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  • Hey guys. Welcome to the set of Rachel’s English in New York at the YouTube Space.

  • Were here with the Rachel’s English teacher Tom. Tom’s been teaching with me since 2012

  • and has logged hundreds of hours teaching. So were going to sit down in an interview

  • with Tom today to learn about his lessons. Also, youll get some tips about things

  • to think about when youre practicing on your own.

  • >> Tom, thank you so much for being here. >> It’s my pleasure.

  • >> My first question is, what is something that new students discover when they first

  • start taking lessons with you? >> To be honest, I think students tend

  • to discover that it’s going to be more complicated than they thought. Many students come into

  • lessons with a belief that they will work on the R sound and maybe a couple consonant

  • sounds, and then, all of a sudden, their English will have improved dramatically. And I think

  • it’s often much more complicated than that. It tends to be a lot of focus on rhythm. And

  • a lot of focus on relaxation. >> Yeah.

  • >> Um, one thing that I think about a lot with my students and talk about a lot with

  • my students is that, as an actor, when I went to school and took speech training—I’m

  • a native speaker of English, but I was in a speech classand the first thing we did

  • was work on relaxation. Taking this instrument way back to neutral. So that we could start

  • from a place of, kind of, discovering some new sounds that I wasn’t capable of making

  • when I went in there. And that’s as a native speaker of English.

  • >> Speaking about the rhythm of English reminds me, when I was teaching, that students didn’t

  • realize how much I was going to focus on character. They were just thinking: sounds. But I was

  • more character-focused. And when they got into it, they realized, wow, this really matters.

  • >> Yeah. To be honest, I think the best lessons that I do are almost solely based on character,

  • and then sounds come up. >> Right.

  • >> And you deal with them in the moment. But those are so easy

  • >> Yeah, right. >> …in comparison with dealing with that

  • character of English. The way that you move your tongue in your mouth. It’s going to

  • be very different than youre used to. So, if you start correcting that, if you start

  • playing with that movement, youre going to find that a lot of sounds take care of

  • themselves. But youre going to need to do that by building the character.

  • >> Notice that Tom’s talking a lot about playing. And I think that’s one thing

  • that we don’t do enough. When were learning something new, we want to make sure were

  • right, which often brings in extra tension. But when we think of it as playing, then it

  • can sort of loosen us up. And actually, Tom and I recorded some audio for the book, in

  • which were just making random, crazy sounds, and encouraging people to imitate that. And

  • that’s the first thing in the book. >> Yeah.

  • >> And the point is, relax. Get out of yourself. This is going to be something different and

  • new. >> Another thing that can help a student who,

  • maybe, can’t take lessons in person or online, is to get really interested in how theyre

  • making sound visually. To use a mirror, to use a camera. Something that I’ll do with

  • my students is have them listen to a native speaker’s TED talk. Which as so interesting

  • and inspirational so often anyway, so it’s interesting to listen to. And they have all

  • their transcripts available. So you can practice a transcript looking into a camera and record

  • yourself. And then, watch the native speaker and watch yourself. And if you notice that

  • you tend to not drop your jaw at all, you see your teeth, theyre very close together,

  • then that’s a sign that you need to work on that relaxation of the jaw. Create a little

  • more space. So you can start getting, just really interested in watching other speakers.

  • And comparing it to your own. That’s, um, that’s if youre on your own and youand

  • there’s just no one around to help you out. It’s a good, a good way to do that.

  • >> That’s a great tip.

  • >> Tom, what’s something that youve learned from your students.

  • >> I would say that, something that I was kind of surprised to learn—I went in thinking,

  • oh, at some point I will feel like I have it all figured out. Like it’s just kind

  • of cut and dried and I will know everything to hand to my students, and they will simply

  • take it, and I will just have to say it one way. And I think, what I’m realizing, is

  • that we all have incredibly specific histories to the way that we speak. For me, I grew up

  • in Indiana. So, the center of the country. But, I had a father who was a newscaster.

