Talking to Michael Lavers from the Level Up English Podcast about learning Japanese, embarrassing moments in language learning, social awkwardness and some “very British problems”. Are you as socially awkward as a British person? Let’s see how you and Michael would respond to some quiz questions that will test your British awkwardness to the max. Video version available.
Today on the podcast I am talking to Michael Lavers who is an English teacher from Cornwall in the South West of England. Michael also has a podcast for learners of English. It’s called The Level Up English Podcast – you might want to check it out if you haven’t already done so. It’s available wherever you get your podcasts.
As well as being an English teacher, Michael is also a language learner himself and in his podcast episodes he often talks with guests about experiences of learning other languages, including those embarrassing or awkward moments that happen when you feel shy or you make mistakes. Also, Michael has described himself as a socially awkward person who lacks a certain amount of confidence in himself. In fact, he says that one of the reasons he started his podcast was to try and gain some confidence by going out of his comfort zone.
So this is what I thought I would ask Michael about: his language learning experiences and those awkward and embarrassing moments, and then I’d like to chat about social awkwardness and whether this is a uniquely British thing. And we’re going to go into some specific examples of how this so-called British awkwardness manifests itself.
That’s the plan, so now, let’s meet Michael Lavers from the Level Up English Podcast.
Awkward Situations – Very British Problems
Here are some questions based on some tweets by the popular Twitter account, Very British Problems. Each one describes a specific problem that British people typically experience in social situations. They seem to sum up the experience of being a British person. We’re socially awkward – I don’t know why.
Let’s see how you respond to these questions. And listeners, I want you to consider your answers to these questions too, then we’ll see what Michael says, and then we’ll see the original tweets and we can see if they match up.
Questions & Tweets
How do you feel when you walk through the “nothing to declare” gate at an airport?
You’re sitting with a group of people. It’s time for you to leave. What do you say as you kind of slap your hands on your knees and stand up?
If someone says something to you but you don’t hear it, how many times are you willing to ask them to repeat themselves?
What do you say to your taxi driver as they approach the point where you want to get out of the cab?
If you’re on a train, sitting in the window seat with a passenger next to you, and your stop is approaching, what do you do to signal to the passenger in the aisle seat that you will need to get up?
You’re standing at the exit door of the train as it is pulling into the station, slowly coming to a stop, and there is a crowd of other passengers right behind you, eager to get off the train. The “Open door” button isn’t yet illuminated. What do you do? Do you press the button?
How do you feel when the ticket inspector inspects your perfectly valid ticket?
What do you say, modestly, to guests arriving in your home, even though you spent some time before their arrival, tidying things up?
There’s one last roast potato on the table at Sunday lunch. You want to eat it. How do you achieve this?
Just take it and eat it
Ask if you can eat it
Offer it to everyone else first
Do you ever tell your housemates or family that you are “off to bed” but then just stare at your phone in bed for an hour?
Imagine you are walking through a hallway with lots of doors in it, like in a library or something and you’re walking just behind a stranger who keeps having to hold the doors for you. How many different ways of saying “thanks” can you think of?
How do you end an email? Is there a subtly less friendly difference between kind regards and just regards?
What do you do when you get an incoming call from an unknown number?
How good are you at overtaking someone on foot?
Do you feel it necessary to speed up at all, when walking over a zebra crossing?
If you pay for something with exactly the right change, and you know it’s exactly the right change, do you wait for the cashier to count the money?
I have had some entries already. If you’ve sent me something, then thank you. Please send your designs to podcastcomp@gmail.com and my brother and I will review the entries we receive, talk about them on the podcast and pick at least one to be featured in the LEP Merch store.
Think of a t-shirt that LEPsters would want to wear
PRIZE: The winning design will be put on t-shirts, mugs and other merch, and the winner will also win £80!
SPECS: A high-resolution transparent .PNG at 150dpi. Minimum dimensions of at least 1500px by 1995px (not including outer transparent pixels).
Talking to English teacher Ray Addam from Glasgow in Scotland about mental factors in learning English, such as anxiety, confidence, stress and motivation. Video version available on YouTube.
This is a swapcast between LEP and English with Ray, which means we are both uploading this to our podcasts/youtube channels.
Ray is an English teacher from Glasgow in Scotland (and you’ll be able to notice his accent, which is not the strongest Glaswegian accent I’ve ever heard but it’s definitely noticeable – which is great, because I love Scottish accents). Ray has recently started making videos on YouTube for learners of English.
One of his students – Ivan (from Russia I think) who is also a LEPster, suggested to Ray that he start doing that and that he also contact me for an interview, so that’s what you’re going to listen to or watch here. This is Ray Addam interviewing me for his channel.
This is a fairly relaxed and free-ranging conversation, and after chatting a bit about playing music and performing in front of people, we ended up talking about the psychology of learning English, particularly how to manage anxiety or nerves when using English in stressful situations, and then our comments about how to work on your confidence and how to have the right mental approach to learning a language, which is one of the most important steps to take.
So listen on for some comments and tips about how to manage your stress levels in English, how to become more confident in English and how to take control of your communication skills in general.
Thanks to Ray for sending this recording to me. You might want to check out his channel on YouTube, which is called English with Ray. He only has a few videos there at the moment, but everyone’s got to start somewhere. I’ve noticed that Ray also speaks fluent Arabic so any Arabic speaking LEPsters might be particularly interested in Ray’s content as he might have some insights into differences between Arabic and English. I haven’t actually asked him about that yet, but maybe it’s something he could work on in a future video.
Anyway, that’s it for this introduction and I will now let you listen to this conversation with Ray Addam, firstly about playing music in front of audiences of people, and then about the challenges of managing your confidence when using English in stressful situations. I will probably speak to you again briefly at the end of this chat, but for now, let’s get started.
