This is an All Ears English Podcast, episode 2351, backstage with Lindsay and Michelle.
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We'll show you how to become fearless and fluent by focusing on connection, not perfection, with your American hosts, Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer, and Michelle Kaplan, the New York radio girl, coming to you from Colorado and New York City, USA.
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Today, we answer a listener question about what goes into an episode of All Ears English.
Learn all the ins and outs of how we produce this podcast and learn how to connect with others about their job or hobby in order to build connection.
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Hey, Lindsay, how are you?
Hey there, Michelle.
I'm doing fantastic.
How are you? I'm good.
I'm good. Lindsay, how much work or how much time would you say goes into an episode of All Ears English, do you think?
well that's a good question michelle i mean we have to consider the planning and then we go we do the recording we do the preparation we do the editing after our wonderful editor gaspar does the editing yes uh shout out to gaspar and jandi thank you yes shout out to jandi uh we love our team members
here so i'd say a fair amount of work goes into it michelle yeah yeah yeah there's a lot i would say so today we're actually going to answer a listener question about all this english and what goes into making this podcast.
So this is from Sophia.
Lindsay, would you read the email for us?
All right, here we go.
Here's a question from Sophia.
So hi, Allers English.
I'm Sophia. I just wanted to say how much I love your podcast.
It's the first thing I listen to every morning and it always makes learning English fun.
I'm so impressed with how smooth and clear the podcasts are.
Well, thank you, Sophia.
That is a wonderful compliment.
We love those messages from our listeners, don't we, Michelle?
Oh, we love it. Thank you.
I was wondering if you'd be willing to share a bit about how you create the podcast, like how you choose topics, prepare and record.
I'd love a peek behind the scenes of my favorite podcast.
Thanks so much. And I'm looking forward to hearing from you.
Best Sophia. Wonderful question.
Thank you so much. That is a great, great question.
And we are so excited to talk about it here today and teach you guys how to connect with others over their jobs.
Huge connection topic, right?
Yeah. Yeah. I would say over their jobs or over any process that they do.
You know, it could be their hobby.
Maybe you have a friend that's into playing classical piano.
What goes into preparing for a classical piano concert, right?
There's so many ways this question could apply.
So today we're going to get vocabulary for that skill of asking about a process, preparation or producing something, a work of art, right?
How do we do that? and you're going to learn a little bit about the back the you know the scenes behind the scenes behind the scenes that's right yeah i think we did episode uh 300 we did behind the scenes of all ears english so wow i think it's it's time for an update yeah maybe the scenes have changed
too a little bit who knows right we'll see we'll see yes and before we get into it lindsey we wanted to give a big thank you to our reviewers is that right oh yes 100 today i want to call out some reviewers for our Android app.
So the Android app is another place where you can consume All There's English for free, the full podcast, but you can go deeper and become a premium listener if you want.
But today I want to call out Fereshte from, I'm not sure where Fereshte is from, but thank you to Fereshte, a five -star review.
Thank you to JHJHC, another five -star review.
md shohei rana five -star review um and thank you to edison isaac also an amazing review michelle we love when our listeners take the time to go and review the show absolutely thank you guys so much we're so appreciative we do this for you absolutely so go over and leave a review whether you listen in apple
spotify or the app leave a review for the podcast all right good stuff All right.
So let's get into it.
So first we're going to talk a little bit about the process for Allers English, and then we're going to get into teaching you guys how to talk about how to connect with somebody about their own process.
So, okay. So Lindsey, how do we choose topics?
What are some ways?
Well, the main way is it comes down to listener questions.
That's why we're always asking you guys to send us listener questions into support at allersenglish .com.
We have a humongous document of questions, and obviously we choose the best questions.
So the more specific your question is, the better, but that's the best way.
That is the main way that we choose content.
Other ways we do it is we also listen in to our live events that we do with our students, open conversation club, fluency party.
What are some themes that we're hearing in terms of things we could work on as a group, as a community?
We look in our community pages where we connect, you know, on the internet over there just for our students.
That's another place we find ideas.
Definitely. Yeah. Right.
So, but we, I think our favorite episodes are the ones where we get listener questions because it's just directly what you guys want.
But we also get ideas from our real lives.
So these are also fun because we recognize that we, we, we can hear something and then say, wait a second, this is important.
