Gloria Spagnoli: Find Your Confidence and Inner Resources
Kris Broholm and guest Gloria Spagnoli discuss the differences between language teaching and learning. They explore how teachers can better motivate students, the impact of teacher quality, and the challenges of freelance versus institutional teaching. The episode also covers how learners can maximize their lessons.
August 15, 2020 · 49 min
EP 177: Gloria Spagnoli: Find Your Confidence and Inner Resources
0:00 / 49:21
Guest
Gloria Spagnoli
What You'll Hear
- 1 Welcome & Today's Language Teaching Insights
- 2 From Language Lover to Italian Teacher
- 3 How to Make Mistakes and Learn
- 4 Unlock Conversation Through Active Listening
- 5 Trust: Key to Effective Language Learning
- 6 Teaching Without Pressure & Online Opportunities
- 7 Final Advice: Motivation, Experimentation & Career
Questions Covered in the Show
How did Gloria Pechnoli become a language teacher?- 4m
What are the differences between teaching children and adults a foreign language?- 5m
How can language teachers encourage students to overcome shyness and make mistakes?- 7m
How can a self-learner improve listening and speaking skills for conversational fluency?- 13m
How can a language learner choose the right teacher for them?- 22m
Should language teachers push shy students to speak?- 25m
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Welcome to the actual fluency podcast with Kris Broholm. This show will inspire, motivate and teach you how to learn foreign languages the best way. On this show, you'll hear incredible stories from amazing language learners who've learned five to 10, even 30 plus languages, as well as industry experts who help shape modern language learning through innovation and research. As we dive into language learning methods, techniques, and apps, you'll quickly discover what works and what doesn't. This is the actual fluency podcast and this is Kris Broholm.
Today's episode is sponsored by Optilingo. You can learn more than 18 languages through guided immersion. Get your first lesson for free by going to optilingo.com or just search the App Store for Optilingo. That's O P T I L I N G O.
Hello everyone, welcome to episode 177 of The Actual Fluency Podcast. I'm really happy to have you here again for another interview. And today I'm joined by Glorious Pechnoli, who is an Italian teacher. And in the episode we get into the differences between teaching and learning, and what teachers can do better to have a bigger impact on their students and to make them learn more. We also get into a little bit of how you as a teacher or a learner can apply your skills and knowledge to the other discipline. So if you're a language teacher yourself, what do you do to keep yourself motivated and learning better yourself? But also how can you as a language learner draw benefits from good language teachers? How can you get the most out of lessons? And this is a very interesting topic for me. I know there are a lot of language learners listening to this podcast, but also language teachers who might be teaching in a variety of different ways.
We also get into the differences between the quality of teachers and whether you're just a let's say a conversational teacher who just kind of practices conversation or you are you're preparing big curriculums. We talk about the difference between being employed by an official body, sort of a school and working as a freelance teacher in comparison.
So thank you so much for listening to this podcast. And I know I don't often make like big intros. That's mostly because I want you to be able to listen to this episode a few years from now and still enjoy the timelessness of the interview segment. But today I just wanted to give a little shout out to my language courses, bite-size languages, which have just come out. And if you're listening to this, you know, check out bite-size languages.com or go to actualfluency.com and see what they're all about because it's really exciting for me after six years of language publishing to finally have something of my own. So check those out for beginners in Spanish, Italian, German, French, and Russian. And it trains listening comprehension through comprehensible input. So you can be better at pronunciation, better at listening, better understanding when people speak fast, and you also train your grammar and vocabulary knowledge completely automatically. So go check that out. It's 100 lessons per language. So there's a lot to get stuck into.
But for now, enjoy the episode with Gloria and I'll see you in the next episode. All right, Gloria, welcome to The Actual Fluency Podcast. Do you want to start out by giving the listeners a little introduction to who you are, where you're from, and how you got your interest in foreign language learning?
Hi, Chris. First of all, thank you for having me. I am Gloria and I am originally from Italy, currently living in Spain. And I'm an Italian teacher, and I've basically always been interested and passionate about languages since I was probably a child. This is why when it came to deciding which high school or secondary school I should enroll, I had no doubt and went directly to the linguistic and foreign languages curriculum. And then I continued on to university.
