Welcome to the Listening Time Podcast.
Hey everybody, this is Connor and you're listening to episode 84 of the Listening Time Podcast.
I hope you're all doing well.
I want to thank all of my members, supermembers, family members, and Listening Time VIPs.
Thank you all for supporting me and helping me do what I do.
I also wanna mention that you can follow me on Facebook too.
I'm gonna put the link in the episode description as well.
I'm gonna try to grow my Facebook page over the next few months.
I'm gonna post a lot of videos there, Videos that you probably haven't seen before and maybe some of them you have seen, But I'm gonna post a lot of my older videos there too.
So, even if you have seen a lot of my YouTube videos, I still recommend that you follow me on Facebook and, And you'll be able to see some content that's new for you content related to listening or just content related to English other English related topics as well.
So please follow me on Facebook and share that with any other people that would benefit from my content as well.
So I'll put the Facebook link in the episode description below this episode.
So click on that and follow me there.
All right.
In today's episode, I'm going to talk a little more about my membership and how it works.
So I've had my membership for over a year now and I did an episode over a year ago explaining the membership and, But of course it has changed a lot since then.
And I constantly get questions.
I get questions all the time about my membership, about how the website works.
And a lot of people that sign up for my membership also still have questions about the membership or about payments.
And so I want to make this episode and talk a little more about this, just so that it's clear and just to address all the different questions that I get.
I think that will be helpful to dedicate one episode to that.
If you're not interested in that, that's okay.
You can still listen to this episode and it will be good practice for your listening skills.
So don't worry if you're not interested in the membership or if you're already a member and have no questions.
You can just listen and try to understand everything that i'm saying and remember that you have the transcript available for this episode.
That's in the episode description below the episode.
So go down and click on that if you need it and listen as many times as you need until you can understand everything that i'm saying.
And if you like this podcast, please give it a five star rating and share it with anyone else who might find it useful.
All right, let's get started.
Are your ears ready?
You know what time it is.
It's listening time.
Okay, so let's talk about the membership.
And first, let's talk about the content of the membership.
What do you get when you sign up?
So, first of all, the overall purpose of the membership is to help you train your listening and also your pronunciation as well, but the main focus is listening on the sounds of English, so everything related to the sounds of the language.
So it goes well with my podcast, because my podcast is dedicated to English listening practice.
So the membership is for people that want to go further and spend more time and dedicate more practice to their listening.
They can sign up and they'll get very useful content there.
And a lot of people ask me if it's a good option for people that want to focus on pronunciation.
And I also tell them that yes, it's very helpful for pronunciation as well, because the main focus is on the sounds of English.
So if you're interested in improving your listening or your pronunciation, the membership will be very helpful.
And so there are four tiers or four levels currently that might change in the future.
And that was different when I first launched the membership over a year ago.
There were only two tiers then, but now there are four.
And so the lowest tier is listening time member.
So if you join that tier, this means that you get a new bonus podcast episode every month and you get a new listening practice seminar every month.
And my listening practice.
Seminars are seminars that help you identify the different patterns in English, the different sound patterns that are difficult to understand.
And, in particular, we focus on the four essential elements of English listening comprehension, which are stress, reduced speech, linking and sound distinction.
So those are the four elements that you need to improve on if you want to improve your listening.
So I focus on those four elements and all the different sound patterns in English.
So that's what you get when you get my listening practice seminar.
So listening time members get one bonus episode every month and one listening practice seminar every month.
And the next level is listening time super member.
And if you join that tier, then you get one bonus episode, you get one new listening practice seminar And you also get one of my older seminars that you haven't seen before.
These seminars can either be a listening practice seminar or a pronunciation seminar.
So if you're interested in practicing your pronunciation in particular, this is a good level, a good tier listening time.
Super member.
Because in addition to listening seminars, you also get pronunciation seminars once in a while.
Every month I alternate.
That extra seminar will be a listening one one month and a pronunciation one the next month.
However, these seminars are very similar.
So both types of seminars will help you with your pronunciation.
