DMM (Sophie / マルタ在住の英国人講師) -- フリートーク: 建設業の激務 / go-to教師探し / アクセント / streak不要論 / 天気がdeal breaker / 米国留学とlistening>speaking / 職場に英語なし / AI vs 生身の人間 / 始めるのが一番きつい / 英検はno stakesの趣味 / 習った単語を即投げる

I work in construction; it's manual labor, so it's pretty tiring. Today was hectic: I was up early and behind the wheel for hours, driving back and forth to Yokohama. That's why I'm taking the lesson from my car.

Funny thing is, a brutal physical day like this is exactly when I refuse to skip English. If I go straight home, I'll just crash on the sofa and the whole evening disappears. Do you find people actually learn better when they're a little worn out, or is that just me making excuses?

This is my twentieth lesson since I came back to DMM after stopping in 2020. I'm hunting for a few regular go-to teachers, and I've found some already. My booked lesson got canceled today, so I figured, why not try someone new — and that's you.

Honestly, that canceled lesson turned out to be a lucky accident, because here we are. I've noticed the random teachers sometimes click better than the ones I carefully pick. When a student books you for the very first time, can you usually tell within a few minutes whether it's going to work?

I'm most used to a Californian American accent, since Japan's education system feeds us American English from the start. Still, one of my favorite teachers is a British guy living in Spain, and I happily book non-natives too — plenty of them are excellent.

It's strange: I was trained on American English, but the British and South African voices are the ones that force my ear to actually work. Comfort doesn't really stretch you. Does your accent ever throw off Japanese students who grew up hearing only American English?

I do a lesson every single day now, but I genuinely don't care about streaks. I just take it one day at a time and cross the day off. As long as I keep showing up, that's enough.

Streaks actually stress me out — the moment I break one, I want to quit the whole thing. So I deliberately refuse to count. Have you noticed whether the students chasing streaks burn out faster than the ones who just quietly show up?

Weather is a real deal breaker for me; I can't stand grey, gloomy days. Sunshine genuinely gives me energy, which is exactly why Malta appeals to me. The Mediterranean has been on my mind.

It's almost embarrassing how much the sky runs my mood — a dark winter and I barely function, one sunny morning and I feel unstoppable. I sometimes wonder if I'd be a different person born somewhere warm. Did moving from the UK to Malta actually change your personality, or just your tan?

Over ten years ago I did a short stint studying in the US — about six months as a casual exchange student. I traveled all over the States and even Mexico, and it genuinely shaped who I am. Listening I'm fine with now; my real problem is expressing myself, which so many of us Japanese struggle with.

Here's the gap that haunts me: I can follow a fast podcast, but the second I have to produce a sentence, I freeze. Input and output feel like two completely separate muscles. Do your students who consume tons of English still go blank the moment they have to speak?

There's no English at my job at all — far from it. We do have foreign workers because of the labor shortage, but they're from Thailand, Vietnam, or French-speaking countries, so I never get to practice. I lean heavily on this app; twenty-five minutes isn't much, but it is what it is, and it's my one chance to produce English instead of just consuming it.

It's a strange irony: my workplace is full of foreigners, yet English never comes up. So this 25-minute window is the only place I'm forced to actually speak. If your only speaking practice were one short call a day, how would you squeeze the most out of it?

For speaking, AI is genuinely impressive — ChatGPT and Gemini do live conversation with no delay, almost like a real person, always encouraging. But it doesn't quite ignite anything, because I can close the tab the second I lose interest. With a real teacher we both have to show up, and since I'm paying, that pressure actually works in my favor.

The endless cheerleading from AI is exactly the problem — nothing's at stake, so nothing sticks. A human can be quietly unimpressed, and weirdly that's what makes me try harder. Do you think a teacher's honest, unspoken judgment is part of what we're really paying for?

I can't slack off, because skipping just means losing money, so there's real pressure to book. Once I start talking and mingling, it's genuinely fun and the pressure's gone. But on a tired day the hardest part is starting — honestly, half the battle is just finding and booking the class.

I've realized the lesson itself was never the obstacle; it's the ten seconds before I click 'book. ' Once I'm in, I never once regret it. Is there a trick to making that first click automatic, the way brushing your teeth just happens?

I'm planning to sign up for Eiken Grade 1, probably September or October. The first stage is reading and writing, and if you pass, the second is a live speaking test — that's the part you could help me prepare for. But honestly I'm relaxed about it; it's a hobby, so if I flunk, no big deal, there are no stakes.

The fact that there are no stakes is probably why I'll do fine — fear has never once helped me learn. I'd rather treat the exam as a checkpoint than a verdict on me. Do you see a real difference between students chasing a certificate and ones just chasing fluency?

My style is to deliberately use words and idioms I picked up only hours earlier. I'll throw out an expression even when it isn't fully internalized yet. That's how it finally sticks for me — using it, not just storing it.

I treat every new idiom like cash I have to spend immediately or lose. If I wait until I feel 'ready,' the word just quietly dies in my notebook. Do you think the students brave enough to misuse words end up owning more of them in the end?