Start to change your focus away from the perfection towards the connection, right?
Find that moment that motivates you where you did have a connection, you ask someone a question,
you learn something about them and then use that as your starting point to say "I want
more of that" and less of the getting stuck in your you know in your at your desk and
worrying about grammar and feeling like you're doing things wrong.
Focus on that we can choose what to focus on in any moment, so focus on that that's my ask.
Welcome back to Beyond Borders. Today you will get some great insights to guide you on your English
learning journey as well as some motivation if you're feeling stuck. This week I sat down
with Lindsay McMahon from All Ears English. If you don't know All Ears it is one of the most
famous esl podcasts with more than 200 million downloads. Lindsay welcome to beyond borders.
Thanks, Ethan I'm excited to be here. Let's get into this amazing conversation, but first
would you like to understand fast English and be understood by anyone when you speak?
Do you want to use your English for connection? Then hit that subscribe button and the bell below,
because just like RealLife for Pollock we will help you to do it.
I was backpacking for a year through South America, I was with all native Spanish speakers
from Spain and Colombia. Um... And I remember they were... I was learning Spanish but I wasn't quite
at the point where I could understand a group of people on the beach drinking, speaking fast,
all that stuff, right. And in that moment, I heard my name. I actually heard like someone
say something about the U.S and there was laughter and I just wanted to know what they were saying.
I felt so disconnected. So, the connection, not perfection, the way I connect to that
is I never want our learners to feel that, right, I never want language to get in the
way of human connection. That's what that's all about. It should always be the number one goal
is to maintain the connection. So if you make a mistake don't drop your eye contact,
don't feel embarrassed, don't move away, look at the person in the eye and keep the
connection going. It's up to you at that moment whether you lose the connection or you keep it,
right. So we have a lot more control than we think we do. And was there anything that you
found useful to keep that connection as you're saying? So say that you were speaking spanish and
you made a mistake, how might you not lose the connection? I think just not, like...
it's nice when you're at a level where you don't necessarily know that you're making mistakes
because you can keep speaking. And keeping that in the back of my head like I actually want to know
about this person, right. There's no way that we can connect if we're focused on our own mistakes
if you're back in your head analyzing the grammar mistake you just made. You are not
able to ask a good question of that person in front of you, right. So actually your
desire to get to know that person should be deeper than your own self-consciousness.
I think that if you're able to build that skill set to be flexible no matter what culture it is
to not maybe judge right away what you don't know, then... That can also be... That's almost like a
sub skill set that you can... you can build is just like that asking yourself when you
have a doubt and not being so quick to judge. Like stepping outside of it and asking questions, being
curious. I think it's curiosity, right. It's kind of like a combination of curiosity that stems from
empathy. Because you... I think that to be a good language learner and like a citizen in the world,
is like we will always want to be thinking why did someone do that or how are they feeling, what are
they thinking right now. At least I'm always like consumed with what people are feeling or thinking,
or why do they do that or not do that, right. So like there's a reason and sometimes it is cultural
or it's their personality, but... Yeah. So you mentioned being a citizen of the world, would
you consider yourself a global citizen and if so what does that mean to you? I think it's a way of
thinking, so being curious about the world wanting to learn new languages as much as possible. I'm
often consumed with my work here so there's not a ton of extra time to focus on Spanish,
but, yeah, I think it comes down to just being interested and wanting to know "oh,
this is done differently, why is that?", right. So I would say, yeah, I'm a citizen of the world.
Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, I would say, based on what you're saying, a lot of it is just kind
of the value set that you hold, so like you're saying, you've mentioned. So far like curiosity,
empathy, I think those are really big ones. And there's a quote that we use a lot that's
"no matter what divides us that which unites us is far greater." So, that's kind of like
the ultimate and everything that's a really difficult ideal to live up to, obviously, because
you... Even if you're just in your home country, I mean, there's people that you're not going to
always see eye to eye with, obviously, when we have elections and things like that that becomes
even... that gap gets stretched out, right. But trying, you know, a little bit to build
that mindset that, you know, as human beings, we're so much more similar than we are different
and we need to start following that more. Exactly there's core human needs and people just kind of
get to them in different ways, right. So their behavior looks different and
we may not agree with their behavior, but if you get down to the problem they think
they're solving with what they're doing, I feel like we can have that empathy at that point.
Exactly. If you start from that place of curiosity and you're asking questions and stuff then
you'll get to that place where you're like "okay, I unders from."
I feel like you can't talk on a podcast about a language without the culture, you just can't
separate the two because if the ultimate goal is connection, whether it's in business or life,
culture is going to be a huge hindrance if you don't understand it. So I like to
think of it as cultural fluency. I think the point is when it comes to
culture there's always a reason that things are done differently in that culture and
I think with covid we're a little at risk of kind of becoming a little like... uh... I don't know,
unaware of that, because we're not traveling as much, business trips aren't happening abroad,
so we should always go below the surface why it's history, it's the society, it's the economy,
what is okay, what's the thing that's done a little differently, why is it done differently
there's always a good reason. That's my viewpoint on culture. Yeah, I find a really... When
I've learned languages I find something that's really useful for this is TV series, actually,
because... And movies to some extent, but I think TV star is always more digestible as in
as a language learner and it can be such a great reflection of how people live in that country,
because it's it tends to like follow, you know, uh... There's like Friends or Seinfeld or any of
these classic sitcoms. Follow the lives of people who are living in that country and stuff and so
it can give you a good window into that culture. If you don't actually live there.
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I think what helped me the most learning honestly any language, also I would spend some time in
South America, so, learning Spanish, living in Guatemala, living in a house in argentina...
What helps me the most, the thing that I absolutely need that I think our listeners our
students need too, is inspiration. In the sense that they need to see a model of the language
being spoken and they need to kind of fall in love with that language they need to see it it needs to
be in front of them in front of their eyes and say "oh wow" that's what that means, make the
connections and say I want to be able to speak that way someday. So I think it's like the heart
piece that's often missing in language learning that we try to bring it back to the heart, right.
Involve your heart before you involve your mind does that make any sense? I'm not sure if that's
clear. Totally, yeah, we always talk about, like, a deep burning sense of purpose that you need to
connect to and I think that's probably something kind of similar is, what is that that you can
connect to deep within that's going to push you through those challenging times right. Completely.
They're really scared of that person judging them because of their accent, because of them making
mistakes. Just because of the fact that they're a non-native speaker and most of your experiences
of course you can meet people who are who are not very nice and stuff and you could have a negative
experience, but in the most part I think if people go to the United States or you go to most
countries people are very helpful and you know they're going to... They're going to be open if
you're wanting to speak and if you have questions and things like that so, it's going to be pretty
rare that people are going to really be judging you as a non-native speaker, because it comes
totally to the connection, right. I think you're right ethan and it's so true I think it comes back
to this idea that we have total control over what we focus on in any given moment, so, maybe they
are judging you but if you're not thinking about that, that doesn't have to hinder your connection
with them, it's about what you say, right, it's about what you do that opens the connection.
So when you first approach them maybe they'll think "oh I can't speak with this student" like
i you know it's not going to work, but then you say something or you make eye contact, you make a
gesture, you ask them something about their lives, that's going to open it up so who cares, right.
If they're judging in the beginning, they're not judging at the end of that interaction.
The part that's missing in a standard teacher, uh, classroom experience is that
longevity that motivation to keep continually showing up and, you know,
it's hard to do that in a really traditional environment, but if you start
pulling the experiences the topics the interests that you have towards your learning experience.