Then when I was there, I discovered that I love teaching. It was almost like a surprise. But let's say this is in short words, my story. Language has always been a great love for me and teaching was a sudden and unexpected love, and I'm really happy I can have it as a career nowadays.
Yes, it's great and obviously the internet and the globalization has has made it possible for many people to teach and travel or you know, be independent in many new ways. But how did it actually, how did you actually become a teacher, so to speak? Did you have a was it a teaching degree in languages, or do you do you kind of both teaching and languages separately and then combine them?
No, it was more a separate thing. I, when I was doing my masters, I had to sort of do a mentorship or well, I had many options. I needed credits and I could have collected those credits by either doing a language certifications or by attending a workshop or by doing a practical work experience, and I chose the third option. And intuitively, I went for teaching Italian to foreign children. I don't know why, I always said I hate I hate teaching, I hate children. But intuitively, I went for that option and I loved it.
When when my experience in that school ended, I decided to get a certification and become officially certified to teach Italian to foreigners. So, it was a the last thing I did in my study path, my study curriculum.
Hmm. And do do you still teach kids today or is it more adults now?
No, it's more adults.
Right. Is it easier that way or is it just because of the online, it's it's it's it's safer, I guess so.
Well, yeah, yeah, it's because it's online, it's safer and I you know, when you have a kid, this is my this is my personal opinion and my personal preference. I prefer to have an interaction with an adult, especially because of the services that I offer and of my approach. So what I teach and this what I want to transmit is more suitable for an adult learner than for a kid. So this is why I moved on to adult teaching.
Hmm. And what would you say are sort of the the differences? obviously, adults have a a wider experience and understanding of of many things and perhaps the more complicated things like grammar and things can maybe be easily understood in in theory. But what about the other parts of the language? Are we kind of the same as a learner when you when we're kids and when we're adults or how does that work?
Definitely not. No, didn't quite make it. Definitely not. They're, you know, we tend to be a more self-conscious. Well, it depends on the person. I don't want to generalize. There are self-conscious kids and self-conscious adults and brave kids and brave adults. It depends. Well, I don't want to say that the self-conscious person is not brave. I got it wrong.
But there are, there can be the same characteristics when you are a child or and when you are an adult. Of course, when you are an adult, you're probably more likely to be self-conscious and wary of what you say. You're more worried about making mistakes because you remember when you were a child that people probably would laugh at your mistakes when you were trying to learn your first language. And maybe it depends on your work position. Maybe you're a manager and you're not really comfortable with making mistakes or seeing yourself in a growth process. So there are totally two different experiences.
Yeah, so that's that's actually a top tip already, I guess. We can call it that that we should as an adult language learner, and and kid language learners, I guess, if if anyone's listening is to embrace the mistakes. Don't worry about making them, which is something that I find very difficult personally, because I mean, I might not know of every mistake I'm making when I'm learning a language, but if I'm not entirely sure of how to say things, sometimes I I freeze up instead and I just don't say anything, or I don't interact with people, I might have gone for it if I had a little bit more sort of, well, not bravery maybe, but, you know, if I had a little bit less of a care of of being wrong.
So that's definitely something that I I know also that Benny Lewis said a lot, like, make 200 mistakes a day or something was one of his goals when he started learning a language. And I think that's really a cool mindset to have that the more mistakes you make, the more the better your language skills get because it's a it's trying out things and and getting better.
So, how but how do you how do you make students do that, though, if if you have someone who's a little bit maybe, I don't know, a little bit introverted, maybe a little bit shy, maybe, and and they're just a little bit maybe frozen, they don't they don't want to speak too much, or when they do speak, they they kind of rely on the the same phrases they've internalized by memory, and what do you do as a teacher to kind of push them out of that?
Well, in my personality, I guess it helps a lot because I have been told many times that people feel comfortable around me and making mistakes around me. So I'm pretty glad about it.
And then, I mean, if I am face-to-face on Zoom or Skype with a student and I see that the student is getting nervous, I remind them, don't worry, say whatever you want to say, and if I have something to say, I will tell you. But if you make a mistake, it's no big deal, and it's not a disaster, it's not the end of the world, and it doesn't say anything about you. Right. The only thing a mistake can say about you is that you're learning. Otherwise, if you didn't make them, learning cannot wouldn't be able to occur.
