He taught at the British Council for 25+ years – here are his tips for learners

Hey, everyone, it's Hadar. Thank you so much for joining me today. I want to share with you a conversation I had with a fellow English teacher, Craig, from English Podcast. Craig has been a teacher since 1997, and he has a lot to share about teaching English and helping his students reach confidence and clarity and enjoy the process of learning. We talked about learning Spanish. We talked about challenges that Spanish students and other speakers have, and we talked about creating content in English, different personalities in different languages, and so much more. I really enjoyed this conversation, and I hope you will, too. So let's go ahead and listen to this interview. Hello, Craig. How are you doing?

I'm doing very well, thank you. How are you?

I'm doing really, really well. Super excited to talk to you and host you on my channel and podcast finally. Last time we talked, it was, I think, nine months ago when I interviewed for your podcast, Right?

That's right, yeah.

Yeah. And I remember having a great conversation, first of all, because it was right after I moved to Spain and we talked about living in Spain. Because you also live in Spain, right?

Yes, I live in Valencia, down the coast from you.

Yes. So it's so nice to kind of like talk all these months later and for me to be at a totally different place than where I was when we first talked. So I'm going to link to our interview on your podcast in the description for those of you who want to go back and listen to it. But before we start with our conversation, Craig, why don't you introduce yourself to the audience?

Yeah, sure. So I'm Craig, originally from the uk from London. That's where I'm from. Grew up. I did some traveling, quite a bit of traveling for a few years, and that's where I started teaching English. And that eventually took me to Spain because my family moved here. So I've been living and teaching English in Valencia since 1997. Wow. That's nearly half my life. I worked for the British Council for many years teaching English there as a Cambridge examiner as well for speaking tests for Cambridge. And at the moment, what I'm focusing on is I work full time, 100% online, mainly teaching conversation courses in small groups and also helping students to prepare for Cambridge exams, for job interviews, that kind of thing.

All that experience. I have, like, the first thing that came to mind is like, I'm really curious to hear how you have changed as a teacher throughout all these years, because it's been, you know, I have been teaching for 16, 17 years, but that was since 2008. You know, so you have like 10 years extra on. On top of my experience, and I know all the changes that I've gone through. So have you. Do you feel like you've went through a lot of changes as a teacher?

Oh, changes. Obviously. Now, the information that's available to students on the Internet is unbelievable. I think if you're not taking advantage of the wealth of information that's online for you as a language learner, then really you've got no excuses because there's so much out there. And that wasn't there in the 90s and early 2000s to the extent that it is now. And of course, with AI, that's opened another door with artificial intelligence. So as a teacher, the changes I'm harnessing or trying to harness the new technology and help my students using that. But one thing that also comes to mind is when I started out teaching, it was probably a confidence thing. But if a student asked me something that I didn't know, a point of grammar, for example, I'd say, that's a very good question. But we don't have time in the lesson now. I promise you, next lesson we will look at that in detail. And that gave me chance to look in the book and learn it and then teach it. Whereas now as a more experienced teacher, I'd probably say, well, that's a really interesting question. I don't know. I'm not sure. Let's put. Write some examples and see if we can work it out together. Because I think with time, I've learned, obviously, that nobody knows everything. Teachers are fallible. We make mistakes we don't know. And sometimes it's good for the students to know that. And as a learning experience together, you can explore and you can say, oh, it's because of this. What's the difference between rays and rise? Well, let's look at some sentences. The sun rises, you raise your hand, transitive, intransitive, and you work it out together.

Yeah.

So that's one thing that I've learned.

I love that, like, that really warmed my heart when you said that, because, first of all, I can totally relate. I used to be ashamed or like, never admit that I don't have an answer and find my way around it. And now it's like, we're all humans. I'm not supposed to know it all. And really, with the fact that content is so accessible, I want to show them that we're in the same boat. And I think this is such a good point of view that you offered to us that I bet that when your students see that, it gives them the confidence to show up the same in front of others. So I love that.

Yeah. And also to make mistakes. I think if you're not making mistakes, you're not really learning. So to encourage the students to explore, to be curious, I think that helps them learn.

Yeah, absolutely. So, Craig, what made you want to become a teacher to begin with?

Well, it was in that part of my life when I was traveling quite a lot and I had a good friend who didn't speak any English and he wanted to start a conversation with a girl that he knew but couldn't speak to. She was Norwegian, she spoke perfect English, as many Scandinavians do. And he said, craig, you've got to teach me English. I want to meet this girl, I want to speak to this girl. I really like her, I really fancy her and I want to start a relationship. I said, well, okay. And we sat for months, actually with an old grammar book from the 1950s. I had no experience of teaching English, but somehow with this book, over time I managed to help him to learn a little English. So through that I discovered two things. The first thing, I didn't really know anything about my own language. I didn't know how the grammar worked, and that annoyed me. And the second thing, I really enjoyed the little progress we made and the fact that after spending an hour or two with him, he knew some things that he didn't know before he could express himself. And I think that sparked off the flame in me. If you like to go. I went back to London. I took my first teaching course to teach English as a foreign language and then progressed from there. But it was that initial attempt at teaching my own language and realizing I couldn't, I didn't really know it, I wasn't effective at teaching it. That's what got me started teaching in the beginning.

Yeah. So I have two questions on that or two remarks. One, that knowing a language doesn't necessarily make you a good teacher. A good teacher is someone who knows how to facilitate the language and then encourage someone to learn it and understand it. So it's a reminder for everyone. And the second comment is, whatever happened to your friend? Did he end up.

Well, he did end up communicating. I think it might have been more physical attraction than intellectual in the beginning, but eventually they had a short term relationship and I'm still in touch with him. But obviously I think the young lady is now back in Norway and probably married with kids and maybe even grandkids by now because it was a long time ago. But yeah. Did you start in a similar way?

I started as an actress, really. I studied in New York and when I moved back home, I just wanted to find something to do that had an impact. And I also needed the money. And I was like, what am I going to do? Because I kind of like quit acting. And I was like, but for me, acting was a way to connect with people and to impact people, which is like exactly that moment that you describe. Right. Like, recognizing that you're able to do something that makes an impact and makes someone happier. And also, like, the teaching experience is really unique. There is something very intimate, especially when it's one on one and special. So at first I did it because it was like, oh, one more thing that I, I need to do. It wasn't intentional. Right. Like, I let, let me think of what I can do to earn more money. And after my first lesson, I was like, ah, I love this so much.

Like, I do. You get hooked. Yeah, absolutely.

You get hooked. Like if you, if you're born to do this or you have this purpose of changing lives, you know, you find your niche, you find your way. And for us, I think it was just teaching and that's how life led us. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so you're facilitating the language to others and teaching it to others. But you also live in Spain. So tell me about your Spanish journey, because I am total, like, really struggling with it right now, mainly because of time, because it's been so hectic over the past few months. But tell me about your journey in Spanish.

My journey in Spanish? Well, I didn't know Spanish before I came here. I took a short course before coming. And then because I was working at the British Council, my social life tended to be with English teachers. So I was speaking English in the classroom, outside the classroom, in the pub, in the bar. So I didn't really have much connection for the first year. And I call that my kind of honeymoon year where I don't know if you're still in it, but everything's fantastic, everything's wonderful, and the culture and the food. But I didn't really focus on the language. And then I kind of realized I needed it. So I took courses in Valencia, started learning Spanish. Obviously, we have a really fortunate advantage. We live in a country where the language is spoken and many of our students don't. So we can walk out the door and start practicing, which I did. And then eventually I picked it up. My wife's Spanish, that obviously helps. So with time and a little bit of studying, I wasn't a good student, but I did study in the beginning. Then I eventually learned to communicate and get by. I suppose my Spanish isn't great. I have friends who have been in the country less time than I have, and they speak much, much better. But do you speak well enough? Spanglish, we speak a mixture. My wife speaks English. And what's funny is that sometimes we'll have a conversation and everything's fine, and then I walk out the door and speak to a neighbor and my neighbor looks at me with that scared deer in the headlights look like, what are you talking about? Because obviously she understands me after so many years, but sometimes strangers don't.

I know that look.

Yeah. But another thing I think it's important to say, especially for people watching who get a bit frustrated. Even after being here 25, more than 25 years, I still meet people speaking Spanish who I find it very difficult to understand from a listening perspective. And I'll meet somebody in the street and they'll speak so quickly that I can't catch it. And I think that's something that you should acknowledge that you need to listen as widely as possible. And then also expect sometimes you'll meet someone who speaks too quickly or with an accent and you can't quite catch it. And that's okay. You just ask them to repeat it.