Talking to author Natasha V Broodie who has written a book which aims to help learners of English understand the subtle codes of polite language when making requests and giving information in professional and personal contexts. In the conversation we explore the topic and consider some tips for making your language more culturally appropriate.
In this episode I am talking to author Natasha V Broodie who has written a book which aims to help learners of English to find the right tone in their speaking and writing. Tone is something which is very much affected by culture and often relates to things like being direct, indirect, formal, informal, the use of modal verbs and phrasal verbs and so on. In English the general tone is often quite friendly, indirect and polite, and this can sometimes cause problems for English speakers coming from different places where codes of politeness or professionalism are different.
Natasha has worked as an English teacher and has also worked in international contexts for the UN and so she has direct experience of observing people communicating in English and not quite getting the tone right.
So in her book, “Give me tea, please. Practical Ingredients for Tasteful Language” she lays out a sort of style guide with theory, practical tips and a glossary of defined vocabulary at the back.
It sounds like an interesting book which could be a worthwhile read for my listeners, so I thought it would be good to chat with Natasha a little bit and explore some of the ideas presented in her book.
“Give me tea, please” is currently available on Amazon but from 24 September should be available from all other providers too.
Right, so now you know what sort of thing we’re going to be talking about, let’s meet Natasha Broodie and find out some of those practical tips for tasteful language.
So that was Natasha V Broodie, talking about her book Give me tea, please – available from all good bookstores. Go ahead and pick up a copy and if you like it, leave a review on Amazon.
Thanks again to Natasha for her contribution in this episode.
Learn English from some jokes in this episode as we go through 9 jokes chosen as the best of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe stand up comedy scene this year (2021). Let me tell you the jokes, see if you understand them, and then I will break them down for language learning opportunities. Video version available.
Hello listeners, hello video viewers. How are you? How is the world treating you today? Not too badly I hope.
Here’s a new episode. So stick with me. Listen closely. Pay attention. You can definitely learn some new English from this. Let’s get started.
Introduction
It’s time to dissect the frog again as we look at some of the most popular jokes from the Edinburgh Festival Fringe of this year 2021. I’m going to read them to you and then explain them so you can understand them fully and also learn some new vocabulary in the process.
This is something I’ve been doing every year at the end of the Ediburgh Festival when the list of the most popular jokes is published in the newspapers.
Last year I didn’t do one of these episodes because Ed Fringe got cancelled due to Covid-19.
But the festival was back this year, so here we go again. Let’s find some popular jokes told by comedians at the fringe and use them to learn English.
Edinburgh Festival Fringe
Just in case you don’t know, the Edinburgh Fringe (full name: The Edinburgh Festival Fringe) is a huge comedy festival that happens every August in Edinburgh, the capital city of Scotland.
Sometimes it’s called The Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Edinburgh Fringe, The Edinburgh Comedy Festival, Ed Fringe, just The Fringe or simply Edinburgh.
It’s one of the biggest comedy festivals in the world, and every August comedians travel to the city in order to perform comedy to the large crowds of people who travel there.
For comedians August in Edinburgh is a huge opportunity to get exposure and experience, but it is very tough, especially at the beginning when you have to drum up an audience of people to come to your shows every day.
Just in case you didn’t know, stand-up is a form of entertainment that involves one comedian standing on stage with a microphone telling stories and jokes in an effort to make the audience laugh. It is an extremely popular form of entertainment in the English speaking world.
This episode is about specific jokes told by comedians during the fringe this year, but stand-up comedians don’t really just go up and tell individual jokes one after the other (except in the case of some specific comedians), rather they fit their jokes into stories, observations about the world or confessions about themselves.
However, this list of the “best jokes from the fringe” just picks simple one or two line jokes from people’s performances.
Lower Your Expectations Now😅
I expect that taking these jokes away from their original performances will not help the jokes.
They will probably be less funny outside the comedy show that they came from because we’re going to remove the context of the joke, the attitude and personality of the comedian who told the joke and what was happening in the room that particular evening. All those elements have a huge impact on how funny the joke will be.
So, it’s not very fair to judge these jokes on their own like this, outside of their original context, but this is still an interesting experiment in learning English, so here we go.
Here’s how we’re going to do this
First I will read each joke one by one.
There are 9 jokes in total.
How many jokes do you “get”?
If you “get” a joke, it means you understand why it is funny.
Ideally you will laugh, but you can also groan.
If you don’t understand it you need to say “I don’t get it!”
The main thing is: You have to notice and acknowledge that a joke has been told to you.
So, listen to the jokes, do you get them all?
Then I will go through each joke one by one and I will break them all down, explaining exactly how they work, showing you double meanings, explaining any specific vocabulary or cultural reference points and giving you all the information you need to be able to understand these jokes properly.
There is a lot of vocabulary to be learned from this, which I will highlight as we go through and recap at the end.
So, get ready, it’s time to dissect the frog again.
Of course, I have to say the quote:
Explaining a joke is like dissecting a frog. You can learn something from it, but the frog dies in the process.
I expect I will be killing all these jokes by explaining them.
You’re not meant to explain jokes, and if you do, the joke suddenly becomes less funny.
Most jokes work by surprise.
Getting the double meaning instantly is usually the only way to find a joke funny.
So I can’t guarantee that you will laugh at these jokes, but this is certainly going to be good for your English in any case.
Joke types
A lot of these jokes use
synonyms (different words with a similar meaning),
common fixed expressions and sayings
homophones (different words that sound the same)
similies (finding similarities between otherwise different things),
pull back & reveal (revealing extra information to change the situation)
Top Jokes from Edinburgh Fringe 2021
I’m getting this list from the website Chortle.co.uk which is the UK’s number 1 comedy website.
