Category Archives: Advice

22. Full Interview with Vicky from China

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A conversation with Vicky from China about teaching English, using podcasts in the classroom, how to learn English, and more…

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Luke’s English Podcast is for learners of English as a foreign language. Use it to improve your listening, pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar and cultural awareness. Luke is a teacher at The London School of English, but this is a completely independent free podcast for everyone. Email me: luketeacher@hotmail.com

Hello everyone. This podcast is the full interview that Vicky did with me a couple of weeks ago. We talk about teaching English, using podcasts in the classroom, the advantages and disadvantages of student podcasts, how to learn English, what a guinea pig is, and how to use an all-in-one remote controller!

There’s no transcript for this episode! But, if you listen to the last podcast in which Vicky gives some advice on learning English, you’ll know that sometimes it is better for your English to listen without a transcript.

My advice for this episode is:

  • Don’t try to understand every word you hear
  • Don’t worry if you don’t understand everything – you don’ t have to
  • Just try to understand the topic of the conversation and the basic things
  • Try to use your imagination and guess some of the things you don’t understand – fill in the gaps in your listening
  • Try to enjoy listening! It should be an interesting topic with information that’s useful for you
  • Listen to the conversation more than once – you’ll understand and remember more each time
  • Play the podcast when you are at home, doing the housework – just have it on in the background

Here are some pictures of things Vicky and I talked about:

21. Learning English with Podcasts – Advice from a Chinese student at Oxford University

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Luke’s English Podcast is a free learning English audio programme for students of English as a foreign language around the world. Each podcast is about a different topic – music, culture, news, celebrities, current affairs, British life, etc. Use the podcast to practise your listening and to pick up lots of real, authentic vocabulary. Luke is a well experienced and professional teacher at The London School of English in West London.

Hello everyone, a few weeks ago I was contacted by a Chinese student called Vicky. She is studying a master’s degree in education at Oxford University (yes, the famous one) and so she wanted to interview me about teaching English and using podcasts to learn. We met, and interviewed each other. She asked me about the advantages and disadvantages of podcasts for learners and teachers. I asked her about how students around the world can use podcasts to learn English, and if she had any more advice about learning English. Vicky is Chinese, and speaks English as a second language. Her English is good enough to win a place on a master’s degree course at Oxford University, and she has been studying education and English language learning for a long time. She has some very good advice and useful comments about learning English. Also, it is interesting to hear a Chinese person’s perspective.

I’m feeling very generous today, and I have written a COMPLETE TRANSCRIPT for the interview.

Here’s some advice on how to use this podcast to help your English.

1. Listen to the podcast once without reading the transcript. Try to understand the general meaning. What are we talking about?

2. Listen again, and read the transcript. Check any words or expressions you don’t understand by using a dictionary. An English-English dictionary is better for your English, because it helps you to think in English, and prevents meaning being ‘lost in translation’.

3. Listen to the podcast for a 3rd time, but without the transcript. This time you will understand a lot more and you will remember lots of things we said. The expressions and comments will stick in your head. You will understand the details more easily. You’ll be able to use some of the words and expressions in your English conversations in the future, because hopefully the words will be stuck in your head.

So, here is the transcript to the interview. Enjoy!

Interview With Yun Xu (Vicky) on Wednesday 29th July, 5pm in Holland Park, London.

Luke: So, what’s your name?

Vicky: Vicky, and my Chinese name is Yun Xu. I know it’s quite difficult for English, British people to pronounce Yun, Y-U-N…

Luke: Right, ok, so why did you choose the word Vicky? The name Vicky?

Vicky: The name Vicky… actually my… the first name I picked was, it wasn’t picked by me. The first English name was picked by my teacher. The first day when I got into middle school, and teacher said that you had to have an English name. So, what we do, is like, draw lots…

Luke: You draw lots?

Vicky: …draw the lots. The first name I got is, I think it’s, erm… Victoria. And then I changed into May because Victoria is too long for middle school students to pronounce, and it’s quite… kind of, you know when people would like to… to… when they invite someone out, it’s like they say “Hi Sophie! Let’s go out. Hi Mary!” They would never say “Hi Victoria” – it’s too long!

Luke: Too many syllables. VIC-TO-RI-A – that’s four syllables

Vicky: and it’s hard for them to pronounce beautifully, so they will invite someone, like, called ‘Sophie’, ‘Mary’ or whatever. ‘Jane’ or whatever… so I just changed the name into May. M-A-Y

Luke: M-A-Y ‘May’

Vicky: But after a couple of years I think that Vicky [is] probably better. I would love to use the name Victoria, which is the same name as your Queen

Luke: Queen Victoria, yeah

Vicy: Queen Victoria… and I use Vicky as a nickname so that people will find it more convenient to call me

Luke: Vicky, it’s just easier to say

Vicky: Yeah, it’s just easier to say

Luke: So your teacher actually gave you the name Vicky, and you said that you drew lots. That means, obviously, that there were a load of names written in a hat… into, on bits of paper and you put them in the, a hat

Vicky: They don’t make you draw lots…people would walk in front of me and say “I will draw a lot for you and that name on the paper should be your name. Just pick on of the names and overwrap it [unwrap it]…

Luke: and you became Vicky. Right. How did that feel? To just randomly be given a name? You don’t mind?

Vicky: No, well at that age I wasn’t [didn’t] mind at all, but now when I think back I think the teacher’s kind of manipulating

Luke: You mean, just, sort of, the teacher was a bit inhumane just giving you a name

Vicky: Yeah, but it’s the fastest way for her to give a name for every student

Luke: Yeah, they have to do that

Vicky: Yeah

Luke: They

Vicky: But she has also got lots of problems because all of teacher, the students came to her and complained about their names, “I don’t like this name, I want [to] change a name”, she would say “just go home, just go home and find a name for yourself … and just tell me what your new name is”. But seldomly the students would do that. Students will have a problem finding a proper name for themselves

Luke: Yeah. It’s basically… I can imagine in China it’s just easier for the teacher to give you a name. It’s easier. I can imagine it would be very difficult to ask every student to choose their own name, because no one would know what to choose.

