Arsenio's ESL Podcast

Arsenio's ESL Podcast: Katarina Gleisberg on Communication in the Classroom

July 07, 2019 Arsenio Buck Season 4
Arsenio's ESL Podcast
Arsenio's ESL Podcast: Katarina Gleisberg on Communication in the Classroom
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Show Notes Transcript

Another phenomenal podcast/YouTube video with Katarina Gleisberg! Ahhh, communication in the classroom!

Just recently, I picked up a new class at my place of "resources," and in this class, there are two Chinese students and four Thais. Depending on the situation and drive, Thai students can lack that burning desire to learn English. Some class sizes with up to 8 students can be bores because their "why" is very weak. However, when you have a culturally diverse classroom setting? Oh, conversations run rampant. During my break time, I heard -- and for the first time, English being spoken instead of Thai.

Communication in the classroom, which we talk about in this video, determines the outcome of your English language capabilities.

So, listen to Katarina and I chat it up and listen to her unbelievable feedback and tools (as always).

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Speaker 1:

Hi guys, welcome back to another e as a podcast. Welcome back to another wonderful live that we're going to be doing. Well, not necessarily alive, but it's going to be on youtube and podcast. One day I got the wondrous and the one n d o leak, a treat, a Glassberg here with the again, and we're going to be going over some wonderful topics. So thank you so much for coming on Katrina. Thank you for having me again. Absolutely. So there was some things, man, we had a kind of touch up on some things, so we need to go over. Okay, let's first go over the first topic. Okay. So we had some Q and a. Some things that of course I discussed in the past. I've sent you some messages in regards to some disheartening conversations I've had with students. I remember at the end of May I was teaching a class and some of the students at the very end they said, teacher, we already know how to speak English. We want to learn grammar because grammar will help us at university and et Cetera, et Cetera, et cetera. And I'm like, wait, what? What are they talking about? And it's really, it was really sad because after class had finished, I went with one of the students who were on my side in a taxi and we went all the way down this long road, a long road. And it, the conversation, it was very bad and I was like, dude, I'm not going to be able to of course survive at this particular school. So yeah, that's one thing I want to talk about. Conversation and grammar. How does it tie in? And I mean, I just don't understand how someone in a non native English speaking country would much rather learn something outside of conversation then, you know, conversation itself. So I'm gonna let you take it away now.

Speaker 2:

Well, I feel like that mentality shows,

Speaker 3:

yeah.

Speaker 2:

What is valued in that person's education setting? Right. So I come from a background of, in Grad school we're taught from the get go and our language teaching program that all lessons should have a balance of reading, writing, speaking, and listening. Those are the four domains of language learning. No matter if it's your native language or a foreign language, those are the four domains and you have to have that integrative approach or your, um, things are not going to tie together and you're not going to learn as quickly or effectively. So I would imagine in a context like that, it must, I'm assuming you're, that student probably grew up low. Their version of language learning was very old school with grammar worksheet.

Speaker 1:

And so I mean, grammar worksheets and how grammar, learning, grammar out of context. So remember we talked about grammar in context, vocabulary in context, learning grammar by worksheets alone. It's not very effective, is it?

Speaker 2:

Ah, it is not. I always thought that the easiest way to teach grammar was through someone's writing. Have them start with jotting down what they do know and then we can teach through their own words because their own message. We are egocentric people, right? We learned from our own situations. When I, I remember as a kid having those grammar worksheets where each sentence is about a new person and I've totally isolated topic. It's not interesting, but we learn more from ourselves. Right? So I always start with a piece of writing if possible. Right? But as we said, language learning is an integrative approach. And I would assume that most students have this goal of learning English so that they can communicate because their sole English language learning isn't always going to be writing papers and taking tests. Most people when they learn a language that ultimate goal is, oh, I want to be able to communicate with native speakers. I want to be able to travel and use all these language skills I worked so hard to acquire. And Gosh, when you're doing conversation in class, that's so important for the students because they can notice whatever that grammar topic is that they have learned. It's so much more powerful when they have that reinforced and a natural conversation out in public.

