Hello and welcome to Real Easy English.
In this podcast, we have real conversations in Easy English to help you learn.
I'm Beth. And I'm Neil and you can watch a video version of this podcast on our website, where you will also find a worksheet – bbclearningenglish .com How are you today, Neil?
I'm very well, Beth, how are you?
I'm good, thank you.
What are we talking about today?
Today we're talking about teachers.
We've talked about school before but we're going to talk about teachers and how they have inspired us.
Yeah, teachers are really important for your learning, not for the obvious way.
But sometimes they can inspire you and make you want to learn.
Yeah, definitely. I think even if it's a subject that you don't really enjoy, if you have a good teacher, teacher, then they can like completely change the subject.
Yeah. Did you have a favourite teacher?
I did actually. I had an amazing science teacher.
He was called Mr Langford, but we called him Langy, and he made science fun.
So I didn't love science, it was just a normal subject, but we did lots of fun things.
Like, we sang karaoke, but we had to change the lyrics to vocabulary in the periodic table.
OK. Lots of sort of fun things and I think when you've got a lot of excitement in a classroom, everyone wants to learn.
We looked forward to his classes.
Yeah. I think I agree.
If you are having fun and you are relaxed, then you are more likely to remember things and enjoy what you're doing and want to, want to learn.
Yeah. What about you?
Did you have a favourite teacher that inspired you maybe?
Yes, I remember in particular a university professor and he was very good because he was very very knowledgeable about his subject, so you knew that what he was saying was important, but he was also quite charismatic.
So you wanted to be there with him, you wanted to learn and you wanted to do it almost for him.
Do you feel like you learnt a lot from him and that you have retained all of...
that you still have all that information in your head!
Not all of it because it was a very long time ago but I do remember lots of the stuff that he did because of the reasons I said!
OK. That's good. I don't remember much science so maybe that's not such a good thing!
What do you think makes a good teacher?
It's really important that you respect your teachers and if there's a teacher that is respected then you want to put more effort in as a student.
We had a teacher like that, she was a bit scary, but we all worked hard because we really liked her.
We had a lot of respect for her.
Yeah, and sometimes I think some of the older teachers who maybe you think they're going to be able to connect with young kids.
They are the ones who are most effective, probably because they're quite wise.
Yeah. What does... can you tell us what wise means?
Well, it means that they have a lot of experience of life, probably, and they make good decisions because they think about them properly and they use their experience to do the best thing.
Yeah. No, I think I would agree with you.
Both teachers I've talked about um, they were both wise, they knew what they were talking about and for that reason they were good teachers.
Yeah, and I think also with them you want to put in an effort to learn because you respect them.
I think it's a lot about respect, isn't it?
Yeah definitely, definitely.
And a bit of fun. And a bit of fun.
OK, so let's recap the vocabulary we had during this conversation.
We had inspire, which means make someone feel that they can do something or want to do something.
We also had wise, which describes someone who makes good decisions and has lots of life experience.
Respect – if you respect someone, you like them and you behave well towards them.
And we also had put in, which is used with effort – and it means to contribute something to achieve a goal.
That's it for this episode of Real Easy English.
You can find a worksheet to test what you've learned on our website – go to bbclearningenglish .com We want to hear from you.
Which teachers have inspired you?
It's probably Beth, isn't it?
Send us an email at learningenglish .co .uk.
Thanks for joining us, and goodbye.
Bye! quizzes and weekly tips to help you study.
Just search BBC Learning English newsletter or follow the link in the notes for this programme.