1. “I thought the word ‘Caesarean’ began with the letter ‘S’ but when I looked in the dictionary, it was in the ‘C’ section.”
– Masai Graham
2. “My therapist told me, ‘A problem shared, is a hundred quid’.” – Ivor Dembina
3. “Me and my ex were into role play. I’d pretend to be James Bond and she’d pretend she still loved me.”
-Tom Mayhew
4. “The roman emperor’s wife hates playing hide and seek because wherever she goes Julius Caesar.”
– Adele Cliff
5. “Marvin Gaye used to keep a sheep in my vineyard. He’d herd it through the grapevine.”
– Leo Kearse
6 “My grandparents were married for forty years, but everything took longer back then.”
– Will Mars
7. “I think Chewbacca is French because he understands English but refuses to speak it.”
– Sameer Katz
8. “I don’t know what you call a small spillage from a pen but I have an inkling.”
– Rich Pulsford
9. “People say zoos are inhumane. But that’s because they’re for animals.”
– Sameer Katz
Vocabulary Focus
Now let’s go through those jokes again and break them down so you can understand them fully, picking up bits of vocabulary along the way.
Broken down versions (sorry frogs)
1. “I thought the word ‘Caesarean’ began with the letter ‘S’ but when I looked in the dictionary, it was in the ‘C’ section.”
– Masai Graham
Vocabulary
A caesarean
A C-section
2. “My therapist told me, ‘A problem shared, is a hundred quid’.” – Ivor Dembina
Vocabulary
Common phrase: “A problem shared is a problem halved.”
Quid
Halved (verb)
3. “Me and my ex were into role play. I’d pretend to be James Bond and she’d pretend she still loved me.” – Tom Mayhew
Vocabulary
To be into role play
Role play – pretending to be someone else, often during sex to make it more interesting.
To pretend to be someone / to do something
He pretended he was James Bond
She pretended she still loved him.
4. “The Roman emperor’s wife hates playing hide and seek because wherever she goes Julius Caesar.” – Adele Cliff
This is a pun – a word joke and it’s just that one thing sounds like something else.
“Julius Caesar” sounds like Julius sees her, which is why his wife hates playing hide and seek because Julius always sees her. Julius Caesar. I think you get it.
Vocabulary
To play hide and seek
5. “Marvin Gaye used to keep a sheep in my vineyard. He’d herd it through the grapevine.” – Leo Kearse
Oooh, this is a bit of a groaner. That’s where you go Oooooh like it almost hurts.
“Heard it through the grapevine” is one of Marvin Gaye’s most famous songs.
“Herd” can mean to move a group of animals in a certain direction, like sheep or cows. You herd your sheep into a field.
Marvin used to keep a sheep in my vineyard. A vineyard is a place where you grow grapes for wine.
The grapevine is where the grapes grow, but there’s also an idiom “through the grapevine” meaning when you hear people gossiping about something, or you over hear people talking about something.
In the case of the song, he hears that his girlfriend is cheating on him and he hears it through the grapevine.
He heard it through the grapevine. He heard rumours or gossip about it.
He’d herd it through the grapevine. He attempted to move the sheep around through the grapevines of the plants in the vineyard.
Vocabulary
To herd sheep
To hear something on/through the grapevine
Vinyard
This is too much of a stretch and if you get the joke please let me know. Write a comment in the comment section – do you get the Marvin Gaye joke?
6. “My grandparents were married for forty years, but everything took longer back then.” – Will Mars
This is quite a clever little joke. Everything took longer in the past – travelling, communicating etc.
Marriages seemed to last longer, but everything took longer back then.
7. “I think Chewbacca is French because he understands English but refuses to speak it.” – Sameer Katz
This is quite funny and of course it hits two of my favourite notes, well three in fact: Star Wars, France and speaking English.
There is a common misconception that French people arrogantly refuse to speak English in Paris let’s say,
but I find that French people are more willing to speak English than it seems, and in fact they’re a bit more shy than arrogant, and if a French person in Paris speaks French to you, that’s quite normal as you are in France.
Also, rather than being arrogant, a lot of French people just feel quite self conscious about their accent and certain common mistakes that French people often make. They also might have bad memories from English lessons at school which knocked all the confidence out of them, and they’re afraid to be judged by each other. So it’s more likely to be shyness than arrogance.
8. “I don’t know what you call a small spillage from a pen but I have an inkling.” – Rich Pulsford
This is a clever little joke.
To have an inkling means to have a suspicion or an idea of something.
“I don’t know who stole the last biscuit, but I have an inkling. Or I have an inkling of an idea who took that biscuit, and I think it was you!”
But an inkling does sound like a small spillage of ink from a pen. A small puddle of ink, or ink on your hand. An inkling.
What do we call that? I don’t know, but I have an inkling!”
Vocabulary
To have an inkling
A spillage
9. “People say zoos are inhumane. But that’s because they’re for animals.” – Sameer Katz
I’m not sure I have to explain that, do I?
Being humane means treating people in reasonable and humanistic manner.
Treating people with respect, dignity, justice.
Inhumane is the opposite – and although it includes the word human, we do use this word to refer to the cruel treatment of animals.
Keeping animals in a cage is inhumane.
Even though they’re animals, we still use the word inhumane, and this is just a funny little thing that can make you laugh when you notice it.
Chatting to my family about some old anecdotes and stories from the past. Listen for some enjoyable chat, memories, descriptions and tales from days gone by.
In this episode I am happy to present to you a conversation with my mum, dad and brother all about old family stories and anecdotes from the past.
