Transcript of Podcast #28: Improving English Speaking Skills and Improving Your Academic Writing
In Attendance: Melisa Perut (she/they) & Juan Camilo Cristancho (he/him)
Melisa: Hello everyone, welcome to another GIC podcast. I’m your host, Melisa Perut, one of your GIC mentors and we have the wonderful Juan with us today, another mentor. And he’s going to talk about improving English skills and improving your academic writing while you’re here at UCI. So thank you so much Juan for joining us. This is a very important topic. It’s something that everybody practices every day and something that it’s great to improve as it helps with your network, it helps with your, you know, communicating with your colleagues, talking about your research, writing your research. So it’s something quite important for graduate students. So thank you so much for being here and talking about it with us.
Juan Camilo: Thank you.
Melisa: Yeah, of course. So before we begin, can you introduce yourself?
Juan Camilo: Yeah, I just want to say that, yeah, thank you for having me. Is a very relevant topic. And it’s a constant struggle, right? As international students, we are dealing with these issues all the time. It doesn’t get over in the first year or the second. It’s a continuous work of effort to try to improve both in speaking and writing in a different language to the one we were used to, So sorry, to answer to questions your questions my name is Juan Camilo, my pronouns are he/him. I am a third year PhD student in the School of Education. Yeah.
Melisa: Excellent. So Juan who knows all the teaching strategies. So if you need to reach out to Juan and he will help you definitely. And where do you call home? For us. Can you tell us?
Juan Camilo: I am Colombian from origin so that was my home country, however. I had a fortune to move here with my wife so wherever she is that’s what I call home.
Melisa: That’s a beautiful way of putting it Juan, I love that. And are you a returning mentor?
Juan Camilo: Oh yeah, this is my second time serving as a mentor in GIC. Last year I had a great time learning from all people that have been working here before and I’m happy to keep contributing to this wonderful program.
Melisa: Excellent. Thank you so much for coming back. And joining us. It’s great to have you. And before we begin our talk, I always like to ask, what do you like to do in Irvine in your free time.
Juan Camilo: That’s alright. I don’t really have a car so I’m very restricted to what’s available around campus, Fortunately it’s a beautiful campus. So I like going to the ARC. To swim mostly but also to exercise. I like walking around the campus. There’s beautiful parks around and yeah, I guess without a car that’s pretty much it.
Melisa: Well, I mean, do you really need anything else? It’s a very beautiful campus and as long as you can get out there and get, you know, be exposed to nature, I think that’s all you really need.
Juan Camilo: It really is. I mean, there’s also hiking. There’s also biking around. It’s a very amicable city with bike so I also do that.
Melisa: Oh, nice. Just be careful out there everybody because there are coyotes and I’ve been running into them quite often. Especially around the ARC as I was walking home. So just be careful on your walks. How was your experience with coyotes Juan? (note: if you haven’t seen a coyote before, they look like a stray dog walking around Irvine. Just keep your distance and make sure if you have kids or pets with you that they are close by)
Juan Camilo: My wife is terrified of them. We had the, I mean our friend in good faith, when we ask her about risk about security in campus, like thinking about crime. What she said it’s very safe, but there’s coyotes. Coyotes typically won’t attack, an adult. There are risks for dogs, cats, and perhaps for human babies. But for adults, however my wife about this great fear to coyotes she’s terrified. She cannot see them, she will be petrified.
Melisa: Well, they are like, like wolves a little bit, so I understand the fear. I don’t I don’t like them. But so I mean, this is a very big topic that we’re going to talk about, but maybe we could start off with, you know, just talking about some challenges, common challenges and common areas that students struggle with when they come to UCI and start to speak English and start to write. What kind of challenges do they face as international students?