Speaker 1:

Right. And that ties into exactly what I was telling you right before we, I actually clicked record on here and it's the story in regards to what I had experienced over the last week. Um, and it's about like particular areas of Bangkok. They're very, very interested in one place over here would be completely different from another place to just 10 kilometers outside, right. Or like five miles down the road. And so here I am on a Thursday evening, I remember I was sitting down, I had this girl Wa this lady walk in and I asked her what her name was and she said Lynn. And then I looked at, of course the manifests and she was Chinese and I'm like, this is going to be interesting because now I had someone from native China who's in my classroom, boom, another one comes in who I had already met probably a few weeks prior to that. And she walked in. And so now I have two Chinese students. They're the first ones that were there. And then after that I had four other Thai individuals come in. And so with communication in the classroom, I'm going to give you an example. So on a Sunday at about 10:00 AM a lot of my students, they is just so hard for them to communicate open, you know, openly to one another. They're just like a deer in headlights. They just stare at me like this. I mean it doesn't matter how animated I am. It doesn't matter what I do over here, over there, it's just they have that same look on their face except one. If that one wasn't in there, this will be one of the most difficult classes to teach even though there are seven students. However, going back to the chain, you know the two Chinese students with the four Thai students, these two students and able the Thai students and make them speak English because one always turns to the lady and asks her because she doesn't speak Thai. And I'm like, oh this is good. So she asks her everything in English. The other lady over here speaks to the other one in English show, everyone is communicating in English. So while I'm on break, I'm listening to the conversations that are happening and everything is in English, which is unheard of in this country. So having, you know, a variety of different people from different nationalities in the classroom will enable that type of communication. So when we talk about communication in the classroom, what is it that you know, what is it that you are speaking about?

Speaker 2:

So first of all, I love that you pointed that out, that when you have people in a class of many different nationalities, it benefits everyone. Because I had that in Greece, in my classroom where I had students with 16 different native languages. Wow. Right? So if the students from China wanted to communicate with the students from Greece and the students from Israel, they were using English. That was the link Lingua Franca. So, oh my gosh, you what a blessing to have that great diversity because these students are seeing for themselves how important it is for a lot of people. You know, even take us growing up in the United States and we're in a middle school or high school, let's say Spanish or French class, right? We're all with native English speakers. And when we learn these Spanish concepts, we're able to ask, so ask all of our questions in English. Right? But that doesn't give us the experience of asking a question in Spanish. And so then when I studied in Mexico, in college, I didn't have that firsthand experience of asking questions in Spanish. But it's so important. That brings up that important concept of ask for help. Ask for help. Right. Your, your students have an advantage.

Speaker 1:

And so man, okay, so when you talked about 16 nationalities in Greece, what is it that you would do in your classrooms to like say, okay, I'm going to take everyone out of their comfortable zone because of course Chinese would stick with the Chinese. This was stick with this. They said all the nationalities, they have a tendency of going back to what they are comfortable with. So are there things, would you say? Okay. All right. One, two, three, four. What? Okay. Line them up. Okay. These are the nationalities. Okay. You, you're from this country, you hear, you hear you here. What is it that, um, you would do in your classroom to enable that type of communication?

Speaker 2:

