681. New Competition: Why I Should Be On LEP (WISBOLEP) / Story: The First Time I Said F*ck

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Announcing a new LEP competition which everyone is welcome to enter, plus an anecdote about the first time I said a rude word in front of my parents. Send your competition entries to podcastcomp@gmail.com

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Notes & Transcriptions for #681

Hello everyone! In this episode I’m going to tell you about a new competition for LEP, which you can enter, and then I’m going to tell you a true story of something that happened to me when I was a child. In fact, the title of the story is “The First Time I Said F*ck”. I’m reluctant to blurt out the F word so early in the episode, but anyway, the story is about the first time I swore in front of my parents, and it’s a story I wrote for doing stand up comedy on stage, but I’m going to read it out on the podcast today.

But first, what about this new…

Competition

I’ve decided to launch a new competition and I’m going to tell you all about it in this episode.

I hope you feel welcome to take part. Everyone is invited to enter this competition, and that includes you, so I hope you consider taking part this time.

I mentioned this in the last episode and got a number of positive responses from people saying things like “I really hope you do the competition!” and so on.

Again, I want to say thanks to a listener called Vadim for prompting me to do this. 

It’s been ages since the last competition (the last one concluded with episode 407 – the interview with Kristina from Russia) and I sort of wasn’t planning to do a new one, but then Vadim sent me this email and I just thought “OK, why not!?”

Here is Vadim’s message (with some error correction).

There are a few errors in here I’m afraid, Vadim. I’m going to correct those errors as I go along, hope you don’t mind.

New Competition?

Vadim

Hello, Luke!

I have an idea for new competition! It’s been awhile, since you have launched one.

I have an idea for a new competition. It’s been a while since you launched one.

So, an idea is very simple. It will be called WSIBOLEP, or Why Should I Be On Luke’s English Podcast [Actually, I’ll call it WISBOLEP – Why I should be on LEP]. 

So, the idea is very simple. It will be called WSIBOLEP

All you need, it’s just ask your listeners to record a little voice message, telling Why you MUST interview them on your Podcast. 

All you need to do is just ask your listeners to record a little voice message saying why you must interview them on your podcast.

Because I believe that you have a lot of interesting people listening to you. Russian oligarchs, pornstars, ex-nazis hiding in Argentina, bobsleigh world champions, writers, celebrities, presidents, royal family members etc, etc.

And then your listeners will vote for the person who has a story that they want to listen to in more detail.

What do you think about it? I believe that it will be a good way to encourage people to do a bit of a practice and stop being a ninjas [being ninjas]. And those who don’t want to take part in this competition can just have a fun [just have fun], listening to exciting intriguing stories from all around the world.

Well, I actually think this is a fine idea and I’m curious to see what happens. 

Let’s do another competition on LEP.

The prize this time – being interviewed in a full episode. I hope you consider that to be a prize!

WISBOLEP (Why I should be on LEP)

So let me summarise the plan for this competition.

You have to:

  • Record up to 2 minutes of audio explaining why you should be interviewed on LEP, then send it to me at podcastcomp@gmail.com (only)
  • Listeners will hear all of the clips and vote for the person they want to hear, then I’ll interview the winner.
  • Remember: You are talking to the listeners, not to me. 
  • You can use a script, or no script, but I encourage you to not use a script, and instead make some notes and do some improvising too. If you do read from a script, make an effort to make it sound natural, rather than robotic.

Also, if you’re wondering how to record – it’s pretty easy these days. You could make a voice recording on your phone and send it to podcastcomp@gmail.com or you could use Quicktime on a Mac or the equivalent on a PC and then email it to podcastcomp@gmail.com or you could use SpeakPipe.com – just go to speakpipe, record a message, put your name on it, then send the link to podcastcomp@gmail.com

What am I going to say?

Now, you might be thinking, “what am I going to say?”

Well, first, remember that you’re trying to persuade the audience that you should be on the podcast, so think of some reasons you should be on, and not just because you really want to (although that’s ok too).

Basically, you’re saying “Hi listeners, Hi Luke. Thanks for this opportunity, and this is why I think I should be on LEP…”

Then you’d need to explain why you should be on LEP (obviously).

