AEE Episode 1: Meet Your English Teachers

This is an all-ears English podcast episode one. Meet your English teachers. Welcome to the all-ears English podcast, where you'll finally get real, native, English conversation and fluency for business and life. We believe in connection, not perfection, when it comes to learning English. Now, here are your hosts, Lindsay McMan, the English adventurer and Michelle Kaplan, the New York radio girl coming to you from Boston and New York City, USA. Welcome to all-ears English. In this episode, you will meet Lindsay and Michelle. You will find out which one of them has been living in New York City for 10 years. Which one likes to scoop peanut butter out of the jar? And how will teach you to finally connect with native speakers in English conversations? Hello, Michelle. Are you excited? Lindsay! Hello, hello. Yes, I am so excited. Hello to our listeners. Guys, welcome, welcome to all-ears English. We are here to give you something brand new to help you learn real English with native speakers. So we want you to get to know who we are. So Michelle, who are you? Tell us more about yourself. Yeah. Guys, nice to meet you. My name is Michelle Kaplan. I am from the Washington, D.C. area, originally. However, now I live in New York. I love to travel. I also like to perform. I have done stand-up comedy. I've been in a band. I like to write songs and sing. So I really like all that stuff, but I also, I love to teach. I've been teaching for years now. And I have my masters in teaching English as a second language. I really love working with students. So that's the short version of it. That's awesome. And I love that you are in New York City. Michelle, you and I share that in common that I've also lived in New York. And you have lived in New York for the past 10 years or so, is that right? Yes, for a long time. I've been here. Oh my gosh. Yeah. I know a lot of our listeners are curious about what it's like to live in this city. And you're going to get a lot of insight on that, guys, on all-ears English. And so that's why you should hit follow on this show to make sure you don't miss any of this awesome insight. So Michelle, Michelle, I introduce myself. What do you think? Yes, I was going to ask you. Yes, yes, yes. All right, Lindsay, tell us about who are you. All right. So guys, my name is Lindsay McMahon. And I am an English teacher. And I'm also an entrepreneur. I love building companies. I love building businesses. I love understanding problems in the world and solving them. I love taking action. I also have a puppy. His name is Kiefer. He's super cute. He's a little lab, Aussie mix. And we go hiking a lot. I like to take him outdoors. I'm all about skiing in the winter, hiking in the summer, and traveling. So when I began my career as an English teacher, I lived in Japan for a year and a half. And I taught English there. And I learned Japanese. And then I went to South America. And I backpacked around South America for a year to learn Spanish. I lived in Guatemala. I lived in Argentina. And I did the Camino de Santiago in Spain. So I've done a lot of great traveling, a lot of language learning. And of course, I lived in New York for a short stint. But now I'm here in the other English podcast. And so ready to share those experiences with you guys to motivate you to learn English in a new way. But Michelle, before we get into that new way, what we're doing here that's different. Let's talk about the weirdest snack recommendation. [LAUGHTER] OK, OK, it learns something good. It learns something good. Yeah, tell me what is the weirdest snack. Because I've heard a few strange things about the snacks that you eat, Michelle. Tell us what is your weirdest snack recommendation that our listeners could try. Ooh, this is-- I mean, can I share two? Two? OK. All right, I suppose you can. All right, OK, OK. OK, well, one is peanut butter and cheese. Like, I will eat a peanut butter and cheese sandwich or or peanut butter and a deli meat. So I will do a peanut butter and turkey, sliced turkey sandwich or something like that. So do you put-- so is it like the peanut butter is taking the place of the mayonnaise? Is that what's happening? I guess so. I don't know. I don't really like mayonnaise on my sandwich. So but I do like peanut butter. So it kind of makes a little bit different. But the other thing is that I like to dip my popcorn in milk. So take a cup of milk next time you guys are having popcorn and dip your popcorn in it and then eat it and it's delightful. Ooh, that is so weird. Sagi popcorn? No. Yeah, it's like a cereal. No, it's not-- it's not-- OK, let's be clear. We don't dip the whole thing in and dunk it. OK. And then it's totally wet. OK, we dunk it. Just do a little bit. You're going to hear a sizzle. OK. And then you know that it's time to go. But it's very good. I love this. I feel like you have much more clear recommendations than I do. This is so good. This-- now what would you do? This dunking thing? So you're not dunking, but you're sizzling it. OK, would you do this thing? Like when you watch a movie, is that how-- you have your glass of milk here and then you have your popcorn? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's really good. It's really good. Guys, you're going to give it a try. I mean, Lindsay, you got anything good? Do you ever avoid speaking because you're worried that you'll make a mistake? Not a huge mistake, but just enough of a mistake to make the conversation feel awkward. So instead, you choose the simpler path, the safer answer, maybe the shorter answer. Over time, this habit becomes a barrier to fluency and connection. Because fluency isn't about avoiding mistakes. It's about communicating and connecting despite them. Our free two-minute fluency quiz helps you discover your current English level, and it identifies what's holding you back. Go to allewsenglish.com/fluencyscore to take the free two-minute quiz now. That's allewsenglish.com/fluencyscorre. I've got-- well, I've got one thing that's very-- well, I'm just going to say it. It is taking my spoon. You know this, Michelle. We know each other. I know. I know. Dipping my spoon right into the peanut butter. What's the theme here? It's peanut butter, clearly. Peanut butter. And just scooping it out sometimes even two scoops. Maybe three if I'm feeling ambitious. But hey, I just love it. Just good, pure peanut butter. And I like the natural kind. I don't really like the fake kind, like the skippy. It's not my thing. Just the natural peanut butter. And just a nice scoop of that, and then going off for a workout or something. So good. Because you get that energy. And you like crunchy or creamy? Oh my gosh. I actually like both. I don't discriminate. But I think if I had to choose, I'd probably go for the crunchy. I like that crunch. I love people don't like that, though. I like both. But I think if I had to go for one, I would do the creamy. So that's-- I love it. I love it. So good. So guys, clearly we have some interesting recommendations. You should try those things. But you're going to learn a lot on this show about us, about American culture, about how to really connect. And let's tell our listeners what our vision is for this show. What is our slogan? What is our meaning? Why are we learning this show? You are going to hear us say this all the time, but it's because it's so important and so useful. This is connection, not perfection. This is what all ears English boils down to. When you really think of this show, this is what it's going to be, guys. Let's see, what does connection, not perfection, mean to you? So what it means is that your singular goal, the only reason we're all here learning English, is to connect with the human being. If you really think about it, that's the point of learning a language. It's not about the grammar tables. It's not about memorization. It's not about your English teacher and a classroom. It's only about the person in front of you. In some cases, that means the audience in front of you, right? If you're giving a presentation. But many times it's just that person maintaining that eye contact, making that person laugh, and having that relationship. That's all-- that's what we talk about on this show, right, Michelle? Right, right, right. So if you are sitting here and thinking, oh, well, I'm always like working with my textbook. I'm sitting in my room, my dorm room, or my apartment by myself looking at my textbook and just memorizing things. There's a time and a place for that. But our belief here is that you will learn more, much more, by getting out into the world and connecting with people and not worrying about, OK, oh no, did I? Was I supposed to have an S there? Or oh no, I like accidentally use the present test to tensor the past. Obviously, this show also-- we want to teach you correct English. And we will teach you correct English, right? We are not going to say, eh, doesn't matter, right? That's not what connection, not perfection is about. Exactly. It's about that we are putting connection at the forefront. At the forefront, such a good word for our listeners for today's first episode, right? So guys, if you are a global business professional, you are going on business trips around the world. You're doing conference calls with your colleagues in English. or if you're an international student maybe you're you're doing a PhD in the US or in England, Australia, this show is for you. So we're so excited to have you here. So the what do our listeners need to make sure they do right now? Guys, we will be here for days a week. So hit follow wherever you are listening to this podcast. Make sure you follow us so that you never miss any of our episodes. We are so excited to have you on this journey with us. And we just, we, we're excited to build this relationship with you as well. This is like, this is a real relationship. You know, it's not just me and Lindsay about the two of us. It's about you guys, right? We want to hear from you and we want to, we like to interact with our listeners. We're just excited, excited, excited to be here to, you know, help you with your English. Yeah. Michelle, that's exactly right. We're always thinking about you guys. And also that's why we're on all the socials, right? Michelle, I mean, we are on all the socials. We're even on WeChat in China. We are on Instagram, we're on Facebook, TikTok, we're on Clubhouse. We do, we do regular rooms in Clubhouse. We're on YouTube. So go and find us on any channel that any social that you like to follow. And Michelle, in the next episode, we're going to kick off by starting to talk about interviewing in the United States for our business, offer our listeners who are business professionals. So good. Awesome. Oh, I can't wait. Guys, we're happy to have you here. And yeah, we guys, we're all in this together. We're very excited. Yeah, let's have some fun, right Michelle? All right. All right, cool. I'll see you in the next one. Take care. Bye. Bye. [MUSIC PLAYING] Thanks for listening to All Year's English. And if you believe in connection, not perfection, follow our show wherever you listen to podcasts to make sure you don't miss anything. See you next time. [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING]