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Lindsay McMahon
Maybe it's maybe Lane welcome to the New Books Network.
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Hannah Torsh
Welcome to the Language on the Move podcast, a channel on the New Books Network. My name is Hannah Torsh and I'm a lecturer in Applied and Sociolinguistics at Macquarie University. My guest today is Lindsay McMahon. Lindsay is a founder of the All Ears English podcast and app and we're going to talk about teaching pronunciation. Lindsey, according to her fantastic website, has been an English Instructor for over 15 years and her podcast is in the top 20 ranked podcasts in Korea, Japan, Brazil and China. Welcome to the show, Lindsay.
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Lindsay McMahon
Thank you Hannah. I'm really glad to be here.
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Hannah Torsh
Oh, we're thrilled to have you. So can you start off by telling us a bit about yourself and how you started this highly successful English language learning podcast, All Ears English?
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Lindsay McMahon
Yes, I'd be happy to. So I started my career after college traveling the world and teaching English to adults as a second language. So I lived in Japan, taught there, saw that angle of teaching, lived in Buenos Aires, Argentina, taught there as well as Guatemala and then New York City, where I was able to teach students of, from all over the world. And I saw some of the gaps out there in the language training world, especially for adult learners. But I, I knew that I loved interacting with my students, learning from them about the world. I could always learn more from them than they could for me, I think, from my perspective and at the same time. So this is about 2012, 2010 to 2012. Podcasting was just coming up. It was just becoming popular. There were a few shows out there, but not too, too many. And I thought, oh my gosh, what if we could teach English through a podcast? It sounds like a very simple concept now, but at the time it was somewhat new. And so I knew another teacher who was also living in Boston at the time, her. And I said, hey, do you want to start a show together? She said, yeah, let's do it. It was as simple as plugging in the mic. Hannah. I mean, that's what I love about podcasting. It is very approachable for any teacher, any educator, they can literally plug in the microphone and go for it.
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Hannah Torsh
Yeah, absolutely. That's lovely. It's a lovely origin story. And, and obviously it worked because you're still going. Yeah.
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Lindsay McMahon
And yeah, yeah, it's been 12 years now, so.
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Hannah Torsh
Yeah, that's fantastic. Well, look, we could talk for a whole episode about the, the process of putting that together, but today I really would like to focus in on pronunciation teaching. Now, I don't know if you know this, but I teach a unit at Macquarie University on pronunciation teaching and it's one of the areas of language teaching that has been kind of, it's kind of been tricky. So it's called sometimes the Cinderella of language teaching. Yeah. So I'm really keen to know how, with your approach to language te, how do you approach this aspect of language pronunciation?
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Lindsay McMahon
Yeah, yeah. This is a really important thing to talk about because it is one of the things that really plagues our students, our listeners the most. But it's one of the things that is not taught as much in traditional TESOL programs. When I got started in ESL, I took a 30 day program at the School for International Training, which is fantastic, by the way, in Brattleboro, Vermont. And there wasn't a ton of pronunciation taught or how to teach. Pronunciation wasn't taught to us as much, however. So our main philosophy, broadly speaking, around teaching pronunciation comes back to our overall philosophy of our podcast and our company, which is connection, not perfection. It's not just a trademark for us, it's really a. It's a vision, it's, it touches our hearts. This is comes back to my origin story as a language learner. Having traveled the world and learned Spanish. 11 moment on a beach in South America, sitting there feeling quite isolated, frankly, feeling like I had some of the language, but I was too self conscious to really connect. And that's where as we got through episode 50 of the show, we thought, okay, let's use a different approach here. Well, the reason we're learning languages is not to learn a language. It's actually for human connection. And we know that. Yes, it's true. But if we can remember that, if our students can remember that on a day to day basis, it will be transformational. So our goal is to actually take human connection as the ultimate goal into pronunciation. And so we can talk a little bit today about, about how we do that. And we've just launched a new pronunciation course, so we've had a chance to figure that out a little bit in the last few months.
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Hannah Torsh
Oh great. Yeah. Oh, I love that. Yeah. I mean, I, I, there's so many, there's so many important ideas wrapped up in that idea of connection, not perfection. And this is where as an applied linguist, I always think something one of my professors said to me in my training, you know, it's never about language, it's always about people that's, you know, that's, you can't separate them. And so, yeah, I really love that slogan especially, it's so true.