Vicky: And every time when they choose a name, they’d ask you whether it’s a good name for me. How can I answer a question like whether it’s a good name for you?

Luke: Yeah. Ok.

Vicky: And it’s over 30 out of 40 students in one classroom

Luke: Yeah, it’s a lot

Vicky: Uh huh

Luke: So just for practical purposes they just, sort of, randomly choose word, names for you. OK, well Vicky, that’s good, y’know. Quite a common name. My cousin is called Vic – Victoria.

Vicky: Ok

Luke: So, you’re from China, right, so are you studying here or…?

Vicky: Studying here. In Oxford University

Luke: Ah, Oxford. The prestigious Oxford University

Vicky: Kind of…

Luke: Wow… And what are you doing?

Vicky: Erm, Actually now I’m a student in… and MSc student in education, and I’m kind of doing research in podcasting and English learning as a second language

Luke: Right, so you’ve… and you’ve found me…

Vicky: Yeah. Randomly.

Luke: Randomly, ok

Vicky: Should be randomly, because I interviewed Ben, and he introduced you to me so, could be, should be called randomly

Luke: I guess so, I guess so. Erm… now, so you’re doing a master’s degree on podcasting and learning English as a second language

Vicky: I’m doing a master’s degree on education, e-learning

Luke: e-learning

Vicky: Yeah, and I am writing research on podcasting

Luke: Ok. Your dissertation is about podcasting. Ok, right, now obviously you speak Chinese as your first language, so erm, first of all, before we talk about podcasts briefly, do you have any just, ‘quick tips’ for learning English. Because, obviously, you’re studying here at Oxford University so your English is very good, so how… can you just give, like, a few quick tips for my listeners…

Vicky: The first one is that you have to be brave enough to speak. You have to be bold enough to study. And, as a Chinese I think you have to be, umm, you have to push yourself a little bit.

Luke: Push yourself

Vicky: Push myself

Luke: So you need to be brave, and you need to push yourself

Vicky: Push yourself a little bit, to memorise those vocabularies [the vocabulary] . But I think the most important thing is to study, to learn how to communicate with people. Because I still remember one thing when I, I actually, I didn’t, err, I didn’t use a lot of time, I didn’t spend a lot of time on memorising those words, and reading. I love watching movies and I love listening to audio material, because I think the, you, you have to have the input of language, of a second language, but not only the paper work. You have to have the audio things, the video things, so that you could get, umm, you look, you read, you listen, and that’s making… and that is actually making your input diversified. That is making you… you actually… I learn quicker than my peers

Luke: so, because you learn by getting audio, getting video, by reading, by having a diverse erm, kind of, erm exposure to English

Vicky: to English, and I kind of expose myself to the English speaking environment

Luke: yeah

Vicky: Erm, that’s better, and probably that’s the best way for Chinese students.

Luke: You have to, kind of, live in English

Vicky: Live in English

Luke: Don’t just learn it from a book. You have to go out there and be brave enough to try and live in English

Vicky: That’s it

Luke: It’s about taking risks isn’t it?

Vicky: Yeah, kind of

Luke: being strong enough to take the risks. But it’s also about enjoying the language isn’t it?

Vicky: Uh huh

Luke: You have to try and get some sort of pleasure out of what you’re listening to, or try and enjoy the experience of speaking the language and improving it, isn’t it?

Vicky: Yeah, so that’s why I don’t like the news. I don’t like listening to news, especially the ? news or international news which is all about sensational news, all about bombing, bombing or

Luke: Yeah, terrorism

Vicky: or about the recession. I don’t like them because…

Luke: …it’s depressing

Vicky: yeah, a bit depressing, and what is, what, actually [how does] it relate to me? It’s nothing with… it’s none of my business [it’s nothing to do with me], and I would like to, would love to listen to lecture[s] and the educational or academic things about the people I like, about the movie[s], about life, actually about life

Luke: So it’s kind of like, finding, thinking about your interests, and following them in English. I mean, I don’t speak Japanese, I speak a little bit but used to, when I lived in Japan, I used to have a radio, I bought a radio just so I could listen to Japanese radio. Because there was a radio station called ‘Shonan Beach FM’, which was the local radio station where lived, and they played, sort of, jazz music and, sort of, nice, err, y’know, soul music and jazz music and I thought it was the coolest thing to listen to, err, jazz music on a radio station in Japanese, because the DJs would speak, they’d talk about the records in Japanese and then they’d play the record. And I would listen to them speaking Japanese and I just loved hearing Japanese people talking about jazz in Japanese. I didn’t understand what they were talking about but I enjoyed the rhythm of the conversation and I enjoyed identifying who they were talking about, and I used to listen and try and guess what they were talking about, and I honestly believe that sometimes I understood. I did understand what the conversation was. You know, they’d be saying things like “well that was Miles Davis and, Miles Davis is really nice isn’t it, yeah” and err…

Vicky: You’d just guess

Luke: Yeah, and “he recorded a record with John Coltrane in 1948, and erm…” You know, just by listening to a few things I can kind of try and guess what they are saying, but I just enjoyed ‘how does a Japanese person talk about jazz music?’, and it was just nice listening to it, so if I was learning English, I would be on the internet, finding podcasts about The Beatles, and finding listening and video things about stuff I’m interested in…

Vicky: …and there’s one way, the last way, the ultimate way, if you find no way to study English, one of my friends just made this joke: If there’s no way for you to learn English better, no better way for you, just go to a bar, go into a bar and grab a British boyfriend

Luke/Vicky: Hha ha haha ah ah ahah ahah ah ah !

Vicky: Can we put that into the…?

Luke: Yeah, you can say that, yeah yeah! If there’s no other way, then just find a boyfriend of girlfriend who speaks that language, yeah. ‘Learning by doing’, I think it’s called…

Vicky: Yeah…

Luke: Just the other question actually, that I wanted to know about is erm… So we talked about how I can try and improve and, and get more out of this, but just advice for my students, or advice for learners of English who are listening to this podcast, how can they use podcasts on the internet to improve their English? Is there any, have you got any advice on that?

