"Stubbornness destroys good advice." Imam Ali A.S

"Nothing hurts a good soul and kind heart more than to live amongst people who can't understand it." Imam Ali A.S

"Patience is of two kinds: patience over what pains you, and patience against what you covet." Imam Ali A.S

"Do not raise your children the way your parents raised you; they were born for a different time." Imam Ali A.S

Talking about bags and insects 🐞🐜🦟🐝🐛🕷🕸 #English_4U #Listening

Todd: Talking about kids and school, what do you think about failure? Like it seems like we're moving to where we're not allowed to tell kids that they're not doing well, that everybody has to be a winner. You know, everybody gets a good grade. What do you think about that especially as a teacher and a parent?

Julia: As a teacher, I think, I read something recently that the chastising a student, telling them they did bad, has no motivational value whatsoever but praise does. So definitely I think it's important to always praise. If you have a really bad student and you can't find anything to praise them on then I don't know what the answer is really. But I'm sure you can always find something to praise someone on.

Todd: Yeah.

Julia: So I think it's important to focus on the positives all the time.

Todd: See actually I kind of disagree.

Julia: Do you?

Todd: Yeah. I think that, you know, that your score is or your progress is absolute. Like either you pass or you fail, either you get high marks or low marks but that's the motivation. Like if you get, if you don't do well, then you want to try harder. You know, like if you're a fat kid and you don't want to be fat then you, you know, you're motivated to lose weight or if you aren't a star in the baseball team you need to practice harder so you move up. But if you tell kids that they're doing great when actually they're not exceptional then maybe that actually does harm.

Julia: OK, well maybe I misexplained that. I don't mean give a false, I don't mean say they're doing well when they're not doing well but what I mean is focus more on the successes than the failures.

Todd: Oh, I see. Like confidence building?

Julia: Yeah, I guess that's what I mean more. But I guess we're talking about motivation rather than an end result like, of course, yeah, you're going to fail some things. I don't know. I never failed that many things at school and later on in life when I did encounter failure, I took it pretty bad so perhaps it would have been healthier for me to have failed a few things. I don't know.

Todd: Well that's the question, isn't it? Like when you fail or you do bad I think that maybe that's the eye-opening moment you need to see. Like you need to see the truth rather than just tell somebody that they're doing well when actually maybe they're not or that they're exceptional and talented when maybe they're not.

Julia: When they're not, that's true. Yeah, there was another thing that I read as well about telling, praising children for their intellgence, you should never, you should never tell a child they're smart because they get a false image of what intelligence is. You should always praise effort.

Todd: Ah, right.

Julia: As opposed to some sort of innate, what we believe to be an innate quality that you can never have if you don't have it. So telling a child yeah you're really smart, when the child faces a problem that requires them to apply themselves and maybe fail they're afraid.

Todd: Mmm.

Julia: Because then they may think no I'm not intelligent after all. So it should always be about praising effort and actually the result is not so importan

Todd: So, Phil, I thought we'd talk about food. Phil: OK, yeah. Food is one of my favorite subjects. Todd: OK, so let's start out with fruit. OK, what's your favorite fruit? Phil: My favorite fruit is raspberry, which you can't get in Japan. Todd: Oh, raspberry. Phil: Oh, well, you can get it in Japan but it's really expensive. Todd: I love raspberries. Actually, where I'm from in the states, we have loads ofraspberries for free. Phil: My grand used to have them in her garden so when I was kid, it was always someone picking the raspberries and like vanilla ice cream and raspberries together. Todd: Oh, man, yeah. My grandmother, actually, she used to make raspberry cobbler. Phil: Cobbler? Todd: Yeah. Oh, you don't have cobbler. You probably have a different name for it in England. It's like a pie, but it's really sweet. You take the blackberries or raspberries, and it's the filling and a pie crust over it. It's a pie. They call it cobbler, so..... Actually, speaking of British food, what's a scone? Phil: A scone is basically a really kind of dried cake, kind or really dried kind of cake material but it's got little bits of raisins in it. Todd: Right, so when you got to Starbuck's and they have the little triangle things, is that a scone? Phil: I don't know to be honest. I don't go to Starbuck's very often. Todd: Right. Phil: I don't recommend them, they're really, really, really dry. Generally you eat them with cream and tea, but I'm not a fan. Todd: No. Really. Phil: Have you ever ate it? Todd: Speaking of British food, what's your favorite British food? Phil: Fish n' Chips I suppose. Todd: You got to be kidding. Fish n' Chips? Phil: Fish... British food basically is just a cosmopolitan mix of foreign stuff combined with together, like the most popular food now, the national dish, is curry. Todd: Right. How come it's not fish n' chips? Phil: I don't know. Just because maybe people are going a bit more healthy or just because it's different, and curry's the most eaten food now. Todd: Right. Actually, I lived in England for about a year and I loved shepard pie. Phil: Shepard's pie or cottage pie is very similar, yeah. Todd: Yeah, right. Phil: I do like it but, I don't know. I just don't eat it that often. Todd: No, really. OK, actually now that we're both living in Japan, are there are British foods that you crave? Phil: Um, kind of, something called Branston pickle, which is basically, it's kind of sandwich spread. You have it with cheese, or with like meat, and you put it on, it's like diced vegetables, but really thinly chopped and it's got a special sauce. It's just really nice. I really miss it. Todd: Wow. What's it called? Phil: Branston pickle. Todd: Branston pickle? Phil: Yeah. Todd: Is it like veggiemite? Phil: Not really, no, no. It's kind of actually lumps of vegetables within in. We have something similar to veggiemite called marmite. Todd: Ah, that's right. Phil: But the taste is actually stronger. Todd: OK, cool.

#Listening @English_4U

I could eat a horse. It means of , that you’re very very hungry. Notice the T at the end of the word ‘eat’ links to the next letter, a, a schwa sound, so it’s a flap T or a light D sound. Eat a, eat a, eat a. I could eat a horse. A horse of a different color. Means different or hard. For example reading and writing are easy. But speaking, that’s a horse of a different color. Hold your horses. It means hold on, be patient, It’s among the most common of the horse idioms. Notice I’m reducing the word ‘your’ to ‘yer’, ‘yer’. Hold your horses buddy A dark horse a person who keeps their interests and ideas secret, especially someone who has a surprising ability or skill: Nab’s such a dark horse 🆔@English_4U #listening #Proverbs #idioms