- [06:24]
Lindsay McMahon
And especially Hannah, with adult learners, because I think what I've found, at least for, excuse me, Millennials, Gen Xers, they've gone through a life of kind of trauma in the classroom, in a sense of the methods that have been used and it's been ingrained in them. They have a narrative about how they are as an English speaker and frankly, it's usually not a very positive one. And so that kind of breaks my heart. And so our go to change that narrative and put something truly more important. I mean, I don't think that you can be self conscious and be seeking connection at the same time. The human brain can't do it. And so that's the idea.
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Hannah Torsh
Oh, that's wonderful. Yeah, yeah. I talk about this in my own book actually, that my PhD research is based on, about language learning in Australian language classrooms. So I don't know if you're interested, but just a little side note, so in Australia, we haven't had a great history of foreign language learning and part of it has been teaching learners to kind of feel like they're bad language learners. And I mean, you could apply that globally to other methods of teaching English as well. That's right. So you kind of have this learner who has all of this sense of negativity around their own abilities. Yeah, yeah, it's perfect. And so linked to pronunciation, isn't it? Because pronunciation is one of those sort of aspects of language performance that is very much connected to our sort of social being. It's not something you can do independently on your own in front of a book. You know, it has to come in that moment. So maybe let's talk a bit about your. Yeah, your pronunciation course and your approach to teaching pronunciation.
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Lindsay McMahon
Yeah, exactly. I'd love to. So when we started to design this course back in September, I worked with a curriculum developer who was fantastic. And we sat down and we thought, what will be the angle that will make sense with the connection mentality? We kind of had two choices. And I see pronunciation courses going in one of two ways. Some focus on specific accents. Teaching the American accent, teaching the British accent, teaching the regional accent. Speak like an American, quote, unquote. It's out there. We realized that was an option for us, but then we thought there would be a, a better way to do that. And the goal of this course and our overall philosophy on pronunciation is clear speech. It's very simple. It's clear speech for global English, because I'm not sure that the American accent or the British accent is the future of global business. Many of our listeners are in fact learning for their career, or they're kind of straddling between learning for, like, life fulfillment, in a sense, travel, feeling good about achieving their goals and future career opportunities. And so we decided to, to focus on not showing you how to speak like an American or speak with an American accent, how to speak clearly and how to reduce your effort in speaking. When we know how to speak clearly, we reduce our effort. So what that comes down to on a principal level is understanding that English is a stress time language, first of all, not a syllable time language like so many other languages. And this is where we get into the weeds. I'm not an expert in pronunciation myself. That's why the team developed the course. But it really is about studying that, the heartbeat of English. Right. Broadly speaking, and understanding that first. And before we start to kind of mimic and start to sound American, I don't, I don't love the connotation of that.
- [09:37]
Hannah Torsh
So that is super interesting. And as you say, that's certainly out there in the, in the, in the Language teaching landscape, the idea of like learning a particular accent. Yeah. And. And so you decided instead to focus on this idea of clear speech. And when you talk about clear speech. So you were interested in like the. You're interested in the rhythm of English, that it's stress times. Yeah. Fantastic. And so. So how does your, how does that fit in with the idea of connection? I guess so how did those. Because one of the things I think that is very common or is a bit of a theme in the pronunciation literature is the idea of intelligibility rather than native accents. So maybe you could tell me a little bit more about that.
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Lindsay McMahon
Yeah, that's very similar. So I see intelligibility as a very similar thing to clear speech. Right. Can you be understood, can you reduce the effort with which others have to put in to understand you? And vice versa, the amount of effort you are spending on trying to pronounce correctly, therefore you're connecting. Right. So in those moments, we still believe you can make pronunciation quote, unquote mistakes and still find connection. So the way that kind of breaks down in our, in our course, all of the courses and all the material that we have are pretty natural. So we always bring in interviews with native speakers into the course. And they're natural, they're not rehearsed, they're not prepared, they're not scripted in any way. This is for all of our courses. We tend to target the B2C1 level in our courses. So they, our students are ready for that. So it's a lot of shadowing with these very real natural conversations. So it's taking the raw English and looking at how does it actually look, but stepping back without this pressure to repeat and sound like this accent instead, starting by observing how this accent might be different, how this rhythm might be different from the way maybe we speak in our native languages to compare that. First of all.