Vicky: Two [pieces of] advice actually. The first one is that you, first time, the first time you listen to it, don’t depend on any transcripts. Just listen to them. You could get the general message what the podcast is talking about, what this episode is talking about, even though you couldn’t understand it, it’s better not [to be] dependant on the transcript.

Luke: Yeah, ok

Vicky: And then you could turn back to the transcript if they have one and to read them. Do not read from word to word because it’s not the natural way you read things. Just pick up the general message and pick up those words you don’t understand, and check it and pick it up in a dictionary. And then you listen to them again. So, you could, without a transcript. You listen to them again. So you could see you’re actually making progress, and, that’s, which, is quite essential, it’s quite critical for those students. They could get the idea that I am making progress, so they will love it. It’s like, they’ll kind of be addicted to it because they are making progress. They’re happy with it.

Luke: yeah, yeah, I see…

Vicky: And the second one is that you could play the podcast whenever you want, even though you’re taking a bath, because one of the students I interviewed said, he just play it, he just plays it, plays the podcast whenever he’s at home, like taking a bath or cooking or whatever. Because, kind of, he just, erm, erm, how to say that? He just exists in this kind of English, just expose himself, exposes himself to this English speaking environment, so randomly he will pick up some words and memorise something and he will think… because it is inputted randomly, he will produce it randomly, which makes his English more natural.

Luke: Right. Great. Thank you very much Vicky.

Vicky: Thank you

Luke: It was nice to meet you. Thanks very much, particularly for your comments about what I could do to develop it, and I’m always thinking about it. I need to become entrepreneurial, and become an entrepreneur. Err, yep, I hope that my rambling comments were useful.

Vicky: Oh, really

Luke: Good

Vicky: Thank you

Luke: ok

Vicky: ok

Luke: That’s it

17. Hello To My Listeners Around The World

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Here are some messages from me to you. This podcast is produced to help people to learn English as a foreign language. It is good listening practice and contains lessons on vocabulary and grammar for general English.

Right-click here to download this episode.
This episode is a chance for me to say hello to all my listeners around the world.

Every day, people from all over the world listen to and download my podcast. Some of them have been my students at The London School of English, but most of them, I have never met. In this podcast I’d like to say hello to you, and to answer some of the comments and questions you have emailed me. This is my chance to try and communicate to you, and ask you some questions.

Coming soon, podcasts about:

More Phrasal Verbs
Passive Verb Forms
British Weather
Narrative Tenses
Dr Who
…and many more!

Here’s a picture of my map which shows me my website visitors come from. Here’s some information for yesterday. We can see that Spain is the winner with 473 page views! (date: 12 June 2014)
Page views 11.06.2014

Episode Transcript

You’re listening to Luke’s English Podcast. For more information visit TeacherLuke.Podomatic.com. Hello everyone and welcome to the podcast. This is Luke and this is a kind of news update and a chance for me to say hello to you and to give you a few messages and also to give you a little bit of news.

I said in the last podcast that I was going to give you something about passive verb forms. Well that is coming. I’m planning it, I’m getting it ready at the moment and it’s nearly finished so that is coming soon.

But I’d like to just give you a little bit of news in this podcast. I’m making some changes to Luke’s English Podcast so from now on it’s going to be a little bit different. Better, I hope.

I hope it will be better. So basically I’m going to try and reduce the length of each podcast. The last one about Michael Jackson was about 71 minutes long which is really really long.

I mean that’s almost like a movie or something, it’s so long. I mean that’s fine. I like doing long podcasts because I can talk about lots of things but I understand that for you, you’re probably very busy and you don’t always have time to listen to a podcast for 70 minutes or something.

I know that you can just pause the podcast and then you know come back to it and keep listening from there but still shorter is better, I think. So I’m going to try and make the podcasts shorter and to do that I’m going to do podcasts in separate parts. So for example I’m going to separate or divide my podcasts.

So for example a feature section will just be one podcast and a language section will be in a separate podcast. So basically before I would do one hour podcasts for example which would include a feature section which is an interview or something and then a language section which would be where I teach you some grammar or vocabulary. But from now I’m just going to do one podcast for the feature section and a separate podcast for the language section.

So you’ll get the same stuff but they will be in separate podcasts. It’s just easier for you to listen that way. So you will still get lots of vocabulary in each podcast even if it’s a feature section.

I’ll still explain all the vocabulary and useful words and things but it means that each podcast will be dedicated to just interviews for example or just phrasal verbs for example or just grammar or just idioms or just an interesting topic. So yeah I’m just going to give you separate podcasts on individual things from now on. For example soon I’m going to do three podcasts on the weather.

Now before that would be just one long podcast but now it’s going to be three separate shorter podcasts. So for example the weather podcast in three sections in three different podcasts will be the first podcast will be an interview with a local Londoner about British weather for example and then the second podcast in the series will be about useful words, useful vocabulary that you can use to describe weather and then the third podcast in the series will be about some weather idioms. So before that would just be one very long podcast but now it’s going to be three separate podcasts.

I hope you understand that. So now I’d like to give you some messages and comments from me to you. If there’s anything I can do just call on me and I’ll send it along with love from me to you.

That’s right it’s from me to you. This podcast is all about you my listeners who are all over the world and now I’d like to just give some messages and comments from me to you. Now my podcast is now more popular than ever.

I had 530 downloads in the last seven days which I think is quite a lot. I’m quite happy with that. Obviously I would like more.

My aim is to get as many listeners as I possibly can and you know I want to get thousands of people listening to this every week. At the moment it’s just over 500 people every week which is quite good I think. Now on my webpage I can see how many people download me every day.

So every time someone downloads or listens to one of my podcasts I can see the download number go up by one every time. So each time that number goes up my happiness level goes up by one every time. So if you can imagine thanks to you I’m feeling pretty happy today.

In fact if you think about it my happiness level has gone up by well 530 which is which is quite good really. So obviously there are other things in my life that make me happy like my band and my music, my friends and family, my football, my job, the comedy programmes and things. But this podcast is my own special project and it’s going quite well so far I think.

