69, Gabo and Goyo interview Mike Ben! An English teacher to hispanohablantes offers his advice about learning English

[00:00:00] Welcome to No Te Rindas Intermediate English, a podcast for hispanohablantes que quieren mejorar su comprensión auditiva del inglés de los Estados Unidos. Somos dos profesores americanos con raíces mexicanas. Yo soy Gabe o Gabo, here as always with my brother Greg o Goyo.

[00:00:22] Hello. It's been a while since we've been on the air, Gabe. It's good to be back with you. Yeah. Yeah. When we last were talking, the University of Georgia football team was maybe number one in the country, but that has changed. They ended up going into the playoffs and then they were defeated by Notre Dame, a historically Catholic college in Indiana.

[00:00:51] I have, I have friends that went to the game because we live in the South and the game was played in New Orleans, which is also in the South. So, um, a friend of mine from school went to the game and, um, orientes. I don't know if you remember this, if you heard about this on the news, but a terrorist drove his vehicle into a crowd of people in New Orleans and what's called the French quarter.

[00:01:17] And, uh, uh, you know, um, you know, uh, you know, uh, you know, Um, you know, it really obviously changed the nature of, of the game. The game was delayed by one day, so it wasn't played until the next day. And, um, he says that the, the mood of the people in the stadium was, was affected. It was very different. There was, uh, I don't know, uh, a type of sobriety or serious

[00:01:47] or distractedness to the people in the stadium. But New Orleans is an important city to Gabe and me, oyentes, because nuestra abuela emigró a Nueva Orleans desde Tabasco, México, hace un siglo. Y yo vivía, yo personalmente vivía en Nueva Orleans.

[00:02:10] Entonces, oír de esta tragedia en el contexto de una ciudad que conozco bien, bueno, me dio mucha pena. So your friend went to this American football game in New Orleans to see the University of Georgia play against Notre Dame. And it was the day that the game was supposed to be played,

[00:02:37] this terrorist attack with the truck driving into a crowd happened. And you're saying that the game had to be delayed by a day out of respect for what happened and that the mood, the way the people behaved at the game was not as happy or as exciting or as excited, excuse me, as they normally would at a college American football game. Is that right? Yeah. Okay.

[00:03:07] Just so sorry. It atrasó el partido por un día. Y si el humor de la gente cambió. Y la gente se portaba más distraída o afectada por la muerte, por el terrorismo. Sí. Now, in your case, you also have some football news before we get started on our episode today. Tell us what's going on with your Tennessee Titans.

[00:03:36] Gabe and Goyo and their American football fascination. So we were just talking about college football playoffs. The professional football playoffs are also happening. The NFL is the league of professional football here, or at least the main one that counts. And so those playoffs are happening now.

[00:04:03] So today there are two games and the winner of each game will go to the championship. And in professional football, the championship is called the Super Bowl. So this is an exciting time. Now, unfortunately, my team, the Tennessee Titans, was officially the worst team in football.

[00:04:30] So el peor equipo de football americano. Yeah, you predicted that, too, I remember. Yeah, we were not good this year. And well, let's jump into our topic today. Today we have a special guest that is a really unique fit, a unique personality or presence for our podcast in particular. He is a lover of language and he teaches English as a second language.

[00:04:58] He teaches English to those learning English for the first time near Atlanta, Georgia. Now, I also live near Atlanta, Georgia. So my guest and I have broken bread together, as we say. We've sat down and had a cup of coffee and talked face to face. And I'm very excited to introduce him to all of you.

[00:05:22] Now, Gabe, who does not live in Georgia, lives in North Carolina, actually sort of introduced me to our guest, Mike Ben, several months ago. And I've been a guest on his YouTube channel. And we'll put a link to that interview in the description if you want to find out more about my Spanish speaking journey, which is the subject of his YouTube channel. But we're going to listen to him talk about teaching English and learning languages today, Gabe.