Okay, so many, many things. Um, first of all, oh, where do you even start? Visuals are so important to pull up things on the screen. If we're talking about something such as, um, even with my beginning learners, we would read books together and um, we picture books, but even chapter books and whatever the words were from the story that I knew were going to be coming up that day. So let's say, Oh, I love the book because of Winn-Dixie for example. Okay. There's words in there my students aren't familiar with. Right. My students had never tasted peanut butter, so I literally am bringing up, if they're talking about food in the book, I literally have on the screen, I have pictures of the food that's referenced in that book. Picture of tomatoes, macaroni and cheese, rice, peanut butter, pickles, you name it. Because by pictures everybody can relate to that. And then as they're taking notes, I encourage pictures all the time. I also would print out graphic organizers and have them do note taking on graphic organizers or diagrams, right? So some kids, as we're talking about the word peanut butter, they're literally in their notebook. They're drawing a picture of a jar of peanut butter and they're drawing a picture of the peanut butter sandwich. So they can remember. So I, I always do visuals and I do actions. It was amazing to me how you can gauge comprehension from ways other than speaking because I had, I was probably several weeks into the book because of Winn Dixie that I was doing with second graders and I go through it really, really slow. Even if we get through two pages a day, that is something because it is quality over quantity. Right. And so we would do graphic organizers. Where were you and write a sentence or two, a lot of picture drawing, but a couple of weeks in the book we had parent teacher conferences and I asked this second grade student, this girl from China to explain to her mother what the book was about. Granted, the mother does not speak English, mother only speaks Chinese. This little girl got down on the floor. It was acting like a dog was acting out the whole first scene of the book where the dogs making a mess and is knocking produce all over the floor of the grocery store. And I was like, this is what it's all about. You use pictures, you use actions. The kids remember this.

Speaker 1:

Wow, that's awesome. I can't imagine. I can't imagine that seeing, you know, like the mother just sitting there like, what did you do with this? She's not,

Speaker 2:

I feel lucky wildly in Chinese and I was like, yes, this girl has the comprehension. She may not be able to explain it to me in English yet, but she has it down because this little girl's drawings match the scenes from the book. She was labeling things with the character names and the settings and so it doesn't have to start with complete sentences. It can start with those things such as character names, locations and vocabulary from the book. Eventually they will string it along into sentences and because everybody loves the book because of Winn-Dixie, it was amazing how they were. I would pose a question or we would start each day with summarizing what we had read the day before and you have these kids, you have the kid with the first language of Chinese speaking with the kids, first language of Greek and the kid. The first language of from Israel's talking to the girl who speaks Hungarian and it's because they're all invested in, they want to be able to converse. So yes, just start with pictures, not the grammar worksheets. Right, and you start with a longer book, like a chapter book. Even if you think it's overwhelming. Well, everything consists of baby steps, babysits, baby steps. Like I said, two pages of a chapter book. These kids are so engaged and invested in this book, they want to know what happens, right? So it gives it, the benefit for me as a teacher is that the kids already have that attention where they are just so interested to know what is going to happen next today with this four dog.

Speaker 1:

Wow. That's just amazing. You know what? You touched up on that little area that I was going to ask you a question like first day of school, how was the classroom like everyone sat down, you've got all these different nationalities. What kind of body language did you see amongst the students like and how? How can some of these international students or students who are very sighted speak English overcome that? Because again, first days are always the most difficult. But what did you see from some people? Did you see some people from this nationality? Let's say Israelian you know, they were like, hey, you know what, I'm more outgoing then this over here, then over there, like what? Like, like what you see? I know that was it just then

Speaker 2:

I, I literally had my, Ah, my first day that I had first graders, there were kids crying. Oh, they already have separation anxiety and nets being scared of I'm in a new school with this new language and there were kids crying. Um, I was bitten by a kid named tiger tiger. Okay. Is that his first day? Is that a nickname or? Well, cause it fits. It fits perfectly. Just try to rip you off. Where was he from? America was that from America. He had to be from America, this, this and, and I realized soon after, um, this act kit actually became one of my favorites. He was just really scared. Um, he was from China and tiger was his nickname, but I'm like, oh my gosh, first day of school, I'm by a tiger. So what happened? You set like[inaudible] you know, all that craziness or he just didn't want to be told. No, but that's why as a teacher, you know, part of front loading is at the beginning of the school year, classroom management, you front load, right? You okay spend so much more time on the rules and the expectations. And I'm talking about things like respect and coming up with a list of classroom norms. And it just took a while with the younger ones. It took awhile because those younger ones didn't already have education in their native language to know how to even act in a classroom. So then when you put them in a classroom where it's a language that they're not familiar with, it makes it even more scary. Um, so we just start with easy things, like everyone's decorating a name tag, uh, you know, and they're picking something that they like. So I have objects, right? So it might be plastic animals or something and something that I can have them speak about. Even if it's like this is a tiger, you have to start somewhere. Um, what about the oldest students? Like the refugees you teach and stuff like that? Would they just come into the classroom and they were just very, very free? I have a feeling that they were very free to, you know, like free flowing communication within a classroom setting. Like if I think of an my adults, refugees learning English here in the u s okay. Um, depending on what culture they come from. Right. Some culture more reserved, some cultures are more about the speaking and listening. Um, some of them are very timid to speak at first. So I just start with sentence frames. And so anytime I would have a brand new student enter that day, we'd pause whatever that was on the lesson plan. And I would have every single person in the classroom respond to the same speaking first. So my name is blank, I am from blank or because a lot of them have lived in many countries. I have lived in the following countries, I speak the following languages and my favorite activities are and things like activities. Those are things I already have in Google docs or PowerPoint slides that I can project. So if they don't know how to say something, there's at least one activity they can point to like swimming, cooking, reading, whatever it is. And starting with pictures always helps because I can, the understanding is there they point to a picture of swimming and I can literally guide them with I like to swim, Bam. And then I let whoever is the new student start or go last if they so choose. Um, some of them want to go right away and that way they've already seen everybody else in the class model. This is what we do. We write down the sentence frame, we fill it in as the teacher is circulating amongst the students. It is, this is a safe place to ask for help.

Speaker 1:

Hmm. Nan, I love that. In the safe place, let's, especially because a lot of people are scared to ask for help. And so, oh, that's really, you know what I was, um, over the last week, man, I've done like, like three workshops. It's been bananas. You know what I did when I had a big manufacturing company named Kubotai out here in Thailand, and communication was our, you know, it was our main theme. It was called foodie goodies. So emotional reaction towards food, which of course all of us can relate to. And so the thing is, I was teaching it with another teacher and he was the head, I was the one over here, you know, I was doing other things in terms of pronunciation and the mechanics of the language. Um, but he would speak in Thai, but he would also speak in English. And then I would also put things into context with English. So of course, if you look at some of the big, uh, popular people out here in Thailand, um, they, let's just say a guy from Utah, right? He speaks perfect Tai, but he teaches English through the Thai language. I don't necessarily, first I'm going to stop it there before getting back into the company. What do you think about that? Because communication in the classroom, when you are speaking, let's say if I go to China and I speak Chinese, if I start speaking Chinese, mandarin or Cantonese, whatever it may be, Cantonese for Hong Kong, Mandarin for native China. If I started speaking mandarin to the Chinese students, they're going to fall back into that comfortable slab and I mean it's just the piece, the purpose of learning English, I believe. You know? So I don't know. And it's really weird because then you bring an Asian American to a job. I used to teach at, his name was, I don't know, but he was, he, his blood comes from or somewhere around in Southeast Asia, but they would say, hey, just don't say your tie. Okay. Because they'll start speaking to you in Thai. And I'm like, but yet these other teachers speak fluent high and they speak it in the classroom. There's so much crazy that's happening. My question is, if you are a teacher, if I go to Mexico and I speak fluent Spanish and I teach my students English to Spanish, is that good or is that bad?

Speaker 2:

I feel like it needs to be a mix. Okay. No, um, you know, for example, I took five years of French from eighth grade to 12th grade and there are these phrases that that stick in my head, um, as far as questions that we were expected to ask. And I think about that, I think about those questions and the basic phrases. That's why they stuck in my head is because I've heard them repeatedly. So when I relate, when I was able to relate that to my own students, if, especially the little ones, it's like if they wanted, if the first graders wanted to go to the bathroom, I would have them. The rule was, you have to ask me an English first. Can I go to the bathroom please? Because they learn that way and then they, they're learning not just that sentence, but they're learning a sentence frame of, oh, these are question words. They're learning the word please. I, that's a requirement in my classroom, you will use please, you will not order me around. I wouldn't have, I would have students, adults included that would tell me. They would come up to me and they'd say, I need a pencil. I need a paper. And I'd be like, oh, it sounds much more polite. If you phrase it as a question, can I have a pencil? Lee's, when you use manners, people are going to be much more willing to help you. So that mix waste so important. So when we're talking about how, how grateful we are to have these mixes of students with different native languages, it is so amazing because I am not opposed to having students have the same native language, use their native language to help each other understand vocabulary. But at the same time, you know, with my refugees, students in a classroom setting where they're learning English in the United States, if I have students from 16 different native languages, I, there's no way for me to know everybody's language. So there they're going to have to pick up on all of these important nonverbal cues and inferencing skills. So they're noticing, okay, these are the gestures she's using. This is her expression of voice that's going up and down. And if I, if I didn't, if I was just speaking to those people in their native language, they wouldn't be noticing these nonverbals as much. They wouldn't be noticing all of these inferencing skills of how you can figure out a vocabulary word based on context. That's so important. Yes, there. Believe me, there's been plenty of times where it would have been really helpful if I knew every single student's native language, so I could explain something when they were confused. But you know what? That they have had valuable learning opportunities from us figuring out these complicated misunderstandings. It's so, it's so valuable.

Speaker 1:

And so like, I'm interested because what is it you teach in first grade is kind of relates to me teaching the kingdom godness at my very first job in 2013 right. And I remember I had a teacher and she shouldn't assistant and I had a head teacher in there. Uh, not in the other, I forgot the other girl's name, but yeah. So they would tell me, oh, make sure you speak to the children. Slowly do this, do that. And I remember in a class of just 10 students, it was a private school, right? These students change so quickly. Within four months. I remember specifically there was a kid named punk Kang and pompom. That was his nickname, right? And his mother gives speak English, right? Gritty pretty well, like, like upper intermediate level. Um, and I remember I was speaking of Pong Pong one day and he was, he was pretty good at conversation like right here. And everyone else was below him. Another girl named Punk Pun, she was excellent at writing. This girl was excellent at all skills. So why try meshing everything together and had the, you know, collaborating within three months, pong pong ended up speaking fluent English to me and I was like, Whoa, Whoa, whoa, Whoa, whoa. Like there was a girl screaming and crying at lunchtime. Right? And I remember he turned around to me and he said, teacher, this girl is really freaking me out right now. Perfect English. I started screaming into laughter. Okay. And I was like, what's going on? And so I talked to his mom. I said, your son pretty much speaks English right now. What does he do? She's like, oh well he plays Minecraft all day. And I'm like, aw. That's where he gets the bad language from too. So how do you encourage people

Speaker 2:

like you know, at smaller, you know, young ages or older ages to learn English outside of the classroom? That's something really, really good. Right? You know what? I have had several adult students who tell me when they already come to this country and they're not in the beginning class. They're in my class who tell me things like, um, I learned English from watching youtube videos from video games, from singing karaoke. Okay. Okay. Okay. From Facebook they would see memes and stuff and they would want to understand them. So, okay. When people want to learn badly enough, they will, they will figure out ways to learn. They want to watch an American TV program. I have several kids who said they've learned from cartoons, they've learned from comic books. So there are so many resources available. So many available

Speaker 1:

time was, you know what I mean?

Speaker 2:

Yes, yes. And so there are so many more resources available in English. When I was trying to learn Greek, it's what, it's not as easy for me in the United States to get my hands on Greek comic books, youtube videos, Karaoke like it is people and other countries getting English resources right. But use, use whatever works for me. I remember in other countries, yeah, like when I studied in Mexico when I was in college, turning on the TV and having a Disney movie con and if it's a Disney movie I already am familiar with like Aladdin. Ah, I already know the context of the story. Now I'm watching it in another language. Hi. Especially children's movies because they speak with a more slowly and with simple language. If you and I have discussed in a previous podcast, children's books, oh my gosh, I have adults who love children's books just as much as the kids do. And the adults a lot of times want to learn so that they can read these books to their children. And so I will use some of the same strategies that I use with elementary students. Absolutely.