Remember, you have UP TO 2 minutes. This means that you don’t have to do 2 minutes. It could be 1 minute if you like, but no more than 2 minutes. 

2 minutes is your maximum allotted time. 

You might be thinking “Just two minutes?? That’s not very long.” 

I’ve chosen 2 minutes because I need to keep this manageable! I have no idea how many people will send me entries to this competition, but since I’m going to be playing the audio recordings on the podcast, I need to limit how long they are, otherwise I’ll have too much audio. So, 2 minutes MAX, please. If your recording is over two minutes, it might not be entered into the competition.

Here are some ideas of why you should be on LEP.

Ideas

  • Maybe you have an interesting story to tell – either related to English, to the podcast, or to neither of these things! Do you have something interesting you could share with us? Some kind of story, perhaps related to you or someone else?
  • Maybe you want to talk about how you learn or have learned English, and give some advice.
  • Perhaps you’ve had some success with a particular technique that you could share with the listeners. 
  • Perhaps you have experienced progress in some way, and you could share that. 
  • Perhaps you discovered the podcast in a special way. 
  • Perhaps the podcast has been a way for you to connect with other people. 
  • Perhaps you met your partner because of LEP, or got a job because of LEP.
  • Maybe you have an interesting story or experience relating to English that you can share.
  • Perhaps you have a cross-cultural experience you could talk about.
  • Maybe you are involved in something interesting that you think people will want to know about.
  • Perhaps you are particularly funny, or have something to offer to the audience.
  • Or maybe you’re just up for a proper conversation with me, on the podcast!
  • And maybe you just have something original to say.

In any case, prepare two minutes – with or without a script – in which you convince the audience that you should be picked for a feature length episode of LEP. 

Then record it and send it to me! And then maybe you will be on LEP.

This competition is open to everyone. Anyone and everyone can take part, regardless of your level of English. 

This is Why I Should Be On LEP – WISBOLEP

I expect the rules this time might limit the number of participants, because some people will be too shy. But I still hope that people send me recordings! 

I expect there will be fewer entries than before, but hopefully I’ll still get some people! 

So, if you have something to offer the audience, get in touch and try to persuade everyone to pick you for LEP!!

In terms of level of English, as I said – there are no rules at all. 

You can have a low level, you can have a high level. 

It’s not about who has the best English. 

It’s more about who would be the most interesting and engaging guest, not just because of their level of English. 

DEADLINE

15 October. That’s your last chance. Midnight on 15 October 2020. [Previously the date was 31 October, but I have changed it]

As I said, I’ll probably get fewer people sending me recordings this time, but we’ll see – I often underestimate this kind of thing. 

Last time I had over 100 recordings which was great, but obviously that was a ton of preparation work for me – downloading all the recordings, preparing them, balancing out the sound levels of each one, making them into podcast episodes, dealing with the voting and counting etc. Quite a lot of work as you can imagine! I don’t mind of course, I liked hearing from everyone, but it messed with my workflow quite a lot!

But do send me your recording, especially if you have something interesting to say to the audience. 

When I’ve received all the recordings, I’ll edit them together, play them on the podcast and let you vote for the one you want.

Then I’ll arrange an interview with that person, and Bob’s your uncle.

So there you go! That is the new competition – WISBOLEP – Why I Should Be On LEP.

  • 2 minutes max
  • Persuade the audience to choose you for a full-length interview
  • Send your recordings to podcastcomp@gmail.com
  • Competition closes at midnight 15 October 2020.

I hope you take part even if you’re not completely sure. 

Go to the page for this episode on my website to read the rules and the details again if you like. Teacherluke.co.uk then click EPISODES and this is episode 681.

Feel free to ask questions in the comment section.

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Premium LEPsters, I just wanted to remind you that P24 is drawing to a close. We’ve been through my massive list of homophones and expanded your vocab a bit in the process, now there are just two episodes left and they’re the ones that feature the jokes (not just crap ones made up by me). So P24 parts 11 and 12 are in the pipeline and will be coming to your Premium subscription soon.

To get the premium episodes, download the LEP App on your phone to listen to the episodes, or listen online. For all the info you need, go to www.teacherluke.co.uk/premiuminfo