This is an All Ears English podcast, episode 2168.
Move from B1 to C1 by describing your favorite tasks.
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Hey, Aubrey.
What's shaking?
Hey, I'm great.
How are you, Lindsay?
I'm feeling good.
I'm working on my Spanish, actually getting ready for my trip to Panama in April.
Nice.
Have you had any language classes recently that were especially helpful?
Yeah, I found myself a tutor over in italki which is my go-to actually, when it comes to finding a tutor that I could just get language practice when I learned Arabic, when I learned Portuguese.
That didn't go so well my Portuguese, but coming back to Spanish is the most natural thing because I have the base, the foundation.
But yeah, it was great.
It's been great.
I get on with this tutor once a week and we just chat for 30 minutes.
It's really casual.
It's more of a language partner than anything.
Okay, amazing.
So today's episode, we're diving into something really interesting because lindsay, you were telling me about a class that you loved, you felt was so helpful, where your, your tutor, your teacher, was asking you to describe a task right and we realized that we want our listeners to be able to do this.
Yeah, the interesting thing is that this came up pretty organically.
It's not like he came to the class and said i've decided what our lesson is.
You're going to describe to me how i can start a podcast.
It's more that he has a YouTube channel and is interested in starting his own podcast.
And because our format is quite organic, he just asked me questions on how to do this.
And so I found that at the end of that conversation I felt different than I normally do after typical conversation classes, where it's just how's it going?
How's the weather?
Tell me about this.
Tell me about that.
It was something extra.
Yes.
So you were describing to your teacher how to make episodes record, get a co-host, and this felt different than what you normally would do in a class.
Yeah, because there was also the element that he asked me what would I do first um, kind of, and what it did was?
It forced me to use new vocabulary.
So it forced me to already think harder and expand my vocabulary.
I think what we one of the challenges our listeners might have at the b1, b2 level is that we're reusing the same vocabulary over and over and over.
I mean the number of times i've described my year traveling through south america, how i learned spanish it's over the top aubry so many times.
But have i ever told someone what the steps are to launch a podcast in Spanish?
No.
Right.
Oh, this is so interesting.
And we're really excited about this.
So we are going to give you guys phrases that you could use to ask a tutor or a teacher to build a lesson this way, to have you describe a task.
We're also going to share tips for how you could do this with a speaking partner or even on your own to, like Lindsay said, pull out that interesting vocabulary and build your fluency at the same time.
Exactly because we're adult learners right, where I'm an adult learner of Spanish, I'm not a child, I'm not.
I am not expecting the world of my teacher.
I am going to guide my teacher into what I know is going to work for my language learning, and that's what we're showing you guys how to do today.
So good yes exactly, but first be sure to hit follow guys right here on the allers English podcast.
We four episodes every week and if you're not following, you are for sure missing some of these awesome tips.
Yeah, we're bringing in our real-life experiences here, too.
It's cool that we all learn languages at different times, right?
I mean, I know you're fluent in French Aubrey, and you have a lot of experience to bring into the show for our listeners in languages.
Absolutely.
We've maybe talked about French too much lately.
I think we've gone over the top.
I can't help it.
I love French.
All right.
Tell us a little bit more about what our listeners should know today.
Yeah.
Okay.
So first, we're going to teach you how to ask a teacher to structure a lesson like this.
And of course, we're going to share this later.
So stay to the end to find out how to do this with a speaking partner or on your own as well.
But first, we're going to dive into how could you ask a teacher about this?
Because I don't know about you Lindsay, but when I have a teacher in Spanish or in French, I have a tendency to just expect them to lead, expect them to create a lesson.
And then sometimes I'm disappointed.
Whereas if I advocate for myself and take control and have ideas for how I would like the class to go, I think I would feel more fulfilled and happier about the class afterward.
Yeah.
I mean in an ideal world that teacher will come with complete lesson plans and they should.
Don't get me wrong, they should be prepared, but at different levels.
Like what I had signed up for, an italki was much more of a conversation class and he doesn't come prepared, but I don't know if that bothers me as much for what I need.
So what we ended up doing.
But he asked good questions and we ended.
We ended up in interesting conversations.
And so I found that I was using kind of transition phrases and next and after that and interesting things that I never would have said if we were.
Just Tell me about your year traveling in South America, right?
What do you do in your free time?
These are too basic at this level.
Exactly right.
So, and because Lindsay felt how useful this class was, we're going to give you phrases so that you could ask a teacher to structure a class this way.
So your first one, let's dive in here, is you could say I would like to set a goal of being able to describe a task.
Can you help me with that?
Because then you might find that this teacher is like yes, that would be fantastic, that's going to pull out vocabulary and help you become more fluent, let's.
And then might have lots of ideas about the different tasks you could describe well.
Actually, it's going to tell you a lot about your teacher too, the way they react to that.
Is this a teacher that is good for you or not?
Because if they react like oh, that seems like work, then obviously we want to move on and find another teacher, and there are tons of them on sites like italki, right?
Um, great.