[00:05:52] Yeah, I'm so excited to have him on the show. I heard him on one of my favorite podcasts, which is for people who are learning Spanish called Noaitos. And I heard him interviewed and I was just so impressed with his story, which he will hopefully tell us some of today. And when I found out he lived near Atlanta, I had to let you know so that you guys could could talk. So let's get right to it.

[00:06:21] I'm really excited to hear what he has to say. All right. Welcome to a very special episode of No Te Brindas Intermediate English. Hoy tenemos un visitante super involucrado en el mundo del idioma extranjero en Estados Unidos. Se llama Mike Ben or Mike Benjamin. What do you want to go by, Mike? Mike Ben is fine for today.

[00:06:51] Okay, so Mike is an extraordinary person in that he has taught himself Spanish, fluent, beautiful Spanish, primarily, not entirely, but primarily by using YouTube and online tools.

[00:07:10] So we're going to use Spanish a little bit or a little bit in this episode to see what is possible with the learning of the language. So Mike, tell us a little bit about you. Well, hello guys. My name is Mike Ben. I have 29 years. I'm from the United States. I'm from the outside of the city of Atlanta, Georgia.

[00:07:36] And as Greg mentioned, I started learning Spanish for five years. For a sudden, one day in January of 2020, I was listening to some audio clips of Spanish lessons. I started to try to learn as a test, as a game. And from there, I really got a very big interest in the language. And from there, I started to learn.

[00:08:04] Let's say later, we can talk a little bit about my process of learning. But obviously, they hear me talking, so they know that I speak the language. In quotes, I would say, I'm not perfect. I don't speak like a native. But I defend myself. And apart from my learning of Spanish, I'm a teacher. When I started learning Spanish, I was a teacher in mathematics in a school for students of sixth grade to eighth grade.

[00:08:33] but I became a teacher in English for students who come to the United States, who have parents who speak other languages. So now I teach math. And I also teach English. And I also teach math. But yes. So, listeners, he has experience in the process of learning a second language

[00:09:02] and also teaches English. So, we have an incredible opportunity to talk to someone who's been through the extremely hard work of learning how to go from one language to another. And yet, also, he's going to tell us about how they learn English, which is the purpose of our show.

[00:09:32] Right. It's important that you know that a key of his learning is that he had a Mexican friend or two Mexican friends with whom he spoke a lot. He spoke with them. He had conversations with them frequently. and they did a little bit of a future. And

[00:10:01] so, it's possible the point of walking in. And it was a little bit extreme. And even though, after, I thought after how much, after a month, I met a couple of minutes. And I can talk about you in a platform,

[00:10:29] what we did was exchange languages. So one week we spoke English, the other we spoke Spanish. But again, besides the exchange, I also hired tutors who helped me a lot. What was the name of the product that you used or the online platform that you used to meet these people? So for the actual tutors, the platform is called italki, italki.com.

[00:10:58] And it's basically a platform where native Spanish speakers and really English speakers as well in all languages. It's not just Spanish, but native speakers of a language offer their language services. They have a wide range of people there that are either professional teachers that actually teach in a way that's similar to a professional setting. And then they also have what they call community tutors, which are just people offering their conversations services, I guess. And they'll correct you and they'll guide you, but they're pretty much just offering conversations.

[00:11:26] And so I use that for the tutors and then to find language exchange partners. At that time, guys, italki had a section on their website where you could meet other people and do language exchanges. So I met some people like that. And again, those people I'm still friends with, they invite me to visit them in Mexico and Colombia all the time. Some of them have recently moved to the United States. Yeah, some of them have recently moved to the United States. So one of them lives in Michigan, so I'll go visit them soon and all that kind of stuff. But either way, I use italki, but there are others that are still out there now,

[00:11:56] like Tandem. Like, for example, I went to Peru and I met one of my language exchange partners and their family from Tandem. They showed me around Lima, Peru. And then there's another one called HelloTalk. I'm not the biggest fan of HelloTalk because I'm just going to be honest. There's a lot of, in Spanish, they say, ¿qué es lo que dicen? Motivos escondidos, digamos. Like there are people there looking to date and do other things like that. It's not as serious as I've found the other ones to be, but yeah. Estafadores también.

