Welcome to the Listening Time Podcast.
Hey everybody, this is Connor and you're listening to episode 204 of the Listening Time Podcast.
I hope you're all doing well today and that you're ready to practice your listening comprehension in English.
And in today's episode, I wanted to talk about my recent experience meeting some of my listeners.
Some of you.
Very few of you, honestly, but a handful of you.
Why?
Because well, I've done some conversation classes with some people and I've had the chance to meet some people who already knew me because they listened to this podcast and they watched this my YouTube videos and then they really wanted to take a conversation class with me, and so I was able to do that with some students.
I'm still doing it now, at the time of recording this, but I don't know how much longer I'll continue this.
So maybe, if you're listening to this episode many months after it was released, perhaps I'm not doing these classes anymore.
I don't know, but at least for now I'm doing some conversation classes with people.
It's been fun, So I kind of want to talk about that in today's episode.
I'm sure you'll enjoy it.
And, of course, before we continue, I want to remind you that you can access my advanced podcast episodes, in which I speak fast, by becoming a Listening Time family member.
If you're interested in that, the link is down below in the description.
And you can also check out my US Conversations podcast, in which I talk to people from all over the US about different topics.
You'll learn a lot about the country, the culture in the different regions of the US.
It's really interesting.
So if you want that, that link is also down below.
All right, let's get started.
Are your ears ready?
You know what time it is.
It's listening time.
Okay, let me talk about my conversation classes that I've had with some of my listeners.
Just being able to meet people that have benefited from my content and It's been cool.
So first of all, why did I start doing conversation classes again?
I think it's good to at least mention this.
In all honesty, the cost of living is very high where I live in Southern California.
I'm actually going to be moving around pretty soon, maybe in a few months, to a different city in Southern California.
I don't know exactly where yet, but it's expensive everywhere here.
So I do need to prepare a little bit for that.
And the cost of living is just going to keep on going up.
So I felt the need to to earn some extra money.
And so honestly, that's the first reason why I decided to do a few conversation classes per week, at least for now.
And besides just that factor, I also thought it would be interesting to meet some of my listeners, because I haven't really done this a lot.
It's happened before, but It's not something that I get the chance to do all the time.
So I thought that would be interesting.
So the combination of these two things pushed me to actually open up some availability.
Again by the time you listen to this episode.
If it's far in the future, I might not have these classes available.
I'm sorry.
I kind of viewed this as a short-term thing, but who knows?
We'll see.
But yeah, I didn't really know what to expect there.
With these classes, because the classes I've given throughout the years the one on one classes that I've given online have mostly been with complete strangers who don't know me like, not my listeners.
There have been some people that have been able to find me after listening to my podcast or whatever, and they did the research to see if I gave classes anywhere.
But the vast majority of classes that I've given throughout the years have been to people that don't know me.
So this has been a little bit different and I didn't really know what to expect, but I thought it would be cool.
So that's what I've done for, I think, two weeks, or a little more than two weeks now, or maybe I'm wrong.
Maybe it's only been a week and a half.
I don't know.
But I haven't been doing this for that long, but I've been able to talk to a handful of different listeners.
And that's definitely been a different experience for me than just giving classes to random people or just receiving comments from listeners.
I've always really appreciated receiving comments, encouraging comments, that people comment on my YouTube videos, for example.
And I think that certain podcast apps have like comments on episodes.
I've never looked at this.
I'm sorry.
I don't really look at the comments on the actual podcast episodes because, probably because I didn't even know that that existed until recently.
So sorry if you write comments there and I haven't seen them.
I just kind of realized recently that there are comments on some of these apps, I think.
But of course, my YouTube videos... receive comments and I receive direct messages from people.
And it's always really great to receive encouraging comments where people tell me about how much they like the content that I make, how much it's helped them.
You know people just reach out and say thank you.
I've always really liked that.
I've always really liked hearing people's testimonies like they talk about the transformation that they've seen in their listening, comprehension and after using my content for a certain amount of time, or maybe even their speaking skills.
And that's always awesome to see how that's helped them.
And once in a while I'll receive a really amazing comment about how my content has helped the person get a job in English or something like that, where it's just really cool to hear.
I've always loved that, but I'll admit that after a certain amount of time This can kind of just become quote unquote, normal meaning.
I receive comments all the time and I'm not trying to sound like oh, I have great content and people are always complimenting me.
I'm just saying I receive comments comments all the time, because I have tons of content out on the internet and so it can become a very routine and normal thing to receive encouraging comments and See that people are benefiting from my content.
Like I said, I've always loved that.