So then, Another thing that we could say is I would like to be able to describe different tasks that I perform in my daily life.
Could you ask me follow up questions as I describe the task?
Great.
Yes.
Love that.
And for both of these, the teacher might have ideas for tasks, or we definitely are going to provide you with lots of examples of tasks that you could.
You could give the teacher ideas.
Yeah.
Like share a whole bunch of different tasks that you could perform in your daily life and just to give them ideas, and then they can come up with follow-up questions.
Yeah.
I'm excited to see those examples of what you know.
If it's not obvious, if we can't think of anything, there's lots of things that we already know really well, but maybe we've never actually taken the time to describe them in English or in our second language, right?
Exactly.
And so then, if your teacher is like I love this idea and but they haven't had the time to think it through in advance, you could give them an example.
So you could say, For example, you could give me the task of planning a meal.
I might describe how I would find a recipe.
And then you could ask me like you can give them ideas for follow up questions, even just so that they get a good idea of what you're asking them to do in this class.
Right.
You could ask me which ingredients would be needed and the steps needed to buy them, and what steps would be needed to prepare the meal.
And then I guarantee you your teacher is going to start thinking, oh, OK, this is very doable.
Yeah, we can just pick a task and I ask you follow-up questions.
Think about all of the different steps to complete that task.
Oh, for sure, for sure.
Okay Aubrey, so we're gonna get into a bit more detail on those examples.
Right, the possible tasks in a second.
But there's another thing that we could do.
Is this, maybe for number two?
Maybe, if we don't have a teacher with us?
Right, tell us about that.
Yeah, or I mean, you might do it with your teacher.
Or if you don't have a teacher, or if you want to do it more on your own as well, you can do this activity either with a speaking partner or even on your own.
So one thing you could do is write out tasks.
We're going to give you a bunch in a minute on pieces of paper.
Fold them, put them in a bowl and pull one out at random and then describe it out loud.
Think of all the different steps.
And you can just do this on your own out loud or even more fun, right Lindsay with a speaking partner and have them ask you follow-up questions.
That's so fun.
I love that idea.
Or if you have a language exchange partner, which is a little bit different.
I did this a lot in my 20s, sitting in cafes in New York and someone from the Spanish-speaking world.
And for me you could actually each pull out the same one task and first the person describes it in Spanish and then in English.
That could be interesting.
I love that idea.
Absolutely.
Right.
And then you're ready to ask follow-up questions in your native language and they will ask you follow-up questions in your target language.
So cool.
So cool.
And then, yeah, follow-up question.
Tell us a little bit more about follow-up questions then.
Yeah.
So, for each of these tasks, if you're doing this on your own, you could write on this paper some follow up questions, or you can just think of them.
Be creative as you're going.
Like, for example, if the task is planning a vacation, you could include follow up questions like describe the process of choosing a destination.
Describe the process of booking flights.
And for each of those, you would share the steps, right?
Describe how do you do this?
Yeah, there's a lot of subtasks, things within an overall idea that are quite interesting and especially leaning into your true strengths.
If you're into I don't know if this is as much of a thing, but the credit card points thing, if you're into hacking miles and that sort of thing, getting miles off your credit card, describe that how to rack up credit card points to get mileage.
Yes, I love that idea.
We just discovered.
We didn't realize that we have so many credit card points for mileage because we just don't use them.
We weren't really clear on how that works.
And a friend of ours was like, let me look into this.
We're like, oh, we need to start using these.
Go somewhere.
Yeah.
Or cash it out or something.
I mean, you need to use those because you can get around the world for free.
Exactly.
Amazing.
Yeah.
Okay.
So then going a bit more into those tasks, have we given our listeners all the possible tasks?
I mean, there's so many.
Yes, there are so many.
We want to share with you guys some tasks that you can even.
You can give these ideas to your teacher or you can write them on papers, on your own to do this, or with a speaking partner, a language exchange partner, to have lots of different tasks.
You want this to be something you do that has multiple steps, like multiple things that you have to do.
So, for example errands, maybe shopping for groceries, returning an item, picking up dry cleaning.
Think about it from the very beginning, like leaving your house or leaving your office.
You can get really minute.
Describe how you go.
Do you go to a parking garage to get in your car?
Describe driving there.
Describe the directions.
There are so many things that's going to pull out so much interesting vocabulary.
Oh my gosh.
I love what you said.
Take it to the very minute level.
Be detail-oriented here.
What happens before the step that you think is the first step?
There's probably a pre-step.
Love that.
I hope you guys are writing these down.
And this is where it would be great with a teacher or a speaking partner to be thinking, right?
If they just say, well, I drive to the dry cleaner's office.
Okay, now wait, how did you get to there? your car?
Where do you park your car?
Are you leaving from home or from work?
Which roads do you take to get there?
What's the closest dry cleaner to your house?
Now you've had a half an hour conversation.
Exactly.
Speak fluently about this.
I love it.
I love it.
Or household tasks.
We said doing laundry, prepping a meal, maybe your favorite meal.