Yeah. Without feeling like there is something wrong with you.

Exactly, yeah. Totally normal.

Specifically working with students, because at the British Council, you worked, you were teaching, right, Spanish speakers to communicate in English. What were some of the most common challenges, whether it was like language linguistic challenges or pronunciation challenges, or just mindset challenges that you constantly saw?

Well, obviously there are different reasons why people are learning. So with the exam focused students who were motivated extrinsically because they needed the paper, they needed the exam, they were driven by that. The people who were there for fun and for social reasons and for travel, they had a different kind of intrinsic motivation. And I found the intrinsic people who just were studying there for the love of the language because they're interested in the culture and they wanted to speak English when they traveled, they were more motivated, funnily enough. So from the motivation point of view, I think it's our job as teachers, if they're taking exams, to really try and introduce them to the culture, to find an in, to get them to listen and to read things in English about their hobbies and their interests, to try and to widen it out so that they are actually enjoying learning the language through their hobbies and pastimes, which gives them which motivates them more. But as far as specific problems are concerned, let's see, obviously Spanish is more syllable time, so they give equal stress to the words. And English is stress timed, which means we have weak forms and sounds are reduced, which makes it very difficult to understand English when you hear it. And when Spanish speakers speak it, they can sound very choppy, a bit monotonous, maybe even boring or bored when they're speaking. Because of this difference in the way the language is spoken, and specifically that.

I think we can also say that it's probably relevant for any language that is syllable timed. Right. Because ultimately most languages have the same, have similar rhythm or different intonations than English. And I think what you're saying is relevant as well. So something to think about. So can you explain a little bit the difference between the rhythm of Spanish and the rhythm of English or the rhythm of a syllable timed language?

Well, look, if I say in English, if I count in English and I click my fingers on the beat of the number and I say 1, 2, 3, 4, 1 and 2 and 3 and 4. A 1 and A. Sorry, a 1 and a 2 and a 3 and a 4, it's the same because those ands become unstressed, so the timing is different. Whereas a Spanish speaker would probably wouldn't do that. They would say one and two and so that becomes longer. So it's something to be aware of and practice. Listen for those weak forms. And I don't know if you agree, Hadal, but I tell my students it's more important to recognize the language when it's spoken to you, when you're listening, rather than actually producing it. Unless you specifically want to sound like a native English speaker, which some people do. But it's fine not to contract if you don't need to. It's fine to give equal stress, but just try and identify what you're hearing with modal verbs, with tenses, etc. When you're receiving the language. Would you agree with that?

I agree 100%. And I'm going to add that it's. You don't have to use reductions, but I do think it's important to understand the distinction between function and content, not for the sake of rhythm, but for the sake of delivering a clear message. Because if you end up emphasizing every single word the same, your listener is going to have to work more to understand you. And then ultimately that just affects what, like what you want to get from the conversation. Because if people need to work harder to understand you, then your communication is not as direct as it could be. And then you are, as a speaker is affected. So I think recognizing the difference and then maybe not changing necessarily the rhythm because reductions are challenging, especially for beginners, but knowing that you need to take your time a little bit more with a stressed words and. And the difference, the lexical difference between the words is important, but for listening it is critical. And I do think that to improve listening, you have to practice reductions because then the brain, you train the brain, but it doesn't mean that you need to consistently use it when you speak. It doesn't matter as much.

Exactly. And I like the way you said twice now stressing that do I do think that. Because that's another aspect that Spanish speakers don't necessarily do that emphasis. And you said knowing. I do think putting the points across being a more effective speaker is knowing where to put that stress. Yes. And a lot of that is noticing a lot of that is listening critically, asking yourself, why was that word stress? What does the speaker want to convey with stressing that do or that knowing or oh, it's important in the sentence. Okay. They want me to understand that more than the other words. So listening critically and asking questions of why, why did my voice go up? Then that's really useful.

