An angry student made me think

Two strange things happened to me on Instagram this week.

In this episode I’m sharing the lesson these two moments taught me, and why the people around you might be the most powerful factor in your progress.

 If this episode helped you, make sure you subscribe or follow the podcast so you don’t miss next week’s training, and if you need help with your English, send me a message on Instagram and let's chat. 

Transcript

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Good morning everybody, and welcome to the Cambridge Advanced Accelerator podcast. My name is Cheryl, and I'm here to help you with all things Cambridge Advanced and really just to get you up to that C1 Plus or even C2 level in English. So if you're feeling a bit stuck, a B2, or you just feel that you can't get past that bloody exam, then this is the place for you, for your motivation going forward into the week. So, theme of this week, a bit of a different one this week. Um I want to talk to something that happened today, actually, uh, on Instagram. So, as most of you guys know, I have an Instagram account, CambridgeConCheryl, and I receive hundreds and hundreds of messages, if not thousands, if we include our comments, every single day on Instagram. But what struck me today was one that I was tagged in, and there was a bit of an argument going on on Instagram. There was a bit of trolling going on. Now, this is something that I cannot stand about the internet, about social media, is trolling, is people being just really rude and aggressive to other people. Something that they would never do face to face on the street, things they would never say in person, but that people feel that that's perfectly fine to to insult people, to bring people down on the internet. And on my page, I am very, very um I'm very very hard about this. I crack down on this. To crack down on something means like uh if if I'm enforcing rules to stop that happening. Okay, so if I'm cracking down on trolling, I am very strict about removing people from the page who do this. Um, so it's something that I've been cracking down on recently, and this situation happened, uh, the most recent one that happened today. I mean, it happens all the time, but the one that happened today was that a student had commented on a post um a sentence uh using some of the grammar from the post, and another teacher or another student had um had corrected them on their sentence. So they'd come in and said, actually, it's not like this, it's like this. And this other person freaked out and started going crazy and being really rude towards a person who was helping them, um, saying, How dare you correct me? Only Cheryl should be correcting me on this page. Um you can't even speak my language, so what right have you to correct me? Um, I am leaving this page. Uh stay away from me. They started getting really quite aggressive and rude towards someone who had reached out to help them. And the reason I'm telling you this story is for, well, number one, guys, be nice to each other on social media. Um, take a pause, take a breath, and think before you react on social media. Um, because you will be removed from my page if if I if I see um if I see any aggressiveness, any homophobia, anything like that, you'll be removed immediately from the page. But more so just I like I'm all about building a place of kindness, a community, a place where we can all help each other. And what I think is really important here is that if somebody corrects you in your English, that's maybe not me or not a teacher. If somebody corrects you, this doesn't mean that they are correcting you or your identity as a person, okay. We're correcting a mistake, an error in English, and this is something that we can learn from and improve on. Okay, we need to be able to separate our identity and ourself from our mistakes in English. They are not together, they are not combined, they're two different things. The same as your exam scores. They're exact your exam scores are not you, are not your identity. If you fail an exam, that doesn't mean that you're a horrible, terrible person or that you're bad at English. That just means that we failed an exam. But I also want to just normalize getting feedback from other people and not necessarily just me. Um, I'm just one person, and if there are thousands and thousands of people messaging me a day, there's only so many people that I can respond to. But also, I'm not the grammar god, or I'm, you know, I make mistakes. Everybody makes mistakes. But my power, I think, is and I think the power of any great leader is not their ability to do everything themselves, but it is their ability to build that community and build that support network where everybody helps each other. So rather than just having my mind or my correction, we have the corrections of the whole community, and we have the help and the support and the motivation of the whole community. And that is so much more powerful than just waiting for me to correct a piece of grammar. So I want to normalize learning as an environment where number one, we are not defined by mistakes. Mistakes do not define our identity, they are just something that happens to absolutely everyone, including me. Um, and it's a way to help us improve our English. It just gives us feedback on what we need to work on. The feedback on what we need to work on, or the feedback on the mistakes again, this is something that I want to normalize that can be received by many different people and in many different forms. And that we don't need to take this personally. Okay, so