Speaker 1:

Wow. So when you were in cut, I love that. And that's what I see sometimes. Like out here in Thailand, I see a lot of in tie with the Thai subtitles or this speaking tie. And it's funny because I pick up a lot of things in the Thai language now. Like I could pick up the ideas. So I don't listen so much for all the, you know, the unnecessary words. I try to listen for the main idea and I can pick it up pretty quickly. Okay. Not all of time, like 30% of the time, I'm probably just a little bit wrong. But you being in Mexico, you learn in Spanish out there and whatnot. Give me an example. So who are the people that, how did you communicate, who was it that you communicated with in the classrooms? And how about Golan around because you were a learner of also Greek, Spanish in Panama, Mexico, which are probably just a little bit different or maybe an immense of that different. Um, how was it that you learned communication in the classroom being, you know, a Spanish learner too? Because that's very interesting.

Speaker 2:

What's interesting is I feel like I learned more Spanish, not in the classroom, but because I was staying with a host family.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

And the couple who I was staying with, Natalia and Kino, very gracious couple, they didn't speak hardly any English. I went there knowing hardly any Spanish. We were doing a lot of charades and writing things down. And because I had taken, um, five years of French, I could understand, of course, like a lot of us, I can understand a lot more than I can actually produce. But because you're in this situation where I'm in somebody's home, she has just made me a four course amazing meal. She wants to know what I think of it. Of course I the most, the majority of the feedback I'm giving her is nonverbal. But because I'm invested in this relationship, right, when you're in that kind of a situation, it's so motivating to learn quickly because you can bet your bottom dollar. I was looking up words, I was figuring out how to say exactly what I wanted to ask them. So one day I wanted to ask, um, how to walk to the mall. So you perfect situation of me doing my research. I'm trying to figure this out so then I can actually use my words and then I can be validated when I actually get the information that I want. And the host father is drawing out a map for me of how to get to them all. So you asked about the classroom, but I tell you, it is those natural situations where I feel I learned so much more in the classroom. I was learning things like we normally learn first in a language learning class. My name is, I am blank years old. I am from blank. But as I have found being both a students and being both a teacher, what people want to learn most is those how to get around, how to ask for

Speaker 1:

help, how to carry on with their daily activities. That's called, yeah, since you wasted funnel, ageless or situational, fill in the blank. You know what I've made? Um, man, I had a couple of stories, but I think they just went right away. But I'm like, be here, be in here in Thailand. Would I learned Thai in the classroom? Absolutely not. I'm living in the country right now. You being in university, fantastic. Me, I was a teacher so I needed to learn. Okay, what are some of these, you know, these things that I need to learn, the basics. How can I go here? Go Straight, turn right, turn left. And you know what? These things are absolutely going to stick. No one will remember last time we talked about the taxi and stuff a while back. Um, you know, knowing how to take a taxi, very important, telling him to turn on the meter. Very, very important. You know, so, um, Oh man, I've had a man, I had a couple of experiences but they all just went away cause I was so in tune. So anyways, so, okay. Um, oh my God, my ideas. I hate when my ideas go away. Those are some real,

Speaker 2:

it shows that you were being a mindful listener.

Speaker 1:

Yes. Because you taught me that. That's right. You taught me that

Speaker 2:

great speech would say just take a deep breath. It's okay. We don't judge ourselves. If it's important enough, it'll come up later.

Speaker 1:

Right, right. It's important enough. Right. Okay. So here we go. I want to give you, so of course you being a learner of Spanish and Greek. Me being a learner of Thai, of course, living in a spit ball, an English speaking household with a mother who speak spoke both languages, both of course Spanish and English. Um, what are some ways communication in classroom for students, for students out there around the world or for students in general? The students of life, because we are all students of life. Okay. If you're out there in a community, if they're going to travel, how can they communicate more thoroughly, more effectively? What are the three simple ways that you know, people could do it both inside and outside the classroom. So