Right. And what kind of mistakes do you would you say is then beneficial to correct, if any?
It depends on the situation and the person. If if the person is particularly self-conscious when trying to express themselves, I do not correct grammar obsessively. I'd rather encourage this person to keep talking and talking and talking because I want this person to feel more confident. Then we can dive deeper into maybe polishing grammar or choosing the right words, but at the beginning, if a person is particularly shy, I prefer to have this person talk and express themselves fully and lightheartedly, as I like to say.
If I see on the other hand that there's a maybe an excess of confidence and but a difficulty in transmitting the right message, then I intervene. It depends on the situation and on the person, of course, and on the level of self-esteem, I have to modulate a lot.
Yeah. Is it depending on the type of mistake they make, or or is it more, is it a lot more important about the the personality and the the learner themselves?
The personality, I guess. Or a mix of the two.
A mix of the two. The type of mistake and the personality. I I I cannot not take personality into account because it plays a big role in the exchange that I have with the student. Right. And if you have, if you have students who are very confident and they have no problems making mistakes or anything, no problems speaking. And but they and and what they say is totally understandable. Is there a distinction in correcting things like that? Uh if any potential teachers are listening out there, you know, between, you know, if I say something that's grammatically incorrect, but you understand me still, and I say something and you just don't understand me, you know, you would you still if if you understood everything, would you still correct would still correct that in in your in your lessons?
Again, there is no black or white. It depends on on the person, on their goal. If you you you tell me, for example, Gloria, I want to be perfect. Well, perfect doesn't exist, but imagine you say that to me, I want to be perfect. Okay, I'm going to adapt to your to your needs. But if you just want to have conversation, it doesn't matter if from time to time you make a mistake. Being a so obsessed by grammar, I don't think it personally don't think it helps.
And then when you speak about making understandable, making mistakes, but which are understandable. When you speak, you have, well, I have as a I as a teacher have to see if the student makes that mistake consistently or if it's just a one-time thing. Again, there is never a black or white answer to this.
Yeah, I understand, totally understand. But it it always it always fascinates me, not now. Always fascinates me, uh, with online teachers that, um, you're basically responsible in a way for somebody else's learning, but language learning is is very little about knowing facts like other subjects. Like if you taught me math, it would be very easy to figure out if I knew a certain part of math that was in the curriculum. But learning a foreign language, to me, it's a very individual thing that you I've forgotten who said it, but someone said like, you can't can't really teach, you can only help someone learn, you know, So so as a teacher, when you sit down and you kind of start start your your the process of of teaching someone, that seems to me like a very big task, a very challenging task.
Um, so how do you how do you start preparing for that and and building, I don't know, maybe a curriculum is is is not the right word, but how do you get an idea or a setup or process together that helps people learn without feeling, you know, like you're just memorizing things, or or things like that. What what does someone do as a teacher, what can they do to help people learn foreign languages better?
Well, I I I tell everybody that languages are just more than words, and and verbs, and set expressions, set phrases. I try to prepare students to the idea that they are going to slowly reason like another person. Because there's a there's a soul behind a language. It's not just a fact. You don't just learn a conjugation or a list of words. And this is one of the greatest struggles that I see because I see people who can look up words so accurately and so intelligently, but those words don't really uh well, they they don't really fit into an Italian conversation. So this is one of the things that I do, like preparing the students to the idea that they're going to speak differently than they normally do in English, for instance. And that they're going to start also to reason differently after a while.
And then I what what I do, I I work a lot with self-taught learners. I work a lot with people who have learned grammar, words on their own, who have a great knowledge, but then struggle when they need to have a conversation. So listening and speaking are the main issues. What I do, I, um
So can I just jump into that? Because I think that's extremely interesting and something that I hear myself over and over and I experience that myself. So how can you sort of improve that? Let's say I have spent some time on apps or some beginner courses and I do have a basic set of vocabulary and understanding of the language. How do I, maybe you can give it from both the teacher and the self-learner perspective, how do you kind of move upgrade that into a conversational level? what's the steps you take with the student in that case?
