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Talking about teachers

Episode 250328 / 28 Mar 2025

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Introduction

Neil and Beth have a real conversation in easy English about their favourite teachers. Learn to talk about which teachers inspired you.

Vocabulary

inspire
make someone feel they can do something or want to do something

wise
describes someone who makes good decisions and has a lot of experience

respect
like someone and behave well toward them

put in (effort)
contribute something to achieve a goal

Transcript

Beth
Hello and welcome to Real Easy English. In this podcast, we have real conversations in easy English to help you learn. I'm Beth.

Neil
And I'm Neil, and you can watch a video version of this podcast on our website where you will also find a worksheet, bbclearningenglish.com.

Beth
How are you today, Neil?

Neil
I'm very well, Beth. How are you?

Beth
I'm good, thank you.

Neil
What are we talking about today?

Beth
Today we're talking about teachers. We've talked about school before, but we're going to talk about teachers and how they have inspired us.

Neil
Yeah. Teachers are really important for your learning, not for the obvious way, but sometimes they can inspire you and make you want to learn.

Beth
Yeah, definitely. I think even if it's a subject that you don't really enjoy, if you have a good teacher, then they can like completely change the subject.

Neil
Yeah. Did you have a favourite teacher?

Beth
I did actually, I, I had an amazing science teacher. He was called Mr. Langford, but we called him Langy. And he made science fun, so I didn't, I didn't love science. It was just a normal subject. But we did lots of fun things. Like we sang karaoke, but we had to change the lyrics to vocabulary in the periodic table.

Neil
OK.

Beth
So lots of sort of fun things. And I think when you've got a lot of excitement in the classroom, everyone wants to learn. We, we looked forward to his classes.

Neil
Yeah, I think I agree. If you are having fun and you are relaxed, then you are more likely to remember things and enjoy what you're doing and want to want to learn.

Beth
Yeah. What about you? Did you have a favourite teacher that inspired you, maybe?

Neil
Yes, I remember in particular a university professor and he was very good because he was very, very knowledgeable about his subject. So you knew that what he was saying was important, but he was also quite charismatic. So you wanted to be there with him. You wanted to learn and you wanted to do it almost for him.

Beth
Do you feel like you learnt a lot from him and that you have retained, or that you still have all that information in your head?

Neil
Not all of it, because it was a very long time ago. But I do remember lots of the stuff that he did because of the reasons I said.

Beth
OK, that's good. I don't remember much science, so maybe that's not such a good thing.

Neil
What do you think makes a good teacher?

Beth
It's really important that you respect your teachers. And if, if there's a teacher that is respected, then you want to putmoreeffort in as a student. We had a teacher like that. She was a bit scary, but we all worked hard because we really liked her. We had a lot of respect for her.

Neil
Yeah, and sometimes I think some of the older teachers who maybe you think they're not going to be able to connect with young kids, they are the ones who are most effective, probably because they're quite wise.

Beth
Yeah. What does, can you tell us what wise means?

Neil
Well, it means that they have a lot of experience of life, probably. And they make good decisions because they think about them properly and they use their experience to do the best thing.

Beth
Yeah. No, I think I would agree with you. Both teachers I've talked about, they were both wise. They knew what they were talking about. And for that reason they were good teachers.

Neil
Yeah. And I think also with them, you want to put in an effort to learn because you respect them. I think it's a lot about respect, isn't it?

Beth
Yeah, definitely. Definitely. And a bit of fun.

Neil
And a bit of fun.

Beth
OK, so let's recap the vocabulary we had during this conversation. We had inspire, which means make someone feel that they can do something or want to do something.

Neil
We also had wise, which describes someone who makes good decisions and has lots of life experience.

Beth
Respect. If you respect someone, you like them and you behave well towards them.

Neil
And we also had put in which is used with effort and it means to contribute something to achieve a goal.

Beth
That's it for this episode of Real Easy English. You can find a worksheet to test what you've learnt on our website. Go to bbclearningenglish.com.

Neil
We want to hear from you. Which teachers have inspired you? It's probably Beth, isn't it? Send us an email at learningenglish@bbc.co.uk. Thanks for joining us and goodbye.

Beth
Bye. 

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