Speaker 2:

first of all, come to the classroom,

Speaker 1:

prepared with your questions,

Speaker 2:

because we always think of questions when we're not in the classroom. And then we forget to write them down. And we don't remember when we're in the presence of a teacher. The first of all, write your questions down. Come to class with those questions. Teachers love receiving questions because that way they know what you're interested in. I think I shared in a previous podcast something that I really, really wanted to learn and when I was in Greece, as I wanted to learn how to ask for help in grocery store, I wanted to know how to order cheese. Um, and so that was a question that I, I came to class with and I asked my Greek teacher. So first of all, write your questions down. Don't be afraid to ask those questions. Um, when you are in the classroom, notice patterns, a questions, because those same patterns of questions are things that you can use throughout your knee. A normal daily situation. So if I'm noticing a pattern of asking for cheese, asking for, um, chicken, asking for whatever, once I learned that one phrase of how to ask for cheese, I was noticing those same sentence patterns and other people's speech. And so that those patterns are so important, whether it's a sentence frame or whether it is noticing root words, um, and piecing those together. So your original question was strategies that people can use for conversation in the classroom and outside of the past, right? Yeah. So outside of the classroom, just like inside the classroom, not being afraid to ask questions, overcoming that fear. That's it. Yes. And Yeah, we've, yeah, we've discussed this before about how, we may not know how to phrase an entire grammatically correct sentence, but we might know one word, just he was the one word. Use the one if you point, if you point, and even if it's the word, like I've done this before and I'm, I'm wanting to find the bank, I point and I'm like bank here, here and there. And then because you're in this, this dire situation where you need to know this, you're going to pick up more on the grammar of the bank is over here, tender it more next time. So, oh gosh, yes. Just asking the questions

Speaker 1:

right then. I love that so much. That's a, you know, speaking from personal experience, that's what I did, you know, live it out here in Thailand. I went like, like, do I know how to say banquet? Is it Tana Chat? So I would say a 10 of chat KTB which is who? Thai bank, basically the one that I normally teach at or the bank that I'm with. Right. So I would say, ah, try China to, to be unite. Unite is my favorite word. Where, where, where, okay. I'm, Oh, what is it? Don't they don't they a, I don't they last sweater. Right. Where's the school? And I would just say the school name and BNI. Yeah. Denai or you and I, where is it? You see, I mean, so the basic question, where is the who, what, where, when, why, you know, um, and if it's a very difficult question, uh, good luck. What about the difficult questions before I top this bad way off? Like how would you get over that? Like the real difficult questions.

Speaker 2:

So, um, can you give me an example of a real difficult question?

Speaker 1:

Uh, let's say if you're at the hospital, right? And I'm like, ah, I normally just go all hands. I'm like, ah, a jet jet meaning pain. Right. How do you say that in Spanish? I forgot, don't they? I don't know, but yeah, I forgot. Uh, but yeah, we'll say pain here or here or here, but there could also be misdiagnosis. So how could someone go about learning question? Oh my God, I don't know what I'm trying to say. But the, if so like conversation conversations or how can some, well, you know what, that'll have to be in another podcast because we have to figure out how to build up those sentences to make them bigger and bigger. Such as, you know, you order in the cheese and then you realize that there was a little bit of a, you know, you could follow that same, you know, that saying, what am I trying to say? That, yeah, that same pattern. Yeah, no, in terms of this, in terms of that. So that'll have to be another one. That could be a nice little

Speaker 2:

mines. This is why it's so important to record things that happen in your everyday life. Because I remember in Greece, I was in an apartment where none of the neighbors spoke English. And I had a situate[inaudible] where, um, there was a leak in my ceiling. Right? And in your, in my regular Greek classes, it's not like I ever learned how to say, um, my ceiling is leaking. So those were words I had to look up on my own. And then words to describe it of this is when it happens, this is how often it happens so that they know it's not just a trickle here, trickle there of, oh, it happens every morning at this time to help them figure out the root of the problem. Right. But those were words I had to look up on my own. And again, because, um, Google translator isn't always grammatically correct. I had to start somewhere and I had to humble myself with, even if I didn't have the perfect financiation, if it's important enough, I'm going to ask about it in my very, very broken.