Okay, first of all, training your listening is key to prepare yourself to have conversations. First you need to understand, and then you're going to have the words to respond. And when you begin to listen, first you need to choose what is right for you. So something that is at your level, but a bit challenging, but ideally not something that is way too fast or way too complex word, but not even something that is at a very, very beginner level. So you need to be motivated and challenged a little bit, but you don't need to stress out stress yourself too much.
And then I taking one of the mindfulness principles, I tell my students to pay attention, but by saying pay attention, I don't mean focus like a crazy person. This is not my idea. My idea is just to relax and be present and see what comes. Because sometimes we get deeply stressed out when we try to understand something in a new language. We have expectations of what we should be able to understand, and we are so good at scolding ourselves. Right. And then we get into this loop of self-talk, saying, oh, you didn't understand that, you should have been able to understand that, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And that doesn't help. Because then we listen to the self-talk, we don't listen to what is actually coming, which are the words in our target language. So, I teach to stay present and see what comes. Focus on the intonation, focus on listen to words running and chasing each other, as I like to say.
And then always have a transcription. Because uh it's a bit of uh utopian to think that you are going to be able to understand 100% with no transcription with you. You need a reference. And you need to see what the sounds that you're listening to correspond to. And when you see it, you make that connection, and that builds automatically builds confidence because you know that that sound corresponds to that word. And the next time you hear it, you're going to be able to remember it and understand it.
Yeah. It's funny that and this is, I mean, we didn't we didn't organize this or plan it in advance, but what you just described is is exactly the philosophy behind the new courses that I just put out for bite-size languages. So it's kind of funny that uh that you said that because they're they're essentially listening courses for beginners that have transcripts and there's a few other, you know, learning tools in there. But the main philosophy is to listen to content that is for a beginner, a little bit harder. Like you wouldn't understand all, and it's dialogues, so you get the like practical language that you would actually learn to speak.
Um, so thank you for setting me up for just putting a little plugin there. But, you know, if people are interested in this, they're they're check out bite-size languages. It is available in for Italian. Um, and that's the the philosophy that we went with. So I'm I'm very happy to hear someone else say that the the the listening because you could have said, uh you could have said it's important to speak, right? But you said the first thing you said was you have to listen. And I I just think that that is not something that's taught in schools today. You know, they always emphasize reading and and speaking. At least when I was in school they did. And they never really emphasized the the power of just listening to get the pronunciation right, to get the where one word begins and finish, you know, starts and stops. Um, and the the the meaning, and you just get the grammar when you do listening, you also get vocabulary when you listen. Um, so so that's a a great great suggestion.
Yeah, and uh I it's true no one really teaches you how to well, how to listen. They when I went to when I went to school, it was like, okay, get used to it and in time, you'll be able to to catch it, blah, blah, blah. And speaking, oh my God, nothing at all. Nothing.
This is the Actual Fluency Podcast with Kris Broholm. Make sure to join the Actual Fluency Email Club by going to actualfluency.com/join. We'll be right back after these messages.
Big shout out to Optilingo for sponsoring The Actual Fluency Podcast here in 2020. Optilingo is a language learning app that features a method known as guided immersion to teach your over 18 languages at the time of recording this segment. And it focuses a lot about speaking and repeating and listening, of course, to get your pronunciation just right. It doesn't bother about grammar, it doesn't bother about long explanations of syntax and morphology, or any kind of complicated concepts that kind of hold you back from speaking better. And you can get a free lesson right now if you go to optilingo.com. That's O P T I L I N G O dot com, Optilingo.
And uh if you do decide to subscribe for the full version of each language, like I said, there are 18, there are more than 18 actually, available. Um it's only five bucks a month. So it's extremely affordable as well for the for the full package. But I'm just really happy they are part of the podcast here in 2020. And it's run by my good friend John T, who kind of stumbled upon the method that the app teaches when he was trying to learn his own heritage language of Circassian, of which there is uh not a lot of uh resources out there for. So thank you so much to John T and Optilingo. I hope you give it a try. And uh let's get back to the action. You're listening to the Actual Fluency Podcast. And now, back to Kris.
