Welcome to the Listening Time podcast.
Hey English learners, this is Connor and you're listening to episode 239 of the Listening Time podcast.
Thank you for listening.
I hope you're doing well.
And I think when this episode is released, it will be the end of the year.
So I want to wish you a happy new year.
And I hope that next year you can make a lot of progress with your English comprehension and your overall English learning.
And I hope that this podcast is a useful tool that can help you reach your English goals.
And in today's episode, I want to talk about the funnest parts of my job.
I want to talk about the things that I like the most about my job that I have the most fun doing.
So I chose three things.
I think that these are the three funnest things about what I do.
I don't have a real job in a traditional sense.
I'm not employed by someone.
I just make a lot of English content, content for English learners, and I do many different things.
I make different types of content, like stuff for listening, for pronunciation, some more technical things video audio, QA sessions, different things like that.
And some things I enjoy more and some things I enjoy less. just like in any job.
So I'll talk about the things I enjoy the most about my job in today's episode.
And before I do that, I want to challenge a lot of you to use my US Conversations podcast.
That's another podcast that I have where I talk to other English teachers at normal speed and and I provide the transcript of each conversation with the definitions of key words and phrases that we use.
The reason why you should use this is because it will help you understand when more than one person is talking.
I know I mention this a lot, but it's really, really important.
In my own experience learning Spanish.
This was the big skill that I lacked for a long time, but when I started practicing with this, it completely changed my Spanish and it took me to the next level.
So this is the type of content that will help you reach that next level.
And so you can check that out by clicking on the link down below.
All right, let me talk about the three things I like the most about my job.
The things that are the funnest for me, I should say.
So the first thing that I noted down here is I really like making episodes about language learning.
These are the episodes that I get the most excited about recording.
And I think you can feel it when you listen to those particular episodes.
You can probably tell that I have more energy, more passion, more I'm more engaged and I am eager to tell you what I think and tell you about my experience.
So you can probably tell that I'm passionate about this topic.
Honestly, I could talk about language learning all day.
Not just language learning, but just languages in general.
This topic comes up a lot in my everyday life because the people around me know that i'm a language person and so whenever there's a language related thing or they have a question about a translation of a word and how it would be said in Spanish or whatever, or now Greek, because both my pastor and I are learning Greek.
And so we talk a ton about the Greek language.
And so I love talking about foreign languages.
I love talking about English.
I get really passionate when I talk about the technical aspects of English and English pronunciation.
And of course, I love talking about the process of learning languages.
So I could talk about these topics all day and not get bored.
I'm not exaggerating.
I could literally talk for hours and hours about this.
For those of you who aren't that interested in this topic, that might sound a little strange, but it's one of the things that I'm the most passionate about.
So of course, I always want to talk about this.
And so when I record episodes about language learning or my experience learning French or Spanish or whatever, I get excited to do so.
And when I'm recording, It's very easy to continue talking, and I just want to express my ideas and keep on talking.
I don't know if those episodes tend to be longer than other episodes, but I'm guessing they probably are a little bit longer on average.
So I'd love that talking about this topic and recording episodes about language learning and another reason why i like doing this is because i know that it's useful for you, my listeners, to hear me talk about the process of learning a language and my experience.
I know that I can give some good advice in some areas of language learning and I can talk from my own experience and I'm sure that this is helpful for you guys.
Even though I would like to record episode after episode after episode about languages and language learning, I know that it's also useful for you to hear me talk about other topics as well.
That's why I record episodes about languages a bunch of different topics because it helps you learn more vocabulary and hear how I talk about different things and what types of phrases I use to talk about different topics.
That's really helpful.
Even though the language learning related episodes are my favorite, I will always record episodes about other topics as well, because it's necessary for you, right?
And maybe one day I'll make a different podcast or YouTube channel or something about language learning.
That's completely unrelated to my work as an English content creator.
Maybe I'll just have a separate project where I talk to native English speakers about language learning.
Maybe one day.
I don't know.
I've thought about that, but it's not something that I'm seriously planning at this point.