Speaker 1:

Great. Right? Oh Man. Awesome man. Uh, Katrina, the summit, the communications. I love that. I'm going to put those into little snippets. I'm going to have to tag you in that because those were some golden bombs for a lot of people. For non native English speakers have a specific language, you know, pointing and being able to just build up, go from a word to a phrase and then from a phrase to a possible sentences, the questions and whatnot. Those were so, so good. So, oh my God, there are still so many other things to cover and I'm so excited like the vocabulary and whatnot. That's going to be another very, very good one. But um, oh my God, Katrina, thank you so much, uh, for coming on to this wonderful podcasts and youtube video.

Speaker 2:

Thank you so much. I always enjoy this. You've come up with really good questions on the spot that make me think

Speaker 1:

right. Yeah. And that's what's so great about it. Cause I don't do like the 21 questions, stuff like that. It's always because personal experience, right? So, uh, so wait, so before we go, man, you've got to introduce what are your guys, so we had curious George odd yet. Uh, what was it the other time I bought Mr Eight, man over there on your left, Mr Eight. Man, let's talk to that guy over there. Who is he?

Speaker 2:

Well that, and that's kind of just a generic words where it's a character from a story. Okay. Interesting. Is next to the eight,

Speaker 1:

next to the eight is a house

Speaker 2:

next to the ape is a house. And also I'm a retro cabbage patch doll. Whoa. Um, yeah. But the students that I teach online, just love seeing props and it just happens that my mom saved a ton of my stuff for my childhood and when she moved, there were Rubbermaid bins in the basement of stuff that I didn't even know she had kept, which is awesome. The House that's here was from my, my doll house back in the day. Um, or no, my grandparents bought me for my fifth birthday and it comes with all of the little tikes people, props, whatever. And I use these all the time for teaching because it's, um, I, I find that it's very difficult for some English language learners to differentiate between he and she. So I owl, I almost always have props in my hands as I'm teaching. Sometimes they'll say she for everything and I'll be like, he,

Speaker 1:

I experienced that with some of my students out here too. Oh, in the cabbage patch doll. What did they invent? The cabbage match dance. When did that come out? In the nineties. Was that before? Yeah, they kind of go like this, you know, they bold up their fist and they move it in like circles. It's like the cavity

Speaker 2:

research when I was living overseas in the A's wars and elementary school, well where we were kind of like cut off from American pop culture pre Internet. Wow. Um, but I know that cabbage patch dolls, even before I was born, were this one of those, you know how you always hear about the hot toy black Friday. We're like, parents are fighting in the store for their kid. Right, right. You know that cabbage patch dolls some at some point in the 80s where that hot toy, but I had this, this bald baby cabbage patch in the late eighties when as I was a little toddler and then boom, it was just called bald baby and it never left my side.

Speaker 1:

Wow.[inaudible] bald baby. I love that ball baby. Oh my God. Oh Man. Well Ball Baby Kevin Scratch. Matt, it is a pleasure meeting you and thank you so much for joining me.

Speaker 2:

Oh, this one. Okay. Thank you so much for having me and thank you to all of your listeners who pose such awesome questions like these topics.

Speaker 1:

Right? Right. So that's what you guys make sure again that you're following. Now Katrina has rebranded herself into just Katrina Lights Berg. You could follow her of course on Instagram. You can follow her on the Facebook page. I tag her normally on my post, on my Facebook page and on Instagram. So you make sure that you look at the links that I have and the description of her. And again, Katrina bed. I would love to extend this, but it's time to get my book. You would be on in the gym and enjoy this rain. Hopefully the rain has stopped, but Matt, thank you so much again.

Speaker 2:

Thank you.

Speaker 1:

Welcome back guys. With that being said, man, have a wonderful mountain and afternoon and evening. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please share it like it. Leave a review, do whatever, and as you wished with this podcast, man, I'm just grateful that I have your ears. So again, guys, I hope you enjoyed this one and stay two for more because Katrina, and I think we just have so many topics. We're just going to keep on coming and coming, so stay tuned for more. I'm your host, our studio as usual over now.