And I think people don't believe me when I told this story, but when I I I've been learning English since I was seven. And the first time when I went to the UK, I was 14. And it was a shock for me because I thought I was going to be able to understand because my grades were good. They really were. And I knew how to build sentences, how new words, I knew my verbs, but then, oh my God, I was completely lost.
But then I I said, okay, let's take this period as a trial period, see what I can understand and see what happens. And then I slowly began to listen to other people talking between each other and catch a little bit, spy in a way. And which is what I do nowadays in Spain, because people there talk really fast for me. So I try to spy with my ears, close my eyes and uh see how people um uh use words, or yes, how they talk and what words do they use and uh what type of recurrent expressions do they use, which is really, really important for me.
Yeah, the the building blocks of normal conversation, because you hear them again and again. If you hear, if you listen for them, that is. If you don't, then it's very tricky. And I guess there's also the difference between the sentences like I live in X, you know, very simple sentences. And when native speakers speak, they insert all these kind of things like, you know, yeah, like, you know, that's a good example there. So they don't, you know, we don't speak in full sentences, perfect from textbook style. There's always inserted things, there might be slang, things might be omitted in certain examples, and definitely uh sounds are emitted in many cases when when when people speak naturally, because it has to go fast.
So I think, I guess what we've uh concluded now is that listening is amazing. Uh, which I, it took me some time to figure that one out in uh in my language learning journey. But what else can teachers do to sort of help students be more successful and and do you have, have you ever had people who maybe you just couldn't help in some way because they didn't have the right mindset or they didn't have the right approach, or anything like that?
Well, you need to have a good relationship with your teacher, and you need to be very careful when you choose your teacher. You need to know why you're choosing them over another. And then when I see students who have, um, who tend to a negative self-talk, I make them focus on what they actually achieved. For example, oh, this is so terrible. No, it was not, because you went from there to here, and you made this change. So this is crucial. Sometimes people are so strict with themselves and they don't even realize how far they've they've come. Yeah. So there I I have a more objective view of the situation and I help them see what they did.
And mostly, when I see that I can help people succeed is because we have a a relationship where the student can trust me, and I feel that I can do a good work with the student. I think it's uh this is more worth more than any technique, any exercise, Right. advice. When you create a good team with the with your student, this is where you can make changes.
But how do you know as a student, let's say, let's say I I go online and I book a couple of lessons with a few different teachers. How do I know that they are right for me? Is it all about like having fun or feeling accomplished after the session, or is it all about feeling like I've learned something, or actually getting along, so to speak, like being having a good, friendly conversation that isn't pressure and isn't awkward, or like what what do you what do you look for when you when you consider like a a good partnership between the the student and the teacher?
Oh, that's a a hard question because we're all different. We're all looking for different things. But if I were a student and I went online, first of all, I would freak out because I wouldn't know where to look. Secondly, if I found a let's say, I found I find five teachers, five that might potentially help me, uh first of all, I want to make sure that we have a good connection, but I feel like I can learn something and that I am actually engaged in the process. I want to be able to do things.
When I did my teacher training, they told me that the teacher has to speak like very little during a lesson. Right. And the rest of the work has to be done by the by the student. Interesting. And as a student I would want to uh feel engaged and feel like I am producing and creating something. I want to feel independent. The person, the teacher who makes you feel independent, in my opinion, is the best one. It might sound counterintuitive because teachers get paid for giving lessons, but when we are not necessary anymore, this is where we have done a good job.
Yeah, I agree with that. Totally. But isn't that difficult sometimes when if you have a student that's a little shy maybe or a little introverted and maybe their Italian isn't great. So how how can you how can you take yourself out of that? Don't you have to you know, push them a lot in in that example.
Well, not pushing. I don't really like to push people and make them feel uncomfortable. Well, first of all, I I'm an introvert myself and it took me a while to realize that. I thought I was an extrovert, but I'm more of an introvert and I'm also highly sensitive. So I understand the struggles.