The episode is called Do you remember…? And that’s the title of the activity I chose for this episode. The idea is that we could generate some stories about things that happened in the past and you can follow along and see if you can pick up some English in the process, or simply enjoy a bit of storytelling on the podcast.
So you’re going to hear stories of little accidents, moments when James and I got into trouble, learning to drive and failed driving tests, how my parents first met each other and how my bottom lip was always left trembling at the end of every story.
We recorded this in my parents’ living room, sitting around after dinner and if you like you can imagine that you’re there too, listening into the conversation – not taking part though. For some reason you’re not allowed to speak, you can only listen like a weird audience in our living room just lurking in the background. Anyway, you can imagine that you’re there if you like, if it helps you to tune into the conversation and follow along more easily.
I will now leave you to enjoy this relaxed conversation, follow the stories and little jokes and I will speak to you again at the end of this episode.
Ending Transcript
So, that was my family, recorded in the living room recently while I was on holiday in England. I hope you enjoyed that.
Apologies if we repeated any stories you had heard before (perhaps all of them?) but then again it can be really helpful to hear the same stories over and over when learning English. You could even try to tell the stories yourself, and then compare your story to the recorded version.
If you want other, similar episodes from the archive, check out these ones.
79. Family Arguments & Debates (Debating things like language and politics)
But for now I will leave you to go back to your life, unless you choose to listen to another episode which you will find in the archive.
Don’t forget to check out LEP Premium. P31 parts 4,5, 6 are on their way and may have already been published by the time you listen to this.
But in the meantime, be excellent to each other, have a lovely day, morning, afternoon, evening or night and I will chat to you later but now it’s just time to say good bye bye bye bye bye.
I’m back in the podcast-zone after my holiday so I thought I would do another rambling episode before getting down to work on other content to be released soon. Video version also available.
This is episode 735 and it is a rambling episode, which means it’s just me talking to you about various things – including: whatever comes into my head while I’m recording, but specifically this time I’m aiming to talk about
Being back from holiday and getting back into the podcast zone
Comments about my audio listeners and my video viewers on YouTube
News about moving flat and moving to my new pod room (You can see that the move hasn’t started yet and so the podcast has not been disrupted yet)
Some common questions from the YouTube comment section (new listeners)
Charlie Watts – the drummer from the Rolling Stones who passed away yesterday
A couple of comments from the comment section including one very motivational email I got from a long-term listener
Whatever else occurs to me as we record this!
As well as being available as a normal episode of the audio podcast, this is also available on YouTube with some text on the screen – the notes and scripts that I’m reading from, so you can read along with me and spot certain phrases and spelling and so on.
By the way – you can always pause this and check the screen if you feel you didn’t understand something or you found a new word or phrase.
I’m reading from a script / notes
In this episode I’m reading from a script which I wrote last night. I don’t normally read from a pre-written script when I do these rambles, but this time is different.
I wrote most of this script last night, when it wasn’t really the right time to do a podcast recording, but I still consider this to be a rambling episode because I just rambled with my fingers last night and now I’m just reading out the text-ramble that I created, so it still counts as rambling as far as I’m concerned, and I of course I can deviate from the script/notes whenever I want.
So stick with me and I hope you enjoy listening to my words as they flow out like endless rain into a paper cup – a cup which you can take and drink from, metaphorically of course.
Drink my English – that’s what I’m saying. I hope you know what I mean!
In the podcast zone (this is what I wrote last night)
I’m sitting here in front of the computer. My wife is lying across the sofa watching a French TV show on her phone and she’s under a nice sheepskin blanket that we have so she is feeling very cosy. I’ve just made her a cup of mint tea and I’ve tucked her feet into a blanket because I’m such a great guy and a really wonderful husband.
The child is in bed asleep, and despite the madness that is going in on the world outside, this is a little moment of peace and quiet.
Now I’m sitting with my computer on my lap, but I’m pretty much in the podcast zone right now – meaning, that I’m thinking of ideas for the podcast, considering what I’ve been doing and what I should do next. I know I should be able to record tomorrow as the little one is going to her French grandparents for a few days and my wife has work to do, so tomorrow is podcast day.
But I’m in the podcast zone now because I’m thinking about podcast ideas and things to record tomorrow. I’m just writing down my thoughts on my computer as they come into my head. I’m trying to write down every thing I’m thinking in order to make sure this is actually a rambling episode. I’m rambling everything down in text form here and I’m trying to make it sound like I am actually speaking normally and not reading from a text.
What I’ll have to do tomorrow is record this but make it sound like I’m just saying it all off the top of my head.
Also I might just go off on a tangent at any point and deviate from the script, if something occurs to me.
In fact, what I’m going to do is, the word-for-word script for this is going to stop soon and I’m going to just write down some basic notes and then expand on them as I talk into the microphone tomorrow (which is actually today – so, tomorrow is now, so, are we in the past, the present or the future? I think I might have just invented time travel. These words are from yesterday, but I’m reading them now and you’re going to listen to them in the future – let’s just say that in podcastland, time is a sort of flexible thing a bit like a jelly or something.
Yep, in LEPland, time is jelly – which might explain why my episodes are quite long sometimes.
In any case, I would like to record this episode tomorrow as a kind of welcome back before embarking on things like premium content and other episodes I’ve been planning.
I do have other episodes I’d like to do and tbh while I was away on holiday over the last 3 weeks or so I was itching to get back to podcasting.
I had lots of ideas popping into my head which I couldn’t quite hold onto and as I didn’t get the chance to write them down, they’ve all disappeared into the ether – little ideas, comments, stories that occurred to me at various moments, like when I’m in the shower but which I almost instantly forgot – so I was quite keen to do some recording again after being away just to satisfy the compulsive podcasting side of me.