[00:12:27] Exactly. Asking for money and stuff like that. So that one, I'm not, you have to filter a little bit better on that one, but for the most part, those are the sites that I use. So it's interesting that you mentioned Tandem and HelloTalk and italki because Gabe and I use all three of those on some occasion. I have, tengo, pues, seis, hasta diez amigos que diría son buenos amigos

[00:12:56] in Tandem que mantengo hace dos, tres años y he conocido como tú, he conocido tres personas frente a frente por por la app y Gabe practicó el uso de HelloTalk por seis meses, creo. Y Gabe, what would you say about HelloTalk that he didn't say? I found

[00:13:25] some of the same things. I met a lot of very friendly men and then I met some women who seemed to think that maybe I was interested in dating them and of course that's, they were surprised when I was just interested in speaking Spanish but I think the real key for all of us is I think you know, Greg and I are big believers in comprehensible input

[00:13:55] and the importance of hearing natives speak the language so that your brain can absorb the target language and then the production kind of comes after. What is fun to me about you, Mike, is that you sort of broke that rule. You started producing excuse me, you started producing the language very early but you

[00:14:24] didn't take a year and just try to absorb Spanish. You started trying to speak it and as a result in my opinion as both students of Spanish you speak better Spanish than I do. The real key there does seem to be a real key element in making opportunities to speak the language and not just to listen to it. I get a lot of opportunities to hear Spanish I don't get as many opportunities

[00:14:54] to speak it at least without having to pay someone to do it. But anyway you have helped me shift my thinking some because I have always thought well you need to wait a little while and don't force talking and so it looks like there are a number of ways that we can accomplish the same task. Yeah and I would add to your

[00:15:23] point Gabe I think that there is value in waiting to speak I definitely think there are pros and cons to all of it but to me part of the learning a language process is avoiding the desire removing the desire to quit wanting to quit is very heavy in that process and what's one of the keys to not what's something that keeps you motivated to learn when you can speak better when you're like wow I just communicated an idea so even if it's not the most efficient

[00:15:52] the most practical step in terms of what's ideally the best way to learn the language or to produce the language I think it's like a little hack that can help you stay motivated as well and it was for me like just coming to I would be excited for my conversations every week to be able to say something new or try to use the new verb structure that I learned and so I think that is part of the reason why and you you've mentioned that you also having those those relationships also helped you push through the desire

[00:16:22] to quit because you don't want to lose the relationship so anyway you have a lot to teach all right Goyo I'm sorry take over so Mike I want to tell please what is the classroom that offer because you pass every day listening to students who are from several places especially from the Spanish and has

[00:16:52] identified I don't I don't tendencies that if you listen or read the English you don't necessarily detect or distinguish a certain kind of errors so what would say to our students who are learning English ok you need to focus on listening to

[00:17:21] this or listening to these sounds or reading this type of structure because you're not able to sort of self regulate through this if you'll focus on these things your English will improve ok in English or Spanish como tu quieras a me me gusta la me gusta la mezcla

[00:17:51] entonces ok que tal en español principalmente ok arranco en español yo diría que o sea voy a tocar el tema de la literatura y todo eso después pero la primera cosa que se me vino a la mente fue que muchos de mis estudiantes esto no pasa con todos mis estudiantes estoy hablando específicamente de mis estudiantes hispanoparlantes lo que noto en cuanto a la pronunciación es cuando una palabra en inglés