Yeah. And recognizing your own patterns that you bring from your first language, which is ultimately just habits. For example, if we're speaking about Spanish speakers, then. And. And other speakers as well. Sometimes there is a tendency of stressing the last word in the sentence, especially if it's a pronoun. What are you going to tell them? Right. And in English, it's usually the last content word. What are you going to tell them? But the tendency in Spanish is to emphasize that last pronoun, which is not something that you do in English. And again, it's not that it's not clear. It's just like it takes a minute to understand what's important because English kind of like it's spoon feeding you with the intonation. Like it's spoon feeding the content with the right intonation. Would you. Would you agree with that? Like in that sense?

Absolutely. But again, there's so much to it. It is quite complicated. But. But yeah, but it could be. What was the sentence, I don't. About them. It could be you're stressing the theme depending on the context.

Again, depending on the context. Exactly.

Yeah.

That's also. That's also a thing. Right. How do you change the focus from. How do you listen to the difference? A friend of mine sent me a sentence that said, if you stress a different word in this sentence, it would mean something else each time. I didn't say you stole her money. I didn't say you stole her money. I didn't say you stole her money. I didn't say.

I didn't say you stole her. I didn't say. I didn't say you stole her money. Exactly.

I didn't say you stole her money.

And it can be in compound nouns as well. Are you an English teacher or are you an English teacher? Are you a teacher that is English or is the subject that you teach English? It depends where you put the stress. It completely changes the meaning.

Right? Yeah.

So interesting. But so interesting.

Yeah, very interesting. I want to go back to a question that came up when you spoke about your Spanish and your English, and I think that relates to this. Do you find that you have a slightly different personality or behavior or even voice when you speak in Spanish versus in English?

Oh, I love that question. I was speaking about that question on my last course. Yes. Because for me, speaking Spanish brings me down a tone. I tend to speak at a slightly lower level. I don't know if it's more macho, more assertive. It just. I don't speak as high when I'm speaking Spanish. I don't know why. And another thing, when I'm speaking Spanish, I tend to be more open and less English. I remember when I was trying to get served in a bar my first month in Spain, and it was very busy. It was very crowded. And in England, you kind of hold the money and you're very hesitant and you wait to be asked what you want. Whereas in Spain, you shout, oh, yes, avetha. From the other side of the bar. And that's perfectly polite. That's perfectly normal. And I could not do it, so I just could not. It took me ages.

Haddad, the language frees you up culturally, right?

Exactly. Now I do it without any problems. If the bus driver doesn't open the door, I say, oh, yeah, jefe. Hey, boss, open the door. Well, I would never do. Polite Englishman. Never do that. So it's. It. You know, I am. My personality does change when I speak Spanish, for sure. And I'm sure there are other ways that don't come to mind, but, yeah, definitely love it.

Yeah, I feel the same. The other day, I was with my family at a restaurant, and I asked something from the server, and my voice kind of like went up. I was like, you know, la cuento, por favor. And kind of like I tense it up. And then My daughter and I were, like, laughing at what happens to my voice when I speak in Spanish. But it's kind of like I adapt because I hear people speak and I hear that vocal quality, especially where I live in Barcelona. And I adapt it because I'm exposed to it all the time. And I have that tendency of kind of like, you know, imitating. So that's what I hear, that's what I imitate. But then it's like, wait, it's not me. But I also feel comfortable in it. It doesn't feel like, not me. So interesting.

Yeah.

Speaking of using your voice, at some point in your life and journey and time in Spain, you decided to not only teach, but also become a content creator and use a podcast to share your vision of teaching in the world. And just like an opportunity to express yourself. So tell me about that. Tell me about your podcast, and tell me about why you decided to start it.

The podcast is called Ingles Podcast, and it started because back in 2001, fairly early days of the Internet, I started with a friend, actually, my friend Louis started a website called manchinenglaz.com specifically aimed at Spanish learners of English. And we had a newsletter that we sent out every month, a series of exercises, reading, vocabulary, grammar at different levels. And that was fine, but of course, I thought, well, they need to hear it. As one thing we didn't mention before. You know, you don't pronounce English words the way that you spell them very often as you do in Spanish. So it's difficult for learners to know how to say words. I thought, wouldn't it be nice to create an audio version of this? And that developed into a podcast. So we'd send this podcast just to our subscriber list, and that helped them, was an audio complement to the newsletter. And then I got really interested in podcasting. So then the podcast kind of branched off and. And got a life of its own. And I started doing it with a friend and colleague at the time at the British Council, my friend Reza, who is still doing it with me today 10 years later. And it became a passion and a labor of love to do this podcast. And we built up a fairly sizable audience. I didn't realize all the time, the British Council, that when I left the British Council and started teaching by myself online, that pretty much 85, 90% of the students I have are now coming from the podcast. So it developed from the hobby into something very useful for what I do now to get a salary and keep the lights on. So it's become very useful. But there's still. I'm very conscious of not turning it into too much of a business because I don't want to lose the chemistry I have with my co host. I don't. I don't want to lose the love I have for the medium of audio. So I'm trying to keep it pretty much as it's always been, and that's getting feedback from the listeners, etc.

