What the beep do you know about learning English is a podcast for intermediate to Advanced Learners of English and some teachers might find it interesting to a podcast aims to provide different perspectives on teaching and learning English and at the same time develop our listeners English skills in this episode. We interview Matt Turner from the tefl ology podcast. We talked about the importance of noticing a conversation exchange gone wrong and the F-bomb. Okay, let's start rioting. In this segment, we find out about our teachers origin story or where they got their teaching superpowers from so Matt Turner what the beep? Do you know about teaching English? Well, I guess like way back. I think I first did my first teaching certificate which was a certainty soul back in 2006, maybe 2007. Yeah. Okay. I've got I've already gone way back to 2007, but I'll jump Would very soon okay, it was mainly for practical reasons. Like I was doing an English degree, I mean which language and creative writing and I kind of realized quickly that in two years time. I'm going to be coming out of University and I need a job. Yeah, one of my University professors put me on to the cert tesol program that was taking place in the summer. Yeah. I just felt this would be the most practical way to use my degree and kind of use my creative. My interest in sort of creative writing as well. I thought that would be quite a good way to kind of Mary my two interests. I guess her did you find that doing that certificate was a bit of a shock to the system or you're a natural? I wasn't a natural at all. No, I don't think so. Like I mean even now I still remember like one of my teachers said you kind of you come across when you're teaching you come across as a Busker Busker kind of and I kind of I still reflect on what that might mean. I think what he was kind of saying is you kind of do one thing and then you'll bring out and do something else and then you'll do something else and it's all a bit kind of ramshackle I guess and it doesn't really make sense. And yeah, so that kind of stuck with me, but I've come to realize that I quite like that approach to teaching to be on so you will get a bit of a busker style. You are bringing written music and juggling and stuff into the show another that I mean, but but I don't know like yeah, I guess maybe I've come come to realize that it's kind of quite a reactive form of teaching and you know, you kind of play to the audience. Yeah, so he told me that back then and I I guess I've gone through the motions of becoming a very kind of planned teacher doing a lot of planning and I've kind of I guess I've gone full circle back to being a bit more open and experimental and yeah, it's kind of reacting to what's going on in the Also the time I guess and with your teaching so after you did you sell to and where did you move on to? Where did you have your first teaching job? Well, a lot of I mean a lot of the students in the class were from Japan and before I started teaching I was I did Judo for about 10 years, I think as a child, so I already had quite a good understand. We're not a good understand had some understanding of like Japanese martial arts and And actually a lot of Japanese vocabulary like we learn all the Judo moves in Japanese at the time. Okay. So yeah, I think from an early age. So I had an interest in Japan and then meeting Japanese people and teaching Japanese people. I just kind of felt well, maybe I'll go to Japan and 10 years later. I'm still here. We've done the decade. Yeah. Yeah, just just hit 10 years just this December. And then in Japan what sort of teaching roles have you had there? Well, it's I mean, I did a year of conversation school, which we call eikaiwa in Japanese. That was my first year in Japan and I got to teach a whole range of like ages and learn a types learning styles learning needs. So that was that was a good kind of way to introduce me to life in Japan and Japanese people and then after a year, I very luckily I I got into University work through kind of a combination of situations I guess but yeah, I got a university job and I've been working in the University context for about eight years. Now, I think teaching sort of 18 19 year olds a mixture of kind of General General English courses and more kind of content based courses and for me when I found out about you know, you and your fellow podcasters was through the technology podcast had We'll get started. I read your book and I think it started in a pub and then where did it go from there? Well, yeah, we still can't really work out how it kind of started because I'm like when I worked with Rob back in 2010, we we have these kind of Friday afternoon lesson planning sessions and we started recording them because it was it was a practical way to sort of rather than take notes. We were like, let's just record this. And listen back to it. We found that we enjoyed listening back to our conversations. Like we found they were quite funny just for ourselves for our own Amusement. Really, I think there was one comment that we should maybe make this into a podcast and yeah, I guess that little kind of for kind of kind of stuck with us for like the next two or three years and then we met Matt the other map on the show. Yeah, we decided to sort of make it more into a formal thing. And then just yeah, go ahead