Name: engVid Adam Benn from Write to the Top Interview | Speak English Fluently with Steve Hatherly
Uploaded: 2022-09-24T17:36:18.000Z
Duration: 31 min 30 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Welcome back to another edition  of Speak English Fluently. 

I'm your host Steve Hatherly. My guest today is Adam Benn. 

Adam has been teaching English for over 20  years now and has done so in many different  

countries around the world. He's made some very popular  

teaching videos for EngVid.com. He has his own very popular  

YouTube channel called Write to the Top. And recently, very interesting, he did a talk  

for TedX on the importance of writing. He's written his own books. 

And we're going to talk about  all of those things today, 

Let me say hello to my fellow Canadian  and, uh, guest today, Adam Benn. 

How are… how are you doing, sir? I'm very good Steve, thanks. 

You're from Toronto, yeah? I'm from Toronto, yeah. 

Actually, I should say “Toronto”  like non-Torontonians, but… 

Very good, uh, so let's see now where do we begin? You've been teaching  

English for 24 years in total - a long time. And you've lived in so many different countries  

around the world. So what inspired you  

originally to move away from Canada? And where was your first destination? 

And you can talk about that a little bit. So I was in… I was in Toronto. 

And I loved traveling. So I just wanted to travel around the world. 

So originally, my first idea was  to, you know, learn how to cook. 

Maybe become a chef because  people have to eat everywhere. 

I can always go somewhere  and find a job as a chef. 

So I went to culinary school for a year. I did that. 

I worked in a few restaurants and I  realized that I really hated that job. 

Oh, really. So I needed something else. 

And one day, I saw an advertisement, it said,  “Do you want to live overseas and teach English?” 

And I thought, “Yeah, I do.” So I applied. 

I got a job and I went to Japan. That was my first overseas teaching experience. 

Very good. Where… what other countries have you lived in? 

So I lived in Japan. I actually taught in Toronto and Vancouver. 

I lived in Turkey, in Israel, and now in Korea. 

Wow. So Israel was your last stop  before coming to live in Korea? 

Uh, well a while ago, I went back to Canada  since then, but then I came here, again, yeah. 

Oh, very good so… What made you come to Korea this time  

having experience in so many other countries? Uh, I actually met a very nice Korean woman. 

I live in Busan which is on right on the coast. So I live… I have the ocean right in front of me. 

I have the mountains right behind me. It's… it's a beautiful place to live. 

Oh, Busan, uh, if… if our… our audience members  have not been… is one of the prettiest cities in  

Korea. There's no question, yeah. Yeah, it's a very nice place. 

So let's talk about EngVid first. Sure. 

Uh, the videos that you do for EngVid.com  that's engvid.com are insanely popular. 

They have nearly what - 2.96 million  subscribers I think was the number that I saw. 

That's just from my channel  – there's other teachers. 

Yeah, so that's incredible. They've made you one of the  

most popular English teachers in the world. So how did that… how did that all come to be? 

Uh, interestingly, I worked for the  relatives of the guy who owns EngVid. 

Like, while I was living in  Toronto, I was also teaching there. 

And I… and I worked with, uh, his mom. And when I came back from some travels,  

she contacted me, and asked me,  “Do you want to make some videos?” 

Because she knows I know how to teach. And I know English, and world experience,  

so I said, “Yeah, sure. I'll go try it.” And I did it. 

And it took off. And I have kept doing it. 

Wow, how many years has it…  how many years has it been now? 

I was looking at my first video  just to see what it was like. 

Well done. Congratulations on your success. Almost 3 million for just for your channel. 

What types of videos do you  enjoy making for EngVid? 

To be honest, I... I like  making the grammar videos. 

I know a lot of teachers don't  like to teach the grammar. 

I know the students don't  necessarily like to learn grammar  

but it's very important I like grammar I like But it's very important. 

I like grammar. I like to see a student's face when he or she… 

Oh, I get it. You know that “Ah ha” moment. 

I… I like the grammar, so I like to teach that. But, I do all kinds of lessons. 

I do general English. I do like phrasal verbs, vocabulary,  

some pronunciation, writing, test  prep, a little bit of everything. 

I remember talking to my students when  I taught university here in Korea,  

and I said to them, I bet your grammar in  English is better than my grammar in English. 

Yeah, yeah. Because that's a large focus. 

That's where they learned the most, yeah. Uh, in in their younger years, right? 

after moving to Korea and living in Turkey and  Israel and teaching in Toronto and Vancouver… 

Have you noticed that that Korean  students maybe have some different skills?  

Second language-wise or third language wise ….? Yeah, they focus. They focus  

very heavily on the grammar. And they do work on the vocabulary,  

but they don't necessarily go outside… like they…  they look at the technical aspects and they don't… 

I don't think they do enough practice, which I  think is why it's a little difficult for them so… 

To like integrate those grammar lessons  and to use that vocabulary, etc. 

But I find that this is a Asian issue,  like the way Asian education systems work. 

A lot of them focused very heavily on the  grammar and not enough about on the speaking  

and the writing and the conversation. But that being said, having a strong  

grammar foundation makes it a  whole lot easier, I think, to  

become a great speaker in your later years, right? Yeah, but again, if you're willing to actually  

apply it, so that's the, that's the key, use it. That's the EngVid videos, but what about  

your channel - Write to the Top? How, how did that come to be when you  

decided to… to make that, you decided  to focus it on writing specifically? 

Yeah, so where did the idea  for your own channel come from? 

Well, I again, I've taught in many  places and I've I especially started  

teaching a test prep like IELTS and TOEFL. And I… I looked at statistics, and I looked  

at my own students, and other people students, and  I realized that like very consistently, it doesn't  

matter what country you come from, everybody's  worst scores are in the writing section. 

And a lot of teachers, as much as  they can, they try to avoid teaching  

the writing because it's a very hard skill. So a lot of teachers don't like to teach it. 

Some, even English teachers are  not the best writers, like native  

Subtitles ListPlay Video

engVid Adam Benn from Write to the Top Interview | Speak English Fluently with Steve Hatherly

absolutely

context

extremely

practice