A Canadian English Teacher in Japan, a Strange Podcast, for Intermediate English Learners
In my previous post, I shared an English learning resource that felt a bit like watching an American TV series：
「Learn English Like Tap Dancing: A Fun Free Beginner Resource by VOA」
It was fun and immersive, but it had one weakness:
👉 It didn’t cover enough practical real-life situations.
So recently, I went back through my old learning materials and rediscovered something very different:
A documentary-style English learning channel called 【Slow Easy English.】
The videos are packed with practical daily expressions and real-world situations.
The creator, Sil, is a Canadian English teacher living in Osaka, Japan. His YouTube channel has over 60,000 subscribers.
A Canadian Teacher Living in Japan
Mr.Sil has lived in Osaka for many years and speaks Japanese quite fluently.
Sometimes he even jokes about Japanese wordplay and katakana pronunciation.
For example, he once talked about how people in Kansai shorten “McDonald’s” into 「マクド」 (“Makudo”).
As someone who once struggled with katakana myself, moments like that made me laugh immediately.
Actually, his videos even inspired me to design my own Japanese kana memory cards to help with memorization.
His “English Immersion” Philosophy
Sil is a fairly strict teacher.
He often tells his students to fully immerse themselves in English.
One of his suggestions surprised me at first:
👉 Change your phone language into English.
He even checks whether his students actually did it.
Inspired by him, I changed my own phone settings too.
At first, it felt surprisingly difficult.
Apps I used every day suddenly became unfamiliar — especially finance apps.
Words like:
- balance
- total assets
- account
felt almost alien.
The first few times I bought investment funds, I was genuinely nervous about pressing the wrong button.
But after enough repetition, I finally remembered:
👉 “Balance.”
Now that word is permanently burned into my brain.
A Teaching Style That Reminded Me of My Old English Teacher
Sil is a Canadian, he speaks with a very clear North American accent.His teaching style reminded me of one of my former English teachers, Narci.
Mr. Narci was extremely serious and precise.
He rarely joked, loved reading books, and constantly corrected students’ pronunciation word by word.
Back then, I had learned British-style pronunciation before my university.
But under his stubborn guidance, my pronunciation slowly shifted toward American English.
He also cared deeply about subtle vocabulary differences.
In fact, the first English synonym and antonym dictionary I ever bought was recommended by him.
Years later, I randomly met him in a shopping mall, and he immediately recognized me.
The first thing he asked was:
“Are you still studying that dictionary?”
Why [Slow Easy English] Feels Different
Sil’s videos pay close attention to pronunciation and vocabulary nuance.
For example, he explains the difference between:
- hobby
- pastime
- sport
Small distinctions like these are easy to ignore, but extremely useful in real conversation.
Practical Situations Everywhere
One reason I enjoy his videos so much is the variety of real-life scenarios.
He covers things like:
- booking a hotel
- ordering food at a sushi restaurant
- buying train tickets in Japan
To be honest, I only learned how to use Japanese subway fare adjustment machines because of his videos.
Living in Tokyo made these topics especially interesting to me.
Some lessons also focus on ordinary vocabulary that suddenly becomes difficult in English.
For example:
What do you call bicycle parts in English?
Or cooking tools like:
- strainers
- whisks
- spatulas
He even teaches viewers how to cook Korean kimchi hotpot.
From Japan to Vietnam
Later, Sil traveled to Vietnam and shared videos about:
- renting local apartments
- eating at small restaurants
- daily life abroad
At one point, he said something that stayed with me:
“When you learn English, it’s like getting an invisible ticket to travel the world.”
I still think about that sentence sometimes.
A Channel That Suddenly Disappeared
The Slow Easy English channel started around 13 years ago(2013).
But about four years ago, it suddenly stopped updating.
The last uploaded videos showed Sil living in Vietnam.
Since then, nobody really knows what happened.
Some viewers wondered whether the global pandemic affected his life or work.
I sincerely hope he is safe and doing well.
And maybe one day, he’ll come back.
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