That would be interesting.
That would be interesting.
I think it's important, as I said before, something that you identify with, almost like your specialty.
What is your specialty in life?
My specialty, I guess, is podcasting, right?
Or one of them.
Or maybe you have a favorite meal that only you know how to do it because there's a special twist you put on it.
That will actually be more enjoyable to describe.
It's true because there are options here, right?
You could describe a time when you were preparing a meal and it went terribly wrong and you could share all of the steps and what happened and what you would do differently next time.
That would also be amazing.
But you're right that if you think about trying to stay positive and engaged, if you choose something that you're passionate about, that's probably going to be the most fun half an hour of discussion.
Well, and just to add a layer to that, we just inter.
I just interviewed brie ac from into the story podcast and one of her key points was when emotions are involved, you're going to be more likely to remember something.
And what's the difference between just describing kind of a mundane task that you do you tolerate it versus something you love to do, which is bake, make this chocolate mousse that no one has ever tasted anything so good and you get compliments every time you make it right.
That would be really cool.
Go, it'll be interesting to vary your intonation as well, because you'll be more excited and passionate about it.
Right, you can also talk about leisure activities, right?
Vacations, planning a vacation, meeting a friend for drinks, going to brunch, choosing a book at the library all of these tasks that we do that are fun for us, that we're choosing to do in our free time yeah, will be fun to describe to someone.
Yeah, definitely veer towards the fun stuff you could talk about work, maybe.
See, see how you feel about it something like podcasting.
I was happy to describe it and i also wanted him to start a podcast, so i was invested in it.
Right, so describing steps of a task that you complete ordering materials, submitting reports, scheduling meetings, finding clients this could work on your business english, right?
Yes, absolutely.
And if you think about If you're, if you're practicing with a teacher or a speaking partner, you could just have the question be, you know, describe a task at work that you do really well or that you do.
Yeah.
One else, because that will pull in that passion.
Like this is something I love and I know I'm good at.
So then it will be like podcasting for you, Lindsay.
I like that.
You know also, that's going to do is help us start to identify our strengths, our strengths and it's going to help us get better.
When we if we end up in a job interview in the future describing what we do better than other people for example, what unique value that we add to a company that's a skill we want to be building all the time, not just bonus skill for that.
Yeah, so good.
Oh my gosh, we are just saving the world today.
Operate right.
Well, you have a little role play.
This is going to be fun.
Lindsay, you are my language teacher in this role play okay, and i'm going to ask you to help me structure a task this way ready yes, I would like to set a goal of being able to describe a task.
Can you help me with that?
That is a fantastic goal.
Describing a task will help you build fluency and use new vocabulary.
Awesome. could you ask me about a task and then ask follow-up questions?
Absolutely.
Well, I know you love volleyball.
So today let's have you describe how to serve the ball during a game.
Now that would be a great one for you, don't you think?
It would, absolutely.
It's funny.
I think about this and I don't know if I've ever really talked about volleyball in French or Spanish, because some things just don't come up.
And that would be fun for me to describe that.
And maybe my speaking partner or the teacher also loves volleyball and suddenly we're having this really fun conversation about it.
I think that's really important.
What you just said maybe that's the takeaway for today is a lot of things are just not going to come up, a lot of vocabulary is never going to come up if we keep going in circles in our conversation practice, the same stories, the same greetings, the same hobbies.
No, let's stop that.
Let's push ourselves to a new place.
You need this vocabulary for business or life, but it's not going to come up unless you create a scenario right Exactly, and you can.
You can create those scenarios right.
Anything that's interesting to you, anything that's multi-step, right?
Whether it's with a teacher or a speaking partner or by yourself alone.
It's also fun just to practice, to get the practice you need so that you're ready for those one-on-one conversations.
Yeah, I mean, and don't forget guys, We all have something that we do better than most people, that we're uniquely good at.
So figure out what that is first.
And then in your next lesson, ask your tutor to listen to you as you describe it and ask those questions.
This is really empowering and exciting.
Yes.
I love it.
I'm so excited for you guys to have your next class or to chat with a speaking partner and try this out.
Yeah, I love it.
You know, in our community at All Ears English.
If you're in one of our courses, you can always find speaking partners right there in our community, in our social media community.
Right, Aubrey?
We have a special group just for the courses.
Yeah.
Yes.
And we have open conversation club every week.
I just hosted it this morning.
It was amazing.
So many students from all over the world, professionals at a high level of English.
And they, I mean, we use conversation starters.
We're going to have to do this in one of our open conversation clubs soon.
I was just going to say, maybe this will be one of the breakout rooms in open conversation club.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Guys, now we're going to describe a task.
Interesting.
So stay tuned.
If you're in one of our courses or if you join one of our courses, you will be automatically invited to open Conversation Club as a bonus.
So check out our courses, guys.
Go to alltheirsenglish.com.
Aubrey, good to hang out today.
You too.
Thanks, Lindsay.
I'll see you soon.
Take care.
Bye.
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