English Tutor Dad

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    How To Get Fluent In English – An Investigation

    Published by

    Bryan – English Tutor Dad

    on

    I’m a bit of a generalist. The books I read tend to be non-fiction in relation to many different topics, but it’s time for me to investigate the topic of how to get fluent at English.

    One of the first videos I came across on YouTube was called ‘This Is The *Only* Method to Become Fluent in English‘

    I found it quite fascinating because it put into words what I think. It stated the way to get fluent at English is something called ‘comprehensible input‘. Exposure to a large amount of the English language. That could such things as YouTube videos, streaming TV, movies or books. You have to get a lot of input. Even if you don’t understand all the words, your brain will start to fill in the blanks. It helps if the language is just above your current level so that you have to struggle a little bit.

    Comprehensible input is how children learn, they are surrounded by the language. Comprehensible input comes first, speaking comes second.

    There is another term mentioned in the video, which is ‘Affective Filter Hypothesis’. This states that boredom, stress or lack of motivation will block your progress. You have to find material you actually love.

    I’ve always thought the classroom is a little bit overrated as a place to learn English. I kind of think doing practise exercises are perhaps also a little bit boring. I’ve always thought the amount of exposure to the language is the way to go and to find something you love that is in English. I think you can do classwork or exercises for an hour or two before you lose focus but if you find something you love, you can do it for four or five hours.

    The other idea I like is to create an English environment. Change your environment as much as possible to English:

    • English social media account
    • English journaling
    • English books
    • English gaming
    • English messaging
    • English TV Shows and movies
    • Inner dialogue in English, describing the things around you and your day in English inside your head
    • Speak out loud in English. Having fake conversations out loud.

    Some of my students also had thoughts on this topic when I asked them:

    Student Emma: Likes the idea of thinking up English conversations inside her head. If she is in private place she can say them out loud, but if not it’s an internal English conversation. Sometimes she also makes scripts about common things she talks about or about what she would like to talk about.

    Student Yoon: “Just a lot of input. Watch English TV, movies and books.”

    Student Sun: “Start with what you want to talk about in your daily life. I think that’s the first step and it really helps. Watching Vlog on Youtube based on your interest it’s also a great way to pick up real life expressions. For example, it can be food explore, book review, or anything else.”

    Student Bella: “For me, listening to how native speakers talk is good for my speaking. Because I can learn what words to use in certain situations, and of course, try to use them in conversation. Reading is also useful for me. I think my way of learning is to notice how native speakers use English and then try to use it in my next conversations.”

    Student Emily: “I feel like reading novels in English works well for me. Unlike those non-fiction books, novels use words and phrases that are more frequently used in daily life. I find this a better way for me to improve my daily life English.

    As for speaking, besides practising with other people, when I study alone, I like watching movies and soap operas and read after each words. At first it was kinda hard for me because I couldn’t catch up with them, but with more practices over time, I saw improvements.

    Ooh one more thing, daily practices is much more important than one or two days of long hour practices and studying.”

    Student Vicky: From a conversation we had:

    • Moving to an English speaking country
    • Use such things as Episoden, Netflix and shadowing
    • Become an English tutor. Preparation of the teaching materials is practise. Having to earn money using English increases your motivation
    • Become a walking tour guide using the English language {Vicky does this}
    • A lot of English input and then a lot of English output
    • Use English in your job and then fake it until you make it

    Other random students ideas I’ve seen: One of my students, he uses an AI App – a language learning app. One was a barber and practised talking with his clients. I’ve had students working or studying or volunteering in an English environment and they’re going to get a lot of input and practise. One was a nanny in an English speaking family.

    Episoden

    I still like the Episoden service. I feel like the people I meet on there speak English pretty well. Perhaps because they are a little bit addicted to the service and it would be pretty easy to get a couple of hours of English conversation per day. It also has a lot of statistics that you can track, which I think is super motivating.