So sometimes it's important.
It might be something that couldn't be a listener question because it's something that you observed about somebody else.
So for example, Lindsay and I, we just did an episode about the difference between A and Ann and Juan.
And this came from Lindsay's interaction with somebody who was making this mistake.
Yes. Yeah. I was seeing this mistake over and over for a year in every email I got from this person.
And I said, Nope, we have to address this on the podcast and solve this problem.
Right. So I think that's a great way.
So Michelle, you and I have antennae out when we're out in the world and we pay attention all the time.
We observe language, right?
We observe language.
Well, first of all, right.
Yeah, right. Well, yeah.
And then, I mean, on my end, definitely I will, I mean, even just the other day I was with a friend and she said two things.
And then I said, wait a second, I need to stop and write this down.
And I made a note in my email.
I said, thank you. You just gave me two ideas for all these English episodes.
So because, you know, it's kind of working the other way.
So one way is that you guys do the observing.
And then one way is that we do the observing.
And if we know something is going to be specifically really useful for you, we'll say, ah, this is good.
Another thing we do is sometimes if there's articles we read or information we see so we might get inspiration from New York Times right could be something like that and find ways to make it our own and to teach you something from that for sure or cultural topics come up we want to address holidays
around the world as sometimes we get ideas from one episode and that naturally leads into another one so but the main way is from you all from exactly so you know the takeaway here is just send us your send us your questions Yeah, I'm always so happy.
I'm always so happy when we go.
Yeah. So guys, yeah, there is a big document.
So when I go into plan some episodes, I'll first open that document because first I want to get to you.
And when I see, and again, we could do a whole episode about how to ask a good question.
Hey, there's an idea.
There you go. And so guys, basically, you know, as specific as you can be, that's what it comes down to.
But we could always talk about that more another day.
Exactly. Love it. If you're a natural introvert, speaking out in a conversation in English can be stressful.
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All right, Michelle.
And then once we have our winning question of the day, what do we do after that?
Yeah, then we have to prepare.
So depends. You know, sometimes it's one that comes pretty naturally, pretty easily to plan.
But sometimes if it's a real grammar question or a very specific vocabulary that we have to think about, what is the difference?
because sometimes to native speakers, I'm sure you guys realize this with your own language, your own first language is it can be, somebody might ask us a question.
We know there's a difference, but we have to think, wait, what is this?
Right. It doesn't come naturally as a native speaker.
It doesn't always, it's something we've may have never thought about before.
And so we might need to do a little research.
A hundred percent. And we try to add a role play to most episodes because we've heard from you all that you love that.
You love those role plays.
It's a really nice way to summarize the key words that we've learned in that episode and to move into our final thoughts for the episode.
We make sure everything's there.
And then, of course, All Air's English is edutainment.
We consider this edutainment, so we need to make sure it is edutaining.
Michelle, what is that?
That is a combination of two words.
What is that? Okay, so edutainment is education and entertainment, right?
So we wouldn't want to come on here and just say, okay, we're going to talk about the different, right?
We're not going to make it.
The whole purpose of the podcast is to make you want to learn, to make you excited about it and to make it fun for you.
Otherwise, what are we doing?
Right? So we want to make sure that it's edutainment.
And I think a lot of the edutainment piece is spontaneous.
You know, a lot of the times when we break out in laughter or we tease each other, or we come up with a side point.
Those aren't planned.
All right. So a good portion of these episodes are unplanned.
There's a lot of spontaneity in here, partly because we have fun doing it.
And partly because we want you to, we want you all to see the spontaneity in English, right?
Yes. Connection is not, is not planned.
That's the truth. Yes.
And I think that's a very good point is, so I think people have asked us before, do we script out the whole episode?
No, the only thing that might be scripted is an explanation of something, you know, but we'll, even that will usually change up or we'll, you know, if we have a role play, that's of course scripted, but the general discussions, our relationship, how we, how we talk to each other, that's not scripted.
Like our listener asked, Sophia asked us what goes into an episode, what goes into making an episode, right?
Right. So if your friend is learning to write music, right?
Maybe they're taking a music theory class or something.
You'd say, well, so what goes into writing a song?
Yes. I've always been interested, if you were a restaurant owner, what goes into opening a restaurant for the evening?