So that's what people find on the.

Podcast, or pretty much everything there isn't. There are many areas we keep away from. We speak about vocabulary, grammar. We've. It's a weekly podcast, so we've covered pretty much all the grammar I think there is to cover. I'll be very surprised.

I know, because. How long have you been doing this? 10 years.

10 years?

Like. Yeah, 10 years.

500, 550 episodes.

But we get some vocabulary areas to talk about.

Well, most of the topics come from the listeners. They. They let us know. They send voice messages and emails and let us know what they'd like us to do to talk about. There's only one thing I can remember that we really didn't want to talk about, and in the end we did, and that was Brexit. So we kept away for a long time. And then the weight of public opinion. Talk about Brexit. Tell us what's happening. How do you feel? So eventually we said, okay, we'll. We'll speak about Brexit. Yeah. But, yeah, pretty much anything. Nothing. Like we always say, you know, not knowing about a subject has never stopped us talking about it before.

Nice. Yeah. What. So you recorded over 550 episodes, right?

Yeah.

What is the most memorable episode or your favorite episode that you've recorded?

Oh, that's easy. That was when you were on in episode 474. That's probably my favorite. It was called improve your English pronunciation with hadar shemesh. That's my favorite.

So after that episode, besides after that.

But in second place, I think basically any episode that kind of gets a lot of feedback that we know has been popular with the listeners that we get comments on, because at the end of the episode, we always give a call to action. We say, what did you think? Have you got an opinion? Send us a voice message, practice a vocabulary, let us know. So any episode from which we get a lot of that feedback is one that I thought, oh, yeah, that was good, because I just enjoy getting together with my friend and recording it and editing it. So it's still a labor of love.

Yeah. Do you listen to a lot of podcasts as well?

I do, yeah. And it changes over time. If I'm interested in learning something or studying something to do with productivity or marketing, then I'll focus on more information style podcasts. And then there are some podcasts I listen to for entertainment, comedy podcasts, and then what they call in Spain meta podcasts, which are podcasts about podcasting. So how to be a better podcast? I listen to some of those as well.

Nice. I, I noticed that because I, I, I am a YouTube content creator first. Right. Like, I started my channel back in 2016, but I wasn't a consumer of YouTube videos. Like, I wasn't an active YouTube subscribers or viewer, which was funny to me because I was like, I'm a content creator, but I don't like watching videos. And then I fell in love with podcasts. That was before I started my own podcast because I never thought about it. And then I was like, I love this format. There's something so intimate about the connection between, you know, like when you have someone's voice in your ear, your ear.

For half an hour, for 40 minutes, it's such an intimate thing, like a.

Part of your day. And I felt so connected to the people I was listening to and I was like, I should maybe.

And when you meet them, when you meet people I've been to conferences I've met, you feel like you know them, you've known them for years and they obviously don't know you if they're famous podcasters. And I've met a couple who, at conferences who are pretty big podcasters. And I just feel like I know them. And of course they're looking at me and I'm telling them things about their life and, and yeah, it's very intimate. It's, it's a very unique format, podcasting. And of course, easier to edit than video.

Yes. And to film, slash record. I have another question about teaching. So two last questions. One, what is the least conventional thing about you as a teacher? What would you say?

