This is an all ears English podcast, episode 753 first listening shock, what it is and how to survive it.
Welcome to the All Ears English podcast, downloaded more than 34 million times.
We believe in connection, not perfection.
With your American hosts Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer, and Michelle Kaplan, the New York radio girl.
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Do you get first listening shock?
This is the feeling that overwhelms you when you end up in a tough listening situation for the first time.
What is happening in your brain and how can you turn it around for connection?
Find out today.
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Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
I don't know if you experience this.
I'm sure you do.
But like the way that we work, we could work every day if we chose.
And it's not like there's an office that gives us a day off.
So I totally forget if it's going to be like a three day weekend or whatever.
I don't even like it doesn't register unless like James has the day off school.
And I'm like, oh, that must be a holiday.
Otherwise, I'd never know.
Yeah, that's true.
That's true.
No, but we should take Memorial Day off if we can, because in the US people like to have it's kind of the unofficial start of summer or the official start of summer, right.
Most people when they imagine summer, it's Memorial Day to Labor Day.
Yeah, that's true.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yes, we will definitely be barbecuing and going to the beach again.
There you go.
There you go.
Very cool.
And so hopefully our students will be spending some time in our awesome new course guys that we just released a few weeks back.
And today we have a good question from one of our listeners that wrote in to ask us How to deal with this listening shock problem.
Oh, God.
Big problem.
I have never said or seen this phrase before, but it's perfect.
It makes total sense.
When we studied linguistics, there was this idea of the effective filter.
Right.
And that's what he's talking about.
Like he that is exactly what he's talking about.
He just doesn't have this, you know, like with like academic term for it.
But that's what it is.
It's this I always picture it as like a physical wall in your head.
Yeah. that really blocks information from getting in.
It just prevents you from understanding anything like from the start.
Yeah, understanding and remembering.
I mean, this does not just apply to language learning, obviously.
I remember when I was on my trip last summer and For some reason I was having trouble remembering conversations I was having with people back home, like dates and information that was going on with them.
I was having trouble keeping it organized.
I was like, am I getting Alzheimer's?
What is going on?
But I was just being...
What was happening, I think, was the effective filter, because I was being bombarded by so much new stimuli right.
Going across the country trying to think about where I was going to sleep, where I was going, what I was doing.
Just so much intensity at one time.
I couldn't take in – I mean, it's not that I couldn't remember anything –
But I just – it was hard to build memories.
It was hard to build – like remember facts and figures and information.
That's interesting.
You know, like now that we're talking about that, I see this happening with James because –
There's so much new stimuli from school, from activities, that we do that like.
We get to this point at like seven at night where he just can't understand anything.
I'm saying.
Like it doesn't matter what it is.
Like that filter is up.
Nothing else is getting in.
Like that's what's happening.
Oh, that's interesting.
Exactly.
I love it.
Yeah, huge.
When I go back to listen again or check the written book, I found they are just normal words.
So like this is stuff that he should be understanding but he's not because of that first listening shock.
So like what's happening there?
What is keeping him from understanding these seemingly understandable words?
Yeah.
I think yeah, I think his brain is becoming crowded with all this other noise and it's kind of stress.
And this happens often right when we're in the actual situation of speaking with natives.
But even in his case, he's listening to things on tape, he said, right?
Is that right?
Or podcasts or audiobooks?
Audiobooks.
And even then there's probably a lot of noise in his mind saying oh my gosh, I'm listening to English now.
It's supposed to be hard.
It was hard before.
It'll be hard in the future.
Yeah.
And there's all this dialogue, right?
Yeah.
That chimp that sits on your head and your shoulder and says, you can't do it.
And that takes up all the space to actually listen and remember and understand.
That is so true.
And like this, this overlaps with some of our IELTS strategies as well.
It's like if you're getting ready for something, if you're preparing for something, you have to practice being comfortable.
Right.
There's two parts to this.
Right.
Like, first, you need the experience.
First, you need to experience understanding.