You know, I find that interesting.
Yeah. Crazy. Oh my gosh.
What else, Michelle?
What's something else our listeners could ask?
Well, you could say, how much time do you spend on blank?
Right. So, or, or you could even say, how long does it take you to blank?
So, I mean, for the restaurant example, you could say, oh, how long does it take you to prepare for the night?
Right. Or how much time do you spend on cleaning the place?
Or you could also say, you could mix these up.
How much time goes into?
Yep. Yep. There's a lot of different ways.
The important thing is just asking the question and starting that conversation.
Sometimes for our listeners, maybe they're finishing up with college, university and thinking what industry do i want to be in this is a really important these are questions we need to know because certain careers might look really glamorous but on the day -to -day maybe they're not as great right yeah
i think that happens yeah um so but there's tons of ways to connect we gave you a few ways today um lindsay should we should we do a role play Yeah.
Let's do it. So here we are friends and you are asking me about my new job.
All right. Okay. All right.
So what's your day to day like?
Well, I go in every day and first look at the schedule and make sure I have everything prepared.
Oh, neat. And how much time do you spend on gathering all the information together?
Just like 20 minutes.
Okay. And so what goes into a call with a client?
Well, we just talk over what they expect from us and what the schedule will be.
we go over any of their concerns it's pretty extensive actually sounds like a lot oh nice okay very natural conversation wouldn't you say i would say all right so michelle first you asked me this opening question so what's your day -to -day like and i like this because it's kind of open -ended but you're
really being clear that you mean on a daily basis don't tell me about the high points just the great times when you're in the spotlight.
Tell me about the day to day, right?
Right. Yes, yes, exactly.
And then I said, and how much time do you spend on gathering all the information together?
So getting more details from you.
And I said 20 minutes.
And you said, okay, and what goes into a call with a client?
And what do you mean?
What goes into exactly?
What does this mean?
Exactly. What is involved?
What happens? Yeah.
What happens? Exactly.
What's involved? Maybe did you have to prepare for it lots there's lots of sub questions that could go under that right exactly um but yeah there's so there's so many places we could take this you know this is a huge topic but i think mainly is be curious um let that person shine your friend has a new
job let them shine your friend talks to you about their new hobby let them shine and share it with you show that you're interested i think this is also a really these are good conversations to have because you know that expression there's no such thing as an overnight success or i don't know maybe it's
a different expression but the idea is you know this person has become successful maybe you have a friend who's become a famous actor or actress and all of a sudden it looks to someone on the outside like they just made it all of a sudden but there's been years and years and years of work every day
getting up and working late working late nights and so that's another angle on this topic and this question we could learn the truth behind how hard someone has worked throughout their career right yeah yeah absolutely because you're you're only seeing what's going on on the outside you don't see all
the hard work you know all the you know you see the surface level you don't see the 10 000 hours right malcolm gladwell's concept the 10 000 hours to go into mastering a concept or a skill yeah for sure love that so that's why it's it's good to have these conversations um lindsey do we have another episode that will help
our listeners yes we do, Michelle.
I'm glad you asked.
It's episode 2340. Just scroll back a little bit further back, guys.
It's called, do you have the gift of Gab in English?
And that's a kind of a common expression you're going to learn what it means and we'll go into that topic.
All right. Okay. Awesome.
So takeaway for today, I would say be curious, ask questions and just always let the other person and have a chance to share themselves and that'll help with your connection.
Yeah, that'll help for that your connection for sure.
And if you're looking to get into a certain industry, ask lots of questions like this.
Make sure you set up coffee dates, informational interviews, phone calls, build mentorships in that industry.
So you really know what you're going into.
You know, what are you really signing up for?
That's so important to make sure we make the right choices in our careers.
That's true. You may like the idea of something but when it comes down to the day to day you learn about it maybe you have to work every weekend maybe you have maybe there's something that doesn't work with their with your lifestyle and what you're looking for so definitely good to ask about that and find
out yeah and special thank you to Sophia for asking this question and the final takeaway for our listeners Michelle is send in your question yes good episode send your questions to support at allersenglish .com all right perfect all right Lindsay thanks for talking about this with me today and thanks
for the question and we'll talk to you guys later.
All right. Take care, Michelle.
Bye. Bye. Thanks for listening to All Ears English.
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