Juan Camilo: I mean, it is culture right? It’s not just a different language and you’re just translating whatever you’re saying.To be immersed in a new culture, people are speaking out of different norm. Conversational words might be different from what we are used to. So it’s many challenges stacked on each other. I was just thinking about how hard it was the first few weeks after I arrived. Just to construct sentences. For me, rather than being on translation process, it was me in my head translating whatever I was planning on saying like what I word by word. Constructing sentences and then speaking them, speaking them out loud, That’s very challenging as you lose this continuity of conversations. Sometimes you don’t have that much time in process to build a sentence so that was a challenge. I mean, just being in a crowd, having more than one person speaking at the same time. As your brain is not used to, to that language as it’s still new, it gets distracting and it’s very hard to follow a single line of conversation when there’s multiple people speaking at the same time. So having conversation in public was also challenging at first. Things do get better though. You start thinking a little bit more in English. The process of building sentences get easier. I don’t know if this happens to you but sometimes when I have to speak and listen and work exclusively in English, I arrived to my home exhausted.
Melisa: Yeah, I know that feeling because, to me, it’s also navigating the tone and what they might mean and trying to understand different accents sometimes. If it’s very strong and if it uses a lot of words that I’m not familiar with. I can find it very hard and challenging and yes exhausting. It’s not as natural sometimes to just speak in your native language and just laughing your native language at the similar jokes too so it’s like constantly you’re working. It’s, it’s not as natural so I find it challenging as well. But my biggest challenge is writing. Writing it doesn’t come as natural to me so and especially since I’m in a social science program I have to do a lot of writing. So it’s some things are more time consuming for me than it might be for others, even writing an email. Learning how to write like a proper email for me, it’s, it doesn’t take like 5 min. It’s a big, you know, mental barrier to like be like, okay. How do I begin this email? How do I write it? So I even these basic tasks seem very difficult, for international students.
Juan Camilo: I couldn’t agree more. And now that you mentioned writing, there’s the fact that us as academics and perhaps, an issue mostly for social sciences, but I would think for all fields. Writing is the way to let people know of our work. So we are writers. I mean, we are researchers, we collect data, we process data, but we also write. So this is a skill that students should try to improve at some point, hopefully earlier in their academic path to, to know how to navigate those difficulties and as we were saying, it’s not just about the language, it’s about how do you frame, issues, your ideas. Do you express how you are feeling like and transmitting it to your audience who might be coming from a different place and perhaps not understanding everything that you are trying to transmit in a for instance.
Melisa: Yeah, and also understanding what they mean in their writing as well. The tone, especially if you’re not familiar, if you haven’t written like back and forth over email or having communicated, in a way like that’s professional. I found it to be very intimidating and scary because everything was so direct. And there was no like, oh, how are you doing? Like, how is everything going? But no, it’s just like, hey, did, did you finish this task? Hey, this is my update. What’s going on your end? I found it even more scary, because I couldn’t understand what the structure of writing and talking and communicating was so that was a skill that I also had to learn.
Juan Camilo: And it’s something that you can like destroy your brains trying to figure it out by yourself. Sometimes it’s useful to ask. Either international students who have been here for longer than you have or just asking your, the person who wrote you in the first place. Hey, what do you mean? Are you somehow, not feeling well about my job performance, what you’re trying to say or this is the way you write emails. It’s a hard conversation to have, of course, but I guess it’s easier than just trying to build meaning by yourself. Again, coming from a different place.
Melisa: Exactly. So do you think that international students often feel pressure to perform at the same level as native English speakers in terms of, you know, the level of language proficiency and how can they navigate those expectations while you know being confident in their work and being graduate students.
Juan Camilo: I will say it’s a little bit of both. I mean, we are not expected to do less than or peers who have been racing in the US or a country that speaks in English in classes and tasks we are expected to be doing, similarly. However, people are very understanding of you notdominating the language as well as others. People are very patient asking you to repeat yourself. Are very open to questions. So, I will say it’s a little bit of both and it’s a matter of expectations that you can address somehow. If you don’t feel comfortable for your English, you can ask your teacher or faculty or PI, whoever you are talking with if it’s possible to like create more amicable places for you to express yourself. Perhaps if you don’t want to put your positions speaking in a meeting because you are a little bit nervous, perhaps you can agree with the team to send an email afterwards. Putting in your thoughts. And again, perhaps speaking and putting yourself out there is the best advice I can get on that term. Try to come to an agreement with the rest of the group. Perhaps that, yeah, that will give you more freedom to, working with your strengths while you, try to train and become stronger in your weaknesses.
