Welcome to the Listening Time podcast.
Hey everybody, this is Connor and you're listening to episode 106 of the Listening Time podcast.
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That will be a good introduction for you into the world of reading fiction in English.
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All right.
In today's episode, we're going to talk about English teachers.
This is a great topic to talk about because I'm an English teacher and I'm sure a lot of you have English teachers, or maybe you've had English teachers in the past or maybe you're thinking about getting an english teacher to help you.
So i'll talk about some different aspects of teaching english and maybe what type of teacher would be good for you and how best to utilize an english teacher to help you with your english learning process.
So we'll talk about that today.
Before we get started, remember that you have the transcript for this episode.
That's in the description below.
So click on that if you need it and listen to this episode as many times as you need until you can understand everything that I'm saying without reading the transcript.
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All right, let's get started.
Are your ears ready?
You know what time it is.
It's listening time!
Okay, let's talk about English teachers.
So I'm going to talk about some negative aspects of English teachers, but then, of course, I'll talk about the positives as well.
But I want to start with the negatives, because I want to clear up some misconceptions about English teachers.
The word misconception refers to some idea that people have that isn't quite correct.
It's a misconception.
So the main misconception about English teachers is that you need an English teacher to teach you English so that you can learn the language.
And of course, English teachers can be very helpful.
However, you don't necessarily need an English teacher in order to get better at English.
OK, I know, for some of you that might sound strange, since I'm technically an English teacher and I still do give some classes.
By the way, I'm giving fewer and fewer classes over time.
I'm reducing my availability, so I probably don't have availability.
I'm saying this because a lot of people ask me about this, but unfortunately I don't really have much availability anymore.
But back to my main point.
I'm talking about how English teachers aren't 100 percent necessary if you can make use of other resources.
OK.
During that time I didn't take classes with Spanish teachers so that they could teach me Spanish and I could absorb all of their knowledge and become a good Spanish speaker.
I never did that.
I never learned it formally, except for the kind of beginner type classes that I had to take in school and in college.
But besides that, I never did that type of formal study with a teacher, and yet I reached an advanced level of Spanish and I speak Spanish today.
So this goes to show you that a teacher isn't 100 necessary as long as you can make use of other resources, okay.
And one other negative thing I wanna mention is is that sometimes teachers can actually make your language learning process worse if you have a bad teacher.
If the teacher insists on imposing a certain program on you that isn't suitable for you, this can definitely cause some negative effects on your learning.
By the way, the word impose can be used to talk about someone forcing something on someone else.
So if an English teacher tries to impose their ideas and their program on you, their method, even though you don't like it, then that's a problem, okay.
If they introduce their program to you and you say I wanna change this part or that part and then they allow you to change it, then that's great.
And you can kind of work with the teacher to figure out a structure that works for you.
However, some teachers don't like this.
They have their ideas about what you need to do and they don't want you to change the class style or whatever.
And that can definitely be a negative thing.
So those are a couple negative things that I wanted to mention before I talk about The benefits of having an English teacher.
OK, so even though teachers aren't 100 percent necessary, they can be beneficial if you kind of go into your English classes with the right mentality.
And if they offer you what's useful.
Okay, so let me talk about some of those things that I think are useful that teachers can give you.
So I have four things that I wrote down here. that I recommend that you use teachers for, okay?
So number one, I think you can use an English teacher to give you some relevant, engaging input.
Remember that input refers to listening and reading.
So, when you're absorbing, when you're taking in the content, this is input versus output, which is speaking and writing.
So using a teacher, you can get very relevant and engaging input.
By the way, the word engaging means that something is very interesting.
It attracts you and draws you in.
It interests you.
It's engaging.
So this type of input is probably the most interesting.
And I talk a lot about having interesting input.
I always mention that you should look for videos or podcasts or whatever that really interest you and that you would listen to in your own language.
And I always say that that's the best type of input to use.
However, there is one type of input that can be even more engaging, which is the input that you get from a conversation with an English teacher or any English native speaker.
So this is really engaging, because you're talking to them and getting responses and you're involved in the conversation.
And you're kind of helping to control the direction of the conversation.
And you can ask things that are interesting to you or relevant to you.