    Motivation

    It’s also interesting to look at language learning from a motivation aspect. I’m often searching for motivation and if you’re highly motivated, surely you will be a good language learner.

    Do you have any thoughts on the best ways to become fluent in English or a way to be motivated or simply to enjoy the learning process more? Feel free to comment below.

    Eltham Library, part of my challenge to visit all the libraries in Melbourne.

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    So Good They Can’t Ignore You – Book Review

    Published by

    Bryan – English Tutor Dad

    on

    I finished another book, so that’s book six for the year. I’m a bit ahead of schedule for reading (my goal is twenty books for the year).

    The ‘So Good They Can’t Ignore You‘ by Cal Newport book really resonated with me. Probably the best book I have read in the last year. The central premise of the book is that it’s very hard to find work that match your passions. The better idea is to chase skills and that will lead to more enjoyment of your work.

    Craftsman

    The book has a particular focus on developing your skills like a craftsman. Honing your knowledge and skills over many years. That way you have something the world values, rather than looking for what the world can offer you.

    The passion should appear if you follow the craftsman mindset.

    Now there are some jobs, the author states, where you can’t really apply the craftsman mindset. Where:

    • The job gives you few opportunities to distinguish yourself by developing rare and valuable skills
    • The job is focused on what you think is useless or even actively bad for the world
    • The job forces you to work with people you really dislike

    Deliberate Practise

    The craftsmen improves their skills by deliberate practise. Deliberate practise is where you constantly stretch yourself, staying out of the comfort zone. Non-comfortable learning. Seeking the most effective way to improve your skills. Seeking feedback in relation to your skills. And I think this is the key takeaway, deliberate practise is often not enjoyable.

    Deliberate practise not being enjoyable really blew my mind when I read it. I always thought high achievers in certain occupations always enjoyed what they were learning and practising. They were passionate about it but thinking about it, I often heard professional sportspeople say they hate the training but they love the competition.

    Career Capital

    The author also talks about building career capital via your skills and experience. Time in the industry. Contacts in the industry. Your reputation. All build career capital.

    Control

    Another concept the author talks about in the book is that once you have career capital in your job, you start gaining control over your job. You become a very valuable person, so you can go on a quest to design the job to suit your needs more. For instance, working from home, working short hours or more flexible hours can be a way of gaining more control. More control over your job boosts your enjoyment of the job. There may be some push back from your employer over your quest for more control or from other people in your life, so you kind of have to be strong in the face of this pushback.

    Small Bets

    If you can, you need to focus on finding you niche by making small bets about what direction to focus your energy or learning. Then see how they play out to find your area of focus. It’s a journey to find your career path in the world.

    Mission Statement

    Once you have built up career capital and found your niche you can work out your mission statement.

    Summary

    So in summary his three rules are:

    • Rule #1: Don’t follow your passion
    • Rule #2: Build skills instead (Be so good they can’t ignore you)
    • Rule #3: Turn down a promotion (Or, the importance of having control)
    • Rule #4: Think small, act big (small bets, act big when you work out your mission)

    I think this is a fascinating book. Whereas, some books only have one idea. This book has so many interesting ideas. I’m probably not doing it justice with my notes. It’s easy to read a summary of a book and it doesn’t really sink in. If you read a non-fiction book, I believe, it changes the way you think in a fundamental way. Like you are doing a Vulcan mind meld (Star Trek reference) with the author. I feel like when you read a non-fiction book, the authors brain and your brain start to sync.

    There are definitely parts of this book I haven’t written about. He also has a number of other books that I might end up reading.

    Work Friends

    Maybe the book scores a bit of a miss in one area for me. They have done studies and the people that enjoy work the most and are the most engaged at work, have workplace best friends. This was always a focus of mine. Maybe I didn’t want to climb to the top of my field and become the master craftsman but I had fun at work with my friends. 🙂

    Rosanna Library, part of my challenge to visit all the libraries in Melbourne.

