Chatting to friend of the podcast Andy Johnson about moving house, comparisons between London and Canterbury and different approaches to teaching English. Intro & outtro transcripts available. Part 2 coming soon.
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Introduction Transcript
Hello dear listeners and welcome to this brand new episode of the podcast, presented to you for your listening pleasure and for the general development of your English.
What have I got lined up for you in this episode?
Well, just the other day I spoke again to Andy Johnson, friend of the podcast and my former colleague from the days when I worked at the London School of English. Andy has been on the podcast lots of times before as many of you will know, but the last time was about a year ago actually (in episode 529), so it’s good to have him back again.
The idea in this episode is just to catch up with Andy, find out what he’s been up to since we last spoke on the podcast and just see where the conversation takes us.
Just before I play you the first part of our conversation (because this episode is in two parts) here’s an overview of the topics you are about to hear us talking about. You can expect to hear vocabulary relating to these things.
Moving house from London to Canterbury
Andy and his family recently moved out of London to a much smaller city in the south east of England called Canterbury. Some of you might know it as it is a bit of a tourist destination because of its magnificent cathedral and its significant cultural history.
Andy tells us about his experience of moving, how living in Canterbury is different to living in London, some details of things like the rental costs & lifestyle differences in both cities, what it’s like for the kids, and some interesting facts and history about Canterbury itself.
English teaching
We chat about this year’s IATEFL conference where Andy did a talk about online learning, and he tells us about one interesting presentation that he saw which was all about using escape rooms to help people learn English.
Do you know what escape rooms are? Are they popular in your country? Escape rooms are fun experiences in which you go into a locked room with some friends and have to solve some puzzles and complete tasks in order to escape from the room. They’re a lot of fun, but how could they be used in learning English?
This leads to a bit of discussion about how we approach the teaching of English in classrooms these days, focusing on how to create the right context for practising specific target language naturally. As an example I talk a bit about how I’ve been teaching “used to” to my intermediate classes at school recently.
Andy’s job
We then talk a bit about Andy’s job at London School Online, delivering online English training to companies, and what that involves. If you are interested in providing an online course for the staff in your company you can get more information about that and contact Andy through his website, which is www.londonschool.com/lso
Finally, we do talk a bit about Andy’s running (because some of you will be curious about that) – how his running routines have changed since moving to a smaller city and whether or not he did the London Marathon this year.
So, for all the vocab hunters out there, watch out for bits of language relating to all those things.
So now, without further ado I will let you enjoy listening to another chat with Andy Johnson on Luke’s English Podcast and here we go.
Ending Transcript
That is it for part one, but this will continue in part 2 in which our conversation turns to other topics including food, TV series, football, and music.
Thanks again to Andy for being on the podcast.
If you want to get in touch with Andy, perhaps because you’re interested in the online learning programs he offers, you can find him on LinkedIn, on Twitter @andybjohnson and the London School Online website is https://www.londonschool.com/lso/
Allow me to remind you, at this point, to sign up for LEP premium. I’ve got new episodes in the pipeline that involve teaching you some nice, chunky bits of natural English vocabulary along with all the usual bits and pieces, including PDF worksheets, tests & exercises and pronunciation drills, and of course becoming a premium subscriber gives you access to the ever growing library of premium content which you can listen to in the LEP app or online from your computer and it will all cost you just the price of a coffee a month from. Keep me caffeinated and become an LEP premium subscriber today! GO to www.teacherluke.co.uk/premium to get started.
I look forward to reading your comments in the comment section.
Part 2 should be available very soon, but for now it’s just time to say good bye!!!