Like I said my aim is actually to be the most popular English language podcast on the internet. I know that’s quite difficult because I’m competing with the BBC and with other companies who actually do professional podcasts. But I’m going to keep trying and who knows eventually I might be able to make a business out of this and actually make some money.

But who knows. At the moment I’m doing it just for the fun and just because I enjoy communicating with people around the world and I enjoy teaching. I just think it’s fun and I’m interested in the technology and the possibilities of the internet.

Also I’d quite like to be a radio or TV presenter one day possibly. Who knows. I’m not sure about that but I enjoy doing this podcast.

It’s something that I can control myself. Also on my web page I can see a map which shows me where in the world I am being listened to and downloaded. When I look at the map there are numbers in places all over the world.

So if I look at that map now I can see lots of little numbers all over the world and they show me where I am being listened to and downloaded. It’s amazing really that I can see all these numbers. But when I look at my map I’m always thinking these questions.

I’m always thinking who are all these people? Who are they? What are their names? What do they do? How much do they understand my podcast? Do they find it useful? Does everyone understand my sense of humour? If you think about it I’m looking at the map now and just to give you an idea I’ve got numbers here for downloads in the last week. I’ve got someone in Seattle. There’s 10 people in Arizona.

No 17 people in Arizona. 5 people in Mexico. 17 people in Ohio.

9 people in Massachusetts. That’s just America. In South America I’ve got 3 people in Colombia this week.

4 in Brazil. 3 people in Peru. Someone in Argentina.

In the UK I’ve got loads of people in England. 13 downloads in Oslo. About 10 in France.

Lots nearly 20 or more than 20 in Spain. 10 in Poland. Lithuania.

Turkey. All sorts of places. Let’s see.

Russia. I’m being downloaded in Russia a lot. I mean Russia is a very big country of course so I’ve got lots of people listening all over Russia.

India. Sri Lanka. Thailand.

South Korea. And all over Japan. And it’s amazing.

It’s really amazing. So just thinking about those questions. Who’s listening? Do they understand everything? Is it useful? How do you listen? Do you listen on the internet? Or do you listen on an iPhone for example? I’d be really really happy to hear from you.

From all of these numbers all over the world. At the moment you or the only information I have about you is just a number in a country. I have some information about which web pages you’re using to find me.

A lot of people are finding me through Google. Some people are finding me through the London School of English website. Some people know me because they’ve been my students.

But most of the people here I’ve never met and they’re just numbers on a map. So I’d be really happy to hear from you. I do get messages from lots of listeners.

So now I’d like to say a little hello to some of the people who’ve written messages to me and some of the people I’ve met and who’ve mentioned the podcast to me before. So let’s see in Japan I’d like to say hello to Miho, Kiyoshi, Moto, Fumi and Koyo. Azusa, Keisuke and Saki.

In Korea hello to Jaeho of course. And I’ve got a special message for you Jaeho. Here it is.

In fact two messages for you. Here they are. Okay here’s the first one Jaeho.

All right ready for this? Here it is. So obviously that was Jimi Hendrix singing Hey Joe. Where are you going with that gun in your hand? It wasn’t me singing.

But it’s a special message for you Jaeho if you’re listening. Here’s the next message for you. Okay just a couple of messages for Jaeho there.

Actually that song is the Pussycat Dolls singing Jaeho from the movie Slumdog Millionaire. Just especially for you though Jaeho from Korea if you’re listening. Also hello to Taewook.

Hello to Hannah. Hello to Hera, Changun, Sooyoung. In Thailand hello to Jack.

Hi Melanie and Mint. Hi Debbie and sorry I can’t say your Thai name but Debbie is your English nickname. I hope you can understand that.

That’s all right isn’t it? Hello to Rosa and her students in Spain. Hello to Sverre in Norway if you’re listening and to Toril from Norway as well too. Let’s see.

Hello to Mick in Thailand I think. Mick I’m not sure where you are but thanks very much for the technical advice on my RSS feed that you gave me recently and it’s really helped me quite a lot. Hello to Fabian in Munich and thank you for the advice on the length of the podcasts.

Obviously I’ve taken it into account. I will try to produce more short podcasts for you in the future. Let’s see.

Thanks also recently Fabian for the exciting tips on self-defence that you gave us in Holland Park. Very interesting, exciting. Thanks a lot for those.

Hello to Inna in Ukraine. Thanks very much for the emails and best of luck reaching your advanced level. I’m sure you can do it.

Just keep speaking and listening and reading and writing as much as possible. Hello to Anna. I’m not sure where you are.

Are you in Russia? I’m very glad that you liked the podcast about Susan Boyle and Britain’s Got Talent especially the idioms that I taught you and you’re absolutely right. It is important to get idioms that people regularly use. By the way the idiom that you mentioned in your email which was to turn the air blue that means to use rude language or to swear or to use you know offensive or rude language.

Now it’s a bit old-fashioned that idiom but people do use it to turn the air blue. Blue language means rude language. People do use it.

I mean in fact I heard somebody say that expression on TV recently to turn the air blue. If you say he turned the air blue meant that he swore or he said some rude things, right? But you’re right Anna. It’s important to get idioms that people use regularly.

It’s very hard to teach idioms because there are so many and I’m sure it’s difficult to learn them as well because you don’t know which ones are the good ones, which ones are the bad ones. But they are very important because they help you understand native speakers when they’re talking. A good way to be sure that you’re getting good idioms is to use books which have been published by Oxford University or Cambridge University or Longman for example.

That’s because the editors of those books work very hard to make sure that the language is all useful and real, okay? Hello to Mariano in Argentina. Now Mariano I’m very glad that you think my podcast is funny and useful. I’m also very pleased to be in touch with people in Argentina especially because our countries have had some bad political history over the years.

But of course all of that is water under the bridge now. So it makes me very pleased to be able to get messages from someone in Argentina. Now Mariano has actually recorded a message for me and a message which I’m going to play to you now.

I will also include a script for this message so you know if you want to read what Mariano said I’ll print that on the web page for you. But let’s hear the message that Mariano sent me via email just a few days ago. Here it is.

