Welcome to Easy Stories in English, the podcast that will take your English from okay to good and from good to great.
I am Ariel Goodbody, your host for this show and today I have a confession to make.
Today's episode is just going to be a short one.
There will be a transcript in the website because this is really just a short episode to make an announcement and to ask something of all of you.
So I have a confession to make.
I don't know what you want.
So on the third of September you might remember I announced my Story Builders Online Course.
This is an eight week online group Zoom course which theoretically starts on the 23rd of October in just five days.
Now I say theoretically, I'll explain that later, but basically for the last few weeks I've been promoting the Story Builders course a lot.
You've probably got sick of hearing me talk about it.
I made a video where I dressed up like a builder.
I sent out lots of emails.
I mentioned it on the podcast many times.
I guess now is a good time to take a moment to explain why I made this course and why I chose to make this course in this way.
If you don't know, the Story Builders course is an English course but the goal is for us to create a story together which will then appear on the podcast.
So basically I made Story Builders to be everything I would want in a language course.
As you may know I speak eight languages so I've had a variety of different language learning experiences from traditional classes in school to teaching myself.
So what makes Story Builders different?
Well one, it's interactive.
Many language classes involve a teacher talking at you or you're just talking a lot with other students but there isn't much beyond conversation and exercises.
However, writing a story together is a really deep form of interaction that engages many different parts of the brain and of our identities.
It's also something real.
It's not just doing imaginary role plays or hypothetical grammar exercises.
Yes of course when we write a story we are creating a new form of reality.
It's not like it's about our lives specifically but we always bring a lot from our lives into the story and it has relevance to our real life.
It has a concrete goal, a real tangible goal, so at the end of the course you will have something to take away.
You will be able to say look this is a story I helped write, these are the ideas that were mine, these are the things that I added.
Whereas normally when you finish a language course you might get a diploma or a certificate saying you're this level even if maybe you're not actually that level or you just get the teacher telling you you did this well or that well but there's not really a sense of completion of receiving something
at the end of the course.
Storybuilders is very affordable, it's great value compared to other online classes and in -person classes and it's much cheaper than doing one -to -one lessons with me.
And finally it's completely unique.
I would love to do story builders with other teachers in other languages because I don't think there are many teachers who can offer that kind of experience and not only offer that experience but then take the finished story and put it on the podcast.
But that's what I would want and clearly I don't know what you all want because here comes the real confession.
So far nobody has signed up for story builders, not a single person has signed up.
That's why I said theoretically the course will start on the 23rd of October because obviously if no one signs up then the course won't happen.
I assumed I knew what you all wanted and clearly I got it wrong.
Now it's possible that some people will sign up at the last minute, it's also possible that some of you wanted to sign up, you wanted to do the class but the times didn't work for you or maybe it's possible that you just want something else.
Maybe you want more books, more episodes of the podcast, more live streams, I don't know, maybe there's something else that you think would be much more useful for you studying English.
So clearly I need to get to know you all better.
I did do a big survey of my audience, I sent a questionnaire out with lots of questions about you and what you like and what you find useful but that survey was in January 2021, so over three years ago.
So I've decided it's time to do another survey so I can really understand one, what happened with story builders but also more generally what you want from the podcast.
So go to easystoriesinenglish .com slash ask, A -S -K, and I'll put a link to that in the description to answer the survey.
Now I know that surveys are a bit boring, I've tried to make this as short as possible, it should only take five to ten minutes and as a bonus when you finish the survey you'll get an extra beginner level story, the city mouse and the country mouse.
I would be so, so grateful if you could fill out this survey.
If you just have one thing to say you can always just leave me a comment or write me an email, whatever you prefer.
So I recently have started teaching in a language school in London, I talked a bit recently about my job hunting, about me looking for jobs.
Really I would love to be able to make easy stories in English my main job because then it means I get to do a lot of fun writing and videos and podcasts and it means more content for you.
But another confession, I tried doing that this year, I tried making easy stories in English my main job and it was incredibly stressful.
I was so worried about money and you know algorithms, YouTube, Spotify, all of these things, there's so much out of my control that it makes it very difficult.
So that's why I decided to get this extra job teaching in a language school that's more stable.
So because of that I'm not going to have as much time for the podcast which means I'll be going back to doing episodes fortnightly or once every two weeks instead of every week.
The idea behind Story Builders was to give me a stable way to keep doing the podcast without having to take on another job, obviously that isn't quite working so far but maybe it's a possibility in the future or maybe I focus on something else like doing more books for example.
I don't want to seem ungrateful, I don't want to seem like I don't recognize all of your supports because many of you do really support the podcast, you support me in a very beautiful way, some of you donate money, some of you take classes, some of you are members of Easy Stories in English premium,
some of you write reviews and of course just by listening you are supporting me or telling your friends about it for example.
So the reason I'm saying all this is you can still sign up for Story Builders, maybe you were thinking about it but you weren't sure, if you want to do it now is your moment because if you don't then it might not happen okay.
So if you want to sign up you can go to easystoriesinenglish .com slash build, I only need three students to do a class so if three people sign up the class will happen and that means it's even better for you because then we get a really nice small class size and we can all get to know each other really
well. But if you can't afford Story Builders or you're not interested or the times don't work for you or there's simply something else you're more interested in, the most helpful thing you can do is answer my survey.
I'm being really serious here, I clearly don't know what to focus on, I clearly don't know what would be best for you and if you answer this survey it will really help me understand where to focus my efforts.
There are things I've considered doing like in -person events like live events but I've never really known if it's really what you want and I don't want to try and run a live event and then have nobody buy tickets because that would be very stressful.
So again go to easystoriesinenglish .com slash ask or click the link in the description and a reminder that you get that cheeky little beginner story, the city mouse and the country mouse, while completing the survey.
Okay I'm sorry for spending so long just asking you to do things, I am so thankful for everything you all do to support me, I really enjoy doing the podcast and the fact that I can make any money from it is pretty cool.
A lot of artists, a lot of creative people aren't able to make any money from their work or they generally have very unstable working conditions so I'm very grateful.
Again thank you for listening and I look forward to reading your survey answers, bye!