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Hannah Torsh
Yeah, yeah, that's great. Yeah, yeah. So if you, if that's the. If the aim is then to think about rhythm, and this is certainly something that's come up a lot in the, in the literature about different targets. So rather than looking at native accents as targets, looking at things like international English or global English or even English as a lingua franca, you know, the work of Jennifer Jenkins, all of those models often talk about rhythm as sort of more important than, say, and this is something I talk about with my students, you know, a lot, and there are different ideas about it, but more important than, say, getting the th sound, the third sound. Right. Actually, the rhythm of speech gives learners a lot more. Sorry, it gives listeners a lot more clues as to meaning than just getting those individual segments right.
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Lindsay McMahon
100%. And I think listening is really tied in with pronunciation.
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Hannah Torsh
Right.
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Lindsay McMahon
It's hard. We can't really extract them from each other. So essentially, I was just talking to one of our students last week, and he works for a consulting company in the Middle east. And he's still kind of in the mentality of I want to practice with a native speaker. And I was trying to understand. I know that. I understand that mentality. I know it's been around for a long time. But I was challenging him a little bit and I was asking him, who do you actually work with on a daily basis? Who. Who are these people that you're having to present to where the stakes are really high for you? And I understand the stakes are high. Right? And he said, It's 99 people from the Middle east speaking in English. And I said, okay then. So this makes sense that we might want to expand our idea of who we want to be practicing with and practicing for and what our goal is. And that's where the Connection piece comes in. Ultimately, you're going for the connection. K Pop Demon Hunters, Haja Boy's Breakfast Meal and Hunt Tricks meal have just dropped at McDonald's. They're calling this a battle for the fans. What do you say to that, Rumi? It's not so glad the Saja boys
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Lindsay McMahon
It is our larger honor. No, really, stop. You can really feel the respect in this battle. Pick a meal to pick a side and participate in McDonald's while supplies last. So good, so good, so good.
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Lindsay McMahon
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- [14:32]
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- [15:02]
Hannah Torsh
So in that sense, one of the things that, for example, English teachers or student English teachers or, you know, those want to improve their professional skills in English language teaching can think about then, I guess, is, you know, who are they? Yeah. Who are their students actually talking to? You know, And I mean, yeah, we know this as well from the literature that, you know, in terms of language users, English has many, many more people using it as a second language. So you and I are kind of unrepresentative here, Lindsay. You know, we are speaking our first language together, but actually most interactions happen between speakers of second language. So English is a second language. Yeah. And so they are, in fact, the target audience, if you like, the target listeners.
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Lindsay McMahon
Yeah, exactly. So that really changes everything in the approach and what now becomes more important, especially with the, I guess, postco world, the zoom world. Many of our students are just on zoom conference calls all day with someone from Australia, someone from the uk, someone from Japan, someone from Brazil.
- [16:02]
Hannah Torsh
Right.
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Lindsay McMahon
And so we're having all these different accents. And again, and that's where the goal becomes clear speech. So I think this approach is really set up for the future, a little bit more so than the old. What I would. I would call the old model, in my opinion.
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Hannah Torsh
Yeah, yeah, great. Yeah, for sure. And I mean, that's something, I think that really links in with this sort of digital shift in language teaching too. Right. That actually, if our communication is like we're doing right now is over a screen, we do have to be clearer because we're not in person. We can't, you know, can't use all of those. I mean, yeah, it's embodied because we can see each other, but it's very different to being in person. And that just means we have to be a little bit more tolerant of maybe disfluencies, a little bit more accommodating in terms of our. Our list, you know, our listener and accommodating their needs. So, yeah, I mean, that's something Jennifer Jenkins talks about a lot too. In the, in the Lingua Franco model is accommodation. So it's not just the speaker and their pronunciation, but of course, also how much they're willing to. To accommodate, you know, the other person's language and differences from what they might expect.