Oh, I love that question. I would say off the top of my head that I don't put a lot of emphasis on grammar and accuracy. And it was always a bone of contention, a controversial topic in the teacher's room at the British Council. Are you more fluency based? Are you more vocabulary and fluency based? Are you more accuracy and grammar based? And I've always been of the opinion that effective communication is important. Yes, you need the nuts and bolts, you need the basics of grammar. But I often stress and in my courses, I don't teach hardly any grammar. It's all communicating and fluent. And if you make a mistake with a preposition, does it really matter if you're getting the point across? So, yeah, I think that might be controversial to grammarians and teachers who focus more on accuracy to hear that. Yeah, I don't place a lot of importance on it in my classes.

You're my type of teacher.

Because really, I'm pleased you agree. Not many people do. I'm pleased you agree, Heather.

Also, like, as a listener and how I know the human brain works, just like that example you gave with prepositions, people put so much emphasis on getting it right or they feel bad about making a mistake. But with all honesty, the listener would probably not notice because people are not even focused 100% on what you're saying. They skim through whatever it is that you're saying with their. They kind of like listen to bits and pieces. Their brain anyway fills in a lot of the gaps and they may not even notice. And this is why also, these words are reduced because they're not as important for the message. So people also know how to. How to skip them so they don't notice. It's not like, oh, they've made a mistake. This is so terrible. Now, I. I understand that people want to know this because it, it holds them back sometimes. And if that's the case, yes, you should learn the structure so that you are not holding yourself back as you're planning your sentence. But I agree that this is not. Should be. This shouldn't be emphasized in. More importantly, making a big deal out of mistakes is exactly. Detrimental. So critical for the. For confidence, for fluency, for freedom, and for grammar. For learning grammar because you're, like, obsessing over getting it right and not understanding the context or, you know.

Yeah, yeah. Obviously, if you're studying for an exam and you need. And you're going to be tested on grammar, that's a different story. But even in business, if you're trying to be an effective business communicator, if you're giving presentations in English, look, native speakers make mistakes as well. I hear them every day on the tv. For example, they might say less people rather than fewer people. It happens all the time. So if you slip and you make a mistake, it's not the end of the world as long as you're being effective in getting the message across.

Exactly. Okay, so my last question. What would be one piece of advice that you'd like our students to leave with today? And you can't not learn grammar because.

You already forget grammar. No grammar. Don't learn.

Don't learn any grammar. Yeah. Okay. Two.

Yeah, I can have two. So the first one I think we've already mentioned, don't be afraid of mistakes. Go outside your comfort zone. Get out there and speak even if your level is not very high. You can't pick up a guitar and play like Eric Clapton. You need to put in the practice. You need to make mistakes and also have fun. That's my second one. Be curious, as we said before, be curious about the language. Ask yourself questions. Notice things like intonation, stress, vocabulary collocations. And with those things, I think you'll be fine. Being curious, noticing how people are speaking, how native people, native speakers are speaking, and then getting out there and practicing. Because you mentioned before he. About the changes over the years in English teaching, it's still basically the same. We're analyzing chunks and pieces of language, we're presenting it, we're making the students notice it, and we're hoping that they're going to repeat it. And that's basically it. You just have to focus in on the language and absorb it and use it.

You make it sound very simple.

It's not rocket science, but it's just.

Practice and motivation, time consistency and everything else that you said, like being open and remembering that it's not about just like getting to like a final destination because it's an ongoing journey. I think it's like really enjoying the moment and finding joy in speaking. Like, why make yourself miserable by having negative thoughts or avoiding or overthinking or second guessing.

Yeah. Students will learn when, that. When they're having fun. And that's something you do on your channel very well. The motivation videos that you make are excellent to get students motivated and get them enthusiastic about learning more.

Yeah, I think it's important.

Yeah. Excellent, Craig.

Thank you so much. How can people find you, study with you? Listen to your podcast called Ingles Podcast.

Ingles Podcast. It started off being Spanish, now It's for everyone. Inglespodcast.com is the website address. Ing l-s.com and if you're interested in courses, go to englishcraig.com and you'll find information there about my conversation courses.

Fantastic. And we're also put, we're going to put the links, all the links in the description. Great. Thank you so much. I'm looking forward to meeting you in Spain, whether here or in Valencia. But we'll have, I can promise you.

The best paella in Valencia. If you let me know when you're coming, I'll take you to my favorite restaurant, and it was invented in Valencia. So I will be happy to invite you to paella here if you ever get to.

Can't wait. Definitely. All right, Greg. Thank you so, so much. And thank you, everyone, for joining us today. Thank you.