Welcome to the Listening Time podcast. Hey everybody, I’m Conner, and you’re listening to Episode 39 of the Listening Time podcast.

On today’s episode, I have something special for you. This is a special episode. We’re going to talk a little bit about the future of this podcast. But more importantly, I’m going to talk about a great opportunity that you have to improve your English even more, even faster.

So, I’m very excited to talk about this today. Even if you’re not that interested in learning about this opportunity, or you just want to listen to the episodes of the podcast that I release on a regular basis, that’s okay, this episode will still be great practice for your listening skills. You’ll still be able to access the transcript and use it just like any other episode. So, don’t worry, even if this isn’t that interesting for you, you’ll still be able to use this episode for your listening practice. But for most of you, I think that this episode will be exciting because I’m going to talk about a great opportunity that you all have to learn and improve your listening skills even more. Okay, so let’s get started.

Okay, so let me just jump right in. In English, when we use the phrase “jump right in”, it just means let’s get right to the main point, the main topic. Let’s just start talking about it. So, let’s jump right in. The news that I’m announcing is that I have a new membership program available for all of you. So, the way that this works is that you will be able to become a Listening Time Member or a Listening Time Super Member on the website: https://lt.tubacode.com

So, I’ll explain that in more detail. But first, let me just explain a little bit about Patreon. A lot of you might have heard of this website already. It’s a way for audiences to support creators that they like. So, they can donate a couple dollars a month or maybe even more to help support that creator. And in return, they get some exclusive benefits. In English, when we use the phrase “in return”, this just means that this action is returned to you because of your action. So, in return for donating a little bit each month, you get access to exclusive benefits from these creators. So, I just created the Listening Time Patreon page, and this will be a very easy way for you to become members and to receive extra content that will really help your listening.

So, as I mentioned, there are Listening Time Members and Listening Time Super Members. So, the Listening Time Member category… this is for people who want to donate just two dollars every month… very cheap, just two dollars. It’s a monthly fee. The word “fee” just means something that you pay. So, if you decide to donate two dollars per month, you will become a Listening Time Member. So, if you become a Listening Time Member, what do you receive? Well, every month you’ll receive access to an extra podcast episode, a bonus episode. So, it will be just like all the other episodes that I release, but this episode will be exclusively for members.

So, the people who aren’t members won’t be able to access these episodes. These are private episodes, only for members. So, if you become a Listening Time Member, you’ll have access to an extra episode of Listening Time every month. So of course, this episode will also include the transcript, and it will work the same as all the episodes work, but you’re getting more. You’re getting an extra episode, more value, more content to help you practice your listening.

But it’s not only that. If you become a member, you’ll also have access to a new Listening Practice Seminar every month. So, I’m starting to do new seminars again, new Listening Practice Seminars. I’m very excited about this. And if you become a member, you will receive access to one of these seminars every month. So, I will explain a little bit about the dates of when these will be released. So, if you are a member, then you will see that there will be a new episode published or posted on the 15th of every month. So, on December 15, January 15, etc. This is when the new exclusive bonus podcast episode will appear on the Patreon page. And then the Listening Practice Seminar will appear on the first day of every month. So on December 1, January 1, etc. On these days, you’ll see the Listening Practice Seminar available on the Patreon page.

So, to access these benefits, you just need to log into the Patreon page and go to the Listening Time Patreon website, and you’ll see all of these posts there. You’ll see the podcast episode every month, the seminar every month, and you’ll see these on those days that I just announced. On the 1st, you’ll see a seminar, and on the 15th you’ll see a new episode. Again, these are exclusive. These are only for members, people who have donated two dollars per month. And this is a lot of content, a lot of value that you will get for those two dollars.