It can make you almost lose the appreciation that you once had for that thing.
I'm sure a lot of you know what I'm talking about.
When something is new and fresh and it's a good thing, you appreciate it a lot, you look forward to it, it feels exciting.
But once it starts happening all the time and It's just an everyday occurrence.
You can sometimes kind of forget about how special that is to receive that good thing.
And I'll admit that that happens with receiving encouraging comments and encouraging Even hearing how my content has helped people.
I always like it, but I don't feel quite as special maybe, as I used to when I first started receiving those comments, because it was like so cool.
It was new and awesome.
Like I said, it's become quote-unquote normal now to receive that.
And I honestly don't really like that that has become just a routine thing for me.
I want to feel the importance of that.
And honestly, these conversation classes have helped me regain more of that excitement and appreciation for just people's testimonies and encouragement and and interacting with people.
It's not the same when you interact with someone through comments, right?
That's not nearly as powerful as when you interact with them talking.
So I think that if I never had the chance to talk to any of my listeners then I would probably lose that personal connection to a certain extent.
I wouldn't feel quite as connected to my audience.
I might forget the impact that my content has.
It might just become so routine for me to receive comments and just keep on posting content that I might kind of lose track of the importance of Really focusing on putting out good interesting, useful content and deriving pleasure from the fact that it's helping people and getting excited about that.
And so doing these conversation classes have helped me kind of regain that healthy perspective.
And so I've talked to some people and I've been able to hear their testimonies.
And I've also been able to see the proof that my content has really helped them, because I get the chance to interact with them in English and I see how high their level is, and that's awesome.
I love seeing that validation that my content really is helpful for people.
I can see it with my own eyes and hear it with my own ears.
That's been awesome.
So, talking about these classes that I've had, like I mentioned, they've helped me become fully aware of the impact of my content And now that I'm talking, I'm realizing that this can sound arrogant or I don't know.
It sounds like I'm saying, oh, my content has helped so many people look at me.
That's not what I'm trying to say here.
I'm trying to talk about just how it's important to realize that the work you do impacts other people.
And if you can maintain that perspective, that understanding, I think it will help you do better work.
And I think that seeing that these people have been impacted positively by my content makes me want to pour more energy into making good content and just knowing that the results will be there for many people.
And some of these people that I've talked to were people that really didn't learn English well in school.
They felt frustrated and they were not model students, model English students, let's say.
And a lot of them just really needed engaging content, content that is not like school academic content, and content that is made by a native speaker who can adjust his level of speech to be a little easier for people.
In short, they benefited from the way that I make, like this podcast and my other content.
And it's funny because I don't really do anything special.
All I do is talk into a microphone for 25 30 minutes about different topics, sometimes language learning related, sometimes personal, sometimes random topics, and there's not a whole lot of English instruction.
And I mention this because I've been thinking recently about how funny it always is when I describe what I do to other English speakers here in the US, because obviously when people find out that I have a podcast and a YouTube channel which I usually don't talk about, I kind of keep this private unless it comes up.
But once they hear about that and they hear that this is my job, they're usually pretty interested to know what exactly I do in this podcast.
And they immediately assume that I'm teaching English.
I'm teaching grammar.
I'm giving lessons.
It's like they have this image of A podcast that's like an English class or something.
And then I describe what I do that I don't actually teach English.
I just make content in English talking about whatever I want to talk about.
And they usually kind of give me a funny look like whatever. whoa, that's it?
Like they can't believe that that is all that I do, right?
They don't really understand the importance of just having fun engaging content in the target language, because the vast majority of people that find out that I have a podcast here in the US and ask me about it have never learned a language, so they don't really understand these concepts.
But like I said, I don't do anything special.
I just talk into this microphone.
Obviously, my voice is very understandable compared to other speakers, other native speakers here in the US.
I'm sure probably more than 90 of you would say that I'm the most understandable voice you've heard on the internet.
Probably people usually tell me that, that I'm the one person that they can understand really well.
So I'm thankful that I have an understandable voice.
But besides my voice and just talking about different topics, I don't really do anything that special.
But it's really cool that this content has a positive impact for a lot of people.
So I've been able to talk about that with some different listeners that have taken classes with me.
And it's been cool to see how this content that I make has actually helped them reach a level where they can speak to me and understand me.
And this is always a cool experience when it happens, when a person takes a class with me and it's their very first time talking out loud to another person in English.
That happens once in a while, but that happened with one of my listeners who took a class with me, and he said this is the first time I've ever talked to someone out loud in English.
And he did really well.
