301. Real Stories About What's Possible | Interview with Tram

Welcome to the Influency Podcast. I'm Hadar and today we are going to listen to a real life story about English success. You are going to listen to an interview with one of my students who is going to tell you what is possible now that English is no longer an obstacle. Let's listen.

We're going to talk to Tram and I'm so excited to welcome her. So Tram is from Vietnam and she will share with you her journey and her success path and what has helped her become more confident in English. And now I'm going to welcome Tram who is going to tell you from her experience.

Hello, Heather. Hello everyone. How are you? Thank you so much. Varnish? Yeah, I'm doing well. How about you?

I'm good. I'm doing really, really well.

Yeah, me too. And I just want to say thank you for this opportunity and thank you so much for our dear friends for their huge, huge support. So thank you so much.

Absolutely. And you know, it's like it's worth every minute. So tell us a little bit about you and where you're from.

Yeah. So let me introduce a little bit about myself.

Please do.

Like, as you know, I'm Vietnamese and I'm currently living in Vietnam. And about my English learning journey. I have been studying English for eight years now and at the beginning of my journey I just learned English in order to get a better job after graduating from my university. Yeah. And after working for about three years, I changed my mind. Like I wanted to make a career change. So I quit my job and started to like, started pursuing my screen job as an English teacher.

Amazing.

So yeah, what made you decide that this is what you want to do? It's quite complicated to explain but basically back then I didn't really enjoy my job and honestly I myself didn't value my, my job, the work that I do. And while working at my company I always thinking about being an English teacher. But you know, back then I didn't feel comfortable, confident in my English because I didn't speak so well at that time. So I was reluctant many times to, to make this decision. Yeah. And then, you know, when the COVID 19 hits Vietnam then I have a lot of time to like for self relation and then I was like, you know, because I don't like my job so it's most of the time I feel very boring.

Yeah.

So I was like, what the point to live a life just to be boring? Because during the pandemic there are some bad scenarios happening and yeah, it make me think that way. And so, yeah, from then, I decided to quit my job and pursue my dream job.

This is so inspiring to see, because on one hand, yes, like, the pandemic pushed a lot of us to make changes, right? Like, things that we were not happy with, it caught. Like, it helped us to reflect on our lives and say, is this really what I want? Because all of a sudden you are, you know, if you're doing something that you don't love or people got to spend more time at home and they're like, I like this freedom. You know, I want more of that in my life. And also just realizing the fragility of life and how everything can close on you all of a sudden, it's just like, I need to do what I'm passionate about now. You know, I know a little bit about you, and you've been my student. And. And English is not just, oh, I want to be an English teacher. English is. Is a passion for you, right? Like, it's something that you're really passionate about, both as a learner. And this is why you're like, I want people to feel that passion. And this is, in a way, why you want to become a teacher.

Yeah. Really? Exactly.

So once you decided that you want to quit your job, kudos for that, and you said, okay, I like, here's my dream. What do I. I want to do that. What was the biggest challenge or obstacle that you felt like you were facing?

Well, honestly, back then, my biggest challenge is my English, especially my speaking skill, because I made good at writing, but my speaking skill weren't so good. And, you know, let me add a little sidestrack here, like, because before I quit my job, I was working as a travel company, and some of my bosses was native speaker. I mean, English speaker English. And most of the time, I just try to avoid having a conversation with them because my English, my speaking skill weren't so good. So, yeah, that is my biggest challenge. And then in order to become an English teacher in Vietnam, I need to, like, take the IELTS exam and also to get the TESOL certificate would teach its people how to teach English. And I need, you know, I need a lot of money, so I spend most of my saving, in fact, all of my saving to. To pay for the courses. So, yeah, that is my. The second biggest challenge for me. But lucky for me that I have a huge support from my family, especially my father and my sister. So, yeah, I really appreciate that.

All right. So beautiful to hear. I. I can't stress enough how important it is to have that support from your family, but also how important it is to invest in yourself. Like, you made that decision. And of course, you could have done something else with the money than to pay for, you know, those university courses that are very costly. And, you know, you also ended up joining my course, which is an investment in yourself. And a lot of people would be like, no, you should, you know, go on vacation or like, invest it in the stock market or buy a house or all of these things. But I am such a firm believer of investing in yourself because that's the best ROI that can. You can create, because the outcome of that investment is endless, especially when you're giving yourself that opportunity to discover, like, to. To have an occupation that you're. That you love. So good for you.

Wow.

Amazing. Yes. Okay, so you definitely enrolled in those courses.

Yes, that's right.

Okay, so then what was. So you started learning how to become a teacher and you started taking those. Those classes. What was your English journey? Learning journey? What did it look like back then? How did you practice? What did you do to improve?

Well, basically, before I joined usoud, I had been studying English for the IELTS exam for over one year. And as you may know, even though I had put a lot of effort to improve my speaking skill, but I didn't see much progress in my English. Yeah. And back then, I remember that my biggest problem in my speaking skill is fluency. So whenever I receive any questions, like, I didn't know how to answer it, I had no ideas, or even if I. If I can answer that question, then I couldn't speak more than one minute. And within that one minute, I had a lot of hesitation. So when was that? You can imagine.

