shopify.com slash A-E-E.
Go to Shopify.com slash A-E-E.
That's S-H-O-P-I-F-Y dot com slash A-E-E.
Yeah, for sure.
Okay, what's the next one?
Okay, so regular checkups.
This is when you go at least for an annual visit to your doctor to-
Get just a physical, is what we call it, a checkup of your whole physical state.
For children, there's one every year.
And then as we get older, we go a little less often.
But we still should go for that regular checkup to find out, is there anything wrong?
Get maybe a cancer screening, anything that would need to be done.
Right, right.
Yeah, I don't really go for regular checkups to the doctor.
Sometimes when I go to a specialist for a yearly whatever, I'll get kind of that checkup like I'll get weighed in, maybe get your blood pressure taken, those basic things.
But I don't usually go.
Do you go for checkups, just general physicals?
No, I'm the same, right?
As I get older, you've got your yearly, you know, your women's health checks that I'll go for.
But yeah, it's mostly for kids or for sports physicals that we're taking them in for these regular checkups.
Exactly.
Exactly.
So again, this is about maybe you have a certain time each year with your English where you say this is what I'm going to check in.
Maybe you're taking an exam.
I mean, I know students do use the aisles to kind of have a checkup themselves.
Oh, yeah.
To see what their level is.
And that's valid, too.
If you have the money and the time, do that, right?
Yeah, exactly.
It's nice to be able to see your actual scores, right?
To have that idea of exactly where you're at, what you would score on an exam like that.
But I think it's good to check every few months even to see if you're progressing.
Because I know we've said this before in episodes that if it's an annual checkup, you're not going to remember that much what you did a full year ago, right?
So you want to check in a little more often, I think, with your language progress.
Yeah, for sure.
For sure.
And then this next one Think on Your Feet makes me think of a TV show that I watch sometimes, which is called New Amsterdam.
Have you heard of that?
No.
Totally.
And it's all about, you know, they work in the ER and there's always disasters coming in.
Someone's been shot or someone is like falling off a cliff or whatever it is.
But these doctors are just amazing.
I mean, do you think you could ever work in the ER?
I don't think so.
I'm the same.
I've watched Grey's Anatomy and some of these shows about medical.
And I recognize they're actors.
But I think it's a pretty good portrayal of what happens in a hospital.
And they really are able to think on their feet.
They have so much information memorized about all these different diseases and conditions that they can diagnose someone very quickly, make a spontaneous, fast decision about the treatment, the care that's needed right away.
Yeah and yeah.
It's very impressive.
I don't know if i could work under that kind of pressure Exactly.
And so yeah, they've memorized those things, but then they've taken it one step further, where they've used what they know in their bones right,
The information they know that this medication treats this condition.
If they prescribe the wrong thing, they're going to get in a lot of trouble.
Right.
Exactly.
I mean, someone's life is on the line.
So that's where the pressure and the stress comes in.
If they diagnose it incorrectly, don't take the right steps, someone could be more seriously injured or even die.
So that's some pressure right there.
Yeah.
So how does this translate to English conversation?
I mean, if you guys, language is spontaneous naturally, right?
All the scenarios where you're going to use English, it's going to be spontaneous at a party, at a dinner, at a cafe, in class, at work, in an interview, a presentation all spontaneous.
So yeah, you can memorize words.
Sure.
You can make your flashcards. but then take it beyond that, right?
What if those doctors had only spent time in their books?
Would they really be able to take that knowledge into the ER?
I don't think so.
Right if they had to get out a huge reference book and look up every symptom.
No, you don't have time for that.
And it's the same with language, right?
You need to practice.
You can memorize certain things, but you need to practice so that when you're in that situation and need to think on your feet, be spontaneous, be able to think of something right then, under pressure.
You've got to be ready.
You need to have the confidence, the vocabulary, the phrases at your fingertips, because you've practiced and you're ready.
I love it.
I love it.
So good.
So think on your feet.
And the last one is find appropriate treatment.
Now, I think of this as don't just find help, but find a specialist.
Right, exactly.
Find a specialist.
Yeah, what do we mean by that?
To someone you know that can give you appropriate treatment and help you right away.
Yeah, and if you needed brain surgery, you wouldn't go to that dermatologist, right?
Right, exactly.
At least you wouldn't expect a very good outcome if you did.
No.
Oh, yeah.
No, I really think this is a mistake that students make a lot, especially when it comes to something like IELTS prep or even business English.
You know, if you're preparing for IELTS or TOEFL or TOEIC, you don't want to work with someone who's just a general English teacher.
That's where we see students get really low scores, because these teachers can't tell you about the exam.
Exactly.
These exams are so specific.
You know, I'm an expert in IELTS.
I would never give information or advice about TOEFL because that's a very different exam.
I would refer you to someone who's an expert on TOEFL.
Exactly.
So yeah, a lot of students make the mistake of hiring a teacher who doesn't have inside expert information about IELTS.
And then they're surprised when they get a low score.
But the problem is they're getting incorrect information.
Or if you're just Googling online, a lot of information about IELTS out there is not written by someone who really understands the exam.
I know it's so true.
And a lot of teachers will say sure, I can teach you IELTS, I'm an English speaker.
Right, I'm a native English speaker, but they can't.
They don't understand it.
Again, they don't know what they don't know.
So it comes back to that quote.
They don't know about the different parts of the speaking test and that you need different vocabulary in part one and part two and how long you need to speak in part two.
Right, it's different.
So, guys, just be careful.
Make sure you not only get help, but get the right help.
Hire a specialist.
Yeah.
We get a lot of questions from students where they'll say you know, a former tutor or another English teacher told me this.
Is that correct?
And often it's not, surprisingly, right?
So yeah, you want to make sure that you're getting your information from someone, someone who really does understand IELTS and knows about it.
I love it.
I love it.
So guys, now you have all this new vocabulary to go to the doctors, go for your checkup.
Yes, exactly.
Don't avoid that.
Make sure you make sure you're healthy, but also to think about your English in a new way.
So good.
So good.
Yeah.
Yes, I love this analogy.
To think about your English like a doctor would, and you know, be a little more scientific.
I think this will really resonate with some of you out there.
To give yourself some triage diagnose the problem.
Use this terminology to think about your English level.
So fun.
We like to have fun around here at All Ears English.
And we believe in connection, not perfection, guys.
That's what we are all about.
So we're showing you how to connect in every moment in English, how to think about English in a different way.
It's the new way to learn English, right, Aubrey?
Yes, exactly.
I love it.
So make sure you're following us, All Ears English, wherever you find your podcasts.
All right.
Talk to you soon.
Bye.
And if you believe in connection, not perfection, follow our show wherever you listen to podcasts to make sure you don't miss anything.
See you next time.