Melisa: Yeah, and the more you practice, the more proficient you’ll be in these skills as well.
And if you’re making mistakes and somebody is correcting you, I think it’s not a moment to feel more vulnerable, but to feel more confident in learning, you know, the areas that you’re making so you can correct them. I think that’s quite important and it’s something that can make really, turn your experience as a graduate student in graduate classes into something that’s not pleasant to something that is quite pleasant. As you said Juan, there are many faculty and graduate students who are very understanding to, you know, students that are struggling with communicating their ideas. So it’s, it’s also a way of us to learn to how to just talk about what we’re thinking about the material, how we are engaging with the material. So it’s something that we have to practice and learn as well. So it’s not just, oh, my English is not that good so I shouldn’t speak but you should speak so that you enhance your English skills, but also enhance your the way that you’re engaging with the material you’re supposed to talk about.
Juan Camilo: I agree. And remember you are entering to a graduate. Sorry. You’re going to a university. So the idea here is you are able to learn and to hone your skills, including how you express yourself. So, don’t be afraid of putting yourself out there. If you want feedback ask for feedback, It’s all about practicing and it does get easier.
Melisa: And I mean, also international students come from diverse backgrounds. So the contributions that they make in class are always the most interesting and often, quite valuable. So I think it’s It’s important that you everybody raises their voice and get to be heard in class because it really livens up the conversation about the material you’re discussing and even in classes, it’s something that you shouldn’t shy away from but actively engage. I always love hearing from diverse people about their experiences and how they engage with the material. Rather than just hearing about a certain perspective over and over again from the same type of people. So I think it’s quite important.
Juan Camilo: And to that point, I would just add that you’re in Southern California, Irvine is the idea setting for that. It’s an extremely diverse university both in terms of background from people that come here but also their cultures. There are many people that come here from Central America, from Asia, from Europe, South America. It’s a very, it’s a place that is heavily enriched by diversity. So all these ideas are very welcome you’re not going to be confronted by expressing yourself or stating your position based on your background. This is an attribute that is very welcome most settings here at the university.
Melisa: Yeah, and if you engage in in class or in,with somebody and especially if it’s something professional and you’re not sure if you were able to communicate your ideas, you can always do a follow up. You can always send an email and say like, hey, this is what I meant to say. I just wanted to make sure that we’re on the same page. I send follow up emails after each meeting. Just to make sure that I got everything that was said and I know the tasks. Just for accountability reasons because sometimes I might understand something wrong or I might not get the task fully. And that really helps me just like to be like, hey, this is what I understood. Or this is what I meant. Are we on the same page? And that also really helps.
Juan Camilo: I think that’s a great advice Melisa. I’ll try to, to impliment that from now on.
Melisa: Yeah, it helps me. And I was, I was wondering if there’s any like peer mentorship or language exchange programs available to international students that you can talk about where they can practice English, in a supportive and comfortable environment.
Juan Camilo: Of course, the university has an International Center. That mostly attempts to undergrad, however, for every, every weekend and they, sorry, every week they offer a coffee hour for people to just go and talk. Also around board games. There’s like a game night, I think every week as well. Where they can just go play, make friends practice their English. And those are some of the examples, however, there is also courses tailored around improving academic English, speaking and writing. That the students can take either for writing their own papers, applying for grants, even writing emails. I think these courses are very flexible in their design to better serve the needs of their students. Might be that they’re different right? The international graduate students might be wanting to practicing for the dissertation or are just starting in the university and trying to think how to frame a final paper, what is expected for them to write in a final paper. Sometimes instructions are not very clear around that. So these courses try to be flexible in their design so they can serve better their students.