So even the listening seminars are also useful to help you practice your pronunciation as well.
So super members get the bonus episode and two seminars every month.
And then the next level is listening time family member.
So family members get the bonus episode.
They get the two seminars.
They also get a sound training video where I focus on one sound pattern in English.
And we look at different examples of that, things that are hard for people to to understand or to pronounce.
So it's focused on listening.
Sometimes it's focused on pronunciation other times, but you get that as well, and you also get two new advanced episodes every month.
So in the advanced episodes I speak fast.
I speak at normal speed, not like in these normal listening time episodes.
So you get two new advanced episodes every month.
And of course, you get the transcript as well.
And so if you want to reach an advanced level of listening, I definitely recommend that you sign up for this tier, or the highest tier, because you get my advanced episodes.
This is the content that you need if you want to start to understand native speakers, because I speak fast like a native speaker in those episodes.
So that's listening time family member.
And then the highest tier is listening time VIP.
People in that tier get everything that you get when you're a family member online all the stuff I just said but you also have access to my QA seminars every week.
So this stands for question and answer seminars.
So you can ask me your questions regarding English or language learning whatever question, and I'll answer that question.
I'll answer my VIP questions in every week in a weekly video seminar where I answer those questions in video format.
So if you want to be able to ask me your questions regarding English or language learning, then Listening Time VIP is the tier that you want to sign up for.
So that's the highest tier.
You get a lot of content every month.
So sometimes people ask me about what tier they should sign up for based on their level.
And I tell them that it doesn't matter what your level is.
It's not like beginner English learners need to sign up for the lowest level and advanced English learners need to sign up for the highest level.
It doesn't work like that.
It's just a difference in the content you receive.
If you sign up for a higher level, you receive more content.
It's a more complete membership.
So it doesn't matter what your level is.
That's not the difference between the different tiers.
And there's no order to the content.
So a lot of people, when they sign up, they ask me about where they should start.
And I tell them, it doesn't matter.
You can start anywhere.
When you sign up, you get access to all of my old content that I've posted.
And so, if you want, you can go all the way back to the beginning, to the first things that I ever released for my members.
And you can go in order and go to the old content first and then consume all of that until you get to the new content.
You can do that, or you can just start wherever you want and just watch or listen to whatever content you feel like that day.
So there's no particular order.
You can start wherever you want. and just work your way through all of the content.
And another really important thing is that you don't need to sign up for my membership if you want the transcript for my normal listening time episodes.
This happens sometimes.
People sign up for my membership looking for those transcripts and they get mad when they can't find the transcripts.
The transcripts are free.
You have all of the transcripts available for you.
Some people have trouble finding them, but they're there.
You just have to find the episode description or the episode notes on spotify or apple podcasts or wherever, and each transcript is available for each episode.
So you don't need to sign up for the membership to view the transcripts.
All of those are free.
So if that's what you're looking for, you have that already.
They're in the episode description.
The transcript for this episode, episode 84, is in the description of this episode.
Okay.
And let me talk a little bit about the Patreon website.
So this is not my website.
Patreon is a website that many content creators use to help get support from their audience so that they can earn some money while they make their content.
So it's not my website.
I just use their platform to run my membership.
And let me talk about how payment works.
So until now, and probably still in the future, when you sign up for my membership, you don't get charged any money.
You don't have to pay to sign up, okay?
Like I said, this is how it is until now and it will probably be like this in the future, but at some point that might change.
There might be a point when you have to pay to sign up.
But as for now, you don't have to do that and that shouldn't change anytime soon.
So you don't need to worry about that for now.
If that ever changes, I will tell you.
I'll announce that so you know.
But of course, if you already signed up, then it doesn't even matter.
That will never affect you.
And for now and for a while in the future, at least, there is no charge for signing up.
So you sign up for free.
And then you immediately have access to all of my old content that I've posted until that point.
And then your first payment is on the first day of the following month.
So if you sign up on January 16th, for example, you don't pay anything on January 16th.
Your first payment will be on February 1st.
Okay.