But, like I said, I love talking about this topic, so it might make sense for me to start another project one day where I focus on that right and so uh, this is the first thing that came to mind when i thought about things that i have a lot of fun with in my job.
I love talking about language learning, sharing my passion with you and giving helpful advice about language learning.
It's like killing two birds with one stone, as we say in English.
This means that you do one thing that accomplishes two different goals.
So I'm able to share helpful advice with you about language learning, and you're also hearing me talk in english and you're improving your listening because you're listening to me speak english, so it's like killing two birds with one stone, as we say.
Another part of my job that is engaging for me, and I consider to be one of the funner types of content that I create, is the mini technical episodes that I've been releasing for some months now.
I think by the time that this episode is released, you'll have seen some of these episodes that are Not the phrasal verb episodes, the other ones where I talk about different grammar topics or pronunciation topics or expressions slang, etc.
So these mini technical episodes are pretty fun for me because it allows me to add some technical content, because most of my content is not very technical, besides my pronunciation content.
That's extremely technical.
If you've ever watched my pronunciation seminars, I go into a lot of detail to help you pronounce things like a native speaker.
Also, my listening practice seminars are also really technical too.
So that is technical content.
But aside from that, it's mostly listening content, listening comprehension practice that I make.
So I'm not teaching you a lot of things.
You're just learning naturally by listening to me.
And so it's been kind of fun for me to add some more technical content.
And I like the format of doing these mini episodes because I can talk about one topic and I don't need to spend too much time on it and waste too much of your day on it.
And I can still record it like I record my normal episodes.
And so you're still getting listening practice because I'm explaining the topic to you in English.
So you're practicing, you're listening.
And of course, I provide the transcript.
So you can use that if you need it.
So you get the listening benefit of it and you're also learning something technical.
So I like this format of these mini technical episodes and I choose the topics of these episodes, or many of the topics, based on my experience as a teacher and based on my experience talking to foreigners, even my own wife.
So I choose topics that I find to be really important, topics that can be tricky for people, and things that can be really useful to learn and to know how to say correctly.
So I've spent many years listening to non-native English speakers try to speak in English.
And of course, they make a lot of mistakes.
And there are a lot of very common mistakes that people make.
And I hope that if I can explain in an effective way how to correct these different mistakes, it can help you, the listener, focus more on these particular things that you might be saying wrong and correct them.
So I'm not spending a ton of time teaching you grammar.
There are great grammar teachers online on YouTube or different podcasters that teach grammar, and they do a great job.
That's not really my thing, but I have a ton of experience talking to foreigners and I know the exact mistakes that come up again and again.
So I think I can use my experience to guide me so that I can choose really pertinent words like really important, relevant topics that can help people, help English learners improve certain aspects of their English.
So sometimes it's grammar.
Sometimes I'm teaching a certain phrase or a way of saying something.
Sometimes I teach pronunciation.
Pronunciation is one of my strong points as a teacher, I would say, and I already mentioned my pronunciation seminars.
People usually find them really helpful and it opens their eyes to the whole world of stress and reduced speech, this whole system in English that they never, ever learn about in school.
So pronunciation is one of the things that I really like teaching and I think people appreciate my way of teaching it.
And so I'm happy to add some more pronunciation content via these mini technical episodes in which I explain how to pronounce certain types of words or sounds.
And I hope that you appreciate these pronunciation episodes.
And I recommend that you try my pronunciation seminars as well.
If you've never watched one before, I'm sure that it will be really helpful for you.
It will open your eyes to a lot of things that will help your pronunciation.
So check those out if you haven't done so yet.
Of course, the link for everything that I mention is always down below.
And one other thing that I wanted to include in this episode.
Something else that is really fun for me is when I host people on my US Conversations podcast.
This is something very different from the other things that I do.
Everything else that I do is just me doing it alone.
It's either me writing something, talking into this microphone, editing, uploading, whatever.
It's always just me by myself That can be a little bit isolating, right?
I work alone.
I do everything alone.
So when I record conversations with other English teachers for my U.S.
Conversations podcast, It's a really different thing.
It's the part of my job that requires a completely different set of skills.
I have to do something that I don't normally do and it gives me real interaction.
