How Eva became more confident with Successful Small Talk (in English AND her native language)

- Okay, hello everybody.

This is Christina from Speak English with Christina,

and today I have the great privilege to be with Eva

who is in the Czech Republic

who just recently finished

up the Successful Small Talk Booster program.

Eva thanks a lot for taking

some time to speak with me today.

Really glad to see you again

and yeah, why don't you just introduce yourself

to everyone watching the video.

- Hello, I'm Eva from Czech Republic

and I joined the program

because first of all, I wanted

to give myself a little company gift,

as a Christmas gift.

(laughs)

- Yeah, which is, yeah, you know, lifelong learning.

That's fantastic.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- And yes, and the reason was

that a small talk was always my problem.

- Um.

- I'm quite shy.

- Yeah.

- In my native language, it is a problem for me.

- Um.

- And I can say that this program helped me,

not only improve my English skills,

but really all the small talk skills.

So I'm better now even in my native language,

which is Czech.

And for example, if we have a family gathering,

my husband has a big family.

- Ah-ha.

- I usually had problems because I,

with some people, I haven't met for some time.

- Yeah.

- And I don't remember what I know,

what I should know.

- Um, yes.

- Then that no problem.

So it helped me a lot, even in my language.

- Even for your native language.

Yeah, because it's like, you know,

it's successful small talk.

And so of course, you've got the vocabulary,

and the cultural aspects in English,

but there's also like conversation strategies

and techniques, and you know,

what could you say in this situation.

So no, I'm really happy to hear

that it helped you for your English

but also for your just small talk skills.

- Yeah.

- You know, your own language as well.

So tell me a little bit about, you know,

maybe you could tell us a little bit

about the experience of doing the program.

Like, just what was it like for you?

- Um-hum.

I was just wondering how the form would be.

I had no idea before.

- Yeah.

- I've never tried an Internet course before

and I was a little bit afraid.

- Sure.

- If it could be good.

- Yeah.

- And effective.

And I was very positively surprised.

- Oh, great.

- It brought me a lot experience,

a lot, it was really not something automatic,

it was really like a real conversation

with the teacher, with other people.

- Um.

- And it was good the combination

to talking to other people.

When I have to somehow cope with a situation.

- Um.

- Without help.

And after, the teacher helps me.

- Right.

It is a good combination, because,

for example, I, in the past

I had quite a good American teacher.

- Um-hmm.

- And video lessons.

It was quite good.

I could say the teacher taught me a lot of things.

- Yeah.

- But she corrected me all the time.

And finally, I had to quit because

I couldn't make any progress anymore.

- Um, um-hmm.

- So this combination is very good.

- Yeah, yeah, it's, you know, and I think

that a lot of times, you know, students,

they always, you know, they ask,

they're like is the teacher gonna correct me?

Is the teacher always gonna listen to me

and be there to correct me.

And then a lot of my, a lot of the programs

that I do like the Fluency Club

or in this program also, yeah,

we try to have that mix of giving the students,

you know, enough correction to help them

to improve the quality of their English,

but also not be like so correcting all the time

so that they can't, like you said,

get used to you know, surviving in the situation

and expressing their ideas when

they don't have the teacher who's there

to tell them because like in the real world

you don't always have a teacher there

to correct your mistakes and you have to,

you know, communicate with the language

and the abilities that you've got.

So yeah it's, yeah it's good to have that mix,

I think, of you know, letting you try it on your own

but also being there to help when necessary, yeah.

- Exactly.

- Yeah, it's true.

Yeah, so maybe, you know, you said that you were shy

you know, making small talk

and you didn't always know like what to say.

So what's the difference between

before you joined the program and like now today.

What's changed?

- Um-hmm.

During the first lesson, during the conversation,

I was sweating all the time.

(laughs)

- Scary.

- And now it is really better.

I realize that I'm not the only person

who has problems with small talk.

- Um.

- And also with language, with comprehension.

There is nothing, it is not bad when I ask again,

even twice, that I say that I didn't understand.