The holiday was fantastic and one of the best ones we have had for ages. I’ll tell you about it a bit later in this episode.
Those other episodes I could be doing right now:
P31 parts 4,5,6
Learn English from my mum as we look at phrases which came up in our conversation in episode 717 – learn them properly with loads of examples and the chance to do plenty of listen and repeat pronunciation work with me so you don’t just learn new language, but learn how to produce it too.
War of the Worlds part 4 (conclusion?)
88 English expressions that will confuse everyone! (remember that? I never finished it)
More stories like The Mountain
Reading from more texts or books
An episode with The Thompsons which I recorded when I was in England
Some invitations to other podcasters/English teachers who have interviewed me recently
Top 10 Jokes from the Edinburgh Fringe 2021
And I have a big list of other ideas which I am slowly working my way through.
But I think before I do those ones and perhaps some others, I’d like to just do this rambling episode with you.
These rambling episodes are where I just talk to you directly and move from topic to topic almost making it all up as I go along.
So just keep up with me, follow along and let the words flow through you like the force in Star Wars.
Feel the English, let it flow through you.
Be the English.
Imagine blue lazers and Star Wars / The Matrix type stuff.
Be one with the living English and listen with me as I chat to you about various things.
Audio listeners / Video Viewers (LEP is an audio podcast, with some videos on YouTube)
Most people listening to this – the vast majority listening to my words right now are listening to my podcast on their phone probably with headphones on, using a podcasting app of some sort, probably the native Apple Podcasts app on the iPhone or something like Spotify or another podcasting app, or perhaps you are listening on the LEP App.
Most people listen to the audio version of this – and I’m saying this now because I’m also recording a video version of this on YouTube and I feel like YouTube is a pretty different audience.
All the other platforms (ways to listen to the audio podcast) are united in one sort of group – the audio LEPsters and they’re more ninja-ish but they’re perhaps a bit more solid, reliable, dependable and loyal.
I don’t mean to have a pop at (criticise) the video LEPsters on YouTube, but they seem to be a slightly different type of LEPster. I feel like YouTube LEPsters are less ninja-ish because there are many more comments.
Also, YouTube LEPsters (hello) seem to be less aware of the back catalogue of episodes, and I get a lot of people who have never heard the podcast ever before. (shocking, I know)
But YouTube has enormous potential to go viral. In fact, in a way it’s like swimming in the deep ocean and you could catch a current and get into the very deep water.
I mean, most episodes on YouTube get less attention than the audio versions, but then some videos go viral as they get picked up by the algorithm which is responding to the way people interact with your video and I guess that the algorithm sort of picks up on videos which are popular and promote them, as a way to always present the best content on the platform.
So a couple of my recent videos went a bit viral (not a lot but a bit), which was nice.
So – YouTube LEPsters – here, let me just have a word for a moment.
Really, this is an audio podcast that also has a youtube channel and recently I’ve been uploading more to it, but really this is still, mainly, an audio show and I have a big archive of audio episodes on my website and in my app.
Not all the episode are available on YouTube and they’re not all on Apple Podcasts, but they’re all there on my website, with episode pages for each and every single one of them and audio download links.
Go to my website teacherluke.co.uk (I know it looks like it was made in 2012) and then click EPISODES in the menu, and also in the LEP App you can get every single episode.
Most people listen to my podcast using an app on their phone and they listen when they are probably doing something else, like walking around, driving (please be careful), doing housework, doing exercise or simply breathing.
So listening to the audio version on your phone seems to be the normal way to do it.
If you listen using a podcast app on your phone, and you need to stop listening for whatever reason, the app will remember where you stopped listening and you can then carry on from that point later. So, you don’t have to listen to an episode in one single go.
The majority of my audience listen to the audio version of this and I’ve been doing the audio podcast for over 12 years now, and I have a big back catalogue of episodes and I have talked about lots of different things over the years including some things that I’m sure you’d like to hear, so check out the episode archive for the older episodes.
LEP App
My app disappeared from the Apple App store for a couple of days (I had a payment issue with Apple) and when it came back all the ratings and reviews had gone (3 years’ worth), which was annoying. Can you do me a favour (no obligation of course) and give the app a rating and a review (if you use it)?
How was your holiday?
It was great. No need to go into full detail like I have in the past, but basically we got lucky with the weather and had a really lovely time.
What about moving to your new flat and moving to a new pod-room?
Building work is being done in the new flat. I think the downstairs neighbours will want to murder us.
I probably won’t get the keys to the new pod-room until mid September, and then I’ll move in there. I’ll need to get electricity and internet connected there, and to fit a desk and some shelves, and then it’ll be the official new pod-room.
Common Questions since going viral on YT
I am going to try to answer these questions as quickly and succinctly as possible without rambling at all in fact. So in this rambling episode, here is a section with no rambling.
I hope that’s clear.
So, this is a rambling episode, with a bit where there’s no rambling.
Anyway – no rambling here, let’s just get straight to the point and keep it simple.
Common Questions from YouTube
Where are you from?
Can you do an episode about ______?
Check the episode archive on my website. There’s a chance I’ve already talked about that.
Go to the archive and do a ctrl+F search for the keywords you’re interested in.
How can I learn English by listening to your podcast?
This can really help you a lot, but it’s not the only thing you should do.
It’s also important to read a lot (find texts which are not too tricky, use fairly modern English and which you actually want to read) study a bit (use grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation teaching materials of any kind and work with them – it’s not the only thing, but it helps) do lots of speaking if you can (ideally find someone to have meaningful conversations with, perhaps a teacher or language partner who can give you some little corrections and encouragement) and write on a regular basis too (practise writing different types of text or just write a diary every day in which you express your thoughts in English – you’ve got to express yourself in English regularly in order to find your voice).