  • So I grew up with, kind of, broadcaster English. So when I went to grad school, there was less

  • that I needed to adjust to find the standard American English. But, every student has a

  • very specific history that theyre coming from. The languages they spoke, and then,

  • the people that they learned English from. Where were they from? What kind of accent

  • were they speaking? And, so, as I’m teaching, each student is, kind of, teaching me a new

  • way to talk about concepts. >> Yeah.

  • >> Because, that’s one of my favorite things about teaching. It can be frustrating sometimes,

  • but it’s really a joy to find the best way to communicate a concept to each individual

  • student. Because it’s always just a little different. So I think I’ve really learned

  • how unique we are, in the way that we communicate. >> And Tom and I were talking last week about

  • how, sometimes, youll be working with, for example, a student from Russia, and youll

  • figure out the right way to, to teach something to him or her. And thenoh, youve learned

  • from the person the right way to teach it. >> Totally.

  • >> And then the next time you have a Russian student, then youre all the better prepared

  • >> Yeah, yeah. Those are awesome moments. Those are huge light bulb moments for me as

  • a teacher, certainly.

  • >> If a student is preparing for something important, like a job interview, for example,

  • and they have a limited amount of time, just a couple weeks maybe. What would you do to

  • work with them? What would your priorities be?

  • >> Well, for all my lessons, we use a recording project to, kind of, get them into the lessons.

  • So theyll send me a recording that they will record of themselves speaking. And so

  • for that week, we would use the text of whatever. If they had a presentation, we would use the

  • presentation text. If they had an interview, they could do a mock interview of themselves

  • speaking. So they get some practice on the vocabulary that theyre going to use. And

  • then, we would use the lesson time to really drill that vocabulary, any concepts, any words

  • that are a little hard to understand. We would really kind of get into why it’s hard to

  • understand, and help them drill those. And then they would have that lesson video throughout

  • the week to, kind of, focus on those interview-specific concepts. And they would practice with that

  • throughout the week. And then if they had a couple weeks, we could come back, see how

  • that’s going, and adjust. But, I love in lessons when we have something that specific,

  • because we can really focus in on vocabulary that theyre using on a daily basis. And

  • that can be great to help them integrate the practice into their everyday conversation.

  • >> Now, at the beginning of this interview, you said one of the first things that students

  • discover is, sort of, how much work it’s going to be.

  • >> Yeah. >> And how complicated it is. So when you

  • have a short period of time to work on one goal, how do you simplify the process, or,

  • what do you focus on? >> For that, if it’s just one goal, we really

  • just focus on succeeding on that, kind of, small world of text. So it becomes much more

  • specific about this word, as opposed to trying to extrapolate major concepts from that word,

  • we just focus in on, when you get to this word, remember to drop your jaw, remember

  • that tongue movement, and drill it a million times this week.

  • >> Right. >> So that you can really nail it in the interview

  • or in your presentation. >> So, for an interview, it would maybe be

  • vocabulary specific to that job interview, or whatever.

  • >> Absolutely >> Just getting comfortable with those core

  • words. >> Yes. Yeah. I mean, we just dive into the

  • material that they will be using in that, whatever environment theyre headed into,

  • so that they can feel as comfortable as possible. The, the thing is, you can practice as much

  • as you can, you, maybe you can practice five hours a day. But, when it comes down to it,

  • youre probably going to be nervous in those situations. And so, when you get in the room,

  • you kind of have to let everything go and just be yourself, and hope that the

  • practice kind of comes with you. >> Yeah.

  • >> Um, but the best way that that practice is going to come with you is if youve drilled

  • and drilled and practiced. And so, we try in the lessons to really give a specific kind

  • of sense of what they need to work on in their alone time as they practice. To build up,

  • and have a successful experience. >> Great. Well Tom, thank you so much for

  • this advice. I appreciate it, and I hope everyone out there has appreciated it too.

  • >> Absolutely. My pleasure. >> And guys, Tom does have availability yet

  • in his schedule for a few more students. So if youre preparing for an important event,

  • or you just want to work with somebody directly on your specific issues,

  • check out RachelsEnglish.com/lessons.

  • >> I’d love to work with you. >> That’s it guys, and thanks so much for

  • using Rachel’s English.

Hey guys. Welcome to the set of Rachel’s English in New York at the YouTube Space.

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