And then, if you want to become a super member… this category is for people who donate three dollars per month. Still very cheap, just three dollars. And if you become a super member, you’ll have access to that extra episode that I already mentioned, you’ll have access to a new Listening Practice Seminar, and you’ll also have access to one additional seminar. In English, when we say the word “additional”, we’re just saying extra, another one. So, you’ll have access to one additional Listening Practice or Pronunciation Practice Seminar every month. These are seminars that I already recorded in the past, and I’m going to release them one per month for super members of the Listening Time podcast. So, if you’re a Listening Time Super Member, you’ll also receive access to one of these older seminars on the 10th day of each month. So, on December 10th, January 10th, etc., you’ll see one of these older Listening or Pronunciation Seminars available on the Patreon page on that day each month.

So, if you’re interested in receiving even more content, then you’ll definitely want to become a super member. And this is only three dollars. It’s only one dollar difference. To be a member, it’s two dollars per month. To be a super member, it’s three dollars per month. And I think the way that that Patreon website works is that this money will be charged on the first day of every month, I believe. I might be mistaken there, but it charges once per month. So, it’s just a recurring donation, a recurring payment. In English, the word “recurring” just means something that happens repeatedly, again and again. So, these are the two categories of members for the Listening Time podcast, and I think now you understand what types of benefits you get. Right. The extra episode, the new Listening Practice Seminars that I’m recording now, and my older seminars that I already recorded for listening practice and for pronunciation practice. So, this is a lot of content. It will be very helpful for you.

I just want to explain a little bit more now about the seminars. A lot of you have already taken some of my seminars. You’ve already experienced these before, but most of you haven’t. And so, I just want to explain how they work. So, the point of my Listening Practice Seminars is to really help you understand why English is so difficult to understand when people speak at normal speed. In the seminars, I teach you why it’s difficult, and I teach you how to practice to overcome these difficulties, and how to recognize these patterns and these things that make it difficult to understand, and I teach you the four essential elements of English listening comprehension.

In my experience, there are four things that you need to practice with in order to improve your listening skills. Okay. So in each seminar, we go over these four things. In English, the phrase “go over” means to review something, to explain something. So, in each seminar, we go over these four essential elements, and we practice with them. Okay. We look at an example paragraph together, and we analyze it, and I show you exactly how to identify these elements and how to improve your understanding when you hear these elements.

So, this content in these seminars is something that you won’t see anywhere else. I highly doubt that you’ll find this type of practice anywhere else on the internet or in language schools. And the reason for this is because most teachers, the vast majority of teachers… in English, when we say the “vast majority”, it just means most or almost all. So, the vast majority of teachers do not like teaching about listening or pronunciation when they teach English because the sounds of English are the hardest part of this language. I think all of you, or most of you, would agree with that. That’s why you’re listening to this podcast… because you want to improve your recognition of the sounds in English. You need to understand English better and understand its sounds better. Well, most teachers have no idea how to help students with this.

But for me, this is the thing that I love teaching the most. I really love teaching students about the sounds of English, and that’s why I have so much content on my YouTube channel, here on the podcast, on my Instagram account, I have so much content dedicated to listening and to pronunciation because I think that students don’t have a lot of good resources to learn about how to improve their pronunciation, how to improve their listening, and how to improve their knowledge and recognition of sounds in English. And I think this is really important. And I think that it’s a shame that there isn’t a lot of content that helps students with this. When I say that it’s “a shame”, I’m saying that it’s sad, it’s bad that you can’t find this content on the internet.

So, in these seminars, you’re going to really understand things about English listening, or English pronunciation, the sounds in general, you’re really going to understand this so much more when you watch the seminars. I promise you that. I guarantee you that. Every student that has taken these seminars and that gives me feedback afterwards, they always say that these seminars are super helpful. They’ve never seen anything like this before. It’s the thing that helps them with their listening the most.

So, I highly encourage you… this means that I really want to motivate you or inspire you… to take advantage of this situation of this opportunity and become a member so that you can have access to these seminars. I think that they will really change the way that you listen in English, and they will really help you in your own listening practice when you watch movies, or TV shows, or listen to other podcasts. These seminars will really help you learn how to listen more productively. So, if you can understand me in these podcast episodes, but you can’t understand other native speakers who are just speaking to other English speakers, then these seminars are perfect for you. They’re going to help you reach that level where you can understand other English speakers as well and not just me, right.