And then you also need a step by step process. way to get there.
Like, how do you structure this experience?
How do you get this experience?
So that's what we're trying to do with our method.
The Bridge to Connection method in our course is slowly build up to these difficult situations.
I mean, what he's doing Is he's just diving in to this new topic new words, new situation without like preparing for it.
Right.
I mean, it's not like he prepared, printed out the vocabulary or read the book beforehand, or like thought about the topic, read about the author.
I don't think there's any like scaffolding or step-by-step strategy happening here.
It's just you hit play.
Yeah.
And then you're like, okay, Braid, understand now.
And like that's not going to happen.
Exactly.
So he's kind of stacking.
It's dangerous where he's going because he's stacking negative experiences on top of each other.
Yeah.
And that's actually providing more of the narrative around.
I can't do it.
So the next time he turns the recording on, it's going to get stronger that voice in his head and the effective filter is going to be stronger and more impenetrable.
Right.
Exactly.
He's creating habits.
Yeah, precisely.
You can either practice understanding or practice not understanding, right?
You can practice with good habits, where you have a step-by-step way to understand where you're going about this methodically.
You're going about this like an adult who wants to reach a goal, right?
You can't just – hit the end point right away.
You have to get there in an organized way.
Exactly.
Like talking about this before we recorded this made Lindsay and I even more excited about how Like how we've structured our course, because this is exactly what we're tackling here.
So, for example, guys, like I'll just – I'll show you how this can be done, right?
In our Americana module, which is one of our favorites.
It shows our culture, our people, our characteristics, etc.
Awesome.
So we start you start in this module by experiencing interviews that are somewhat familiar but at the same time, do introduce a little bit of new information.
Right.
So you're you're practicing understanding.
You understand this much already.
So then it's easier to understand this other new stuff.
Right.
So stuff like food and beer and eating in restaurants.
This is stuff you guys already do.
So that's where we start.
We start with like you are using your own understanding and experience, because this is a familiar situation.
So it's easier to understand.
And then slowly but surely.
Throughout this module, you build up to the most difficult interview to understand, which is Rocketman.
Which is interesting because it's also, as I said, the most intriguing conversation, the conversation where we can grab the most from it.
I would almost say the deepest interview, but we can get a lot of interesting things to contemplate from this interview.
It's a real life experience talking with someone who's a little outside the norm, right?
But that's what connection is, to be able to do that.
And that is interesting.
Exactly.
It's building this comfort and this connection.
So the beginning interviews, like this is...
They're interesting, but it's not like on a deep level connection, right?
So you can't just jump to the deep level right away.
I mean, if you had had no preparation as far as real life English, talking to native speakers, and you met Rocket Man in a bar, that filter would be completely up from the very beginning and you would not get to experience this amazing person, his amazing stories, which make you reflect on your own life.
Like that's one of the biggest benefits of connection, the sort of selfish reason of self-growth right.
Through your experience with others.
Guys, today we're talking about the first listening shock and how you can overcome it.
It can be done in a systematic, step-by-step way, and we'll show you exactly how to do it.
And to get started with the seven secrets to connection in English
Go to allearsenglishcom forward slash adventure to get your free video lesson and get started today.
Exactly.
And it's also the fact that this interview is filmed in a noisy bar, right?
And that's the most realistic situation.
I guess a lot of them are throughout the module.
You add that, you add the background noise.
To the fact that you're talking with someone who is unique, who's going to share things that most people wouldn't share right.
He's quite open and quite transparent about his experiences with depression, with entrepreneurship, with self-doubt, things like that.
That's the real meat of a conversation, because you guys, you're going to be able to see your own struggles inside his struggles.
So this is interesting, and I didn't think about this before, but this filter goes two ways, right?
When we're talking about acquiring language, learning a language understanding comprehending, that's the effective filter.
That's keeping out information.
But there's a productive filter as well.
And this guy has no productive filter because –
That's just part of his sort of psychological issues, I think, is there's no social filter there.