Melisa: Yeah, and some of these are like small credit classes that you can join. And some of them can be like these workshops that you can join, like weekly workshops right like better than like a formal UCI course. At least in my department, there are some writing workshops and writing classes for students to join and they work together and like circulate their papers with each other and get feedback from them. I think those kinds of you know, writing workshops really help students get some feedback on your work and also improve their English as well.
Juan Camilo: I agree and if there’s none in your department you can ask if the university has one. But to your point, write everything that you, I mean, save everything that you write, but also write everything that you’re thinking of. Don’t think that you have to refine the idea before putting them on paper. Sometimes that’s just another sort of stress, trying to think of the perfect,.perfect sentence can take long hours and I think we all have been there. Sometimes it’s easier just to pour what you’re thinking and then we’ll find it later. But don’t be so hard yourself. Write, if you don’t feel comfortable in the feedback that you can use to yourself. Ask that someone in your labs, in your class or faculty or to these workshops. To try to enhance it quality but be confident on what you think and the idea that you are thinking that are valuable.
Melisa: Yeah, and can you tell us a little bit about your experience in writing and what kind of challenges you might have faced and how, what kind of strategies have helped you in your writing?
Juan Camilo: Actually, yeah. Yeah, of course. Thank you. Let me let me think. What I like to do when writing. First, trying to visual what I’m trying to say overall and try to write like bullet points on the, that are going to be, each bullet is going to be a paragraph or, or a section, whatever I’m trying to write. If I like to call it like the skeleton of the body, so it’s the bones that are going to go below that that carry the idea but it’s not what is going to presented. Typically they carry the whole idea of a paragraph or a section. And then little by little I populate those bullets, with a more structured set of idea. Sometimes it can be just that bullet points or ideas and then at the very end, I’m going to ensemble them to a full-fledged text. Something that I can, I have found useful for me to write papers is to make presentations out of them. So again, I work in bullet points. So bullet points are very well presentation format. So presenting that to friends, my lab, and anyone. Can give me an idea of this is a coherent narrative. I’m saying everything that I’m trying to say. Are there redundant elements? I’m missing something, I’m like, I’m skipping a step. And that process makes really easier, then bring back the bullets that’s write about it. Let’s look for sources that can like add some background to what I’m trying to say and then actually write. So can be stressful though. You want to sit down and write five pages in a day, you want to think that you are able to be the most productive, in the weekends sometimes that’s not the case. Sometimes you are tired. Sometimes you are (transcript unavailable). The barrier again, is hard if you’re writing, you know, emails or papers. They might have very specific sets of rules that you are not entirely comfortable yet doing so. So it’s counterintuitive what to do with stress when you are stressed about something, perhaps you should stop doing it. Perhaps you should remove yourself from this source of the stress. Think about it, walk around. Think of your ideas. Try to get a better angle to them because if you are trying to stay in the same place try to write a paragraph and you haven’t been able to do it for a couple of hours, perhaps that’s still working, take a break. Breathe a little bit and let’s the ideas work, work in the background of your mind.
Melisa: Exactly. And I think the biggest challenge for me was to just like expecting myself to sit down and be productive and write, like papers or, you know, a couple of pages in a paper. Over time and after some of my professors kind of said, and that was excellent mentorship that I received was it’s a creative process. Writing is not, you’re not a machine, you, it’s a creative process and it takes a lot of mental energy. So you should be able to give yourself the freedom to, you know, take a step back and, you know, rethink and have some time away from your work. So when you get back, you feel refreshed and you can come up with new ideas. And to be able to do that, first of all, you have to plan. Right, you can’t write everything in a day.
