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How to Practice Your English on the Telephone for Free

Lindsay: This is an All Ears English Podcast, Episode 20: Wisdom Wednesday.

Gabby: Welcome to the All Ears English Podcast, where you’ll finally get real, native English conversation. Now here are your hosts, Lindsay McMahon, the ‘English Adventurer’ and Gabby Wallace, the ‘Language Angel,’ coming to you from Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

Lindsay: In today’s episode, you’ll learn a lesser known way to practice your English on the telephone.

Lindsay: Okay Gabby, so today you mentioned that you have a really interesting tip that English learners can use to actually find a way to practice English finally. So what is that tip? What did you use to do while you were at…?

Gabby: Yeah. It’s kind of embarrassing. Um, it’s kind of weird, but if you are openminded and you don’t mind trying something a little different, um, this is a great tip, very um, very practical way to practice your English for free. So what I used to do when I was a kid and bored out of my mind. Like 11 years old, nothing to do, um didn’t wanna (want to) do my homework, just wanted you know – something entertaining, I would look for, you know, something around the house like a product or maybe a food product or like um, any, any game or, or anything where there was a label and on the label there is usually a ‘suggestions?’ ‘comments?’ and then a phone number, like an 800, like a free phone number. So I would pick up the phone and I would call the 1-800 number and I would just start talking to the person. I would say “Hey. How (are) you doing?”

Lindsay: Oh. That’s so funny.

Gabby: “Uh, where does this phone number go? Like what state are you in? Um, how’s the weather…?”

Lindsay: But did you actually offer suggestions or just kind of – you called just to chat?

Gabby: No. I kinda (kind of) just called to chat. That’s why it’s kind of funny. But actually that would be a good way to practice your English and not be such a weirdo. You could offer suggestions or comments about the product.

Like you could tell them why you like the product or if you have any ideas for improvement. Um, I mean one product just for an example, could be a box of cereal.

Lindsay: Right. So what would you do to change the product? I mean it’s an interesting idea. I’ve never thought about this… Gabby: Yeah.

Lindsay: …in terms of ways to practice English, but it is like… Gabby: Get a box of Frosted Flakes, try it out, and probably my suggestion would be “You know this is great. So tasty, but, you know, for breakfast, it’s too much like a dessert. It’s too sweet for me.” So yeah. I mean find out what happens.

Lindsay: Yeah. See.

Gabby: Just call the number and, you know…

Lindsay: Give it a try.

Gabby: What’s the worst that could happen?

Lindsay: Why not? Yeah. And, and the good thing about that is that you don’t actually have to be face-to-face with the person… Gabby: Exactly.

Lindsay: …which sometimes can be a little bit embarrassing. So this is actually a way to practice your phone skills, phone English.

Gabby: Exactly and it’s gonna (going to) be professional phone skills because these people are working. You know they’re gonna (going to) answer the phone in a professional way and, you know, they’ll, they’ll have a professional conversation. They’ll end the phone call in a professional way and just observe the vocabulary that they use.

Lindsay: Hm. Nice. Thanks for that tip.

Gabby: Yeah. Yeah. No problem.

Lindsay: I might try that in Spanish.

Gabby: Yeah. Yeah. All right guys. Well we see you tomorrow, um, Thursday with ‘Deep Thoughts Thursday’ where we share a, uh, an inspirational quote with you.

Lindsay: See you tomorrow.

Gabby: See you then.

Lindsay: Okay. So Gabby, what do you think would be the best way for students to use the All Ears English Podcast to actually move from the intermediate to the advanced level?

Gabby: Yeah. A lot of people get stuck at the intermediate level. I know in my own, uh, language learning, that listening and then reading the transcript of what I just listened to, like a radio program or a podcast, really helped me to push my language skills to the advanced level.

Lindsay: Absolutely. So in order to do that and to actually get more out of this All Ears English experience, where can our listeners go?

Gabby: Well you guys can get premium transcripts of all of our podcasts, word for word, what we’re saying if you go to allearsenglish.com/conversations.

Lindsay: And one more time that’s www.allearsenglish.com/conversations.

Lindsay: Thanks for listening to the All Ears English Podcast. We’re here to help you learn English and you can help us by leaving a five star review on iTunes.

See you next time!