[00:18:21] empieza con s tantos o sea muchos de mis estudiantes quieren colocar en su mente en su pronunciación una e en frente de s entonces si nos pongamos a pensar en la palabra skate obviamente ustedes saben pero siempre quieren decir skate skate y siempre les tengo que decir mira mira la palabra no es skate empieza con skate entonces en cuanto a la pronunciación es algo

[00:18:50] que noto que se les hace muy difícil a veces pero no es algo que no pueden hacer o sea nada más tiene que enfocarse en quitar ese sonido de su pronunciación además algo que noto es que saben no en español si estás empezando una oración hablando de un tema o una idea en general como digamos la religión el feminismo la reconstrucción algo así un tema así

[00:19:19] en español empieza con el artículo el hola en inglés no pasa así entonces mis estudiantes cuando quieren digamos porque enseño estudiantes en la secundaria si están hablando de la reconstrucción digamos the reconstruction en esa etapa de la historia de Estados Unidos quieren decir the reconstruction y lo sí se puede decir pero sería mejor decir reconstruction was when or

[00:19:50] la religión en vez de decir la religión es algo bueno para las personas dicen the religion is good for people en vez de decir religion is good for some people entonces esas cosas cuando tratan de traducir palabra por palabra se les hace muy difícil además algo que noto es que saben no en inglés si está la única excepción en este caso de lo que voy a decir es el verbo can o poder pero por lo general en inglés si

[00:20:20] vas a usar o vas a decir dos verbos pegados enseguidos como I want y después otro verbo I like y después otro verbo muchas veces quieren traducir como hacen en español se les olvida decir to en frente del segundo verbo entonces I like to dance no es I like dance or I want to go I want go to Florida o sea muchas veces

[00:20:50] se les olvida eso también entonces serían las primeras cosas que se me vienen a la mente por lo general por lo general si un estudiante le echa ganas al proceso por las similitudes que tienen inglés y español usualmente les va bien les va bien o sea con un poco de corrección y si están expuestos al idioma en casa pero lo que diría al inicio serían esas cosas son las cosas que se les hace muy difícil

[00:21:20] wow pearls of wisdom a lot to process there thank you so much I'd like to ask your opinion of one other tendency that Gabe and I have noticed and that is if you have two or more consonants that knock into each other if I to say correctly correctly correctly the majority of speakers that I know

[00:21:50] would say something like correctly instead of correctly what would you have to say about that another one is st or st s sorry I'm struggling with it myself so like if you were going to say liberals are they're often elitists that's very hard to say sometimes for my friends that speak Spanish so I don't know if you've noticed that I

[00:22:41] stress to get that because honestly I have professors in college from Brazil that are teaching me calculus and they might say elitist I know what they're saying I understand what they're saying so me personally my so this goes in line with my whole so to your point Greg yes I noticed that problem as well and I try my best to articulate the differences there and I try

[00:23:12] it's frustrating a student or it's not coming out I don't push it because my whole language learning philosophy is I as a non-native Spanish speaker am never trying to be perceived as a native speaker I don't think that's a good goal for my mental health I don't think it's a good goal for my linguistic self self esteem if that

[00:23:43] but somebody is going to hear it they're going to hear it you know and so at a certain point as long as I'm enunciating my words and I'm speaking with proper grammar and I'm understood I consider that to be me speaking standard good Spanish and I view it the same way for non-native English speakers again I've had teachers that have taught me statistics from India from Brazil from I mean even thinking back to my Spanish

[00:24:13] teachers in high school they did not speak with perfect English accents but I you know that's one of the things that Greg

[00:24:42] if you can call it scolding it's one of the things that he does is that I beat myself up I beat myself up over not sounding like a native that it

[00:25:18] doesn't bother him it doesn't bother any of us I think it makes him more interesting and I kind of wish I sounded like that he sounds kind of like Antonio banderas when he speaks but it is this idea of language self esteem is something I've never heard before language learner self esteem is is that what you call it say it again yeah linguistic self esteem yeah linguistic

