How Master Real American English helps you go from intermediate to advanced: Ahmed's story

So, hello everyone.

This is Christina from Speak English with Christina,

and today I have the great privilege

of being here with Ahmed,

who is currently a student

in the Master Real American English program.

Ahmed,

first of all,

thank you for agreeing

to do a little video with me.

It's very nice - You're welcome.

and can you just maybe tell us,

tell everyone just a little bit about you.

- Okay, Christina.

My name is Ahmed.

I am from Egypt.

I am 29 years old.

I am as business analyst for 20 years.

I have two daughters.

I love them very much.

- Yeah, yeah.

- Yeah.

I am a business analyst.

I am responsible for gathering requirements

and listing requirement and the commenting these results

from listing and send them to the development team,

which are a technical team.

So, I am act as a bridge between the stakeholders

and the technical team.

- Got it.

- You know, if you have sort of a business

or you are entrepreneur

or you have a company.

- Right.

- So, your background, it's almost in business field,

so the technical team can't understand what you say

if your language almost in business.

- Got it.

- So, I get the requirement from the stakeholders

and I transfer it to a technical language

to the technical team.

- Got it. Okay.

- To provide the solutions that help the clients

to improve their work and gain income,

and more profits in their fields.

- Yeah, exactly right.

So you're really like, like you said like the bridge

between the technical people and the business people

so that they can, you know, communicate with each other.

Okay, great, great.

And I guess you do a lot of that in English?

- Yeah, and in my company,

we have multiple Phoner company

that have partnership presently

with our company.

- Right.

- So, I should communicate with them

and make interviews and situations.

Sometimes, we can make a conference call.

- Yeah.

- So, I decided to

now I should improve my English skill

to cope with this situations

and to understand them well

and make them understand me well also.

- Got it. Yeah.

So like okay, so, you know, before you joined

the Master Real American English program,

what were the difficulties that you were feeling in English

that kind of encouraged you to join this program?

- Yeah, you're right, Christina.

I faced many difficulties

before I joined the Master American course.

You know, the first thing about I faced at the time

was confidence.

You know, my mother tongue is not English.

- Sure.

- And, when you meet somebody speak English fluency

so my confidence...

- Right, yeah.

- Yeah, yeah.

Also, my listening skills,

can't get every word

that meant to speak or another person is speaking.

- Right.

- So, and you know my responsibility

is to gather requirement from the clients.

So, you can't imagine if this client is,

his mother tongue is English language,

so, you should in the same level with him

to understand him well

and when you ask him any questions,

he should understand you.

- Yeah.

- To give you the right answer.

- Got it.

- Yeah.

So, I faced confidence.

So, I can't speaking well.

Also, my listening skills was not good as well.

- Sure.

- But, this skills I should,

not should,

I have to improve it to improve my career also.

- Right, got it, yeah.

- Yeah.

- Do you work with native speakers

or non-native speakers or both?

- Both.

I work with both.

Yeah, yeah.

We have partnership with multiple countries

all over the world.

- Yeah.

- We have partnership with companies

are located in Europe, U.S., U.K.

Also, we have it in Egypt and, what,

I can't think, South America.

- Yeah, okay. Like literally, like lots of places.

- We have clients native to, are English native speaker.

And we also, we have non-English native speakers.

- Got it. Okay, sure.

Okay, so yeah, you joined this program,

you're about halfway through the program now.

So we've still got some time to go as well.

But, just already halfway through the program, like,

what sort of changes have you seen just like

in those confidence and listening and things like that?

- For me, Christina, the first thing that I have,

anxious from joining with this course, program,

if this instructors will understand me

when I speaking or not.

- Yeah.

- And they will accept me as my little or weak

English skills, as well,

but to be honest in speaking,

I am very happy to join this program.

Really.

- Okay. Oh great. Thank you.

- Yah.

You are listening me well.

And this is important point for me,

Second ones,

the instructions that I follow,

- Right.

- And which you provided to me,

improved me well.

- Also, the materials and your videos

and quizzes after every video,

it's very good.

It helped me to improve my listening skill,

and understanding a new vocabulary.

- Right.

- And the private, individual sessions

helped me in the specific situations

that I faced in my company in daily basis.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

So, this program helped me to gain more confidence

when I speaking English.

- Sure, yeah, 'k, great.

- Yeah, improve my listening skill,

and understand the lesson bet

the American accent.

- Which is not easy to understand a lot of times.

- Yeah, yeah.

- Exactly.

- So,

when you find place to practice on your skills

that is improve your skills 100% for sure.

- Yeah, exactly.

- Practicing makes perfect.

- Exactly, that's it.

Yeah.