Learning English is about learning how to do something, not just learning how to understand something, and we generally get better at things by trying to do them again and again.
So listen and read a lot and try to speak and write a lot too. That’s quite general advice but there it is.
For more specific advice on how to use the podcast to improve your English, you could listen to these episodes
174, 568.
Should I listen to the episodes on order?
It’s up to you really. You can just listen to all the new ones as they come out, but if you really want to learn from me properly then I would suggest listening from episode 1.
Certainly if you are a lower level learner, the first 50-ish episodes are probably a bit easier to understand and have more specific language-teaching objectives, so it would be good to start with them.
But equally, if you just find my episodes fun and interesting you can listen to them in any order you like. Be aware though: multi-part episodes should be heard in order, and there might be little private jokes and references from earlier episodes which you might not understand (like the dreaded Russian Joke).
Can you do more story episodes?
Yes, I’m planning to do more stories.
Can you do episodes about grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation?
Consider signing up to LEP Premium for loads of episodes like that.
Can you feature ___(insert name here)___ again? (Check previous episodes)
Check the archive – a lot of my guests have been on the podcast before, especially favourites like Amber & Paul and my family. Check the archive.
Can you do video episodes every time?
Not every time, but I’ll try to do them as often as possible.
Is there a transcript for this episode?
teacherluke.co.uk
Transcripts
Episodes with transcripts
Episode archive and check
Transcript collaboration
YouTube channel – automatic subtitles
Live without subtitles – Learn to hear the spoken version of English without the aid of the written version (Although subtitles and scripts can also be a great resource, and so you should do a bit of both).
Recent appearances on other people’s podcasts
So in the last episode I mentioned:
The Level Up English Podcast
Stories of Language Learners Podcast
Since then I was also on:
English Small World Podcast (by Apex Language Consulting & Training in Taiwan) (2 episodes) apexenglishpodcast.podbean.com
The Clark and Miller English Podcast
Charlie Watts
The Rolling Stones seem to be missing a drummer and a bass player. I hear Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney are available. Imagine if they formed a Beatles/Stones supergroup at the very end of their careers?
But of course nobody could replace the people who are gone like Charlie Watts and Lennon and Harrison, but still it would be fun for the five remaining guys to get together and perform.
Actually I think they’d be an amazing band but there would be ego struggles between Jagger and McCartney for stage limelight.
Paul and Keef are great mates I believe and they used to meet up together when they both stayed in the Caribbean
and probably have a few cups of tea and have a laugh and tell stories of the old days.
So they’re pretty tight, and Ringo is friendly with everyone and still drumming.
The Rolling Beatles
Message from Lio in Brazil
Remember the WISBOLEP competition? That was awesome.
From Lio from Brasil who didn’t make it to the last 16.
Lio appears at about 2:24:00 in the Wisbolep 1 video.
The point is – there were so many people who sent really great recordings and who didn’t get through to the last 16.
I want to share this because it is a very real example of someone who has connected the learning of English to their personal life in a very human way – which means, making mistakes, acknowledging motivational issues and finally coming to terms with the fact they have to take responsibility for learning and the end result is great.
This is an excellently written email that obviously just came out of Lio without him planning it and rewriting it. He has done really well with his English, as have so many other LEPsters. This is what he wrote.
…
Lio from Brasil
I had so much fun during this competition, even though I didn’t pass the first round.
Let me tell you something, I’ve been meaning to write it for a long time..:)
You know, I need to be frank, I was sooo happy and keen to participate that, when I recorded my pitch, I wasn’t thinking about “what” I should have said, but only about “how” to say it, (very slowly and clearly).
My thought was: “I want everyone to understand me”, because I guess that there are different types of lepsters, people who just started and people who have been listening for years…
So I decided to speak that way..,I guess the result was that I made myself sound like a robot 😶
I don’t want to be too hard on myself but knowing that there is always room for progress, helps me on the journey, it tells me that I could be working even harder on my English, while at the same time having fun.
I love this language and when I was younger, it was so frustrating and tiring. You know the vibe because you’re learning French and you need it in one way or another.
As a non native speaker I knew as a child that I HAD to learn English, sooner or later.
It was only 9 years ago that I started to want to learn it…and did I start then? Of course not!!! naaa, too easy!! Let’s just procrastinate for other 5 or 6 years 😜
And so, as the story goes, in 2016 (November, I swear 😂) I started googling “learn English” online, Youtube and other websites…but I wasn’t satisfied, I was looking for something that wasn’t boring or “slow-paced”.
I desired something interesting and alive, that could help me defeat my tendency to quit learning the language.
Why? Because English represented this scary monster in my head and I had more worries than solutions at the time. So I felt the need to challenge myself and, as a beginner your podcast seemed quite advanced and not doable, I thought I couldn’t possibly succeed in understanding everything that was being said, episode after episode.
And then, at a certain point, I don’t know when or how, it just “clicked”…I think around episode 60 or 70…I suddenly realized I was understanding everything on the podcast.
At that point, after years of procrastination, failures and half attempts at learning the language, I felt like: “that’s it! I got it! Finally!”
Now, let me just tell you that I was aware of how much work I still needed (and need now)..but believe me…I cracked the code, I finally unlocked this thing, I got this! That’s how I felt…
But I need to add that, although I had finally found the resource I was looking for, I wasn’t disciplined enough for self studying and I already knew very good books (Raymond Murphy’s and collegues), but as you said so many times that I couldn’t possibly remember, you need to take responsibility for the learning process.
I really liked episode 686, you and Christian from Canguro English said a very important thing.
