Hello, hello. Welcome to Anya Teaches English.
My name is Anya and today, I've got
something pretty special for you!
So yesterday, I interviewed Anastasia
Semina. She is an English teacher and
mostly a Russian teacher now with her
fantastic YouTube channel and I thought...
so I interviewed her yesterday and then
I thought it's a good idea to turn this
into a listening exercise for you so you
can practise your listening skills. So if
you look below in the description box,
I've written a few questions for you.
Read the questions, watch the interview
and then try to answer these questions
in the comments below. It's a really
good chance for you to improve your
listening skills. So...yeah! Now I'm
going to pass myself over to myself from
yesterday.
Enjoy the interview and I'll see you
guys soon! Anya? ....Let's say hello to
her now! Anastasia, hello! Hello! Can you
introduce yourself please tell us a
little bit about yourself please? Okay, so
my name is Anastasia Semina. I am
Russian. I live in St. Petersburg but I
am originally from a smaller town; it's
called Arkhangelsk. It's in the north of
Russia and it's famous for being the
first seaport of Russia.
I teach Russian now but, by profession
I'm an English teacher
and I've been teaching...I still teach
English as well (now and then) but I'm more of
a Russian teacher now and I enjoy
teaching foreign languages.
So you grew up
speaking Russian, that's your native
language right? So when did you start
learning English? Tell us about your
English learning experience a little bit
first. Well, we had English lessons from
the first grade at school but it was just
maybe two times a week and it was not
that intensive. It was just
vocabulary, some simple grammar and then
we continued the same two times a week until
the end of the school but to be honest
with you, we never had any real practice,
real conversation with some native
speakers or something so I knew a lot of
vocabulary, I knew a lot of grammar, but I
could not speak at all. This is probably
the most like...it's the biggest problem
of Russian students, maybe you noticed?
They can tell you that I've been
studying English for 10 years but people
cannot literally speak so that's when I
started. And then when I finally started
speaking is only when I started
traveling and meeting foreigners and
talking to them in English and that's
when, with a lot of mistakes first, I
started speaking and being like more and
more confident, so that's how! That's very
good! Yes, I agree, I have a lot of
specifically Russian students actually
who can tell me very complicated grammar
rules who know, who understand the
complicated grammar rules but when it
comes to speaking they have some
difficulty. But okay, that's great. So what
You said you started travelling
and that's when you started really
improving your English skills so at
what age was that? How long ago was that?
So my first travel abroad was when
I was 22. Not that early.
So I was already a student at university
and still my speaking skills were not
that great. And where did you travel to?
I travelled to Finland then I travelled to
Norway, Sweden, Estonia for a bit and um
so yeah, I was speaking not even to
English native speakers but just
foreigners so maybe it also helped me to
understand that okay they also make
mistakes so it's not that bad to make
mistakes and we can just practice and
learn together!
Lovely, yes I think that's something that
holds a lot of people back; that fear of
making mistakes. Okay, great..
What do you think is the
most difficult thing about learning
English? Well the most difficult thing is
really learning how to speak because you
can learn the grammar rules and you can
make like you can do the exercises
perfectly well but you don't really like
speak naturally when it comes to real
conversation and so if I was to change
some system in our education in normal
state schools, I would probably arrange
on Skype maybe some kind of tandem
project or something about like, you know,
speaking to native speakers and those
who want for example to learn Russian so the
people can, I mean students,
children, can start learning how to speak
from the very early age. Because later on,
when you realise, "okay, I've been studying
English for 10 years" and then when you
start speaking somewhere, abroad for
example, and you can't really make
sentences...
that's quite frustrating and you
have this kind of idea that, " Oh my God!
I've been studying English for so long and I
can't speak!" So, I think teachers should
motivate and like just persuade
students speak from the very very early
age and our teachers didn't do that
unfortunately. So now I want to ask you a
bit about your teaching!
So when, Anastasia, when did you...when and
why did you decide to start teaching?
Well, I was fascinated by foreign
languages and by English especially like
from with school...from the school
years and then I decided to apply for
University which...actually my faculty was
the faculty was about teaching...
teaching students at Primary School and
teaching English so I chose that faculty
but I..when I graduated, I worked only as
an English teacher for about seven years,
I guess. Well, I started teaching English
while I was studying at university so it
was in 2007. It's yeah, more
nine years now and yeah, I just like
everything about foreign languages! I
just like the idea that you do
something. It was so exciting to me.
Everything about foreign languages seemed
so exciting. Okay, fantastic. And
what about...so you started, you said you
started teaching English but now you
mostly teach Russian, is that right?
(yes) Uh-huh
And oh...I had a question. So on my
Instagram, I asked my followers if they
had any questions for you and Benjamina Nouha
wanted to know: Do you prefer
teaching English or Russian? So why
did you switch from teaching English to
teaching Russian? For some reason I
started thinking, "Oh! But maybe I could
also communicate with foreigners and
teach them my own language. Maybe it
will feel different." And what I started, I
started making YouTube videos first and
only after making YouTube videos...after
making seven or eight of them, and I was
posting them on Facebook and our like
Russian version of Facebook: vk.com and
one girl approached me and said, "Wow! You
make these videos, cool! Do you want to
work with us?" And that's how I started
really teaching Russian offline, not on
YouTube, and I loved that! I love that! What
was different that all my...when I was
teaching English, my students were only
Russian but when I started teaching
Russian, it's like wow! Every student is
so different. All different cultures, all
these different countries, you know. And I
felt more special maybe because I was teaching
MY language you know, my native
language and my culture and like part of
my soul. So right now, I prefer teaching
Russian but I still continue teaching
English like maybe 10% of my timetable.