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Lindsay McMahon
Yeah, absolutely. 100. There's a lot to think about here. And as we're building courses with the listening piece, one student told me last week that she struggles a lot when she's on zoom calls. And the person Turns off their, their camera just as you're describing. And that becomes ten times harder from a listening perspective. So as we build, as we build our curriculum, really thinking about how can we create specific scenarios for students so we can get deliberate practice in those exact scenarios. That's what we'll be looking at for next year.
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Hannah Torsh
Yeah, for sure. I mean, this is also something, I don't know how you, whether you do this purposefully in your course, but something I'm trying to do in my unit and is certainly being advocated by other researchers in this space. Developing curricula for kind of global English is introducing just a diversity of speakers into your curriculum. So that instead of just hearing these kind of often highly scripted, I mean, I think that's part of it too, the scripting. But highly scripted first language speakers interacting with no problems, as though speaking and listening are completely problem free activities. You actually have a diversity of accents and a kind of diversity of situations, some of which, as you say, are not. Not scripted. Yeah, absolutely.
- [18:29]
Lindsay McMahon
And you know, background noise actually creating that authentic environment, or not creating it, filming in it. Right. Going out there and finding people to interview and collaborate with in those natural environments. We built a course back in 2016, which is becoming a little dated at this point, but we enjoyed building it, drove around the US and interviewed all different people with all different American accents, but also international accents at festivals, fairs, restaurants, really just out in the world. And a lot of students, when they get in the course, they get a little intimidated because it's, it's a really challenging course. But if you stick with it, that, that brings up the question of how do we teach that durability of commitment?
- [19:11]
Hannah Torsh
Right.
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Lindsay McMahon
How do we make sure we keep coming back to something that feels hard the first time, but if we stick with it, within six months or a year, we can get there.
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Hannah Torsh
Oh, that's wonderful. I will have to check that out because I have to say I am fairly unfamiliar with the range of accents in the US and there is a huge range and it's. Yeah, 400 years plus plus of course, the first peoples of occupation. So a long time to develop language change. Yeah, I would love to, love to do that. Yeah. I mean that's certainly something we hear from our students here too because the Australian accent is not widely represented. So a lot of migrants to Australia get a real shock when they come and they've been studying English for a long time. And again, you know, it comes back to that sense of actually we need to prepare learners for diversity of accents so that they don't have that real negative response straight away to something that sounds. I've had some fantastic comments over the years. That sounds outlandish. That was my favorite one.
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Lindsay McMahon
And the sgn.
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Hannah Torsh
Yes, yes. Just, I mean, if you're only used to hearing, let's say a British acc, you know, standard British English, Australian on the street, sounds very different to that. And as you say, it's, it's, it's, it can be quite difficult and traumatizing. We talked about a little bit before about, you know, the challenge of learning English in a kind of negative way and the trauma of that and how do you, how do you support learners to get through that? So that sounds like wonderful. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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Lindsay McMahon
And it's, it's an important point that you brought up, Hannah. This idea of the, the wall goes up. I'm sure a lot of research has been done on this, the first listening shock concept. Right. When we hear that, that line that we feel like we can't understand, then all of a sudden that wall goes up in our head and we think we can't understand anything moving forward. And how do we teach our students to bring that down? I mean, again, like I said, for us it comes back to what are we focusing on? It's the, the eye contact is the can I get a laugh out of this person? Can I share a joke, can I share a story, share a human moment? But how can we further bring that wall down so that doesn't happen as quickly or as easily?
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Hannah Torsh
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think that's so, it's kind of connected to, you know, that idea in language teaching of the effective filter, you know, that emotionally you feel very. Yeah, absolutely. And so my second language is German and I find I learn standard German as we do and I find I struggle so much with so called dialect and I have to really. Yeah. Really sort of notice my own discomfort with it and, and kind of sit with it a bit and, and persevere. Yeah. So, and that kind of leads me, I guess, back to the idea that with pronunciation, I think we also need to remember it's not just about the speaker. So sometimes no matter how clearly you speak or how much you're trying, the context is such that, you know, you're, you're not going to be invited in or someone's not going to, not going to accommodate you. And that is that, that is on them, not on you. So how, how do you deal with that issue with your, with your learners? That's certainly something that comes up with my, with my Teachers?