if you receive feedback or a correction from someone, first thing to think is okay, your brain hears correction and thinks criticism. They're criticizing me, and that's perfectly normal. So if your brain goes into this mode, I want you to take a pause, take a deep breath before reacting. Especially on you if you're on social media and you're about to uh to write some horrible comment. Okay. Number two, remember that the person that is correcting you is trying to help you, okay? Or at least assume that the person is trying to help you and is not just trying to be uh more superior or show that their English is better than yours, okay? Assume that they're trying to help you. Um assume that they're there to support you, okay? And say thank you. Check the rule. Even if the person is wrong who tried to help you, even if that person is wrong, you still learn something. You still check that rule, you still um you still learn something new. Okay? So say thank you. Say, oh, interesting, thank you for sharing, let me check that. Okay. And this is a very practical way for you to deal with those situations where you initially feel attacked if someone is giving you feedback on a mistake. And this leads me on to my second incident of the week on Instagram. Um, you'll be surprised how many uh how many um nasty messages and nasty comments appear on Instagram. Um, but but these are two that by far are not the darkest or or most horrible uh messages like I receive personal attacks and homophobic threats every every day on Instagram, but um but but these two really stood out for me. Um and the second one was um so I um had someone messaging me um asking for um for access to my uh my free courses, my free use of English course, my free um templates for the speaking exams, uh PDFs, uh lots of um really kind of valuable things out there to to help you guys prepare for the exam. Um and then this uh this person asked uh to join the the Cambridge Advanced Accelerator course. So they asked for for the information on this. And as you guys who are already on the course with me know, um I'm very picky about who I let into our community because as we talked about earlier, um, I'm all about building a community of people who can support and help each other. It is the superpower of the Cambridge Advanced Accelerator course is the community and how everybody um helps each other, supports each other, helps corrections, helps give feedback to each other, um, as well as of course for me. But um, everybody is there to help to motivate to cheer each other on. If someone's having a bad day, everyone kind of um gathers around and and and um and supports each other. Um you guys meet up. Uh I know there's still students who finished the course three, four years ago who are still meeting up and and hanging out, students from Brazil going to Poland hanging out, uh students who live in the same town going and having a coffee together when I go traveling. Um, I meet up with students, um, and I just absolutely love the community and the kind of team spirit and um and support that everybody provides. So, for that reason, I am very picky about who I let into that community because we're all about that that team uh spirit and environment. So, anyway, this student messaged to join the course, and I think they probably expected that the messaging system would be automated and they would just get, you know, uh a PDF, they'd get access to the course, they'd be able to sign up, pay for it, and not have to have any kind of genuine interaction with me. However, little did they know, there's an inversion for you, little did they know that I check every single message chain I interact with you guys personally and make sure that you are genuinely a good fit for the course. So this person came in and they were saying, Oh, I'm you know, I'm preparing for the exam, I want to take it in maybe six months' time, I find use of English really difficult. Um, can you help me? So I went and had a little look on their page and you know, just to find out some information about them, um, and noticed that they were, in fact, uh a native speaker, an English teacher themselves, and uh uh preparing students for the Cambridge Advanced exam. Um, and they were basically just you know trying to to uh to pinch some some materials for their own courses or for their own classes or or ideas. Um so I kind of called them out on this. I was like, so are you a teacher preparing students for the exam or are you actually doing an exam yourself? And they still continued with the uh with the ruse of being a student. They're like, no, no, I'm a student, I'm preparing for the exam. Um I'm like, but you're a native speaker. They're like, Yes, yes, but I still want to do the exam. And eventually I was like, Look, I know, I know what you're doing, and then they ghosted me, and uh, we never heard from them again. But um, the funny thing is, if they just been honest and said, you know, uh, I'm a Cambridge Advanced Exam uh teacher and I'm just looking for a bit of help and support with that, I would have been more than happy to help them. Uh, we've had uh many Cambridge advanced exam teachers take the course before. In fact, even examiners have taken this course. Uh I had a a Cambridge examiner uh who was recommending my course to everyone. They put their own son through the course um because they found that the the material and everything that they needed, and that wasn't the the kind of the secret thing or anything because you know uh you can Google or you can go into Chat GPT and you can Google the inversions or present perfect or 50 phrasal