Here’s Mariano from Argentina. Hi Luke and to all the listeners to the podcast. First of all I would like to thank Luke for the excellent podcast he’s offering to us.

My name is Mariano from Buenos Aires, Argentina. I’m 34. I used to live with my parents and my sister.

I’ve been living alone for six years so I had to get used to doing a lot of new activities such as cooking, cleaning, washing my clothes and so on. I’ve been working at the bank since 1993. Nowadays I’m starting to be an English translator at university and I’m very glad to have decided to begin the course of studies.

In my free time I like listening to music, watching DVDs. My favourite band is the Beatles. I also enjoy listening to Queen, Pink Floyd, Elvis Presley, Eddie Cochran, Barry Halle.

Well the list of artists is huge but I especially prefer the music from the 60s. My favourite Beatle is John Lennon. Some years ago I had the possibility to do a radio programme about the Fab Four that lasted five years and luckily I made a lot of friends who were listeners to the programme.

According to the language I prefer the British accent to the American accent. I feel more comfortable with the British accent but I like to learn the differences between them. Well it’s all for today.

I send regards to all of you. If I made a mistake with grammar or pronunciation please forgive me. I hope to listen to more podcasts of the great Luke and as he says bye bye bye bye bye.

Well thank you very much Mariano. I’m very pleased that you’re liking the podcast. The great Luke.

Well that’s very flattering. Thank you. The great Luke.

I’m quite happy with that. It’s a bit like Great Britain or something isn’t it? Great Luke. Very nice.

Thank you. Yeah anyone who emails me or sends me a message feel free to call me The Great Luke. I could get used to that, certainly.

Let me see. I’m just quite interested in some of the things you said there, Mariano. Let’s see.

It is pretty difficult to get used to living on your own, isn’t it? I mean, cooking, cleaning, washing your clothes, all those domestic chores can be pretty hard to get used to, I guess. I hope you’re managing to keep up with all of that stuff, mate. Good luck with the translation studies.

I’m sure that you’ll do very well if you keep working hard. Sounds like you’re enjoying it. Your favourite band is The Beatles.

Well, I think my favourite band might be The Beatles too. I certainly love their music. Although some of my friends think that The Beatles are only for old people.

Well, I mean, you can think that if you like, if you think The Beatles are just for old people. Personally, I think The Beatles’ music is timeless. It doesn’t matter how old you are, anyone can listen to it and enjoy it.

Let’s see. So you did a radio show about the Fab Four for five years. That’s interesting.

Didn’t you run out of things to say? Well, I suppose there’s plenty of things to say about The Beatles. I mean, I know. I could talk about The Beatles all day if there was someone who wanted to listen to that.

Yeah. Well, anyway, of course you prefer the British accent. It’s much better than the American accent, isn’t it? Well, not really.

I’m just joking, of course. I like the American accent as well, as well as the British accent. Especially American accents like the Brooklyn accent or kind of California surfer kind of accent.

There are lots and lots of different American accents that sound fantastic. In fact, I’m hoping to do a podcast about more different English accents. So, thanks very much, Mariano.

Basically, that’s the end of my podcast. Just to say hello to all the people who listen to this. Yeah.

I hope you’re enjoying them. And don’t forget to email me or send me comments or send me MP3s of you talking. I’ll be glad to play them here.

Also, if you email me, let me know if you would like me to correct you. Now, what Mariano said there was all perfect, actually. He didn’t make any mistakes.

To be honest, his pronunciation is a little bit Spanish, but he is from Argentina. But in terms of the grammar and the vocabulary, I didn’t find any mistakes. So, there’s nothing for me to correct.

So, well done, Mariano. You’re really good. You’re doing very well.

But if someone emails me, just let me know if you want me to correct you, because I can. I will do that for you, if you want. I’m so helpful, aren’t I? Why am I doing it? See, I’m not getting any money.

I’m always talking about money at the end of my podcasts, but it really doesn’t matter to me, actually. It’s not important. OK, so that’s the end of this podcast.

And stay tuned for more podcasts coming soon. In fact, I’m now going to do a podcast about more phrasal verbs, which is related to this because it’s about communication. So, I’m going to teach you some phrasal verbs in the next podcast, which you will be able to download very soon.

But for now, that is the end of this podcast. So, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye. Thanks for listening to Luke’s English Podcast.

Don’t forget to email me at luketeacher at hotmail.com. If you enjoyed this episode of Luke’s English Podcast, consider signing up for Luke’s English Podcast Premium. You’ll get regular premium episodes with stories, vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation teaching from me and the usual moments of humour and fun. Plus, with your subscription, you will be directly supporting my work and making this whole podcast project possible.

For more information about Luke’s English Podcast Premium, go to teacherluke.co.uk/premiuminfo

9. Travelling in India (with Ben Butler)

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An episode with my friend and colleague Ben, with common social english questions, a conversation about going travelling in India and some useful vocabulary explained at the end.

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In this special extra-large podcast, I’m joined by my friend & colleague Ben.
In Part 1, I talk about the good review of Luke’s English Podcast which we got on the iTunes store (thanks to Bookshop Worker).
In Part 2, I get to know Ben with some really common social english questions. This is a great example of a typical natural conversation in which you get to know someone.
In Part 3, Ben and I talk about going travelling and our experiences in India.
Then in Part 4, I explain the useful language we used in part 3. It’s a massive 1 hour podcast this time! I recommend that after you listen to part 4, you should listen to Part 3 again because you’ll understand it more…

Useful Language from Part 2 – The Interview with Ben.

Here are some bits of language from the conversation I had with Ben. I have written explanations and advice under each bit of language.