Practice makes perfect.

And so now that you've seen the differences

that it's made in your listening,

in your confidence,

but before you joined a program

or before anyone joins a program,

they always have some questions or some hesitations,

and things like that, which is totally normal.

Before you joined the program,

when we were talking about it,

what sort of hesitations or questions did you have

before you decided?

- Yeah.

The first one, really,

if I will improve

my English skills or not.

- Yeah, like, does it work?

- Yeah, yeah.

Does it work for me, or not?

The second one,

the instructors have the experience

to put me in the right path

to improve my English skills or not.

The third one for me,

should I follow the instruction

and practice will help me to improve

my English skills or not.

This is important point because

I joined another course before

and it doesn't me help,

it doesn't help anymore.

Yeah, also,

as I mention before,

the instructor will understand me and accept me

with my weak English language or not.

Can I contact with them at any time?

And you support me, Christina, at any time.

I want to thank you for just being cool sometimes.

Christina, I have a meeting next week.

How can I manage this hour? How can I?

- Right.

- So you support me all the time.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

So this is my hesitation or questions

that I thought about before I joined this course.

- Okay, yeah.

I think it's the same thing whenever anybody,

when I join a course as well, like,

the kind of questions, like, you know,

I'm gonna buy this course?

Am I gonna get the results that they're promising?

You know, 'cause you wanna be sure, of course,

which is totally normal.

So those are the questions that you've had.

And so far, what are the responses

to those questions that you've found?

- Yeah, Christina, you know,

the first time we have met in the evaluation.

- In the evaluation, exactly.

- Yeah.

You told me you should divided your goal

into multiple objectives.

- Right.

- This sentence helped me a lot.

- Oh good. Okay. Great.

- Because one of the obstacles that I faced,

the fluency--nobody can give you fluency in one time.

Each take it step by step to get the fluency.

So, yeah, I write,

I put objectives and I focus in the objectives

and when I make sure that,

yeah, I am done with that,

so I should move the next one.

- Exactly.

- And this has helped me a lot.

- A lot of times what happens, I think,

with language learners is that they get

to a good level of English.

Like you're at a pretty good level of English.

You can express your ideas,

you have most of the vocabulary that you need,

but then when they want to get really from intermediate

to that advanced level, it's like,

what do I do?

You know, what's the next thing?

There's so much that I need to do,

but how do I focus,

or where do I focus to go from here to there.

It is really hard and that's where it's really helpful

to have someone come in and intervene

and say, what are your priorities?

What are your objectives?

Let's work on this one,

we'll check it in a little, in a few weeks,

we'll evaluate it,

we'll go to the next one if it's the time.

Even for me in my own progress in other subjects,

I like to have someone who will tell me what to do,

basically.

- (laughs) Yeah.

- (laughs) Just makes my life so much easier.

So like I said, you're about

halfway through the program now.

What are your goals for the rest of the sessions?

- The goal, I want to have more confidence.

That will help me a lot to speaking well,

you know.

The second one,

in my career,

we have meeting,

I think,

every week,

we have a meeting,

so I will learn it

to have how I'll lead in meeting,

and I will master it.

I will go to master it how to lead meeting.

This will give you the image to your team

and the clients also, you will be brilliant.

- Excellent.

- Yeah.

I will improve my listening skills

and I want to understand the American accents,

and I want to thank you for your material

because it's so useful for me.

- Okay, great.

- To understand the American accents.

It's very good.

And I improve my business writing.

Also, yeah.

Tricia helped me a lot.

- Yeah, 'cause that's really her specialty.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I improve my pronunciation.

Yeah,

and maybe I in next time

and the moreover I will speak with more,

a new vocabulary.

- Sure.

- Yeah, and with a right grammar.

Yeah, and sometimes

I look forwards

to master speaking in another situation.

Sometimes if we speak with your manager,

so you are talking in a formal way,

but if you were talking with your friend,

or in a party,

your conversation should be more friendly,

or in informal way.

- Exactly.

- This is my goals,

and I will look forwards,

and I will make a good effort to master it,

so this is my goals, Christina.

- Awesome.

It sounds like really good goals.

Exactly. Just be able to, like you said,

to master all of the situations,

whether it's professional, for your meetings,

or things like that,

or just being able to, let's say,

manipulate the language,

depending on the situation,

a more formal, business context

and that way of speaking,

versus a more casual, friendly situation

and that way of speaking.

Yeah, sounds like your goals.

Okay.

- (hearty laugh)

- Okay.

Well thanks a lot, Ahmed.

And I will see you in our next session, then.

Thanks a lot.

- Thank you, Christina.

See you later.

Good-bye.