Just for the record, when was that that you experienced that?

How long ago was it? Over one year. Believe it or not. Over one year.

I do not believe it. I do not believe it.

Yeah. Really? Wow. Yeah. So I just want to say that that's the reason why when I book the IO test, I panic. Literally panic. Yeah.

Okay, so before we go into your new sound story and what has changed there, I want you to maybe more specifically talk about the things that you did that you thought would help you improve. Yet they didn't. Right. They hadn't. For people who are maybe doing the work, learning for the IELTS exams and. And like, but still not seeing progress, what was it that you're doing that only now, in hindsight, you know, was not valuable?

Well, during that year, I joined a lot of. Join many different methods. Basically, I will practice on my Pronunciation. And sometime I practice shadowing as well. Yeah, I find a lot of articles or videos on the Internet and I try to consume the language as much as I can. And then I recording myself, like just audio recording. But I didn't like my voice back then, so I rarely listened to it and analyze it really. And then after that I realized that my learning methods didn't serve me well. So I like seek for advice on the Internet. And I finally, I read a book which is called the Language learner guidebook by Dr. Shandisha. And I really like that book and I highly recommend that book. So I still remember three major advice that the author gives to us. Like second language learner. Like, first of all, in order to become a good English speaker, we need to like study outside of the classroom and practice our English every day. And second, we need to learn with a community. And third is, yeah, we need to be willing to step out of our comfort zone, making new friends and new experiences. And I did exactly the same. But it doesn't work for me. And I didn't know why because I believe that the advice that I received from, from Dr. Shandisha effective and I believe that. But I, I, I didn't know what's wrong with, with me why I follow exactly his instruction. But I didn't see much progress in my English. And I only realized that when I joined newsout. Really? Wow.

So share with us your discovery. Why was it not working for you? Because it sounds on the paper. Yeah, yeah. Like legit. Very practical. I follow you know a lot of those things, especially community. Get out of your comfort zone. What was different for you?

Well, let me talk about it one by one. So first of all, we need to practice our English every day. And after finish the class with a teacher, we need to study independently on our role. So when I joined your course, I realized that the problem is my speaking practice habit was so bad. And so let me tell you how, how bad it is. Like every time, every time when I practice my English, I try to pronounce every single word within a sentence fully. So as a result, I have a joby speech. And when I speak to someone, then I feel like I need to put a lot of effort to complete a sentence because I need to pronounce as it every single word. Exactly. And then when I learn your course, I also learn about sentence stress and how to use my voice. Yep. Module nine, which is my favorite. You know, before I joined your course, I didn't know that. I didn't know anything about how to control my voice. And I, I didn't think that learning how to control our voice has anything to do with our English in general. So. Yeah, that's. That's for the first one.

Amazing. And like, also that you were willing to do the work because it does require work and the practice and the, you know, and being committed to. To doing it and to discovering new things. We're such a habitual creatures, and it's so easy to just be like, oh, okay, it's not working for me. Or, you know, it's probably not right. But you. You really kept trying until you. It didn't feel artificial anymore. And you can definitely hear it in your speech now. It's so. It's so obvious that all the, all the work that you've done. So that's number one. And what's number two?

Well, for number two. Number two, we need to learn with a community. So before I join your course, I did go to some communities on the Internet, but like I said, it doesn't really help to improve my speaking skill. And then I realized that it's because the communities that I joined weren't really active, really, because we have no lesson, no instructional videos, and we only meet each other once a week, so we don't have much time to. To talk to each other. And yeah, most of the time we just have enough time to introduce about ourselves. Yeah, so we, we don't have. We didn't have an opportunity to talk about many topics. So that's why. And other than that, also, in.

In that case, when you have a very limited relationship, then it always stay introductory level, so you're not expanding your abilities. So you always talk about yourself and where you're from and why you're here and all of that. And then when you do it again and again, you get better at speaking about that, but you're not challenging yourself to speak about more things or proving to yourself that you can.

Yeah, exactly. And also, like, as you can see, because we. We just have enough time to. To like, introduce about ourselves, so we don't really have time to be connected to other people. Yeah, so. So yeah, because, you know, learning English is about making connection, but we don't have the chance to be connected with other people. So it would prevent. Prevent me from developing my English.

So what was different in new sound? Like, what gave you that different experience with the community? Can you tell a little bit about that uniqueness of the community?

Well, I think the most important thing, like the most outstanding things in your community is the Connection between the learners and also with the coaches, the ambassador, and with you as well. We, we don't just stay there, stay there to learn the language. We really make connection with each other. We get to know each other very well and we listen from, we listen to other stories like personal experience and myself personally, I learned a lot from their stories and many of them also gave me a lot of support and advice what I can use, like apply to my daily life and also my career path. So I really appreciate that. And other than that. So as you can see, our community is very active. There are a lot of activities, like challenges.