Luke: “How’s it going?”
-‘How’s it going’ is a very common way to say ‘how are you?’
Ben: “Yeah, good. Just finished work for the day”
…
Luke: “How long have you worked there?”
-This question is in the present perfect tense. We use this tense to ask a ‘how long’ question for an action that someone started in the past, but is still doing now.
Ben: “I’ve worked there for 4 years now”
-Again, present perfect to describe an action which started in the past and is still happening now. ‘for’ is used with a duration of time. ‘since’ would be used for a point in time, e.g. ‘I’ve worked there since 2005’
Ben: “I’ve been teaching for about 6 and a half, 7 years I think”
-Ben used the present perfect continous. In this situation, present perfect continuous has the same use as present perfect. Listen to podcast 7 for more information.
Luke: “Where did you work before?”
Ben: “I lived in Oxford”
-I used the past simple tense for this question, because it is about a finished period of time. Present Perfect – actions in an unfinished time. Past simple – actions in a finished time.
Luke: “What did you do at university?”
-Again, past simple for a finished time. ‘What did you do?’ means ‘What did you study?’
Ben: “I studied Social Science, which is, umm, it’s quite a mixed subject”
-Ben used a relative clause ‘which is…’ to add extra information to the noun ‘social science’. Using relative clauses is very common for giving more information. They’re really useful for fluency.
Ben: “I finished there and I worked in an office for a while”
-Ben used past simple tense to describe a sequence of actions.
Luke: “Do you teach business?”
-I used present simple because I’m talking about what he does now, regularly. If I had said “Are you teaching business?” it would be a question about a temporary period. “I teach business”-permanent period now. “I’m teaching business”-temporary period now (will maybe finish in a couple of weeks).
Luke: “Umm, yeah, wicked, cool”
-‘wicked’ and ‘cool’ are informal expressions which mean ‘great, excellent, good, etc’
Luke: “You live nearby, right?”
-‘nearby means’ near, or close to here. ‘right?’ is a simple kind of tag-question. You can use it to check that something is true. Tag questions are often used when you get to know someone. You can use them to check information you already know.
Luke “Aren’t you a QPR fan?”
-This is another way to check something you already know – use a negative question. I think ben is a QPR fan, but I want to check. I could have said “You’re a QPR fan, aren’t you?”
Luke: “They’re not in the Premiership though, are they?”
-Here I’m using a tag-question (are they?) to check something, but also I’m making a joke by showing that QPR are not a very good team!
Ben: “They were taken over last year by some very wealthy millionaires”
-‘they were taken over’ means that the club was bought by new owners. If a company is ‘taken over’ it means that another company buys the majority of its shares, and then becomes the boss of that company. ‘Wealthy’ means ‘rich’.
Ben: “I live in hope!”
-to live in hope means that you are always hoping for something. In this case, Ben is living in hope that QPR will become a big & successful London football team.

The language in Part 2 is all REALLY useful – especially the way Ben & I used the different tenses (Present perfect, past simple, present simple).

Useful Language from Part 3 (explained in Part 4):

“to go traveling” – This is a very common expression which means that you visit another country and you live there for quite a long time and just travel around. It’s different from a holiday – on holiday you usually stay for a shorter time and stay in one place. If you go travelling it means that you stay for longer, and travel around to different places.
“to do / to go on a trip somewhere” – This means that you make a short visit to somewhere. E.g. I did a trip to Hampi
“to fly into somewhere” – This means that you arrived there by plane. You can also ‘fly out of somewhere’.
“it’s on the coast” – This means that the location is next to the sea, on the edge of the country.
“it’s inland” – this means it is not on the coast, but in the country. E.g. in Brazil Rio de Janeiro is on the coast, but Brasilia is inland.
“it’s off the coast of…” – This is used to describe the position of an island. E.g. The Isle of White is off the south coast of England.
“it’s in the north/south/east/west of…” -This is used to describe the position of something in an area. E.g. Manchester is in the north of England.
“it’s to the north/south/east/west of …” -This describes the location of something in relation to another place, E.g. “Oxford is to the north of London”- it is above London.

Good Things:
‘there’s a good exchange rate” – This means that the English pound is stronger than the Indian rupee, so you get more rupees for each pound when you exchange your currency.
“the pound has dropped in value” – This means that the economic value of the pound has gone down
“our economy is a bit screwed” – If something is ‘screwed’ it means it is damaged, in bad condition.
“they’ve really, sort of, messed it up” – To ‘mess something up’ means to do it badly, to make mistakes, to make it go bad. E.g. the bankers have messed up the economy.
“it’s the recession, the credit crunch” – The recession describes the bad economic situation. The credit crunch is how people describe that it is very difficult to borrow money. Businesses and individuals can’t borrow money (get credit) because no one will lend it. This is the credit crunch – a pressured situation due to lack of credit.
“there’s a light breeze’ – This is about the weather, and a light breeze is a cool, light wind. Lovely.
“what’s nice about Goa is that it’s really chilled, isn’t it?” – ‘it’s really chilled’ means that it is relaxing. ‘chilled out’ means relaxed/relaxing.
“there’s a really relaxed vibe” – A ‘vibe’ is a slang word for an atmosphere.
“before you know it, you’re absolutely baked in the heat” – ‘Before you know it’ means ‘suddenly, or before you expect it’, and to be ‘baked’ means that you are cooked by the sun. You’re really hot, basically.
“you do find that time, sort of, slips by” – This means that time passes and you don’t realise.
“speaking like a geezer – Alright mate!” – A ‘geezer’ is a slang word for a man. It also means a kind of typical Londoner who is quite confident and possibly aggressive. ‘Alright mate’ means, ‘hello friend, how are you?’
“they’re wearing these beautifully coloured saris” – A sari is a traditional clothing that Indian women wear.
“the old part of Goa was a Portuguese colony” -A colony is a settlement or civilisation of people who come from another country and take over in that area. E.g. the British colonies in India, The Caribbean, etc (became The Commonwealth). Colonial (adjective). E.g. beautiful colonial architecture.
“it’s quite diverse, open minded” -Diverse means that there are many different types of people, from different religions and ethnicities. Open minded means they are not conservative and they accept different kinds of lifestyle and. behaviour.
“you can go off the beaten track” -This means to go to places that tourists don’t usually go to. The beaten track is the places where everyone goes.
“Hampi is great. It’s like this old pilgrimage site. It’s stunning” -A pilgrimage site is a place where people make religious journeys to. E.g. Mecca is a pilgrimage site for Muslims.
“there are huge boulders” -Boulders are very very big rocks.
“it’s very strange, the landscape. It’s very atmospheric” -‘Atmospheric’ means that the atmosphere is very strong and impressive.