So after that, your next payment will be on March 1st.
It charges you on the first day of each month.
And when you're paying, when it charges you, it's charging you for the previous month's content.
It's not charging you for the next month.
You're paying for the month that just ended.
So a lot of people they send me messages talking about their renewal, renewing their membership, and that they didn't want to renew it and they wanted to cancel it, but it got renewed.
And I have to tell them that this isn't really a renewal, right?
It's not like another membership, like I don't know something else, where you pay for the next month.
With this, you're paying for the previous month.
So if you get charged on March 1st, that payment is for all of the content you received in February.
OK, so after March 1st, all the content that is released in March, you pay for that on April 1st.
OK, so that's how that works.
And so just know that when you sign up.
You don't pay money and then you will be charged on the first day of every month after that.
And sometimes people have problems with their credit card or debit card and there isn't any money there, for example.
And if that happens, then of course you lose access to the content until you fix that problem.
And then when you fix that problem, like change the credit card information to a different card, then you will be charged and gain access again.
So if that happens to you on the first day of the month and you lose access, it's because there is a problem with your credit card or debit card.
So you just need to go and fix that and then it will be resolved.
And if you ever have any problems with the Patreon website, you can use their contact form.
It's really easy.
You can just type Patreon support contact or something like that.
And it will be the first link that comes up and you can fill out that form and they respond pretty quickly, usually within 24 hours.
And they help you with whatever problem you're having with their website.
But that doesn't happen often.
You shouldn't really have many problems.
And you can also contact me through Patreon and send me a message and I can send you that contact form if you need it.
But like I said, this rarely happens, so don't worry too much about that.
And so that's how the Patreon website works.
I hope that's clear for you and you understand how the payment works, how the website works.
And lastly, I just want to mention that Patreon is normally used for people that want to support content creators.
So usually, for example, people like a certain YouTuber and then they want to donate a little bit of money every month to that YouTuber to support his or her content, to help them continue creating YouTube videos or podcasts or whatever.
So that's the reason why people normally use Patreon just to support these creators and maybe get a little bit of exclusive content in return for that.
But of course, people see my membership a little bit differently.
It's more like an investment in education because they're getting a lot of content.
If they sign up for the higher tiers, like Listening Time VIP, you get a lot of content.
You get two seminars, a bonus episode, two advanced episodes, a sound training video For QA sessions.
You get a ton of content if you sign up for the highest tier, for example.
So it's more like an investment in education.
You get a lot of content that's going to help you with your listening, your pronunciation and your English in general.
However, if you want to just support me and just donate a little money every month to support this podcast, you can also sign up for my membership for that reason.
Even if you're not interested in all of the content.
You just like my normal podcast and want to support me.
You can also just do that.
And I really appreciate that.
And I know that some of you already do that.
Some of you aren't that interested in receiving tons of content every month.
Maybe you don't even have a lot of time to view all the content, but you just want to support me, and so you sign up anyway.
And I really appreciate that.
And you can do that no problem.
If you just want to support me, just think of it like that.
This is a way of supporting this podcast because, of course, this takes me a lot of time and effort every week to do this podcast.
So I really appreciate any support that I get.
So just know that that you don't have to be really interested in the content.
You can just support me financially if you'd like.
All right.
Hopefully all of that information was helpful for you.
And hopefully some of you now want to sign up and Get that content or support me.
I would really appreciate that, obviously.
Like I said, I'm going to start posting on Facebook now.
I'll be posting a lot of videos there.
So please follow me on Facebook.
I'm going to put the link in the episode description below the episode.
So follow me there and please share that Facebook page with anyone else that you know who's learning English, and help support me there.
And if you need the transcript for this episode, of course, it's in the episode description as well.
So click on that if you need it.
And you can find the link to sign up for my membership in the episode description as well.
So click on that and sign up if you'd like.
And if you like this podcast, please give it a five star rating and share it with anyone else who might find it useful.
All right.
Thank you for listening to this episode.
And I'll talk to you on the next episode of Listening Time.