Sometimes people think that when one wants to learn a language, he/she simply needs to take lessons from a teacher saying: “Ok, I’m here, just fill me up with English”, so to speak..but if that was the case, how much easier things would be?
There is that film with Keanu Reeves, what was its name? Oh Yeah “Johnny Mnemonic” (1995) in which they put data inside his brain and he has to carry it, as a courier I believe.
Anyway the point is, it doesn’t work like that, us, learners, we are the ones that need to do the hard work, guided by our teachers, in the lepsters case, by you of course, 😁you’re the one who unlocks all of this.
I followed a lot of advice you gave and let me tell you… thank you, it worked wonders!
So yeah, 80% of what I know comes from here! LEP!
But there is also something I love doing as much as possible, and that’s creating my own learning bubble where I’m immersed in the language, as much as possible. Your podcast is a great way to do that ! You definitely revolutionized my English comprehension, aquisition and assimilation and I’m so thankful for that! Not only the language, but your culture too!
I remember episode 100 of Lep: “Going to the pub”, (wow, so many years ago), that’s how it felt in this journey, sitting in a pub with a friend, chatting about so many things, that was the classroom. And episode 99:” The Rotary Sushi Bar of English”, where you pick up all the different portions of English.
Let’s wrap this up, shall we? :)
Thank you for all of this! I had and I’m having so much fun with Lep and knowing that so many people are part of this community is a strong reminder that in the end we’re all from Lepland, we all share this passion for the language and, as our teacher said many times, it’s all about connection, not perfection!
P.S. Let me do it at least once …I’m certainly rushing to get to next episode…hehe ;)
Until then…bye bye byee bye bye
All the best,
Lio
HAMAD – STOP LISTENING TO LEP IN THE BATHROOM!
Hi Luke,
Hope you are doing great in these Covid-19 times.
One of your very dedicated listeners is Hamad, my husband, who annoyingly keeps listening to your podcasts in the bathroom, while showering, even when he is changing his clothes!
He keeps waking me up from my sleep during his morning “rituals”, or anytime he goes to the bathroom to do ANYTHING.
Please let him know i sent you this message, and tell him to PLEASE stop listening to your podcasts in the BATHROOM.
Talking to author Marie Connolly about her new books for children, plus a story about how Jerry Seinfeld came to one of our comedy shows, with two songs on guitar at the end.
How are you doing? How is everything in your particular part of LEPland today as you listen to this? What’s going on? Where are you? How are you? Who are you? How’s your English? OK I hope.
This podcast is here to help by giving you a source (not sauce) of authentic English to listen to on a regular basis. There are various ways you can use the podcast to improve your English but let’s just keep it simple and say – all you need to do is listen, try to follow what is being said and hopefully enjoy the process, even if it’s a bit difficult to understand every single thing. Sometimes you will find notes and transcripts on the page for each episode on my website. Checking them can also be a good idea.
I have another guest today. Marie Connolly is back on the podcast in this episode. She came over to the flat a few weeks ago to record this conversation.
I know Marie from doing stand up comedy both in London and Paris. Like a lot of my friends she does stand-up, and she has also worked as an English teacher but these days the main thing she does is write – she is mainly a writer now – an author – writing books both for adults and for children.
You might remember Marie from episode 683 in October last year, when she told us some funny stories about moments when French men have flirted with her, and the book that she wrote which contains all those stories. Episode number 683 – that’s the last time Marie was on the show.
But she is back again to tell us about a new series of books she has written, this time for children. So, if you know any kids aged 8 or above, and you want to encourage them to read something fun in English, these books could be a good choice. They are written for people with English as a first language, so they’re not for beginners, but they are fun and if your kids can read English, they might like these stories.
She’s going to tell us about those stories and the process of writing and self-publishing them but this conversation also contains lots of other stuff too – including different types of extreme sports, the classic old topic of doing comedy to audiences from different countries, an anecdote about the time Jerry Seinfeld came to one of our comedy shows, some comments from listeners in response to Marie’s last apperance, and more stuff for your listening pleasure.
Right then. So let’s now enjoy the company of Marie Connolly once again. I will speak to you a bit more on the other side of this conversation, and here we go…
Thanks again to Marie Connolly there. You can find her books on Amazon – her writing alias is Muddy Frank, and you could search for Dude’s Gotta Snowboard.
There are also links on the page for this episode on my website.
So thanks again to Marie.
So how’s everything going with you?
I will say that things are pretty busy here, with a lot of work going on and also some fairly complicated general life stuff – basically, we are in the process of moving to a new flat, and if you’ve moved flat or moved house, you’ll know how complex and disruptive that can be.
Of course, all our possessions will have to be packed in boxes, moved to a completely new place and then unpacked, and that’s after all the decoration and work we’re having done on the new place and all that stuff. I will be leaving my pod room, taking everything down. All the books are coming off the shelves, all my equipment will be boxed up, all the guitars are coming down, everything is moving.
What is cool is that I am going to have my own dedicated office/recording space/pod-room.
It’s going to be incredibly small – more of a cupboard than an office, but it will be my HQ for LEP, and it’s not going to be part of our new flat. It’s in a completely different location, but it’s 5 minutes on foot from our new place. Anyway, we have a LOT of stuff to get done and our lives will be kind of turned upside down over the next couple of months, plus we want to do a trip to the UK for a holiday and various other things, so I don’t know how this is going to affect the podcast. I suppose there’s a chance I won’t be able to record, which would be a pity, although I’m sure you’d understand. I would have to publish some premium content though.