It was really easy to talk to him.
He understood me well.
I understood him well.
It was awesome.
And I'm sure it was very encouraging to him.
And this really helps reinforce my theory about listening comprehension being the foundation of our knowledge and skill in English.
Obviously, the other things are very important as well.
But really the whole theory behind the content that I make is that the majority of your time spent learning English should probably be with engaging content that you're consuming in that language.
And of course, once you reach a certain level, then speaking becomes extremely important and really you can only progress by speaking a lot, but before you reach that necessary point, if you just want to listen, you really don't feel comfortable talking.
Yet Trust me, I've had plenty of students that have done that, where they take their first class with me after spending a year or two years just listening.
And when they come to class, they're able to communicate.
It's really amazing.
Obviously they're lacking a lot and they really need to start speaking and interacting, exercise that muscle and start to fill in their gaps that they have in their speech obviously.
But the foundation is there.
They've done enough listening where they are able to start to have conversations.
So that conversation that I had with that listener, that helped to reinforce my theory about listening being the foundation, and it was cool to see that someone was able to do that by primarily using my content, because that's what he did.
Mostly, I think he used my content and, of course, other content as well.
But I'm really glad to see that my content has made such an impact on that person.
So that has been cool to kind of see the proof that this method works, to actually talk to people that have used this method or used my content and be able to evaluate their English level during their first conversation.
That's pretty cool.
I've really enjoyed doing that over the years, but especially with this listener who was able to Take a class with me, and that was extra special.
So that's cool.
And I think just in general, it's fun talking to listeners.
It's fun to meet people who already kind of know about me.
It's a little strange because in the past, when I gave classes, we would be complete strangers, the student and me.
I don't know them, but they know a lot about me.
So it's a little strange, to be honest, but it's fun.
There are so many things that they already know about me and they mention these things.
And it's like I don't even need to introduce myself.
So that's been cool.
I think that when I do just meet random people and have classes with random strangers, it's fun.
Don't get me wrong.
I do like talking to people from around the world.
For me, it's easier to talk to people from other countries than it is to talk to people from the US.
I think that English teachers and language learners sometimes feel like that.
So I like that.
But talking to people that are actually excited to talk to me because they've used my content to help them practice, that adds something special to the class.
So just in general, I've had fun being able to talk to people and get to hear people's story where they're from, where they live.
Some of these people have moved to the US and I get to hear about their backstory, their family and how they're in the US now.
They're trying to improve their English and their kids have already learned English and they're still trying to learn.
It's fun to learn about my listeners and just get to see who is listening to me.
So I've really enjoyed that.
I think that you can tell, from just the way I'm talking, everything that I've said that this has been a positive experience so far.
And Again, I don't know how much longer I'll do this.
It might be for quite a long time or it might just be for six months.
Honestly, I just have to see how everything goes, with just my life, the move and all the other things that we have going on and my schedule and all.
I'll decide, but maybe periodically I'll open up availability and announce it.
I don't know yet, but it's been fun so far.
If you're listening to this when it's released, there's a good chance that I'm still doing this.
So you can check that out.
You probably already know because I've talked about it before in other episodes.
But thank you all for just your support, for leaving comments on my videos or my podcast episodes that I haven't seen yet, or Instagram or wherever.
I really appreciate all the support I receive from all you, the encouragement.
I really like hearing your testimonies, when you talk about how your English has improved and what your goals are and what you're doing.
I like to hear about all that.
And I think that these classes have helped reconnect me back to my audience.
I'm very thankful for that.
So I'm excited to hear from you in the comments of videos or whatever, and just continue to interact a little bit with my audience.
And it's just really great that I'm able to do what I do.
I'm very thankful that this is my job, so to say.
And so thank you all.
I really appreciate it.
I hope that you liked this episode and that you don't mind when the topics are more just personal things that I've been experiencing recently.
I hope you liked that, and I hope that this episode was good practice for your listening.
And remember to check out my advanced episodes.
You should challenge yourself.
That's the next step for you, if you haven't done that yet.
Check those out.
The link is down below.
That's patreon.com slash listening time.
For many of you, the next step might be to use my US Conversations podcast, because you need to be able to understand when more than one person is talking.
When you're in groups of people and other people are talking.
This is way harder than when you're talking to one person one-on-one.
So that podcast is made to help give you an introduction to that and help you practice with that skill.
So that link is also down below.
That's patreon.com slash us conversations.
All right.
Thank you all so much again for all your support, for listening, for commenting, all of that.
I really appreciate it.
And I'll talk to you on the next episode of listening time.
