Hi, I’m Tayvin
English Teacher & Host of TEA Time
I’m Tayvin Bayless, a TEFL-certified English teacher, linguistics graduate, Japanese speaker, and host of T.E.A. Time. I create comprehensible English for intermediate (B1–B2) learners: listen to natural English through episodes with full transcripts, then explore the phrases and expressions taught in each story. I believe anyone can reach fluency with the right input, the right topics, and enough time.
From Spanish Flashcards to Japanese Fluency
I grew up moving around the United States — born in Utah, raised in Texas and California, and eventually back in Utah for middle school, high school, and college. Languages were always somewhere in the background of my life, even when I didn’t realize it.
In high school I spent three years studying Spanish. I got good grades. I memorized vocabulary lists, drilled grammar rules, and passed every test. But after all that time and effort, I couldn’t hold a real conversation with a native speaker. Something was fundamentally wrong with the approach — I just didn’t know it yet.
Everything changed when I discovered linguistics. My first semester at Brigham Young University I took a few linguistics classes out of curiosity, sparked by an interest in Esperanto. I was hooked immediately. I declared linguistics as my major and chose Japanese as my minor language — a decision that would change my life.
At 20 years old I was asked to serve a two-year volunteer mission for my church in Japan. I arrived with minimal Japanese and a deep anxiety about the language. I had already failed once at Spanish — what was going to be different this time?
Everything. I was immersed from day one. I talked to 50 to 100 people every day — on trains and buses, in restaurants and bookstores, on the street. I made countless mistakes and embarrassed myself regularly. But within a few months, something clicked. I wasn’t just learning Japanese — I was living in it.
I came home two years later with genuine fluency, real teaching experience, and a profound understanding of why traditional language learning so often fails — and what actually works.
Why Most Language Learning Fails — and What to Do Instead
After years of teaching and learning languages, I’ve come to believe that most language learners struggle for the same core reasons: they rely on translation rather than immersion, they study too narrowly, and they don’t spend enough raw time with the language.
“You don’t learn a language by studying it. You acquire it by experiencing it — repeatedly, across a wide variety of real topics and real contexts.”
This is the foundation of everything I do as a teacher and everything TEA Time is built on. Every episode is designed to give you real, natural English on topics that matter — not scripted textbook dialogue, but the kind of language you’ll actually encounter in life.
What I Bring to Every Lesson
A Little More About Me
Outside of teaching and podcasting, I’m a husband and a new dad. My wife and I got married in 2021 and welcomed our first child in July 2025. We currently live near Austin, Texas, where we moved for my wife’s master’s program in Theatrical Design — which she completed in 2025. We’re committed to raising our children bilingual — not just because we can, but because we genuinely believe in the cognitive and cultural benefits of being multilingual from a young age.
I’m 195 cm tall, my wife is 186 cm, and yes — we make a pretty tall family. When I’m not teaching or recording, you’ll find me playing chess or shogi, listening to music, or training martial arts. I’m a black belt in Taekwondo, which has taught me a lot of the same lessons as language learning — consistency, patience, and the willingness to look clumsy while you’re getting better.