It's really the secret because I think it's so important that, that English becomes the means to get that connection. And it's not so much about let's make connection to practice English. No, it's just like that, that deep need to get to know each other. And the thing about the community is that I think the type of program that I offer, you know, people who are interested in mindset, like people who only want something very specific, they're not going to sign up for the course. So people who are interested in personal development are usually attracted to this program. And this is why there are like like minded people that inspire each other and, and this is why, like there's more common ground, I think, in the community. So what Tran said was so brilliant. And I cannot wait to hear the last part about like the learning journey and the third part where she tried to get out of her comfort zone and why it didn't work for her. Okay, so I'm going to let you speak and talk about the third part.

Point. The third point. So I was talking about stepping out of our comfort zone, making new connections. My experience is when I first joined New South, I didn't really want to record my video and post it on our Facebook group. It only happened when I joined the conversation groups with other people and they started asking me, have you post any videos on our Facebook Facebook group? Because I didn't see you. Yeah, something like that. And they also gave me a lot of encouragement to, to, to do the same thing that I, they did. So I started recording some video and then post them on Facebook. And at the beginning I just set my goal like recording three videos per week and then post them on Facebook.

So I'm just gonna summarize what you did because before you talked about the three things that are supposed to help you develop and improve and you said how new sound has helped you do that in the first one was to learn outside of class. And you said that, you know, you have to that what you learn in New Sound is to learn the things that you really need to improve and learn about all the elements of speech. And then number two, you know, to really make connections and to be a part of the group. And then number three, to get yourself outside of the comfort zone. But in New Sound, you actually used the community and, you know, the. You felt obligated in a way to really get out of your comfort zone and that has helped you improve. Now, I'm just going to ask you one last question and give you some time to talk about it, but tell me, what is the thing that you're most proud of right now? Like what is your biggest achievement and what is the main difference and how you feel right now in your English? And then also talk to me about your goals and what you see for yourself now that English is no longer an obstacle.

So, yeah, my biggest achievement since I complete news out is my fluency feels much better than before because I can have a natural conversation with other people in English and I feel more comfortable when I speak in English and also feel confident as well, even though I still have to learn a lot more. But for now, I feel very happy with my English because I. I started the methods, the study methods, and I can see that my English is getting better. So for me, that is enough. My job is just keep going and practice. And so the second question is about my future, right? Yes. Yeah. So for my future, you know, after complete news out, I started thinking about myself two years later, five years later, or even 20 years later, I. When I become a fluent speaker and I can speak English fluent, freely, effortlessly, and most importantly, I can inspire other language learners, especially my students can do the same thing. Because I believe that as long as we keep going and long enough with the right techniques, we all can communicate in English very well. It's just a matter of time. Yeah.

This is so good and so inspiring. Tram, you are a gift to the world and to the English learning world because I have no doubt that you're going to be an amazing teacher. Already are an amazing teacher. And you're going to bring all that knowledge and motivation and kind of like deep understanding of what is needed, you're going to be able to transfer it to your students. And I'm so happy for them and I'm so proud to be a part of your journey. And if you don't mind, one last question. For people who are not sure if they should join New Sound or not, what Would you tell them like if they're not sure if New Sound is right for them for whatever reason?

Well, I will tell them from my hands on experience, like my firsthand experience. If you had been stirring so hard to learn a language but you didn't see any progress in your English, it doesn't mean that you don't have a net for learning English. You just need a method and you can find it in New South. And with New south, it's just not about learning English. It also about many other things like it make you feel happier in life and gives you the encouragement and also some valuable advice to achieve other goals in other aspects of life. So it's your choice. But this is from my experience, so I highly recommend you to join News Out Tram.

You are such a joy. Thank you so much for this and I wish you the best of luck. And you know that you have our eternal support as a learner and as a teacher. So I want to say thank you so much for this time and thank you for being my student.

It's an honor. Well, thank you so much to you too, Hara. None of this could have happened if I haven't met you. So I really feel grateful that I have a chance to study with you and with our friends here. So I really appreciate this opportunity and if I can do anything to contribute to our community, it's my honor to do that. Yeah.

See, the people that we have in New Sound is just like pure joy to be around and to work with. And I know that we kind of like finished. But just one more thing about what you said, which is so powerful. People learn English for years. You've studied it for eight years. Like people put in so much work and they don't know that it's there. You know, the work is there. And like, it's not that they don't get the language. They just need a method to let it all out or to learn it a bit more effectively. And that is the idea of New Sound. Really. Like, we really want to like elicit the language that you already know, help you get it out and to start communicating. So what you said was spot on. And it's just to remind everyone that it's possible. Trim, thank you so much.

Thank you so much.

Had a amazing, amazing conversation. Thank you, Trim. Thank you everyone. Bye.

Yes, thank you, Hannah. Thank you everyone. Goodbye.

It.