Luckily I have a few episodes recorded and edited and ready to be published, and they will continue to arrive over the next few weeks, but meanwhile, things in LEP HQ are a little bit chaotic at the moment. I won’t go into it in further detail at this moment, but as I said I will try to publish a rambling episode with news and comments about what’s going on and maybe I’ll respond to some listener comments and stuff like that soon, ok. In any case, podcasts will be arriving as normal at least for the next 4 or 5 weeks, so everything should be ship shape in podcastland, even if things are a bit crazy behind the scenes. We will see if I can continue to create and publish content during the madness of the next few months.
I said I wouldn’t ramble here. I’ll save it all for a full on rambling episode next time.
In any case, I hope you are well out there in podcastland.
At the end of the episode I thought I would sing a couple of songs which I’ve been playing recently.
My guest today is Rob from English with Rob (podcast/YouTube). Rob is an English teacher, musician from England, and my former colleague. This episode includes lots of musical fun, some chatting about how we make our podcasts, fun word games and much more. Video version also available on YouTube.
In this episode I’m talking to Robert Dylan Walker, aka Rob from English with Rob – the podcast and YouTube channel.
Rob and I already know each other in fact as we used to be colleagues at the British Council, until Rob moved to Germany.
Basically – Rob is an English teacher, a YouTuber and a podcaster. He’s also a musician who likes to make music for his podcast, a photographer and video maker, who likes to use various special effects in his videos, and he’s into jokes and films and things like that, so he’s an ideal guest for me to talk to on this podcast.
The plan is to have a bit of a ramble chat, focusing on things like how we both make our podcasts, especially how we include bits of music in our episodes – and later in this episode we will be playing some of our podcast jingles, breaking them down a bit, explaining how we made them, and we had homework for this episode – to record jingles for each other’s podcasts, but I think that we both ended up recording songs rather than jingles.
So stick around to hear some of our music and generally to get to know Rob a bit, and find out about his podcast and YouTube channel, which you might want to check out as a good resource to help you in your continuing journey to improve your English.
Ending
That was an epic one. Thanks again to Rob for his contribution. Don’t forget to check out English with Rob wherever you get your podcasts and on YouTube.
I hope you enjoyed the bits about music and making jingles and that you didn’t get too exhausted by the length. Hopefully you just got carried away and enjoyed getting a nice big dose of English listening into your week.
If you’re interested in more stuff about jingles, then check out the Luke’s English Podcast App – free in the app store. It has a category called Jingles where you can hear most of the jingles I’ve made for the podcast, like the Amber & Paul jingle and more. There’s also that full app-only episode in which I break down every single sample from the LEP Jingle Megamix.
And on the subject of music, you can check out my recent tunes, like the English with Rob song that I did for this podcast and some other little bits of music I’ve been making recently – you can check them out on my soundcloud page.
The last one is a link to the music page on my website where you can find all the Korg Kaossilator tunes I’ve ever made, and also old music mixes I’ve made with my brother and a few comedy tracks too with James.
So, plenty of music stuff to get into.
I hope you enjoyed this episode. I will speak to you again on the podcast soon, but for now it’s time to say good bye…
A fun chat about the UEFA Euro2020 Football Championship, with Luke Thompson (Luke’s English Podcast), Martin Johnston (Rock N’ Roll English) and Zdenek Lukas (Zdenek’s English Podcast), with a special prize giveaway in which you can win prizes from all 3 of us. Non-football fans, feel free to skip this, of course!Video version available.
Martin is an English teacher from England, now living in Italy. In his podcast, he has unfiltered conversations with friends with funny & embarrassing stories – all to help you learn English. Find out more on his website, including details of his community – The Rock N’ Roll English Family. rocknrollenglish.com/
Zdenek is an English teacher from the Czech Republic. He’s a private English teacher and podcaster. He loves to teach English with board games, he loves football and he has a special course for learning English with role plays. Visit his website for more information www.teacherzdenek.com/
Luke Thompson – Luke’s English Podcast
I think you probably know me already, right LEPsters? Check out LEP Premium to access all the audio (and video) lessons I make specifically to help you learn vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation. www.teacherluke.co.uk/premiuminfo
Giveaway Competition details. Prizes to be won!
The competition is now closed – winners were announced in part 2 of this conversation.
The prizes
Martin’s prize: Free access to the Rock & Roll English Family for 1 month.
Zdenek’s prize: Free entry to Zdenek’s English through Role Plays course.
In this episode I am talking to Vickie Kelty from vickiekelty.com about playing games for learning and teaching English.
Vickie is an English teacher from the USA, currently living in Spain, and she absolutely loves games. She loves playing word games, speaking games, card games, board games. She is nuts about games and she really enjoys using various games in her English lessons.
So in this episode Vickie and I are going to talk about games that you can play that can be a fun way to practise your speaking, or practise different bits of grammar or vocabulary.
You could consider using these games both for learning and teaching English, and Vickie and I are going to be playing the games during this episode, so you’ll hear how they work and you’ll be able to play along too.
The theme for this episode is celebrities, or famous people, so as well as us playing these guessing and describing games, you will hear plenty of celebrity and movie star rambling and gossip too.
Here’s a list of the games we play and mention.
Games to mention
Uno
Scattergories
Games we played
20 Questions
Password
Catchphrase
Taboo
The Lying Game (which is why this episode is so long)
If you want to find out more about Vickie, including some of the online courses she has to offer, just go to vickiekelty.com
OK, so this episode is long so I don’t want to add anything else here, except that I really hope you enjoy this episode and find it fun. I will talk to you again briefly at the end, but now let’s meet Vickie and play some fun games for learning English.
Consider using some of these games in your speaking practice or in your lessons if you are a teacher. They can be a great way to add some fun and some communicative incentives to your learning or teaching.
There’s nothing more for me to add here, except to say that I will speak to you again on the podcast soon, but for now it’s time to say, goodbye bye bye bye bye.