With teaching...well both Russian and
English...who do you...tell us about your
students. Are they, you know, what kind of
age? What nationality are most of
your students? Right now,I teach mostly
adults. Not children anymore. And
well, the nationalities are so different.
I realised recently
that I've been teaching people from all
the continents; it's so exciting!
So, as for the nationalities...there was a
huge project at work with Vietnamese
students and also from Algeria and now I
teach many European students from Italy,
from Greece, from Belgium, and from U.S and
so on. Another question from somebody
from Instagram Zezao Miranda wanted
to know...so after you became fluent in
English, do you still do any kind of
exercises to maintain your level of
English at all? That's a very good
question. That's what I talk a lot with
my students when even I teach English I
tell them that still, of course, I am not
perfect in English. I live in Russia and
I have to
I really have to practise my English
every day. So what I do is, I watch
YouTube every day. I watch everything in
English, if it's possible. Even the news
about Russia
I would watch in English just to like,
you know, kill two birds with one stone.
And I communicate with some people who
are like English native speakers or just
foreigners who live here in St.
Petersburg and if we are not...even my
students if we are not in the lesson and
their level is quite low, for example,
outside of lesson we would communicate
in English so this all helps. Okay, thank you.
I think that's a really good
answer because some people, I think, when
they get to a certain level...
some people might start to get a little
bit lazy and think, "Well, my English is
good I don't need to practise it now!". But
as you say, it's, y'know, it's important to
continue. I think it's especially
important with English because English,
as we know, is the fastest language which
like the fastest to change
and if you check on the dictionary like
Cambridge dictionary or something like that,
there are new words almost every day. So
it's just not possible to stop. It's like,
it's so...it's so...it's changing so
rapidly so much. So you have to always
practise and you keep your level.
Alright, so a couple more questions
about your life as a teacher. What, in your
opinion, (these are my questions for you)
What do you think are the best and
worst things about being a teacher? The
worst thing... (I will start with the worst
thing)...is that when you love your work as
I do and when you put all your energy
into the lessons, into preparing the
lessons, you sometimes are SO tired
you can not barely even speak or, I don't
know, walk! You know, you are...I'm so
exhausted. That's how much energy...how
much energy I put into the lessons
and I should probably learn how
to balance that. So that's the only thing,
I guess. And there are so many good
things. This is the communication. The
communicating with people from now from
different countries. It's learning myself
as well. Every day, different things. And
the best, like really best thing, for me
is when I teach and after some lessons,
the student makes more or less long
sentences you know himself or herself. I
feel it as magic, you know, it feels like
it was a complete mystery a few weeks
ago and now, he or she can speak this or
that! Like, even simple things. To me, it's
like magic and I feel like a magician! I
know you mean. It's pretty cool.
It's very rewarding as well, isn't it?
To see somebody, you know, making progress it
makes you feel quite good I think, as
a teacher. Good, okay. I'm going to switch
back to a question...I just noticed a
good question from quite a longtime
follower of mine. This guy, he asks
really good questions. His name is Alan
Peker and he asked...he wants to ask you: Is
it possible to learn a language by
yourself or communicating with
non-native speakers without studying at
a language school or something? This is a
good question, this is a good question. I
believe that to start right, to learn the
right way of pronouncing
some sounds, you know, some difficult
sounds which are absolutely foreign to
your native language, you should actually
start with a teacher. At least, I don't
know, like 10 or 15 lessons. Just for the
sake of pronouncing the words because I
know some people who studied by
themselves and unfortunately they...
because they studied by themselves
for so long, so they already have...
they have already this stuck, I don't know,
the patterns of how they pronounce
sounds and it's wrong. And I can't change
that...I mean I can probably, but it takes
a long time because they are sure that
they pronounce things right so that is
what I think is important. But as for
building your vocabulary and even like
grammar structures...of course you can do
that now with internet on YouTube and
different websites and applications on
your phone, you can of course do that but to
start, to REALLY start, I would recommend
taking, like...
having a teacher in the beginning. I
agree with what you said about getting
into the...being careful not to get into
the bad habits of incorrect
pronunciation because then it becomes
difficult to change that. Alright, next
question...so this is something that I
think a lot of people asked. A lot of
people wanted to know from you. What are
some of your top study tips for people
learning languages? How do they become
more fluent in a language? So, I think
the first tip would be to be
regular, like to be consistent in
studying and practising and as we
already talked about it, it's better 15
minutes a day than 90 minutes a week
because it helps your brain to really
remember these little things and they stick in
your brain better. And, if it's possible
to travel to the country where people
speak, of course it would be the ideal
solution to really practise and enrich
your language but i would also suggest
to do different things not to be bored.
If you study by yourself and
if you only use internet, for example. You
could do like one day, you do some
translation things, you know, other day,
you would listen to the music in this
language and then you would watch some
interviews and then you would read some
texts and I don't know, do some grammar
books so you can always change things
what you do and then you will never be
bored. You will be always like, you
know, on track with learning. Thank you. That is
very very very good advice and yeah,
I agree, it's important. Variety is
important. You don't want to be doing the
same thing every day, it gets pretty boring.
So, Anastasia, thank you so much for
letting me interview you. It's been very
interesting and very fun. So yeah, you guys
should check out her channel on YouTube;
it's super interesting and Anastasia,
thank you again and bye bye! Thank you, bye bye!
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