[00:25:48] self esteem and mine is so low so I'm gonna really work on that in 2025 since this is the new year yeah definitely y quiero que noten los oyentes en el internet cuando yo digo que que me doy cuenta de estas tendencias no estoy diciendo hay que corregirlas hay que corregirlas y no

[00:26:21] lo que lo que quiero decir es nada más que escucha la distinción si si alguien te dice correct correct si tú sabes que hay c t s al final de esta palabra no puedes decir correct pero puedes escucharla y eventualmente quizás puedas decir lo mejor en

[00:26:51] el futuro pero nunca quiero darle pena a nadie si puedes comunicarte en dos idiomas es un milagro es como un super poder que que y yo pasamos mucho tiempo hablando de este super poder si queremos mejorar no cabe

[00:27:42] duda s at the end of it instead of just ts for example or s agree agree agree and gave you mentioning that side note but referencing Greg's initial question something else that I noticed that my native Spanish speakers do when they're learning English and this happens for all ELL students English language learning students I've noticed is they tend to forget so it's funny right

[00:28:11] learning Spanish we don't have it doesn't make sense right well in English you can get away with saying he drink water every day you can get away with that and be understood and so a lot of my students use that they get away with that I always have to remind them like hey if you used he she or it as the subject of that word that verb needs to end with an S with the exception of the

[00:28:41] verb can that's the exception a lot of times in English but you don't say he cans drink but outside of

[00:29:11] those incorrect conjugations are to me the way people are going to identify me as a non-native speaker immediately because they incorrect conjugations more than incorrect pronunciation when I'm relaxed my pronunciation is pretty good but I will never have a native grasp of for example so it's interesting

[00:29:41] to hear that my first employer was a Korean martial arts master and he had very limited English but he used the gerund form of every verb to communicate and everyone could understand him so he would say to me you need vacuuming right you need to go vacuum the floor or hurry and

[00:30:10] changing and we understood it it's just he didn't sound native so being understood and understanding I guess is the real essence of communication but we all strive for this ideal that you are getting very close to so this is helpful to hear Mike in our time that's left would you please tell us about your internet presence you have a very successful website or channel on youtube and

[00:30:40] other things tell us how we can find you okay so when I first after one month of learning spanish I had the what I was looking for on youtube was some way to gauge what this process might look like I wanted to know like all right the average learner after one month two months five months how do they sound learning spanish I scoured the internet for that and could not find it at all so my intention with uploading so initially I started on youtube by uploading my

[00:31:10] monthly progress in spanish part of it I'm not gonna lie I did have the foresight to know like all right this doesn't exist on youtube so it might help someone coming after me but the honest pure intention was to record myself so that every month I had some tangible way to see that I was growing and so every month for the first month I'm sorry the first 10 to 12 months of learning Spanish I recorded my Spanish progress on youtube and I started to notice that a mix of native Spanish speakers and native English speakers

[00:31:40] started watching my videos and so I started to notice that I was getting some traction and eventually I started to notice that I was getting enough traction that I thought hey maybe taking a trip to Colombia might actually make this YouTube thing that I'm taking super casually it might make it

[00:32:14] but that sparked my growth and then from there I just have been doing a mix of recording my conversations speaking Spanish exposing the world to other native English speakers across the world across the English speaking world in Australia and the UK and the United States and other countries that have learned Spanish to a fluent level once I developed some level of

[00:32:44] language in general so it's a mix of me sharing my experience learning the language traveling advice language learning in general on top of that I decided to write a book to help other people again behind me learn Spanish in a way that I think would be efficient and logical explanations of some of these grammar concepts that are a lot of times much made much more complicated than they need to be and so I have a book on Amazon where I call it a

[00:33:13] complete guide to learning Spanish it's not going to make you speak like me but it will teach you how certain things work in Spanish seriously and getting my input in that process and the reason I did that is because every week or so I'm super