- Yes.

It is not a disaster.

- Exactly, yeah.

It's part of communication, yeah.

- Yes, and also I realize

that other people have problems, too.

I could see how they improve.

I felt that I'm improving too.

- Um.

- It was quite pleasant, and also I realized

that it is not bad to prepare a little bit

for a difficult situation.

Before I thought that small talk has to be always

only improvisation, and that's not true.

From you, I got a very useful skeleton.

- Um

- The main, the basic points,

and I can build my improvisation on it.

- Yeah.

- But I didn't have the skeleton before.

- Ah, yes.

It's just like you're going in and doing whatever.

But, yeah, and it's true that, you know,

there's a difference between preparing

so much that you memorize something

and then just going in, you know,

improvising totally, but there's a nice middle ground,

let's say, of having some techniques

and having some ideas in your head

but then being able to be very natural

but also kind of structured and coherent

because you've prepared, yeah, like you said,

a little bit and that doesn't mean

that, you know, I think sometimes we think,

oh, if I want to be fluent in English

I have to be able to do everything

with zero preparation and do it very well.

And in fact, no, often good communicators are the people

who have, like you said, these skeletons

or these structures or frameworks

in their head, and they can use them

to, you know, make nice conversations

because they've got those techniques

and that's part of the, yeah,

part of being a good communicator, I would say, yeah.

- Yes.

- Right, great.

So I guess maybe the final question would be,

you know, if someone's thinking

about the program and they're looking at it

and they're kind of hesitating,

you know, what would you say to that person?

- The person who is indecisive?

- Yeah, exactly, yeah.

- Um hmm.

- If they're trying to decide, oh,

I don't know if this is good,

if this is me, does this work?

- Um-hmm, um-hmm.

Ah, I don't know exactly

because maybe it is very individual.

- Um.

- But I was, yes, I was suspicious

about Internet programs, that's true.

- Yeah.

- But after I saw some of your free videos--

- Um.

- I was quite sure that I like your approach

and that was the reason why I decided

to try your, exactly your program.

- Um-hmm.

- Because, and I don't know if it is my individual thing

or not, but I think that you have the gift

to choose the important things.

- Um.

- That can save me, in a similar situation.

- Okay.

- You don't go too much into detail

so it is not too difficult and it is still very useful.

- Um.

- And for somebody who is not sure,

I don't know, maybe there is something,

some trial possibility or not, I don't know.

- Yeah.

- I would take a minute just to try

some of your videos first.

- Um-hmm.

- And it was very,

I realize that I remember things

from your videos very well.

- Um.

- And so I told to myself, yes, that's the thing

because I cannot so much time to study.

- Right.

- But I want to have something what I can really use.

- Yeah, something that you know,

you watch that you can learn it,

you can practice it, and it's,

and then you can use it in your real life.

Yeah, not something that's so long and complicated

and maybe so in detail that it's too much detail,

but just what you need to do well, yeah.

- Yes.

And also that really your tips

and your study materials are very closer to home.

- Um.

- Very interesting, even amusing for me.

It was, it made me a lot of fun to prepare for the lessons.

- Oh, great.

- I didn't have so much time

but the tips were simply amusing

so I didn't force myself to study.

- Okay, oh it's nice, oh that's nice, yeah.

- So I found a new zest for learning.

- Okay, well I'm very honored to, yeah,

to have contributed, because it's true that

when it's fun and when we like it,

like we do it because we enjoy it,

and not because we have to do it, you know.

- Yeah.

- Which is sometimes the case, I think,

in school people had to do English

and they didn't enjoy it so much.

- Yeah.

- Great, great.

Okay, well thank you very much Eva for sharing

your experience, and like I said,

it was really great having you in the group.

Yeah, and I look forward maybe to seeing

you maybe in a future group, sure.

- Yes, thank you,

Thank you very much.

I'm really very happy that I joined your program

and I'm sure now I'm in a Fluency Club

and I think I will try another program

in the future after sometime.

- Okay, all right, thanks, Eva.