- [22:25]
Lindsay McMahon
Yeah, yeah, I think it's teaching then it's teaching kind of vocabulary skills or communication skills to ask good questions, making sure that we understand the context we're in, how we can add value in any given situation. Asking the right questions of how to get yourself back into that conversation. 100. It's a normal natural thing where it's not always possible to plug in in every situation. And also just the fact of knowing that that's, that's going to happen. Right. We could have great clear speech ready for the global business world, but there could be a day where it doesn't work out and we have to be okay with that, right?
- [23:02]
Hannah Torsh
Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I think potentially also in professional situations there is a much more awareness, as you know, as we talked about before, that there's so many second language speakers in that space. What we find in the migration space is it's often kind of interpersonal situations where you know, for whatever reason people are not very tolerant or they're not really willing to accommodate and no matter how much people try, in fact, you know, it's a two way street. And so sometimes you have to acknowledge it's not anything to do with your own pronunciation as a second language user. It's actually someone else's unwillingness to understand because their wall is up for whatever reason. Yeah, sure, yeah.
- [23:41]
Lindsay McMahon
And so it's an, I mean, I think any challenge in life, especially interpersonal challenges are a chance to build confidence and go, go inward a bit and kind of work on our own, I guess mindfulness in a sense or just approach to conflict. And so it's an invitation. I think going through life without learning a second language is, would, would be sad. I mean, you know, it just opens you up to another world. So obviously they're going to be challenges and that's on some level it's a gift, right?
- [24:07]
Hannah Torsh
Yeah. And one of the things that we try and do with our, with our students and also with our sort of research team is to sort of build that solidarity around, you know, this is something that happens to all of us as second language users. This is kind of part of the experience and we all see it and we all recognize it and sometimes no matter how fantastic you are as a communicator, you know, if it doesn't work, it's, it's actually nothing to do with you. So it's always a two way street speaking. I always say, you know, it's not all your responsibility to make yourself understood. It's also the other person you're talking to 100%.
- [24:41]
Lindsay McMahon
And also for your teachers, for your listeners. I mean, I think that's where our fuel as teachers comes from. Right. So, like I said, my origin story came from trying to learn Spanish, feeling super disconnected and lonely on a beach in Colombia. And then my kind of pain from that moment still, like, extends out now, came into our philosophy, our vision, and it. It fires up my teaching even 15 years later. Right. So, like, maybe that's something teachers need to go through, to have had some kind of experience like that, to bring that into their teaching.
- [25:10]
Hannah Torsh
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. For sure, for sure. It's a kind of metamorphosis.
- [25:16]
Lindsay McMahon
Yeah.
- [25:16]
Hannah Torsh
That I think we all go through. Yeah. Wonderful. Oh, look, it's in such a pleasure to talk to you about this topic. And it just sounds like a fantastic. Yeah, sounds like a fantastic course. And I really love the sound of that other episode with all the different accents. I'm definitely going to check that out. But before we wrap up, I would like you to tell me a little bit about what you think. Two things. One is, like, you talked a little bit about what you think will happen with pronunciation in the future, you know, but also what's kind of next for you with the app? What's. What's on the horizon for all English and for you personally?
- [25:51]
Lindsay McMahon
Yeah. Well, one thing I'd love to get back to is live events. We've done live events over the years. We haven't done them in a while, but inviting students to come and join us in a city and do an urban immersion adventure where we pair them. We ask them to go out and do scavenger hunts around the city. See, it's just they've been the coolest events and the most transformative. We've been able to see the most growth from our students. Those are hard to organize in a lot of work, but we have loved them, so I'd like to bring that back. But on the more scalable level, I think AI is. Is coming for us for sure, but not in a negative way. We're planning on figuring out a way to leverage it. We've been experimenting with how we can use it in pronunciation corrections, but also just intent.
- [26:33]
Hannah Torsh
Right.
- [26:33]
Lindsay McMahon
Together with the teacher. The teacher alongside the AI, not necessarily replacing the AI. So we just need to figure out a way to do that remotely, because most of our students are coming from other countries and studying remotely with us. So AI will definitely be a big part of it. And we'll be continuing with our podcast. That is our biggest megaphone that is how we get our philosophy out there and how we can see the improvement from the very beginning from our listeners, from our students, and we love hearing from them and, and seeing that it's working, and that is helping them. So the show will go on.