If a student wants to speak, wants to learn how to speak, but feels shy, I encourage the student to speak by himself or herself or to a plan, to a pet, or I have a speaking program which is entirely on on Telegram. So the student can send me audio recordings via Telegram. They don't have to show their face. They can practice as much as they want. So it's totally within their comfort zone. But while producing something.
So I don't push people and just uh if I see resistance, I just try to take small steps slowly. I never want to pressure people because I know it's it's counterproductive. Every time I've been pushed as a student, I've always produced bad results and I've felt bad about myself and uh I created a negative memory about that situation. So I don't try to I don't want to do it. Right, that makes sense. I offer alternatives for people who are shy, introverted, or highly sensitive, as me, to be able to produce something and make something and feel okay with themselves and slowly feel more and more comfortable.
Yeah, that makes sense. I think that that's not conventional wisdom either. I think a lot of teachers feel like they have to try and push people to talk because that's the only way to kind of learn. So that's that's something that I haven't heard anyone, well, maybe I've heard it before, but it's definitely not the most common way to look at it, because if I had a, obviously, I don't have any training or anything, but if I had a student who didn't really speak very well, one of my first inclinations would be to try and, you know, I say push them, but, you know, let's say give them some some pressure to to perform, because that's the way you kind of push people out of their comfort zone and and get them to actually speak some languages, but it's interesting that that that's probably caused the opposite to happen. At least that's what I I got from what you just said.
Yeah. And uh I I stressed it every time that I that I can. Kindness, kindness is key. So, seriously, uh I look like a fairy godmother now, but you need to give people the freedom to choose how to express themselves, when and if they want to express themselves. This is why I'm getting more and more fan of Telegram, which is uh a tool that I use also in my uh in my, well, my membership, my my club. I have a a private club or forum my students to practice speaking. And I thought of Telegram because this way people can decide whether to send videos, pictures, audios or just text, depending on how they're feeling. And if they don't want to write anything, they just don't do it. They take a break, and no big deal. Yeah. Can it takes the pressure off, but allows people to still learn when they they feel like producing something. Say, for example, you you just feel like listening today, fine. Just listen. That's not the end of the word.
Right. And another thing that we often like to talk about here on the podcast is having a career in languages, which is obviously what you've done. And with with your membership and and the other office you have on on your website. Would you say that's uh kind of the the evolution of a teacher or did you start in the beginning to say, okay, I'm going to build like a some kind of system or online group or well, sort of like a school, but, you know, not really a school. Uh did you do that going into the the teaching or did you do a lot of teaching first and then kind of combine all the experience that you had and and and lessons and things to to offer more of a, let's say teaching that isn't based on you being there hour by hour.
Oh, I I did a lot of teaching before. At first I I taught in person for some language schools uh in uh in Italy and then and in London as well. And uh then I I created my my website and I thought of what I could uh offer, which was a an alternative to the one to one because I understand and I realized that not everyone has the time to commit to one to one. People are busy or people might be in a different time zone. So I working with someone from Australia might be a bit more difficult for me because I'm in Europe. But with uh these alternatives, with with programs and courses, I can reach out to people who might connect with me and want to learn with me. So, I took the two steps. I don't know I don't know if it's an evolution, but it's not an evolution of my teaching, it's an evolution of me directly.
Yeah. And a question I always I always uh want to know about teachers and maybe this is just me being weird, but is it not difficult to let's say you get you get new students all the time. Is and and you've kind of made you've built your way of teaching certain aspects or certain levels of Italian. Does it not get like boring to like constantly repeat the same points to new students?
Could be, but the good thing is that everyone is different. Right. Not everyone has the same Yeah. No, no one is uh no students is the same and uh you get to see nuances that maybe uh someone has didn't have. Well, of course, if you keep repeating the same things, of course, I I get it. It might it might feel a bit boring, but luckily enough, I I don't know. I don't have this feeling that I keep I keep repeating the same things over and over again. Uh I worry I might bore people with my mantras. I kind of, or not mantras, but the things that I by that I pass on. Well, I find myself saying, oh my God, Gloria, you're being totally boring. People are not going to stand you. But you never know how someone else is going to react to what you say.
Yeah. And I guess that language learning, you know, you can make a lot of language learning interesting. But at the end of the day, if you if it's a serious hobby or career, you have to put a lot of hours into something that can feel a little bit repetitive. So, it's perhaps not it's perhaps not avoidable to uh you know, to um to feel some feelings like that sometimes. I mean, I guess at some point you have to actually put some work in. It's not all fun and games all the time for the teacher and the student, I guess. But you can do it to get it to a very good point. Like 95% or something, I think. Maybe it's possible to make it so it doesn't feel like learning at any point. Maybe it you can always make it fun.
Um, but I'm not I'm a little bit doubting whether the the efficiency of of that kind of approach. But that could be a a whole episode on itself, I'm sure on the kind of fun versus efficiency in language learning, because I feel like there's definitely something there where if you do something that's really fun, like watching movies and listening to podcasts, it has relatively little effect on your learning. If you just kind of sit there and do nothing and just watch a movie. But conversely, if you do something like, let's say, flashcards, which I find extremely effective. Like if I do flashcards, I kind of I learn words super fast. But I can't stand them for more than 5, 10 minutes at a time because it's so boring. Um, you know, so that's kind of like the the graph I'm thinking about is like, okay, how how much fun, how much efficiency, uh time it takes and that kind of thing.
Um so that like I said, that could probably be an entire episode, but I guess as a teacher, your goal is to make it as light as possible. So people actually want to keep learning and keep putting in time. You can't just set people down like they did in the old days and just memorize words line by line. Uh that would be dreadful.
Yeah. And it can be fun actually. Because luckily, I I love to make jokes. So, when I see that I can make a joke that can help my student remember a word or for an expression or anything else, then I drop it. And uh we have a laugh together and the person remembers that specific word. But jokes are not jokes are not prohibited when you when you teach. You don't have to be serious all the time.
Right. Oh no, no, not at all. I I think on the contrary, like you should aim to be non-serious, but um I think the the objective for the teacher and and the student is is definitely to keep doing it. That that's kind of my philosophy for language learning success is. The only way to fail is if you stop learning. You know, you never fail at language learning if you just keep learning.
So, I guess the main objective is to make it, well, not necessarily as fun as possible, but definitely more fun. That should be a a big priority, like you said earlier, you want the student to be comfortable and and, you know, find a a teacher that you connect with. And I think that all comes down to enjoying yourself, having a good time, even if you're struggling a little bit with the language element of it, if you can't speak too well yet, or some of the grammar things are giving you a headache, you know, you can still have a good time with the teacher and make a joke about it, or, you know, have talk about it and and and you still feel like doing a lesson the next day or or a few days later. It's not like you go home crying because you couldn't uh conjugate a an Italian verb or something.
Yeah. Well, no, it's not the end of the world if you're going to conjugate. I I usually say you're going to do it now, you'll be able to do it tomorrow. There's Right. going to be a moment sooner or later. But never, ever give up.
Totally. And uh when people say, I maybe I should do more, I'm not doing enough. I say, no, no, no, no, no, you're already doing enough because most of the time these people are working really hard and stress themselves out. So I say, you maybe you should try to do it differently. So less stress and less thinking, and go for it.
That's almost like the Michelle Thomas approach with um I don't know if you you've read about him or seen some of the documentaries about the Michelle Thomas method, where he sits people down in armchairs and, you know, nice comfortable rooms. And he's basically saying that, you know, comfort is everything and the student has no responsibility of the success of the lesson at all. So kind of like, it relieves them of the kind of feeling of pressure. And so when they start the lesson, people are are just comfortable. And then the other thing he does, which I think will will resonate very much with what you just said is if somebody's trying to, you know, they look into the clouds and they they repeat the word a few times for themselves trying to remember it. He always went like, don't try to remember. Because forcing some remembering something is not very efficient compared to just letting it happen. Because that's how language works, you know, we we when we're kids, we don't walk around thinking, oh, I really need to remember what Apple is, you know. No, we just hear it enough times and then it it will be obvious. Um, so I think that's very important too.