[00:33:43] busy I teach full time I tutor 15 hours a week I'm in the process of trying to get another graduate degree I still like to cook and work out and still play tennis and still expand my Spanish and read and so I was getting a lot of emails for people saying hey Mike could I meet with you for 30 minutes you could give me some advice could I meet with you for an hour and every week that would be

[00:34:29] on one setting or a small group setting and then this year if all things work out we plan on taking a trip to right now they're saying they want to go to Mexico and so I'll also be leading a group to Mexico I can't really lead them I guess linguistically I'd be leading them but you know I've been to Mexico the Yucatan Peninsula but they're considering going to Mexico City so that's another thing that I do as well well give us your handles yeah tell us how we can find you sorry about that so yeah my

[00:34:59] channel I only have YouTube I

[00:35:48] I to learning Spanish that's the name of the book Mike thank you for for spending some time with us he and I both live in Atlanta and we see snow about once every five years and yesterday it snowed so

[00:36:18] did you did you walk around in the snow yesterday I did a little bit I did a little bit I I'm just you know I've had maybe in my life I don't know maybe like six to eight snow days and so it doesn't like hit me as much as it

[00:36:50] I that's one of the funny things we as adults we want to stay in when we see this I don't want to go out in that but our kids are like let's go outside let's go and we're like why I forced myself to go outside but I'm much older than Mike and so it was scary because I'm walking on icy roads and sidewalks and a couple of times pues

[00:37:19] casi me caí mantuve mi balance pero apenas so it was a little scary but I forced myself as an old man to go outside and look at the pretty snow so Gabe sees snow every year so it no es ninguna cosa super urgente para él Mike thank you so much for your

[00:37:49] time and I know you have other things going on today other interviews so good luck in all your humble enterprises thank you thank you thank you guys for interviewing me as well again I think this is a great resource for all learners of languages to be honest even if

[00:38:30] Mike for coming on our show and now it's time time time our quiz what sticks in your brain after one listening to our show about Mike and learning English question number one what subject in school did Mike Ben teach before he became an English teacher right Mike is an English teacher now but he didn't teach English in the past did he teach a science b

[00:38:59] mathematics c history or d art science mathematics history or art okay I remember being angry and jealous that Mike Ben can also do mathematics as well as speak really good Spanish because I am bad at mathematics so yes he did be he taught mathematics before he

[00:39:29] became an English teacher that is correct all right question number two which word did Mike Ben say that we don't put an S on in the he she form in English so there when we use he or she in English we put an S on the end of an action or verb for example walk becomes walks walk becomes walks but one word one

[00:39:59] action one verb does not receive this treatment is it a put b get c can or d do or do so one of these doesn't get an S in the he or she form so

[00:40:32] gosh all of these do don't think that's he well d d is weird because do does become does but it still has an S okay so the answer is C can because you wouldn't say she can speak English like

[00:41:06] Akron B Atlanta C Anchorage or D Alpharetta Akron Atlanta Anchorage or Alpharetta okay I know you live in Georgia I'm smart enough to remember that and Alpharetta and Atlanta are both in Georgia but you both live near B Atlanta that is correct Atlanta

[00:41:35] the home of the Atlanta Falcons and the Atlanta Braves is also where Mike Ben and I live well we live near Atlanta he lives on the other side of Atlanta for me but Atlanta is between us is between us well again we want to thank you for listening to this and all of our episodes over these years that

[00:42:07] and that you'll remember some of the things Mike said about not having to be it doesn't have to be perfect and then ultimately don't give up we want to remind you that the name of our podcast is don't give up as Mike Ben says it is not necessary for you your goal

[00:42:38] that's not the point don't give up guys we appreciate you using us as one of your tools and we hope that some of what we say here is helpful for you on your journey Gabe I love you I had fun interviewing Mike Ben guys be sure to check out his channel if you want some encouragement about how you can learn things at your own pace and we'll talk