verbs. There's plenty of information out there, but what you can't replicate is me basically and our community, um, and that's what I want to kind of get at here is the amazing power of community. Like my mission is to build a place where people actually care about you, and it's not just about passing an exam, it's about building your self-confidence and building your English to a level where you actually feel like you can be yourself in another language, that you actually feel confident going to another country and speaking English, that you feel motivated to continue on this journey when you have to do a lot of boring exams, where you've got somebody cheering you on when you think that you can't do it and you're not good enough. That's what I want to create, and I think that's something that you can never steal. You know, I am not the only person that who can teach you English. I am certainly not keeping any secret magic grammar point tip that nobody else knows. Absolutely not. But what I can create is a place where people can help each other become better. This is what my superpower is. And why am I telling you this? Is it because I just want to have a bit of a rant? A rant is where uh if something annoys you and you want to talk about it and go a bit of a rant about something, uh, to get it off my chest, no, to to let it out, to get the stress out, no, to get it off my chest. Is it because I just want to have a bit of a rant and get it off my chest, or is it because I want you guys to remember that the fastest way to prepare for the exam and improve your English is not just by collecting piles and piles of material. Okay, uh, you do not want to just have hundreds and hundreds of PDFs of grammar rules and grammar tips. What you need to move you forward is having that feedback, having that support, having that community there to help you, to drive you, to understand your mistakes if you make them and how to move forward with them, to have someone to keep you going when you want to give up, to have someone to share your successes, share your highs, share your lows with. This is what is important, and this is what keeps people moving forward. And it's the same with everything, not just with learning English. It was the same for me when I was on my massive diet last year and I had to lose 25 kilos. Um, I didn't do that alone. The the basics of how to lose weight are pretty simple. That information is is around everywhere, but it's not more information I need. It's having that accountability, having someone there to help you, having someone there to push you, and um get that kind of personal feedback and support from. That's why I had a coach, that's why I had a community around me of people cheering me on, and that's what helped me when I wanted to give up many times throughout the year on that journey. Um, so this is something I don't want you to just apply to your English. I want you to kind of think about this for all aspects of life. Number one, be nice on the internet, guys. Um, remember that it's a person you're messaging, and number two, build that community. Okay, whether it's with me or whether it's with someone else, but build that community, have someone cheering you on, have someone supporting you, have someone helping you and giving you feedback. And I think this fits perfectly with um there's a famous quote that uh you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. So basically, if you want to lose weight, surrounding yourself with people who are fit and healthy will make it more likely that you will be like that too. If you want to earn more money, surrounding yourself with people who are wealthy and successful will help you to become that too. And if you want to pass the Cambridge Advanced Exam or improve your English, surrounding yourself with a community of people who are in that same situation and are helping and supporting you, then you will be more likely to be that person too who passes your exam. Whereas on the contrary, if you're surrounding yourself with people who are not bringing you towards your goals, who are always being negative, who are bringing you down, then you're less likely to achieve your goals. So I want you to ask yourself who are the five people that are influencing your English right now? Now I'm not talking about like your kids or your husband or your wife or the people you know in your family, but connected to English. Who are the most people that you spend time with or are connected to learning English? Are they helping you to grow? Are they pushing you? Are you mo they motivating you? Are they giving you feedback? Are they holding you accountable? Or are they keeping you comfortable or telling you you're not good enough, telling you you can't do it, telling you you can't pass your exam unless you go and live in this English-speaking country? I've had students in the past whose family members have said this to them and it oh it really annoyed me. But luckily they had our community there to help them and surround themselves with that posity, and they absolutely smashed the exam in the end. Um, but having that community, having that support, make sure you have those people around you, okay, rather than the people keeping you comfortable and bringing you down, okay. Um, that is where I'm going to leave it today, guys. Um, I hope you find that useful. I hope you find that motivating. If there's anything you'd like to continue chatting about, feel free to hit me up in the comment section and let's have an absolutely fantastic week being kind to each other and supporting the community. Take care.