Andrew: Hi Henry. Welcome to the Culips podcast.
Henry: Thank you, Andrew. It’s great to be on. Thank you for having me.
Andrew: Hey, no problem. So we’ve got you on the podcast today to talk about your app, Spoken. But just before we get into that, I was hoping that you could tell us a little bit about yourself. You know, where are you from, what you do, that sort of thing.
Henry: Yeah, absolutely. Happy to. I’m originally from Baltimore, Maryland. That’s about 40 minutes northeast of Washington, DC. And I went down to college in North Carolina, at a small school called Davidson College, where I was an English major. And from there, I finished, and as an English major, I wasn’t sure exactly what I wanted to do.
Andrew: Mmhmm. And I ended up going over to China with a friend to teach English at a college in Jiangxi Province.
Andrew: OK.
Henry: Which is inland and in the south of China.
Andrew: OK.
Henry: And there I was teaching Chinese college students, who were learning business English. And that was a great year for me. I really enjoyed teaching, and I really enjoyed also trying to learn some Mandarin. And I enjoyed the challenges of teaching English.
Andrew: Yeah, it’s a big challenge, isn’t it? In a foreign country where you’re not too comfortable with the language. It can be difficult.
Henry: That’s very true. And you know, I learned a lot because I had to try to learn the language, being immersed in an environment where there were not many native speakers of English. So I needed to try to learn Mandarin. And I think my own experiences there helped me teach English to Mandarin speakers trying to learn English.
Andrew: Right. It’s really important, I think, as an English teacher to have that perspective of your students, right, of trying to learn a foreign language. Because if you don’t know that struggle, then it’s hard to connect with your students, I think.
Henry: I think that’s very true. And the nice thing was my students also recognized that I was trying to learn, and sometimes they would teach me just as much as I would teach them.
Andrew: Yeah, so true. It happens that way for sure.
Henry: Yeah. And after that year, I became more and more interested in language learning and instruction, and I came back to the United States and got a graduate degree, a master’s degree in linguistics.
Andrew: OK.
Henry: Which is the study of language. And it’s not something you hear of every day. It’s not a very, very common master’s degree to get, but for me, it was a field of study I really liked and was passionate about. And after earning that degree, I continued to teach English, this time in the United States.
Andrew: OK.
Henry: And from there, I spent a few years teaching English, and I got interested in education technology.
Andrew: Education technology. What is that?
Henry: Using technology to help people learn or help teachers teach.