with the podcast project and how did you find like Doing the podcast is help. You become a better teacher. Well, it's yeah, I guess it's kept me is kept me interested. I mean, it's kept me reading I think one problem for a lot of teachers kind of outside of ma programs or training courses as they don't or they probably don't willingly or naturally want to engage with research. Mmm. Well, they can't, you know, a lot of the time they don't have the access the like the academic or the additional support. So the podcast is kind of kept me interested kind of kept me reading and kind of kept me talking about teaching because a lot of teachers tend not to want to talk about their job. They kind of just want to do it go home and kind of forget about it, but I think we had the podcast is at least helped me to kind of Keep interested and keep up-to-date with with the teaching world, I guess and now you're embarking on the PHD. Is that right? Yeah. Yeah. I've been I'm a year in I guess a year in okay already year. And how's that going? I'm still kind of in the very embryonic stages of it. I guess nothing to concrete yet, but I'm just kind of feeling around and what sort of topic or area are you looking at? originally, like my proposal was going to be about podcasting actually how the use of podcasts can kind of connect the or kind of overcome the teacher researcher divide and how it creates a kind of an interface between people working in research and maybe people that are more classroom focused and how we can have these these reflective conversations that kind of other people can listen into to engage with But it's I think it's developed beyond that slightly, but I'm not quite sure how yet, so that's that's where I'm at at the moment, I guess. Okay, how many years does it take to do a PhD my one because I'm doing it part time. It's going to take a minimum of five years. Okay. You still got time? He's got four more years. So yeah. That's all right. My supervisors pretty much holding me back and say need you to take your time. Basically. This first year is all about just kind of enjoying yourself and reading, you know, doing a bit of writing, but nothing to concrete just yet. And if anyone from our audience on a you know, listen to your program or podcast, where should they go? The best place will be our website that's kind of the home to all of our all of our previous episodes of archive. I guess. It's technology - - podcast.com our second segment is called study tip of the iceberg where we find out I guess language learning tips so Matt, what's the secret to To English success. Yeah, that's a big question. I don't think there is one really is the I mean there's there's many perhaps I mean when I talk about my own learning like its kind of be a bit creative and kind of break the rules of a little bit like if you get a word if you get a new item of vocabulary, try it out as much as possible. Yeah. I mean we often teach students vocabulary in their kind of one context I guess. all the context of one lesson but trying trying to get students to kind of bend the words and kind of shape the words to other other like other situations the I just kind of try and encourage students to kind of take words and kind of yeah play with them and see it see if it works and the different situation and try and be a bit creative with with the language that they've got some sort of like as far as the core meaning of a word and then look, Seeing all the different meaning sensors connected to that word. Yeah, perhaps. Yeah, I mean the best way for me to retain vocabulary is to use it straight away and try and I try and use it five times if possible in different ways. And for example, if I learn like three random words, I'll try and put them into like a funny sentence probably makes no sense and probably has no meaning but I'm just trying to kind of get the words in use together. And kind of just use them straight away because I find if I don't use it straight away. Well, I'll lose it. You know, it's that old man. Sure I guess and with your so with your students in class. How do you encourage them to do this? Do they do you find that they're open to these sort of ideas of you know, creatively using the language I do an exercise. So like even in my reading glasses when they when there is like Target vocabulary in the reading will do kind of will do a fluent a spoken fluency activity where for example, they have to use eight or nine words in 2 minutes and they have to make sentences using all of the words in two minutes and the the person they're speaking to literally just count the words or ticks the words off to make sure they're using the words and then just repeat again repeat again until they've kind of automatic as the words. Maybe my students were really I get the feeling they don't like the activity but I think they kind of respect the activity and they kind of know why I'm why I'm doing it. I think why do you think they don't like it because they have to kind of think on I guess think on the spot, you know, maybe they haven't quite fully got to grips with the meaning of the word but they're being kind of expected to kind of use the word as soon as possible. Maybe they I think they feel a bit pressured, you know, but you know, that's good. I think a little bit of pressure. Is good, you know no pain. No gain. Yeah. Yeah