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    Learning Update 3 – Focus

    Published by

    Bryan – English Tutor Dad

    on

    I’ve read three books since my last learning update. Deep Work, Journaling Power and The Let Them Theory.

    Deep Work by Cal Newport

    I’ve always been interested in how to be more focused, as we’re living in a very distracting world and it’s probably only going to get worse. So, I was drawn to a book called Deep Work by Cal Newport.

    My biggest distraction is the news, on the TV for sure, but mainly on the Internet. I did an experiment last year where I gave up the news for one week. It was amazing, like one of the best holidays I have ever been on – except I was at home. I still reminisce about it now. It was like a holiday in a foreign country. 🙂

    It makes logical sense to take a news break again or even do it permanently but my drug of choice is hard to kick. As with any long term drug user, if you give it up, you have to replace it with something. Reading, English students and writing seem to be the best replacements. Maybe also more walking when the weather gets cooler here.

    The main takeaways from the Deep Work book were:

    • A big part of doing more focused work, is removing the distractions. The author was very much against the distraction of social media. And so am I.
    • He was very much against the open plan office. And so am I.
    • He likes to do his hardest work first thing in the morning, as that’s when you have the most concentration and willpower. I’ve read about this in another book called Eat That Frog, where you do your hardest task first. I really agree with this concept.
    • He likes the concept of time-blocking, where you schedule your whole day. I struggle with this concept. But he does say if your plans change or a task takes longer than expected, you amend your schedule for the day and I think that is smart. It’s kind of like my future plans. I have a plan but I’m not afraid to re-write the plan if circumstances or motivations change.
    • Time-blocking also reduces the time you take to switch tasks. That can be a real time waster. I tend to have a fair amount of down time (a break) when I switch between tasks.
    • You need to train your concentration by avoiding the quick distractions of the Internet. Sometimes you just have to embrace the boredom.
    • In the book, scheduling your leisure time was quite an interesting concept. Rather than just getting distracting by something on the Internet, it can be far more rewarding doing something meaningful with your spare time.
    • Keeping a scoreboard of your accomplishments comes up in this book and other books I’ve read on the subject. I’ve started doing this for the number of books I’ve read, a blog post each week and the number of students I talk to each week.

    I really enjoyed Cal Newport’s writing style so I will be checking out some of his other books.

    Journaling Power by Mari McCarthy

    I read another book called Journaling Power by Mary McCarthy. It was just alright as a book. I thought the chapter on setting goals via journaling was the most valuable part of the book. Unfortunately, I thought there was too much self promotion of her website within the book. I think it’s okay to mention your website at the end of the book but it kind of annoys me if it’s throughout the book. I also wonder if the book is as good as it could be or is it holding things back to put the more useful information into products from the website.

    Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins

    Now The Let Them Theory book I found really interesting. I’ve known about the book for a while but I’ve hesitated to read it. I’ve read one of her other books The Five Second Rule and I felt like with that book she took one concept and wrote a whole book about one technique.

    I do like the ‘Let Them’ concept though. It’s hard to explain but I’ll try.

    It’s basically a way of dealing with annoying people. A way of distancing yourself from other people’s opinions and behaviour. If someone is taking over your thoughts with their bad opinions or behaviour you just say to yourself ‘Let Them, Let Them, Let Them’ because you can’t control other people’s behaviour. People are always going to have opinions and behave badly. It makes you feel a little bit above the bad behaviour when you use this technique. A little bit superior.

    The other part to it is, which is very important, is the ‘Let Me’ concept. You have to decide what you can do in the bad situation. You don’t have control over people’s behaviour but you have control over your own behaviour, your own decisions, your own learning. You can’t control other people but you can control yourself.

    You can also use ‘Let Them’ to control your own negative thoughts. Instead of getting sucked into your thoughts. You repeat ‘Let Them’ to yourself to create some distance from your thoughts.