I actually get to talk to someone which is very rare in my job.
Of course I
I'm talking to you, but I'm not actually having a conversation with you.
So this is very different from actually engaging in a conversation with someone.
Like I said, I have to use different skills when I'm actually talking, having a conversation with another person.
So it requires me to use my conversation skills, make sure that I'm interesting, I'm engaging, I'm asking good questions and helping the other person feel comfortable while talking to me, and I always have to find the interesting things in what they're saying and guide the conversation towards those interesting things and know when to ask follow-up questions.
A follow-up question is like an additional question that you ask after the person responds to your first question, like you ask another question to get more information about what they just said.
So i need to know how and when to ask follow-up questions and I need to add my own personality to the conversation and I need to say interesting things because it's not just an interview, like I only ask questions and
I don't have the right to talk about myself.
That's not exactly how I do that podcast.
I try to add my own input, my own thoughts as well, so that it's more of a discussion.
So it's like an interview, but I'm participating a lot in the discussion.
And so that's obviously... something that requires different skills.
And I don't think I'm the best host.
I don't think that I'm the best interviewer.
I'm not the most interesting person in the world.
But it's fun for me to use these skills and challenge myself like this.
I would describe recording that podcast as like something that makes you nervous because it's not what you normally do.
You have to use different skills, but a good type of nervous.
I'm sure a lot of you know what I'm talking about where you do something that is challenging for you and it makes you nervous.
You feel butterflies in your stomach, as we say, like you feel the nerves in your body, in your stomach, but you're actually excited to do it and when you're doing it, you have fun.
You start to become engaged in what you're doing.
That's kind of how it is for me when i record my us conversations podcast.
I i Always get nervous before I start, but as soon as we get into the conversation, it becomes natural for me and I really like it.
Again, I'm not the best conversationalist and I'm not the best host, but But I feel like I can do a pretty good job at guiding a conversation and reading the other person.
That's a big thing.
Not every person I talk to is similar in how they talk. converse, how they interact.
Some people are shyer than other people.
Some people are more interested in the conversation than other people.
And I have to adjust how I'm asking questions and interacting based on the other person.
That's a big thing too.
So this is all challenging but fun for me and, like i said, it's a complete change from my normal work, and i think that's always exciting, regardless of what it is.
When you change things up once in a while, it offers something new and fresh for you.
So I like doing this for all of those reasons.
And one other important reason why I like hosting people on my US Conversations podcast is because I learn a lot from them.
First of all, I learn a lot about my own country because I talk to people from all around the US, different regions of the country.
I've talked to people on the West Coast, in the Midwest, in the South, in the Northeast, in the Southeast, all around the country.
And I haven't been to all these places.
And so it's been really interesting for me to learn about these different parts of the country and even just hear how the people talk from these different areas and hear about the culture and some of the differences between those regions and my region.
It's a lot of fun and it's really interesting for me.
I love learning about things, especially things related to geography and culture.
And if I'm learning a lot me an American, then of course you will learn a ton about the US when you listen to that podcast.
And not only do I learn a lot about my country, but I also learn about other countries, because a lot of these teachers live abroad or have lived abroad.
So they talk a lot about their lives in other countries.
And I also learn things about language learning.
I like to hear their perspective on learning languages.
Some of the people I talk to have learned multiple languages and I'm always trying to improve my own language learning methods, and so It's great to learn from other language learners and people who have had success in their language learning.
And so I learn a lot when recording that podcast.
And so for all of the reasons I mentioned, this is also one of the funnest things about my job.
All right, I hope that you enjoyed this episode and that you enjoy hearing about my work and what I do.
And I mentioned that my US Conversations podcast is one of the funnest parts of my job and I highly recommend that you listen to it as well.
It will be great practice for you and will help you understand when more than one person is talking, and you can also take classes with these teachers who i talk to.
So a lot of you are interested in speaking, and so that would be a good place to find a teacher.
So if you're interested in that, the link is down below.
Thank you all for listening to this episode.
I hope you all have a good end of the year and start of the new year and I'll talk to you on the next episode of Listening Time.