So he just lays it all on the table, deepest secrets and all.
But for our listeners, like that productive filter, that's what's also keeping you from connecting.
So the first step is lowering that receptive filter where that first listening shock, getting over that, just taking that completely out of your brain.
So you have a level of comfort and confidence going into the conversation.
But then the next step. is to actually take away the filter that's keeping you from talking, right?
So that's the other thing about this is we slowly build not only your taking away that filter so you understand, but also the confidence in being able to express yourself, because you're practicing, talking about some difficult stuff right, researching things about your own country and culture that maybe you've never talked about in your first language, you know.
And so you're going to be able to express stuff in English that you haven't even talked about in Chinese or Arabic or Japanese or Portuguese, you know?
It's fascinating.
So cool.
So cool.
And if you guys do end up getting into this course, we now have the Connection Club, which is cool because that's a place where you can come together with us and other students a couple of times a month, every couple of weeks.
And you can actually you do have a place to discuss these things.
So you're not just out on your own.
You're in here.
You're in the Facebook group with us and you are actually having a forum to talk about this stuff.
So cool.
I'm so excited.
I get to do the first one tomorrow and I'm like super stoked about it.
It's going to be awesome.
That's going to be fantastic.
We want to encourage more of you guys to come on over, go to allearsenglishcom, forward slash connection and choose the middle plan, the connection club plan or the personal coach plan.
So you have a place to talk about these ideas.
Awesome.
Yep.
Because if you don't practice expressing, if you don't practice getting the words out, then that productive filter is going to stay there.
Exactly.
You have to have the experience, like we said, experience understanding, but also experience.
Yeah.
I think my filter just went up, but also experience that connection, right?
So connecting with other people in real time like that is vital to having that confidence to carry over when you do travel and you're thrown into these situations with Amazing people that maybe would have intimidated you before, because they're like no one you've ever seen in your country, right?
Maybe like covered with tattoos or who knows?
You won't be afraid of these people anymore, right?
Because you're going to meet them in the course.
Yeah, that's the thing.
Like often, the most high risk conversation situations are the most difficult can be the most rewarding.
Like I remember walking away from this conversation with Rocketman.
It was in your state in Oregon, Bend, Oregon.
Just feeling really inspired and fulfilled.
And that kind of connection is what makes us want to have the next conversation.
So the higher the stakes are, the more interesting the person is, the better the potential conversation is.
But we need to build these skills in a systematic way, guys.
That's kind of what it comes down to today.
What we're saying is that this student that asked the question, He's really going about it in the wrong way, right?
We want to build a more systematic way of breaking down the effective filter, and you can't do it by turning on your recorder and expecting to understand everything the first time.
Exactly.
I mean, if what you're doing hasn't worked so far –
Doing doing the same thing again and again, it's not going to change.
Right.
That's why we need to find a different way.
We need to find a different way into the language, because there are so many ways in.
You know, it's not just language, it's culture, it's history, it's experience, it's self-reflection.
There are so many ways into these conversations.
So that's what we've tried to bring into this course is showing you all the different ways that you can connect through the different characters, the vocab, the listening tools, the research you'll do by yourself and then talk to us about.
There's just, these are all the ways to connect.
Yeah, so cool.
I love it.
So guys, again, to jump in right now, go to allearsenglish.com forward slash connection.
You'll be getting started with the Americana module.
So by the end, you will have met Rocketman.
And then you'll be on your way across the United States with us.
Very cool.
All right, Jessica, this has been good.
I love it.
Love talking about this.
Just the most interesting thing that we've built in a long time.
And I think it's going to change a lot of lives.
Oh, definitely.
It already has.
The feedback is amazing.
You got it.
Exactly.
All right.
Very cool.
We'll see you back on the show next week.
Thanks for coming over to visit us on All Ears English.
My pleasure.
It was a long way, you know.
All over Miles Energy.
I'll make the harrowing journey again next week.
Don't worry.
See you then.
Alright, bye.
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