First voice room

I applied to be a live streamer in

🌏

HelloTalk. I got accepted a day later!

It was something I had been considering. But there was that resistance to filling out the application. But I suddenly got motivated and knocked it out. They didn’t need much info, just an introduction over 100 words, and some kind of social media following.

I felt qualified in my introduction, explaining how I’ve started language exchange groups at universities. And my Twitter happened to have 500+ followers (I don’t even know how I got that much. Most of it is from Roam-related stuff.)

Tonight, I hosted my first voice room. It’s the language exchange app’s version of Twitter spaces. People can hop in and out, or ask to come up on stage to speak with me.

It ended up going for 2.5 hours! I asked another person to join me, someone I had met in another voice room. So I had someone to talk with right from the start, instead of waiting for others to join. But others did quickly join. One was a Japanese guy who was an AI engineer and a Star Wars fan. A Korean in Canada also joined, who was studying Japanese. A Filipino guy joined, and also someone from Hawaii who had been living in Japan for a couple decades. There was also a Japanese guy who was a painter/construction worker who joined during his break waiting for paint to dry.

We talked about ALTs in Japan (English assistant language teachers), differences between American and Japanese culture, and food.

I’m shy in groups, so this is a good way to work on my social skills, not just language skills.

I’m required to do a video livestream within the next 2 weeks. I’m even more nervous about that. I saw another American do their first livestream today, and they got over 800 views/participants! 😱 My voice room never had more than 10 people at a time, and maybe 20-30 total unique people listening in.