- [27:07]
Hannah Torsh
Wonderful. Oh, I have to just ask about the AI thing. So that's. That's really interesting. One of the things that's coming up a lot on my radar is the use of, you know, the automated tech, the automated speech recognition for pronunciation. Teaching. Yeah. And there, I have to say, as an Australian English speaker, that, that the. For example, the standard speech recognition on Microsoft Office is completely humiliating because. Yeah. I think that as an Australian English speaker, everything that I say is. Is. It's understood through a filter of American, Standard American. And so I. When it. When it writes it out, I sound like I have, like, a really strong Australian accent, and all of my vowels are really, you know, which is. Yeah, which is. Which is not great. As an educator and a teacher, it's, it's, you know, you don't want to hear. You've got a really strong, difficult to understand accent. So. Yeah, so. But certainly it's something that I think is a really great possibility because teaching, Practicing pronunciation is really, you know, on your own is almost impossible without a listener to tell you, is that comprehensible? So it's. There's a possibility there. Is that. Is that something you. Yeah, the AI. Yeah.
- [28:20]
Lindsay McMahon
Yes. Students want immediate feedback, and I understand why.
- [28:23]
Hannah Torsh
They do.
- [28:23]
Lindsay McMahon
Of course they do. More so than any other area of, you know, English vocabulary idioms. I was working with a curriculum developer this year building a course, and he was from Scotland, and he was saying the same thing. The Scottish accent does not work as well with AI I think that's just a matter of time, I think. I mean, it's just how fast things are moving. I think in, you know, six months to a year, that won't be an issue anymore, I. I hope, genuinely. And so what we do, we're actually working with a company called Sensei AI. They're based, I think, in. In. They're based in the US but they have a large market in Asia. So working with Asian schools in Asia, with kids, actually, and they have a nice tool. We're looking at some other options, too. So it's just a simple speaking into the. The. The recorder and then getting an analysis of each word of the rhythm of that kind of thing. So we'll just, we'll keep digging into it. I think it's. It's impossible to ignore. I know our students are out there using AI Own, so we'd like to guide that a bit more with a clear curriculum. You know, we want to help you get somewhere, not just chat, because we know when we just kind of chat, we end up at that intermediate plateau. Right. That B2 level where we're not able to move into C1, C2. So that's kind of our vision. But it is, at the same time a little intimidating, I'm not gonna lie. Right. I mean, it'll change the industry significantly.
- [29:40]
Hannah Torsh
Yeah, absolutely. But that's. That's good to know you've got a Scotsman working on it because, yeah, he would have exactly the same issues. So. But, yeah, I think that a tool where you have input from Langu experts is really valuable. And, yeah, I'll definitely be looking out for that. And, yeah, really interesting the idea of it looking at rhythm, because I think that's something, for example, that I don't have a problem with when I do speech recognition. Like, it gets all my vowels wrong and some of my words, but, you know, in terms of kind of the general sentences, it can pick that up fine. And that is something that we know, we know gets in the way of intelligibility when speech is still right, as
- [30:18]
Lindsay McMahon
we said at the beginning, 100%.
- [30:19]
Hannah Torsh
Yeah, yeah, it's true. Yeah. But there's some work in Australia by Professor Linda Yates, who's worked on this for many years about exactly this and in the migrant learning space about the importance of speech rhythm. And so, yeah, that. That would be great. So we'll. We'll keep an eye out on that and. And once that tool is there, I would love to check it out. Yeah, fantastic. Oh, look, Lindsay, it's been so lovely talking to you about this. Thank you so much. Yeah, thank you.
- [30:44]
Lindsay McMahon
Thank you so much for having me on.
- [30:46]
Hannah Torsh
That was lovely. And thanks all to our audience for listening. If you enjoyed the show, please subscribe to our channel. Leave a five star review on your podcast app of choice, and don't forget to recommend the Language on the Move podcast and our partner, the New Books Network to your students, colleagues and friends. Till next time.