Juan Camilo: Right
Melisa: And in my culture, it’s very everything is last minute. So adjusting to that was difficult. But also to be able to do that. And this is something that I’m still working on, but writing every day, is something that really helps. Because you are not trying to write everything in a week. Or in a couple of days or in maybe a couple of weeks, but if you write every single day. You have words on a paper. They don’t have to be perfect words. Juan’s method is exactly what I use, bullet points. Bullet points of what I want to say in that paragraph and then when I come back one day, I maybe try to write that paragraph or if it’s too difficult, I go to another bullet point or come up with bullet points. So to me the hardest part is just sitting down and writing. Because when I first came here, I didn’t know how to write and I didn’t know how to arrange my time to write something. But now I know I have to like work on it every day. Pick a time that’s I’m feel comfortable with, writing and then, if I can’t write, it hopefully I will have enough time to like take a break and then I can come back in a couple of hours or the next day. And sometimes I take like a week away from that writing because I have enough time. So it’s something these types of skills are skills that you learn and the more you talk with graduate students and professors, you get to learn their own, you know, tips and tricks and I think it’s very important to communicate with others to learn what works for them and see if that works for you as well. I use the Pomodoro Method
Juan Camilo: Yeah
Melisa: Where you. Do you use that as well?
Juan Camilo: I don’t, but I definitely see each value.
Melisa: Yeah, I tried that. Before the end of, spring quarter, because I was writing something and it’s 25 min of writing and then 5 min of rest. And then a longer break after like a couple of sets of that. And for my writing at that time, it was so nice to just like write for 25 min because you just have that 25 min and then take a break. I found that to be really, really useful and it’s something that something that somebody told me to do and I did it and I tried it and it worked. So just talk to people and see what works for them and how they manage their struggles as well.
Juan Camilo: I agree and there might be days where you use all of your day to just write and by the end you can also you can only have a paragraph and that might be a very productive day. Having a paragraph paper is a big deal so you shouldn’t be that hard yourself (remember that podcast on building health habits? Celebrate the “small” stuff, because it is a bigger deal than you might realize!). Trying to think with unrealistic expectations that you can complete five pages in a single day. That might not be realistic and by measuring by those standards you are only causing yourself anxiety and stress. And to that point, Melisa to your advice on working on it every day is extremely valuable. You like me and you Melisa, in the past, would wait for the last minute to do it. You’re not going to be able to do it or you’re not going to be happy with the outcome that you’re going to be doing. I’m going to be very stressed. Unfortunately, stress, Im ean there’s always things to be done in academia. There’s not a thing like, oh, I’m done with this, I can now rest. So try to sparse those task along your week. It’s a good strategy to not falling into a burn-out state where you are not going to be able to be doing anything more because you are demanding too much for yourself in too little time.
Melisa: Yeah, especially if you’re dealing with multiple projects. If you have multiple classes and you’re writing multiple papers, you can’t write all of them in a week it’s impossible. So you really really need to learn, these different, you know, techniques that help you. One technique that I tried that didn’t really work out for me was, you know, sitting down at the beginning of the week and planning out the whole week, knowing what my tasks are and like going from there. But my week is so that it’s so changeable that doesn’t really work for me, but other people that have more structure, to what they’re supposed to do. That really works for them. So try different strategies and see what works best.
Juan Camilo: Good, I definitely agree. There’s many different strategies for time management. Try to look one that you are comfortable with. When did you find pomodoro what point in your career?
Melisa: Yes. Yeah, I spoke to a friend and you’re asking about pomodor right?
Juan Camilo: Yes
Melisa: I was speaking to a friend and they said like, hey, I use Pomodoro Methods and I had this one app from a professor who had recommended it to me to track time, of how long certain tasks take. So, the professor told me like, you, you probably don’t know how long a paper takes for you to write. And each section might take. So it’s a good idea to have like a timer set. And she recommended this app called toggle, TOGGL. And I put it on and just like write my task and I start the timer. So that really helps me understand how long each task takes. Like it also helps with grading. I if I want to know how long grading is going to take, in the future so I can plan that really helps as well. But then the app integrated with Pomodoro. So when I saw it I saw the little tomato I was like oh let me try it out and it really worked.