So, in future episodes, I’ll talk more about listening and language-related topics in general so that you can understand these concepts even more. I really like talking about language learning in general. But of course, in the seminars, this is where you’re really going to learn a lot about listening. And of course, the extra episode that you’ll receive will be very helpful as well. You’ll receive more episodes and more content than the people who are not members. So, I’m going to leave the link to the Patreon Listening Time page in the Episode Notes, so you’ll be able to click there and become a member very easily. And so, if you have any questions, of course, just send me an email, and I’ll try to help you out if you have any problems with that. But I think it will be easy, and I think in this episode, I explained a lot. So hopefully, you know now whether or not you want to become a member.

So lastly, I just want to talk a little bit about this podcast and the future of this podcast. I hope that I’ll be able to continue releasing episodes at the same rate that I’m releasing them now. The word “rate” just means speed or frequency. So, I release episodes once a week. So, the rate is one episode per week. So, I hope I can continue releasing episodes at the same rate. And if the podcast continues to grow, then I might be able to release even more episodes, or maybe, I’ll release more episodes for members, right. So, I hope that I’ll be able to dedicate more time to the Listening Time podcast in the future. Right now, I don’t earn any money from this podcast. I’m doing all of this for free. This is all in my free time, and I spend many, many hours doing this, and I hope that it’s been very helpful for all of you. But I would really like to be able to spend more time with it, and I would like to dedicate more of my work time to this project.

Right now, I teach individual classes online. And it’s a great job of course, and I need to do it because this is the way I earn my money. I don’t earn any money from my projects like YouTube or this podcast, but I would like to be able to start spending more time with this podcast, spending more time creating content for all of you guys. And so, I thought that this membership program would be a great way to help me do that. Because if some of you sign up to be members, then I’ll be able to substitute some of my normal work hours with my classes, and I’ll be able to spend more time making podcasts and improving the podcast. And so, I think that this membership will be a good opportunity for you and for me. And so, I really hope you’re enjoying this podcast, and I receive a lot of emails from you guys saying that it’s very helpful for you. And that’s really inspiring for me. I really like to know that you guys are benefiting from this podcast.

And as I explained, I think in the first episode, the reason why I’m doing this podcast with this format, the way that I do it, is because this is how I learn languages. I’m also a language learner. I’ve studied Spanish, Portuguese, French, Greek. I’ve studied different languages. I’m not good at all of these languages, but I have studied them to some extent, and this is the way I learn. I listen, listen, listen. I repeat, repeat, repeat. This is the best method, in my opinion as a learner and as a teacher. This really is the method that will help you advance in your English learning. You need to listen and consume as much English as possible, and you can use repetition in order to learn even more from this listening. So, you’ll learn more vocabulary. You’ll learn structures even faster.

So, when I learn French, for example, I listen to a French podcast, and then I listened to it again and again and again. And I use the transcript to help me understand any new words or understand phrases that I didn’t understand the first time. And this has really helped me. And that’s the reason why I’m making episodes like this. Because I know that this method works. I’ve seen it as a language learner, and I know that this will be beneficial for you if you use these episodes and you use the transcripts.

So, I really hope that you agree and you’ve been benefiting a lot from these episodes so far. And with the seminars, it will really just help take your listening to the next level. So, I think that with all of the content that I’m giving you, you’ll have a lot of resources to really help you improve your listening. And so, thank you again for listening to this podcast. I’m really happy to see that it’s growing, and I hope that a lot of you will become members or super members, and I guarantee that it will be very helpful for you. So, thank you again. If you have any questions, just send me an email. And of course, remember that the transcript for this episode is in the Episode Notes, and the link to the Patreon membership page will be in the Episode Notes as well. So, just click on that and become a member. Alright, well, thank you again for listening and I hope you’ll come back for Episode 40 of the Listening Time podcast.