English Tutor Dad

I’m fascinated by a free English conversation practise website called Episoden. I believe the hardest part of learning the English language is being in a real conversation, this website provides a valuable service by matching English learners together for 7 minute one-to-one conversations.

The benefits I see in this website are:

• The conversation partner is often from another country and culture, which is much more interesting than talking to someone from my own country. Although, I recently discovered there are country matching preferences in the Episoden settings.
• If I come across a bad conversation partner, which has rarely happened to me, I only have to wait 7 minutes and I’m talking to the next person.
• They provide topics to talk about, although I never use them and in my experience the other participants never use them either. But they are there if you need them.
• Some native English speakers go on there, like me, to meet people all around the world and help English students practise.
• I’m motivated by statisics. I like how they track things such as your number of sessions, contribution points, fluency rating, the people you have matched with, countries connected with and day streaks.
• It has community guidelines to keep the space safe for participants. With punishments for breaking them.
• I feel like the level of the English students is reasonably good (at least intermediate level), maybe because they spend a great deal of time on the service. But I also believe they check your English level when you first join the website.
• There is a ticket service, which controls the number of times you can have a 7 minute conversation per day. If you get positive ratings from people you talk to, you can get more tickets. I like how this reinforces positive behaviour.
• There is a Prime membership that I am interested in obtaining. It’s for the most active users with the most positive feedback. They get unlimited sessions and can extend conversation time with any partner (as long as the partner agrees).
• There is a Root Tribe feature now, where for a 2 hour window each day you can talk up to 15 minutes. I guess this is a way for building community, so you will come across the same people frequently. I like this concept.
• I think it trains you to talk to strangers, to be out of your comfort zone of just talking to the people you know. It builds social courage via a kind of exposure therapy.
• Did I mention it was free. I’ve known of the site for a couple of years now and it’s been free the whole time. Apparently, there may be a paid premium option in the future but at the time of writing this it is completely free.

The disadvantages, as I see them:

• It takes me more motivation to talk to strangers, than talking to my regular students. Most people find a certain resistance to talking with strangers. I like the ongoing, once weekly, hour long sessions with my regular students. The fact that I have talked to some of my weekly students for two and a half years is pretty amazing.

I often find with my students that they can read spoken English off a selection of text quite well but the real challenge is finding the right words in conversation. This website is a huge help in practising real conversation.

Six people in the room

Talking in a conversation can be challenging. In the past I did a communication course and there was a concept in the course that stated “When two people speak, there are six people in the room.”

1. Person A as they see themselves
2. Person A as Person B sees them
3. Person A as they really are
4. Person B as they see themselves
5. Person B as Person A sees them
6. Person B as they really are

The two people are often dealing with perception versus reality. To me, in a conversation it seems like a great deal of multi-tasking is going on. It makes sense that even with two native speakers in conversation, there can still be miscommunication.

Getting a chance to talk

I always think for an English language learner it’s easier to write and read as you can take your own time and complete these tasks at your own speed. There are often tools you can use for reading and writing. Also, it’s easy to find ways to listen to English like streaming services, YouTube, movies and podcasts. Whereas students often don’t get a chance to talk.

Tips

In closing, these are my tips for using Episoden:

• I usually wait to join, until the countdown timer goes down to less than a minute before the next conversation round starts, otherwise you end up in a small room of people waiting for the next round to start. And then you chat one by one to an Episoden staff member. Quite a friendly staff member but I’m there for the one-to-one conversations.
• Explore the interface around the edge of the video chat when you first start using the system, especially what country your conversation partner is from.
• They do provide questions to talk about, but if you’re nervous you can have a few questions you would like to ask written down.
• It gets easier the more you do it. To be less nervous using the site, just start using it a lot. The more you do something, generally the less nervous you become. You may not feel like logging on, but I tend to use the motto ‘First action, then motivation‘

Journaling Prompt

As usual, I will end my post with a journaling prompt or exercise. I really like creating a list of my life’s priorities from most important to least important in my journal. It can really help focus my time and energy.

The State Library of Victoria, part of my challenge to visit all the libraries in Melbourne.