Juan Camilo: Amazing, yeah, so. I mean, for our audience, try to look for something that works for you. And don’t be so hard on yourself. If you can have a take away from this conversation today is learn how to assess how much time is something is going to take, don’t compare yourself to native speakers. They might have more practice in doing this task. And you compared to yourself, try to see how are you progressing and you would see that implementing these strategies and don’t be hard on yourself. You’re going to improve at your own pace, but definitely into enhancing your English both in writing and speaking.
Melisa: Yeah and we kind of talked a lot about like these formal, you know, writing developing or in, speaking developing programs. Are there any informal like spaces people can use like resources or opportunities for them to like improve their English speaking and writing on and or off campus?
Juan Camilo: I mean, they definitely can try to create. It’s a community, it’s always changing. Unfortunately, people that are here today might not be here in 5 years. So we are very active actors in our in our community and we can just got us some friends. And schedule two hours of our time to meet and just do unstructured writing. Perhaps reading each other or perhaps just sitting in our coffee shop checking settings. I mean I think informal spaces work more like that try to build a community. Try to see a schedule that works for all of you to meet. Other than that, I think the International Center, it’s based on very informal, you don’t have to sign up beforehand. I just pop up, just practice meeting new people, practice your English.
Melisa: Yeah, and one funny place that I get to learn a lot of like Californian, you know, words, was at a Trader Joe’s checkout. All of the people that work at the cash register, they’re always asking you how you’re doing and how you’re feeling and you know having a little bit of conversation here and there really gets me to experience, you know, some of the language here. I was quite surprised by it asking me how, was your weekend? What did you do? One time I had like a 30 min conversation with somebody. So don’t be afraid to, you know, talk to the locals here and people outside of UCI as well.
Juan Camilo: Strange but people in the US do behave like that. They would engage in conversation with total strangers because they like the color of the pants or they are buying the same item in the in the grocery store. So yeah, definitely this might be different in your own culture. From before coming here, but this is something that local people are very open to do. Just engaging in meaningless conversations just saying hi, discussing about the quality of a product, talking about the weather, football, soccer. I mean, it’s actually easy to talk to strangers here. And there are great opportunities to develop your Englsih and as Melisa was saying to learn about informal conversations structuring is not only about presenting papers or talking in class, it’s also about you living here. You’re part of this community now. So you need a wider set of tools besides those that academia can give you. To also engage with the community and with the locals.
Melisa: Exactly. And then it’s a fun experience to, you know, engage in conversations that you wouldn’t expect, learning. I spoke to somebody who comes from, a surfing culture and the words that they use and the way that they spoke was completely different. So it was, it’s always exciting to, you know, engage with others. So I really encourage everybody to be open to having these conversations. Thank you so much, Juan. Do you have any final thoughts that you would like to share with anybody?
Juan Camilo: Of course, this is a progress and it’s a progress that perhaps never ends. You can speak to international faculty. They would say that it’s still challenging for them. Even after many years living in the US. Establishing a career it never ends but it does get easier. It’s going to be hard at first for you when you first come. But treat yourself with care and love. Don’t be hard. Try to connect goals with expectations. In a realistic matter. Again, Melisa, give you great sources of advice. We different strategies to plan. Just structure your time to paint yourself and to assess how much time, a specific task takes and don’t judge yourself by other standards. Other than how you perform.
Melisa: Yeah, thank you so much. That’s great. And just know that practice makes perfect. So without practicing, you won’t be able to improve your skills. So just practice as much as you can. Speak to everybody write, and improve as you move through, your graduate study here because it’s, a very short and stressful time of your life, but it’s a very important time as well. And you get to live in Southern California, so you should make the most of it. Well, thank you so much.
Juan Camilo: Thank you, Melisa.
Melisa: Yes, thank you so much, Juan. And so as always, if you have any questions, feel free to reach out to Juan or myself. We’re more than happy to help guide you to resources and you know just give you some more tips on what it has worked for us. But we really look forward to seeing you all here and in the meantime, take care.
Juan Camilo:: Thank you Melisa. And take care of all of you. And good luck in this wonderful experience.
Melisa: Thank you so much Juan, take care. Take care everyone!