Student Life – Academic talk

I work in the leisure centre:

we're providing physical activities

for people of all ages.

So we're trying to reach them;

trying to improve their mood,

to get out of

the house more,

to be more social.

People are saying

the class really helps them –

that's really really good reward.

I came from Poland

about ten years ago:

now I live in Scottish town.

I'm a father,

I'm a partner,

I'm a student,

full-time worker.

I usually start at five a.m.,

up and then studying

up to seven a.m.

That's the only time

when I can find quiet.

At the moment I'm studying

for my degree

in business management.

When you see

audio-visual material,

you can see for yourself,

you can listen for yourself.

Usually there's like

a short video clip,

with some interviews.

It's closer to the

real-life experience.

Sometimes

I've got a problem with

understanding of spoken language.

Fortunately there's always transcripts

of that material.

Sometimes, yeah, the voice

can be distorted by

the internet connection

or some people

they have strange, different accents,

so yes, so that could

be challenging

for non-native speaker.

I've got my phone

always at hand, so

any, any word I don't understand,

I can always check it.

I like to know

exact the meaning of the word –

even if I know

more or less the meaning

of the word from the context.

I don't have to talk to people

as a part of my studies.

But there is such an option, there

is possibility.

As a part of my university programme,

we've got chat rooms available

where we can meet

face to face live,

so you can just meet

at a certain day and certain hour

and with a tutor and

then all the students in the group

and we're just having a conversation

via skype or other similar app.

Usually there are like

five, six people – it's not like

a big group but

the software is very good –

you can see the names,

who's attending

the chat rooms, who's not.

It's moderated by the tutor,

so it works very, very well.

And it's always very good

to share the opinions with others

and communicate face to face directly,

not just through the emails

or written words.

At the moment I feel like I -

yeah, I'm getting somewhere.

I've always said that learning

is the key to, to

achieve something in life.

The main motivator is future.

My ultimate goal

is to go to South America.

When you learn a language,

you're getting closer to the culture,

different way of thinking.

Mostly I'm learning Spanish

on the go.

If I'm walking, I just

put my headphones on

and instead of listening to music,

I'm listening to Spanish.

My partner,

who is from Ghana originally,

there was a time at

the beginning especially

when we started dating,

I was preparing some Polish food,

and she was preparing Ghanaian

food, very exotic dish.

I've got two kids:

the kids are very, very rewarding.

It's great, it's great being a father.

The message I would like

to send to my kids is

"Learn as much as you can

and try to enjoy that."

Go the distance.