And so you're getting input from the other speaker that's very relevant to you because you're in the conversation.
And so that's a very interesting type of practice, versus sometimes if you're just watching a video.
There are times during the video where you kind of lose interest.
You get distracted.
They're talking about something that isn't very interesting for you.
However, when you're in a conversation, that happens a lot less, I think, because you're taking part in this conversation and that really helps you become engaged.
And when you're engaged and receiving very engaging input, This really helps your brain to absorb the language.
OK, the more interested you are, the more your brain is going to absorb.
So that's one of the best things about using a teacher is that it's a great place to get really interesting input based on the conversation that you're having.
So that's the first thing.
The second thing is that it's a very safe space for output.
So a lot of people get very nervous when they have to actually speak.
And when they try to speak to native speakers, maybe in their job or other places like that, it can be very daunting.
Remember that the word daunting means intimidating.
It's something that scares you a little bit because it's big or dangerous or whatever.
So this can be very daunting.
And so when you have an English teacher, You have a safe space, a more comfortable environment to practice your speaking, to practice with this output, because an English teacher knows your situation.
They know that you're practicing to get better at English.
They know that you're a student, you're a learner, and so you're going to make mistakes.
You're going to lack certain vocabulary words, things like that.
In English, the word lack means that you don't have something.
So if you lack certain vocabulary, That means you don't have certain vocabulary.
So English teachers know that you're going to lack vocabulary.
They're going to be very understanding of this. or at least they should be understanding.
If you have a teacher that's not very patient or understanding, then you should get another teacher.
Because this is one of the requirements of being a language teacher.
You have to be patient and understanding and know that the English learner or the language learner, whatever language it is, is practicing and isn't perfect and is going to need help.
So you need to make sure your teacher is that type of person.
So this is a great place to practice your speaking in a controlled environment.
You have a teacher that's willing to help you out and that can make you feel a little bit more comfortable.
They can encourage you, and so when you're ready to speak, this is the perfect environment to do that in.
So I usually do this once I have a pretty comfortable level of listening, I start to have conversations with tutors and in other languages in that type of controlled environment.
And that helps me get started with my conversation.
It helps me get started speaking in that language.
I don't just fly to another country and start speaking to locals.
That's very daunting.
So I prefer to do that with a teacher.
And another way that you can benefit from having a teacher.
The third benefit is that a teacher can be a guide to answer your questions and your doubts.
So this is something that I like that some students of mine do.
They bring questions to class.
They do their listening practice throughout the week.
And then they take certain notes about certain phrases or sounds that they have doubts about, and then they bring those to class and then they ask me about these questions that they have and I help them understand the phrase or the sound or whatever it may be.
I help them understand it better and they go away with a better grasp of what that sound really is or what that phrase really means.
In English, when we say that you have a grasp of something, this means that you have an understanding of something.
So I can also use that as a verb, like I couldn't grasp the meaning.
That means that I couldn't understand the meaning.
So these students usually walk away from that class with a better grasp on those topics, those elements that they had questions about.
So that can be a very useful thing regarding English teachers is that you can ask them your questions.
And this is something that you can't always do with just native speakers who aren't teachers because, number one, they might not be able to answer your question, because Native speakers who aren't teachers usually know next to nothing about anything language related, even though it's about their native language.
By the way, in English we can say next to nothing.
This just means almost nothing, almost zero.
So native speakers usually know next to nothing about their own language.
So that can be an issue.
And they also might not have the patience to listen to all of your questions and doubts and try to answer them all.
That's something that is good for a teacher, of course, not so much for just a random person.
So that's a great thing about teachers is that they can answer your questions and be a guide like that.
And the fourth benefit one other way that you can benefit from using an english teacher is that they can give you feedback, and so they can talk to you about what things you're struggling with, maybe what types of sounds you're making that aren't clear for them, or you know things like that, And they can just give you some corrections on mistakes that you're making.
They might give you certain notes about what mistakes you made during the class and how to correct those mistakes.
And so that's something that I like to do.
In my classes.
I like to give a little report that has some of the most notable mistakes that the student made and then the corrections to those mistakes.