The Bad Things:
“there are loads of people who just keep hassling you” -‘hassle’ means disturb or annoy. In India, you are always hassled by people who want to sell you something, or offer you a taxi ride. Everyone wants you to use their taxi, or buy their products!
“just chill out man!” -Just relax!
“we’re not used to that sort of thing in London” -We’re not accustomed to that. (see podcast Episode 3 language section)
“you have to haggle for pretty much everything you buy” -To haggle means to negotiate the price. E.g. £10 – no £3! -no £7 – are you crazy? £5! – OK, £5.
“have you got a missed call?” -A missed call means that someone has called you but you didn’t answer and your mobile says ‘you have 1 missed call’.
“you’re worried that you’re going to get sick, particularly an upset stomach” -An upset stomach means that you feel sick in your stomach.
“you get, like, diarrhea or Delhi Belly” -Diarrhea is a sickness when your poo is not solid! You have to run to the toilet and do a horrible ‘liquid’ poo! Delhi Belly is the name that tourists to India use to describe an upset stomach or diarrhea.
“you might be throwing up or something” -To throw up means to vomit. When you’re sick and your food comes out of your mouth! EEEEEEEEAAAAACHHH!!
“it makes you really paranoid” -If you’re paranoid, it means that you are very worried that something bad is going to happen, or you think that something bad is happening, but actually it isn’t. E.g. “oh my god I really hope I haven’t got malaria! Maybe I’ve got malaria!” or “I don’t think John likes me. It’s the way he looks at me sometimes. Actually, I think everyone thinks I’m stupid. They’re always looking at me like I’m stupid…” “Shut up! You’re just paranoid! Everyone likes you…”
“I had to hunt it down and kill it” -To hunt something means to follow something and kills it (usually for food, but sometimes for sport)
“I went back and slept like a baby” -To sleep like a baby means that you sleep very very well.
“the malaria tablets as well can have some side effects” -A side effect is another effect of medicine. E.g. Asprin will stop a headache, but the side effect is a bad stomach. The side effect of malaria tablets is bad dreams.
“there is quite a lot of poverty” -Poverty means the bad conditions that people live in when they have no money. In developing countries there is a lot of poverty, and India is no exception.
“it’s quite depressing” -It can make you sad, depressed when you see the poverty.
“it can make you feel a bit guilty” -When you see the poverty, and you know you have lots of money, you feel responsible and bad about it – like it’s your fault, or you’re not doing anything to stop the poverty. In fact, you’re having a holiday there, but they local people are very poor.
“what you’re haggling over is the principle” -You’re not really negotiating over the money, but the fact that you just don’t want to pay more than you think is right. The principle means the point that you believe in – in this case, it is the fact that you don’t want to lose the negotiation and pay ‘too much’.
“we’re always worried about being, sort of, ripped off” -To be ripped off means to pay too much for something. E.g. “You paid £5 for that can of Coca Cola (TM)?? You were ripped off!!”
“but basically, on balance, India is great” -When you compare the good things and bad things and then get a conclusion you can say ‘on balance’.
“laid back” -This means ‘relaxed, easy going’.
“there must be a word I can use to describe the fact that I can’t describe it… err… does it make you… speechless?” -I said this because I was embarrassed that I couldn’t think of a 3rd adjective to describe India!

OK, so that’s the end of this huge podcast! I hope it has been useful. Don’t forget to email me: luketeache@hotmail.com

Photos

The first one is of Ben and me during our recording. Ben is talking on his mobile phone (as per usual!)
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Baking in the sun on Benaulim Beach in Goa:
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The view from our accommodation in Hampi:
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Climbing up to the Monkey Temple in Hampi. That’s my cousin Oliver in the picture.

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I stopped to take a photo and this boy started hassling me for money. I think I gave him some rupees, but he wanted more. Also he wanted a pen or some paper, but I didn’t have any.
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Going ‘off the beaten track’ on our scooters.
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These are pilgrims on their way to visit the temples in Hampi. They have dressed up as Hindu characters. The man in green is dressed as Hanuman, the monkey king.
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Two children we met outside one of the temples:
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The Hanuman Temple (monkey temple).
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This is a group of Indian school children visiting Hampi. In the background you can see a statue of Hanuman (the monkey king).
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This is me on the train back from Hampi to Goa. Our seats were at the top of the train and we had to lie down like this for most of the journey. You can also sit on the doorstep of the train and watch the world go by, but it’s a bit dangerous…
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Episode 1 – Introduction

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The first episode of Luke’s English Podcast. Full transcript available below.

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TRANSCRIPT
Hello, and welcome to Luke’s English podcast – the podcast for learners of English. This is the very first podcast that I’ve done and it will be the first of many more podcasts that you will be able to download and listen to in the future, so because this is the first podcast, it’s a bit short, it’s shorter than the other ones will be and in this podcast basically I’m going to introduce myself to you so that you can get to know me a little bit and then I’m going to tell you about what is going to happen in other podcasts in the future.

Let’s see, first of all my name’s Luke – Luke Thompson. Now the name Luke can be a little bit difficult for learners of English to pronounce sometimes and I meet lots of people who can’t pronounce my name and they call me Look or maybe Luck, but it’s not Look or Luck, it’s Luke of course, and let’s see, I live in London. I work as an English teacher in an English language school in West London and I’ve been teaching English for about 8 years now. I first started teaching in Japan and I lived in Japan for two years in an area near Tokyo called Kanagawa Prefecture and I taught English there for two years and it was really great, I had a really good time. It was a very interesting experience for me and I’ve got lots of interesting stories to tell about my time in Japan. So, I taught there for two years and then I came back to London and I have been teaching English in London for about six years now. I’ve worked in a few different schools. I used to work in a school near Oxford Street and I worked in another school in Waterloo and now I work in a school which has two buildings, one in Holland park and the other one in Chiswick in West London and I enjoy my job very much because I get to meet lots of very interesting people, possibly people like you, people who need to learn English and they come to London. They come to my school, for example and it’s very interesting for me to meet these people from around the word and to introduce them to the English language and the English culture as well.