get them out of their comfort zone and hopefully make the experience more more memorable. So we've with your students and what how do you get them? Do you think to practice outside of class because for me I think from I mean the longer I've been teaching I think the more important I think is trying to sort of Coach them what to do outside of class. And what's inside the class. I don't know if that's sort of similar experience for you or not. Yeah sighs I was thinking about This before I spoke to and I think like one of the ideas I've had is kind of how ways that they can kind of sustain their learning but I remember a time when I had a group of adult Learners and they had different teachers every week. The my first question to them was always what can you remember from your last class and a lot of the time they couldn't remember anything and that kind of I don't know that kind of struck me as being a bit odd, like if you're coming to lessons surely your your one they're kind of Retain something from the lesson before so I just got into the habit of continuing to ask them. Like what can you remember from your last class? And eventually they started making notes about their classes and reflecting on their classes that they'd had. And yes, I guess the take home their is to become a good note taker or find your own way of kind of documenting and using what your what Your I guess being introduced to in classes. Maybe. Yeah, I think I mean that's really important. I think a lot of times people just come, you know, it's come to class and think that's enough. You know, I sit in my two hours of classes a week and that'll get the job done. But as you touched on there sort of like with the you know that research into the forgetting curve. So I like pretty much by the end of the class you forgotten. Yeah, 80% of what you were taught unless you actively do something with it afterwards definitely. Yeah, which again links into your earlier Point as well. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah sure. I think I'm another another sort of thing that I kind of tell students is to kind of like notice like notice new words or notice areas of your own learning that you are that stand out as being unfamiliar or difficult. There was a guy on Japanese TV recently a Spanish guy a tourist and he was cycling from the top of Japan down to the south of Japan. So is his goal was to cycle but his other goals Learn at least one new word from every person he met along the way and I think you learn he looked like 500 words or something like that. I'm not sure if it was made up for TV or but he but you could kind of see him in every every conversation. He was having with someone like stopping the mid-sentence and saying what did you just say like write that down for me and and I thought that was a really nice like I kind of want it I I tend to do Do that when I'm speaking to someone in Japanese just kind of stopped the mids mid-conversation and say what was that you said and try and make it a kind of a learning opportunity. I guess I think yeah, that's a suppose that difference between passive and active or people just watching, you know movies in English, but not actually really doing anything with it and you need to change if students can change their mindset and you know what you're saying and like that bicycle that sounds like a really good sort of example the showing class the guy and how much He learned just by sort of actively trying to you know, find a word in each conversation he had and it was great because he for all the words that he learned there was a personal story behind each word. You know, he remembered who he who he had spoken to what what they talked about, you know, and he yeah for I mean for every word that he learned there was there was a personal kind of anecdote attached. So yeah, whatever on that that kind of helped him retain the language, I don't know but for maybe you can take your students on bicycle tours. Yeah, perhaps perhaps here. Yeah, that could work. Yeah, you mentioned Netflix like yeah, that's that's one thing. I'm kind of I've been struggling with of late like the students kind of they won that one of the things I have in my current job is the students need to kind of self-report what they've been learning outside of class and a lot of them will just To movie with subtitles and they'll think that that's enough. So I've been trying to get them to just maybe just watch one scene just take take a scene from like friends for example and kind of really analyze the scene. Like what's the joke? What's what's being said? You know, how's the language being used? So just trying to get them to be a bit more kind of analytical with like smaller chunks of video. For example. Yeah, if it's your I think encouraging students to do short order birth and do more with it than than just watching Lots at a level. That's not suitable. Probably probably isn't that helpful. Yeah. Sure. This segment is language unmasked we find out about our guests own experiences of learning a second language so Matt, could you tell us a bit more about your own language learning Journeys? Yeah. Well, I mean, I've been in Japan now for 10 years and to be honest, I probably Learned as much Japanese as maybe I should have done in that time. I thought I'd say I've got enough for what I need to do. But I guess I've