And then I give them that at the end of the class so that they can see those mistakes and we can spend a few minutes looking over some of their errors and seeing the corrections to those errors.
So that's something that can be very helpful as well.
A lot of students really like that.
They like to receive this little report, this little feedback on their English, their conversation skills.
So that's something that can be very beneficial as well.
So let me just talk a little bit about what the ideal class structure might look like in my opinion.
Not everyone will agree with me on this, of course.
But for me, what I would like as a student, as a language learner, is the following.
I think that you can maybe start the class with the English teacher.
You can start the class with your questions from the week.
Like I mentioned earlier, when you do your listening practice throughout the week, if there are any questions that you have that you can't figure out on your own or just from using online resources.
If there are any questions that you have that you want to ask your teacher, then you should bring those to class and maybe you can start the class with those questions from the week.
So you can start with that and the teacher can help to resolve your doubts.
And then after that, you can go on to the input and output part of the class.
So usually this will be conversation.
Besides conversation, I think there is one other activity that can be useful for input, which is article reading or just reading any type of text.
Some students like to do this with me, where we read through an article together and this is good practice for their pronunciation, for their vocabulary, because they come across new words in the article and I help them understand these words and and it helps them with those technical aspects.
But it's still a good input because reading is an awesome way to get input in another language.
So some people like to add a little bit of reading here, but you don't have to.
You can just have conversation or you can have both.
But these are the main two things that I would like to do with a teacher.
Mostly conversation and maybe a little reading, depending on my mood.
So that should be the majority of the class.
So after your questions, then you can have the conversation about different topics.
I think you should choose different topics each time and then don't focus on error correction during the conversation.
You can do this for the big errors, and you can do this for errors that are a little bit more relevant to the meaning of what you're saying.
So if the teacher notices that it was hard to understand a sentence that you said, then they should kind of interject and tell you about that.
In English, when we say that you interject, this means that you kind of interrupt something to say something.
So that's a time when it's appropriate for the teacher to interrupt you and try to help you out with your mistake.
So big mistakes like that can be corrected during the conversation, of course, but all of the little mistakes that you're making are.
I don't think a teacher should try to correct you as you're speaking every time you make a mistake.
That's usually a terrible way to go through a conversation, because you'll be nervous about making mistakes.
You'll be anticipating the teacher correcting you.
It's just really stressful.
So I would prefer not to do that as a teacher or as a student.
And so you should just have the conversation And it should be fun and engaging.
And you can do some reading if you'd like.
And then at the end, you can get some feedback from the teacher.
In this part of the class, they can go over the other mistakes.
They can give you a little report, like I give, for example, where they show you some of your mistakes and the corrections to those mistakes.
And they can just maybe give you some encouragement, give you some tips on what you might want to do, things like that right.
That can be at the end of the class.
But this part might not even be 100% necessary.
If you just want to have a conversation, ask your questions, maybe read, that's enough.
You don't necessarily always need feedback like this, but that can be something helpful.
And lastly, I just want to remind you that your English teacher does not give you fluency and they do not give you accuracy.
You become fluent and accurate through input, through hearing the same phrases again and again, and again, And then you get more accuracy.
Influence also through conversation practice, of course, just getting practice with your speaking.
So those two things work. will eventually help you become more fluent and accurate.
But the teacher does not give you this, okay?
Don't go into your English class thinking that the teacher is going to give you the knowledge of English and then you're going to be a good English speaker.
That's not how it works, okay?
You develop fluency and you develop accuracy through a lot of input and through conversation practice.
And of course, asking your questions and getting feedback, those things can also help.
But really the focus should be on getting a lot of interesting, engaging input and getting some interesting and engaging conversation practice when you're ready.
Okay?
All right.
That's all for today.
We'll stop there.
I hope this episode was interesting for you.
Remember that you can purchase the Spanish and the Portuguese versions of my ebook now.
So the links are in the episode description below this episode.
And the link to join my membership is also there.
So if you want to support me or if you want that extra content, like the advanced episodes, you can check that out.
And of course you have the transcript down there as well.
And please share this podcast with anyone else you know who's learning English, and please give it a five-star rating.
All right, thank you for listening to this episode and I'll talk to you on the next episode of Listening Time.