Let’s see, as well as being a teacher, an English teacher, I’m also interested in lots of other things. I love music, I’m a big music fan, for example I love the Beatles, of course, because I’m English and we all love the Beatles don’t we? So, I love the Beatles and I love lots of different kinds of music as well. I play music sometimes, I play the drums and I play the guitar. I’m not very good at the guitar to be honest I’m just trying to learn how to do that, but I’ve been playing drums for a long time now. I play in a band at the school and we play concerts sometimes and that’s really great fun. I’m also into lots of other things. I love movies and I like sport, like football of course, again because I’m English and we all love football, right? and I also like rock climbing too.

So, that’s just a little bit of information about me and, OK, now I’m also interested in you, and your opinions and your stories and your questions as well, so if you have any questions for me, if there are stories that you’d like to tell me, you can email me. Now at the end of each podcast I will actually ask you a question and I really want this to be an interactive podcast, which means that you can email me your answers to the question that I will ask you at the end of the podcast and it will be a chance for you to tell me what you think about some of the things that we’ll be talking about. So if you want to email me you can write to this address, its: Luketeacher@hotmail.com and I’ll be very glad to hear from you.

You’re still listening to Luke’s English Podcast. If you’d like some more information visit teacherluke.podomatic.com.

Now, let me tell you about the podcast. Now obviously this is the fist podcast so it’s slightly different from podcasts in the future, but really what is so fantastic about this podcast is that the whole thing will be real, natural British English so that means that if you are interested in having a good listening experience, practising your listening but also finding something that will be interesting and entertaining and fun then this is the podcast for you. Like I said, it will all be totally natural British English, so the sort of English that I speak with my friends for example, the kind of real English that people in Britain speak all the time. I record the podcast here in my apartment in London. At the moment I’m sitting on my sofa and it’s a Saturday morning. So I record the podcast at home in my free time and a typical podcast will have three parts: the first part will be a little bit of conversation with me. So I might talk about something that’s happening at the moment. So possibly a news story or what’s been going on recently and I will also answer your questions and I will read out your comments that you send to me via the email address that I read out earlier on.

That’s the first part, the second part of the podcast will be a feature. So that means that it will be probably an interview with someone, so I might interview one of my friends or interview a member of my family and so you’ll be able to listen to a natural conversation between native speakers for example. It will be like you are spending time with some native English speakers. I know it’s difficult to find native English speakers to meet and talk to but if you listen to this podcast you’ll be able to listen to me talking to some of my friends or family, so again, a really good chance for you to listen to natural British English being spoken. So, like I said, the second part will be a feature, maybe an interview with someone. I might for example go into London and interview people on the street or I’ll interview people I meet in the pub, for example and we’ll talk about lots of interesting topics.
Then the third part of the podcast I will look at some of the language that I’ve used in part one and part two and I’ll actually teach you some really useful vocabulary and really useful expressions, the kind of natural language that normal British people speak when they talk to each other.

So this podcast is a really good chance for you to try and push your level of English up and if you start using some of the vocabulary that you hear on this podcast you can really start to push your level up to an advanced level of English. Another good thing about the podcast is that you can download it from the internet. You can put it on to your ipod or your mp3 player and then you can listen to it anywhere you like, I mean, you can listen to this on the bus on the way to work, or on your way to school. You can listen to it maybe when you are in the gym doing your exercise. I mean you can listen to it anywhere you like, I mean, you can listen to it on the toilet for example or maybe when you’re having a bath! I suppose that might be a bit weird or a bit strange if you’re listening to me while you are having a bath or when you are on the toilet! but I mean I don’t really care, I don’t really care where you are or what you’re doing as long as you actually listening to the podcast, that’s the most important thing for me. Also you can listen to this anywhere in the world, so if you’ve come to London to study English – you might have been at my school, you might have been one of my students and if you come to London and then you go back to your country you can keep downloading and listening to this podcast from your country and it’s a really good chance to extend your British English learning experience. Now, there are lots of other podcasts that you can download from the internet, lots of learning English podcasts. If you go to iTunes, if you’ve got iTunes on your computer for example, if you go to the iTunes store and do a search for learning English podcasts you’ll find lots of different English language podcasts available, but in my opinion most of them are rubbish actually and I think that this will be probably better than all the others! Now I’m not being very modest there, but I think I’m just being confident, which is a good thing, but I’ve listened to a lot of other podcasts that you can find on the internet and first of all most of them seem to be American and they have American English – which is fine because American English is great and all that – but you might want to listen to British English, right? Or sort of London English which is what I can offer in this podcast. So also a lot of the podcasts that I’ve listened to seem to be very patronising, and by patronising I mean that they talk to you like you’re a bit stupid, or maybe like you’re a bit of a child so they might be something like:
“Welcome to the American English podcast from podcasts.com. Today’s podcast is about dogs. Dogs are a kind of pet that you keep in your home or in your house…”,
for example, right? Sort of, a bit slow, a bit boring and a bit patronising so I think that this podcast will be hopefully more interesting than that, not as patronising, not very boring hopefully, sort of natural and fun and you will actually want to listen to it for entertainment so it’s not like studying but more like just something that you listen to just because it’s interesting I hope so anyway.
So, I think that’s it really, that’s the end of this first podcast. Don’t forget to listen to the second one and the third one because they will be more interesting than this because they’ll be things like interviews with people and other stuff like that.

So, I’d like to end this podcast with a question which I would like you to answer through the email address and the question is: What would you like me to talk about? so what would you like to hear me talk about on this podcast? so send me a question. It could be a question about perhaps Britain or British culture or about London or it could be a question about English – if you’ve got a question about English vocabulary or grammar I’m happy to answer your questions on the podcast. So, that’s the first question: what would you like me to talk about? And that’s it, that’s the end of the podcast. Don’t forget you can email me at: Luketeacher@hotmail.com. I’m very much looking forward to hearing from you in the future, so that’s it.. bye bye bye bye….