    The other passage that stood out to me was that her therapist said that most adults have the emotional capability of an eight year old. A lot of people didn’t grow up and emotionally mature properly. The ‘most people’ part applies to yourself as well. I find this funny as my saying is normally “People are doing their best” due to their nature and nuture when they were young. It’s a very similar concept.

    Now I do believe that I am a bit more emotionally mature than an eight year old. I think more like a nine year old. 🙂

    I think this book is similar to the last book the author wrote and it is one concept that is expanded into a whole book. Often books have to be a bit repetitive and I think this helps change the way you think, you start seeing how the author thinks, you get inside their mind and this helps you model their smart behaviour. But, I think the book could have been half the size and I think there is a temptation in this book that the one concept will fix everything.

    People do like this book though, people are getting ‘Let Them’ tattoos. I think it really helps people focus on their goals and lets other people’s behaviour be treated as just ‘noise’.

    Journaling Prompt

    I always end the post with a journaling prompt, as I am a huge fan of journaling.

    What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail? This could relate to a job or something you could do in your spare time. Aim very high with your answer.

    Toorak Library, part of my challenge to visit all the libraries in Melbourne.

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    Conversation Exchange Review – A Language Swapping Website

    Published by

    Bryan – English Tutor Dad

    on

    Conversation Exchange is a website built to connect language learners in a language swap scenario. For instance one person may be learning Japanese and one person may be learning English, so the session is normally one person teaching the other for the first half of the session and then the roles are switched.

    The language swap may involve meeting up for face-to-face conversations, via a video or audio call, or via a written communication (like an old fashioned Penpal).

    Conversation Exchange when you first see it, it looks like quite a simple site but when you start using it you discover it has all the features you need to connect with people.

    When setting up your profile you enter some information about, where you are from, your age, your native language, your practicing language and what type of exchange you want to have (face-to-face, correspondence or via communication software). Next you enter your hobbies and interests. Then a description about yourself.

    People may contact you if they do a search and you meet their criteria. I find the more interesting part though, is the advanced search functionality. You can do all sorts of searches via their country, language, type of correspondence they want, their level of proficiency. You can also save that search for later use.

    Once you find someone interesting, you can read their profile. If you decide to contact them you can send them a message. The messaging system works like a basic form of email. I don’t spend too much time using their messaging system before switching to another messaging platform like email or WhatsApp. I prefer using WhatsApp for texting to arrange appointment times and I’m a big fan of the video call. For the video call I tend to use Microsoft Teams, mainly for the screen sharing capabilities and the excellent AI noise suppression audio quality.

    Because I am a volunteer English tutor I use the site a bit differently to language learners. I put my native language as English and there is no field that says you just want to tutor, so I put I am a beginner in Māori. Then I explain in my profile that I am a volunteer English tutor. If you just want to help someone with English, I recommend you do the same. You can also explain your situation in any message you send to someone.

    I haven’t really had any problems on the site. Occasionally, the site sends an email message about a ‘scammer profile’ detected on the site. One time a scammer did message me but I didn’t respond for some reason and later a message was sent by the site that they were a known scammer. Perhaps I don’t come across them as I move pretty quickly from sending text messages to scheduling a video call. I really don’t think a scammer wants to do a video call with me.

    Conversation Exchange have written an extensive article about how to avoid scams here. They also provide a link to the US FTC Consumer Advice page about scams.

    I think the main things to avoid is any financial related conversations, which would normally involve some kind of hard luck story. Romance scams, according to the article are also a thing. I’ve always got my antenna up a little bit when I first meet someone, keeping an eye out for red flags.

    I feel like I’m a pretty good judge of character and I’ve never had any problems with the people I’ve met on video calls. Initially the conversation is pretty light when you first meet someone but I’ve been on the site since 2023 and chatted to some of the same students for that length of time. After knowing people that long the conversation can get pretty deep. Trust is built up over time.