But maybe um as a sort of finishing note, you could give uh if somebody came and asked you, what would be your top tip for a language teacher and a language learner taking lessons? for for to be more successful. What's the what's your number one tip? Maybe something that isn't too commonly thrown around. One, have any top tip? Sorry. Well, I mean, you can do it, we can do a couple if if you have, but yeah, I mean, I'm thinking like what is the most valuable change or thing that a learner or or a teacher can do in their next lesson and they will feel, they will improve their success rate or their learning of the language.
For teachers, don't be afraid to be yourself and propose your approach. And don't be afraid to think outside the box. Be unconventional because maybe your intuition might be more effective than 1,000 techniques. So, dare to be you. Because you might find someone who are is going to appreciate what you have to offer.
And for learners, um there are plenty of tips that I would like to give, but uh choose to actively engage in the process, live it. Live the language. Don't just learn it. Live it. Don't ever forget why you chose the language. Don't lose the enthusiasm. And as for for learners as well, don't be afraid to be creative. If you're learning by yourself, there are plenty of creative things that you can do to to learn, to remember, to to speak. Just uh find the the method that works well for you.
Hmm. Experiment in other words, just try new things. Well, fantastic. Uh I'm really happy that we went over so many useful tips and tricks for teachers and for learners. And I I guess that now with I mean, obviously we're recording this at a sort of stressful global time. But normally it's a very good job to be uh teaching online uh with the flexibility of working from anywhere theoretically with an internet connection. And uh I think a lot of people who have language skills and interest, this would be a great career for for so many people where you can, you know, decide the rules of your own life and and I'm not saying you should be teaching from a beach somewhere necessarily. I thought I think that would be inconvenient. But uh you could if you really wanted to, you could.
So that's why I'm also happy to have a lot of teachers on the podcast over the years. So if uh people are interested, you can go back through the podcast library, uh episode library, sorry, and check out some of the other episodes where we talk about the more tips and tricks about teaching and also more inspirational stories like Glorious of how you got into teaching. Um and how that could be emulated. I know there are a lot of teaching certificates available out there now that even some of them you can take online fully remotely. So it's very easy to get the skills required. And there's such a demand now. Even if you're listening to this and think, well, English is the only language I have that I'm really good at. Well, I mean, the whole world is dying to learn English right now. China, Asia, India as well, you know, there's just such a huge demand for for uh for English lessons that even if everyone listening to this podcast became English teachers, there would still be tons and tons of opportunities available.
Um so I truly believe that's a great way to to get get your feet wet and start a career with languages as a focal point. And then you can start once you have a steady income and a steady flow of students, you can start doing things like like you're doing with the, you know, making it slightly less about hour per hour and producing maybe courses or books or uh like you have a membership, uh things like that. And um if people are interested in that, you know, check out Langpreneur, my friend, Yan is is doing a great podcast over there talking about the business side of language. So you might be able to get some tips and tricks there for for setting up as a as an online Langpreneur as he calls it, you know, a language entrepreneur.
But for now, Gloria, I just want to say thank you so much for coming on and and sharing your experience and tips. It's been a pleasure to uh virtually meet you, I suppose, if we can call it. Thank you. And but here in in in the final uh seconds, do you just want to give people the places to find you and how they can learn more and maybe there are some Italian learners out there who are thinking, you know, I really like the way she explains it and I want to do lessons with her. How can they get in touch with you?
Yes, I have a website, which is speakita.com. It's S P E A K I T A dot com. And then on Instagram, speakita_learn italian lightheartedly. Like one word. This is my Instagram account that you can find me there.
Perfect. Nice. And um, yeah, definitely go and check that out. And like I said, check out Langpreneur and bite-size Italian if people are interested in improving your listening skills and and pronunciation in in the same kind of lesson. So, thank you once again, Gloria, and to everyone else, thank you for listening, and I'll see you in the next one. Thank you.
My deepest gratitude goes out to Optilingo for sponsoring this episode of the podcast. You can get a free lesson on Optilingo by going to optilingo.com, available for iOS or Android, and it's spelled O P T I L I N G O, Optilingo. Thanks for listening to the Actual Fluency podcast with Kris Broholm. To get more language learning tips, strategies, and inspiration, join the Actual Fluency email club by going to actualfluency.com/join. We hope you enjoyed the show and hope you've gotten some useful information. Till next time, this is the Actual Fluency podcast, signing off.