I guess I've kind of fossilized, you know, I've kind of stopped the language that I have hasn't really developed in the past few years for a number of reasons. I just haven't been studying. Yeah, so I think when I first came to Japan, maybe I had two or three years of study and I was really studying hard and then yeah. For the past seven years or so. I haven't really studied but I've like I was talking about in the section before I kind of informally take on new words or phrases and my wife's Japanese. So we tend to dip in and out of English and Japanese as well. But yeah, in terms of formal study, I haven't really done much for a few years now. So when you first started to do study in the classroom I had yeah I had One-to-one lessons. I had like a private tutor. So actually I've never studied with other people which is actually something I should probably do to be honest. Yeah, I think that's fair. That's good. Yeah, another good thing to reflect on as a teacher is to study in a bit of a class situation says that yes, I'm thinking about maybe going back into the classroom and learning again. And so we've you're teaching in what you teach your students about English. Do you sort of practice? What you preach do you then bring those own things into your Japanese study, I mean the things we kind of talked about before with the with the vocabulary and kind of noticing words and kind of trying to kind of action those words as quickly as possible. They're kind of things that I do and they work for me going back to podcasting, you know, I learned a lot from listening to podcasts and I've recently tried to get my students also listening to podcasts for their own learning and kind of turning them on to turning them on to podcast that it'd be good for their learning. I'll be introducing yours as well at some point. I'm sure cool. So yeah, I guess that kind of thing like trying to find a bit of a Synergy between like my myself and they're learning I guess in this segment. We often try to find out I guess sort of embarrassing situations or uncomfortable moments in learning a second language because I think our students often, you know, sometimes can get demotivated when they have a bad experience. Yeah, we can share these stories. I suppose help everyone feel a bit better about themselves. Should you have any of those types of stories in Japanese? I've got one we allowed to sort of swear on this. So yeah, I didn't put like the warning thing on it. So you can't explicit content. So for the occasional swear word, it is covered. So feel free. Well, I was so one story that came to mind straight away is I was having like a conversation Exchange. Change with my my wife's friend. Shall we say? Yeah, my wife's friend. Yeah, we my wife had organized her friend wanted to practice English. I wanted to practice Japanese. So we kind of we met in a cafe and had a conversation and I think one of the questions was what do you what do you want for Christmas or what do you get for Christmas? I wanted to say gloves in Japanese, which is tear the could all so Tara. ins hand and book alone means look at our literally means bag, but put together handbag means glove tear Booker but instead I said Tamara book at all which which means like the men's genitalia like the men's or men's balls basically and so basically I forgot Tamara Tamara book at all, which means balls and Said of glove basically. What do you think about she found it hilarious? Like she laughed she was a bit embarrassed, but she explains the she Jetty where I don't know how I can t remember how she explained it to be honest, but I guess I think I can I think I knew what I had said was wrong and I kind of quickly realized. Oh, yeah, that's what it means and I got those words mixed up one of the most embarrassing moments for me. And also, I mean a lot of time I think learning a second language is sort of finding out, you know, cool Expressions that maybe you don't have in having your own language to have any sort of like fun or favorite expressions in Japanese. There's one those thinking about which is a I'll say in Japanese first salut more key Cara or chiru, which means even monkeys fall from trees. But so I guess that means like even everyone makes mistakes. So I guess that evening. Yeah that ties into what you were saying before like through even monkeys fall from trees. I like a good monkey idioms. I'll have to yeah to my repertoire in it's raining swear words and idioms. We find out our guests number one expression or swear word in English. So Matt, what are you going to focus on today? Swear word idiomatic expression or a bit of everything. I mean, I guess I like the classic if you know the f words it's so elastic, you know, it can be used for everything. You know, it can be used to intensify something I guess or it can be used to give an instruction to someone. I think it's a good marker of like how fluent you are how well you can use the F-word I guess and if a student was to use the F-word what sort of contexts would use it in. Well, it would be a lot more. It wouldn't be in the professional or business like situation. It would be more between friends, I guess or to someone you don't like to express anger, I guess but more more likely I use it between friends like when we're kind of talking about about stuff in the podcast. I haven't noticed the f word come up in the podcast. We've yeah, we've not been not been many. Swear words. We tell we tend to we either take them out or we just don't swear. I don't I'm not much of a swearer. I don't know you do you swear a lot or I just in certain contexts. I suppose I always said like I suppose the f word would be more may be in the pub and had a few beers, but I don't naturally. Yeah little a lot of swear words fire out over the course of the day. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I'm not I'm not big swear to be honest, but I think like the f word like there's a book published in Japan and it's a whole book. It's really good. Actually, it's a whole book dedicated to the f words. Like the whole book is literally about different situations where you can use the f word. Okay, then let's sounds quite good actually. So it's like English and Japanese and it has like the usage of the f word and then explanation in gentleman to a couple of examples a picture like a little illustration to go with it. And I think the book is actually called how to How to use fuck or something like that but yes. Hello. I bought it for one of my friends for Christmas once do you ever use in the classroom at all? No, no, I think like swearing as a whole maybe you're tapping into it, but I think it's a whole kind of untapped area Uncharted area of a the clock English classroom, maybe but I said it is I mean it is useful to get a better understanding of those words. Maybe not necessarily to use them, but just Understand them if you hear them I suppose. Yeah, it's very authentic and I met a lot. I mean to be to be on this that they're the first words you learn when you're when you're learning a foreign language that the when I was a kid at least like thing. I was trying to learn Swedish when I was a kid and they're the only word stuff stuck to be on this the swear word Swedish so you can still swear in sweet. That's all I can do pretty much final segment in the Red Room. Miz inspired by Twin Peaks so Matt, can you give us a bonus expression and we'll speed it up or slow it down and the first listener to decode it and leave it audio comment on the podcast will get a pride. Okay, Matt. So what is your bonus expression? Okay, so that was a bonus expression. Make sure you leave an audio comment. If you think you know what it is. All right, Matt. Thanks for coming on. It's been great chatting. Yeah. You're welcome. Thanks for having me today. Yeah, I enjoyed reflecting on my learning and giving some ideas for your learning as well. And yeah is it was great. I hope you enjoyed our fifth episode with self-certified to philologist. Matt Turner. Make sure you subscribe. To the podcast and leave a comment through the anchor app or at English Riot to have the chance of winning the prize also head over to www.englishgrammarspot.com for bonus material including how to use some of the English Expressions including the F-bomb from this episode finally sign up for English riots enewsletter the sledgehammer to get access to weekly English learning tips. See you in episode 6 where we interview fluency, MC.
Sign up for my weekly English learning newsletter “The Sledgehammer” and get my free book about online English study tools. #englishriot #englishunmasked #whatbeepdoyouknowaboutlearningenglish #learnenglish Welcome to the fifth episode of What the 'Beep' do you know about learning English? This podcast is for intermediate to advanced learners of English. Some teachers might find it interesting too. The podcast aims to provide different perspectives on learning English and at the same time develop our listeners' language skills. Matthew W. Turner’s has taught in the UK and Japan since 2008, and currently works in a university international tourism faculty in central Tokyo. Matthew is co-author of the book - Podcasting and Professional Development: A guide for English Language Teachers. His research interests include reflective practice, continuing professional development, and special educational needs support. Matthew is also co-creator of The TEFLology Podcast, and coordinator of the Japan Association for Language Teaching's (JALT) Teacher Development SIG. In the interview, we talk about the importance of noticing in learning a language, a conversation exchange gone wrong and the F-Bomb! The podcast is divided into five parts: 1) What Beep do you know about Teaching/Learning English? In this segment, we get to know our guests' teacher origin story. How they became a teacher and what they know about teaching English. 2) Study Tip of the Iceberg In this segment, our guests give their number one language learning tip. 3) Language Unmasked We look at our guests' own experiences of learning a second language. Taking in their embarrassing moments and favourite expressions in their second language. 4) It's Raining Idioms and Swear Words We discuss in detail one English idiomatic expression or swear word - from history to how to use it in real life situations. 5) In the Red Room Your chance to guess our bonus English expression and win a prize! Remember to visit English Riot and download the study notes for Episode 5. These notes will help you understand key expressions from this episode and give you some tips about developing your listening skills. Also, the bonus expression from Episode 4 is explained at the bottom of the notes. 