    My Conversation Exchange tips are:

    • Give some thought to the timezone of the person you’re going to contact. Living in Australia I prefer students from Asian countries where the time difference is small and also students from Canada or America where their evening is my daytime. I prefer talking to students in my daytime hours.
    • I find university students quite good as their time is often a bit more flexible.
    • Often other people do like to talk in the evening, so you can take that into consideration when finding people.
    • If you have multiple people you chat to, it’s good if you can get them all using the same texting app. Therefore, you don’t need to keep changing apps to message people.
    • It’s nice when a person puts a substantial amount of information in their profile. So you can see if you have any common interests. I wouldn’t normally contact a person who only puts a few words in their profile. It seems a bit lazy to me.
    • The site is free, but it does have ads. I think it’s okay though because it doesn’t seem to have any annoying popup ads that actually interfere with using the site. There is a membership option that gets rid of the ads. I’ve never paid for it. Membership is pretty cheap though.
    • I feel like people that learn languages are generally pretty highly educated. You have to have quite a bit of motivation to learn a language, the ability to concentrate and focus on a hard task, able to visualise a long term goal and probably have a high level of education in relation to another area of life. I do enjoy chatting to educated people.
    • As I am a volunteer English tutor, the students are very appreciative of my help and I find this very rewarding.
    • You don’t have to just talk to one person from the site. I have many students. The last few weeks I have been averaging 11 students a week. This sounds like a lot but it’s only 1-2 a day. It’s quite easy to fit my other activities around my students as I’m volunteering online, I only have to logon a few minutes before the session.
    • If you can, try to schedule the session at the same time each week. It saves on the administration of booking people in each week.
    • Sometimes I will send the occasional text message to my students, maybe of an interesting pic but generally I just use texting to arrange times to talk. If I am on holiday and I have a lot of pics or activities to share I will set up a Broadcast Group in Whatsapp. I feel like texting doesn’t add much value compared to having an actual conversation via a video call.
    • I think once a week is the ideal time to talk, otherwise if you talk too often you can run out of topics to talk about. Occasionally I might talk more often than that, if it’s for a specific reason like practising for a job interview or the student is sitting an English exam. A short term burst of more frequent sessions makes more sense in this scenario.
    • If you have trouble using technology, pick someone younger and, hopefully, they can help you with the video calling part.
    • Discuss how you would like to practise together. So you have some sort of plan about what a session should be like.
    • It’s quite normal for people to need to reschedule, as long as they communicate about it, I think that’s fine. People have busy lives and things come up.
    • If you want to tutor someone in a language but not learn a language yourself, I would set the search field to the Intermediate to Proficiency level. This way you can have a reasonable conversation with the person you meet. Tutoring beginner students can be really challenging.
    • Often language learners you meet on the site will be a bit nervous and take a while to get used to your accent. I find their language skills improve after a few sessions as they are more relaxed and used to my accent.

    I think when you meet someone on Conversation Exchange it’s good to have a bit of fun and have a laugh sometimes. It’s also fun comparing countries and cultures to what happens in your own country. Of course, it’s ideal if you have some common interests to talk about but it’s not always needed.

    I often think about some of my ‘student friends’ that I have spoken to for over two and a half years. If they hadn’t signed up to the site, and I hadn’t signed up to the site, and one of us hadn’t messaged the other – we would still be complete strangers. Instead, we’ve had over 130 hours of conversation together.

    Journaling Prompt

    As usual, as I am a fan of journaling, I will finish with a journaling prompt.

    ‘What value can you show to the people you meet on Conversation Exchange?’ What qualities or skills do you have to help people you meet there? Just in general, what makes you a good friend to the people you meet there?

    People often focus on what you can get from other people. I think the more interesting question is what you can give.

    North Fitzroy Library rooftop garden, part of my challenge to visit all the libraries in Melbourne.

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    Episoden Review – For Free English Conversation Practise

    Published by

    Bryan – English Tutor Dad

    on

    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.

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Hello,

I’m Bryan

Welcome to my website. The purpose of this website is to:

  • Write about my volunteer English Tutor activities
  • Connect with students
  • Motivate myself to keep learning

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