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822. ChatGPT & Learning English PART 2

In this series I am evaluating ChatGPT as a language-learning tool. In this part I’m experimenting with role-play conversations, job interview practice, creating texts and dialogues and seeing if it can help you prepare for Cambridge exams like IELTS or CAE.

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DOWNLOAD THE PDF TRANSCRIPT FOR 822. ChatGPT & Learning English PART 2

Episode Transcript

Hello listeners,

This is part 2 of a 3-part episode in which I am playing around with ChatGPT in order to see how it can help you learn English. 

ChatGPT is a sophisticated AI chatbot. You can ask it questions and give it commands and it responds instantly. This is the most advanced AI chatbot I have ever used and it is quite impressive how it can do so many different tasks. We’re all finding out how we can use it and how it can be useful as a time-saving tool for many things, including learning and teaching English.

Of course ChatGPT is not without its critics. Some of those criticisms include the fact that ChatGPT will probably encourage cheating and will make it harder for institutions like schools to detect cheating. Noam Chomsky the well-known linguist and intellectual has described it as high-tech plagiarism, because it essentially regurgitates other people’s work and doesn’t provide citations or sources for the information it provides, and also people are suggesting that ChatGPT or AI in general could ultimately lead to a lot of people losing their jobs. 

Does that include me, and other English teachers like me? Can ChatGPT replace English teachers, content creators or even the need to practise English with humans at all?

I’m not entirely sure, and we’re all working these things out at the moment, since this is perhaps the first time this kind of technology has been so accessible and now everyone’s using it, learning about it and thinking about it.  

There are very interesting debates about this going on, but in this episode I’m focusing mainly on things you can do with ChatGPT, seeing how it works, and evaluating it’s effectiveness as a language learning tool. 

This is part 2. In part 1 of this I asked it to create a study plan as if I was an upper-intermediate learner of English, which it instantly wrote for me. The advice was presented very clearly and a lot of it was pretty decent advice at first glance, but was it appropriate advice for the learner profile I wrote? Was the information a bit generic? What experience or research was its advice based on? We don’t really know. 

Then I checked its ability to correct English errors and to explain those corrections, which it seemed to do quite well, although it lacked the ability of a human teacher to see the bigger picture and to use emotional intelligence, and then I started testing its ability to have a natural conversation, which it struggled with – mainly because as an AI language model it doesn’t have any feelings or opinions of its own and apparently these things are absolutely vital elements for a good conversation.

But is it possible to persuade ChatGPT to forget that it’s an AI chatbot and to pretend to be someone else, like a celebrity that you’d like to chat to, or your English teacher who can correct your errors while you chat?

This is what we’re looking at in part 2 here.

Also, coming up are these questions:

  • How well does it handle role plays in order to let you prepare to use English in specific situations?
  • Can you simulate job interview situations with it?
  • Can it create useful texts or dialogues for studying with?
  • Can it help you with exam preparation by providing sample written texts in response to FCE or CAE writing tasks?
  • Can it give you good advice for doing Cambridge exams?
  • Can it create reliable, useful exam practice tasks to help you prepare for IELTS?

Well, let’s find out now as we continue to play around with ChatGPT. By the way, there is a PDF script for all the things I am saying in this episode, including all the prompts I am using. You can get it on the page for this episode on my website – link in the description. If you are watching on YouTube you will see the text on the screen and I recommend that you watch this in full screen mode so you can see the text more easily.

OK, so let’s continue and here we go…

Conversation role plays for specific situations

If you need practice of using English in certain specific situations, you can ask it to help you.

I am a hotel receptionist. Can you help me deal with customer complaints?

It just gave me advice, like an article about how to deal with customer complaints. 

You can ask it to create sample dialogues for you, for different situations.

Can you make a dialogue between a hotel receptionist and a customer making a complaint about their room?

It creates a pretty good model dialogue. The language you can see is professional, and polite and a good example of the kind of English you would need in that situation. 

ChatGPT is good at this kind of thing. But, as a teacher in class, I might want to make sure this dialogue contained certain target language which I want to present and practise. 

Again, there isn’t a brain there looking at the bigger picture, guiding you, interpreting your needs and reactions, anticipating and planning as it prepares learning materials and activities for you. 

Conversation can be hard to maintain. 

You need to give it very specific instructions if you want to converse with it. Otherwise it will just generate a dialogue. 

Let’s do a roleplay. You pretend to be a hotel customer with a complaint, and I will be the receptionist. Can you also correct my English errors during the roleplay?

It just created the dialogue, writing lines for both people.

Let’s see what happens if I re-write the prompt more specifically.

Let’s do a roleplay. You pretend to be a hotel customer with a complaint, and I will be the receptionist. I will start by writing “Hello, can I help you”. Then give your response and wait for me to reply before writing the next line.

Can you also correct my English errors during the roleplay?

It’s very difficult to persuade it to do this.

Job interview role plays

Can you interview me for a job as a TEFL teacher at a new language school in Paris?

This worked quite well. It generated questions one after the other. It also responded when I asked for clarification. 

Let’s see it it can help you prepare for an interview for a specific position.

Can we do a job interview role play? I’ll input a job advertisement and can you then interview me for the position?

You can input all the details from a job advertisement. 

Just paste all the text from an online job advert, like “Marketing manager job advert” or “TEFL teacher France job advert” or “Podcast host job advert”

Inputting a large amount of text can confuse ChatGPT and it tends to just summarise the text. But then you can say “Ask me interview questions based on the job description I gave you”.

It should ask you some pretty good questions, relevant to that job, which will allow you to simulate the interview on your own, or at least prepare some answers. You could type your answers into ChatGPT and ask it for feedback.

But beware of just practising English through typing. Don’t forget that in the real world you have to speak spontaneously and you have to use social skills while doing it including things like body language.

Sample dialogues or texts

Ask it to produce sample texts or sample dialogues which you can then study with.

To be fair, this isn’t really necessary as there are so many texts and resources already available for you, including ones which are specifically created to help you learn English, but yes they are in published books and materials that you might not have immediate access to. Also, it’s simple to just go to ChatGPT and ask it to create any text or dialogue you want, following your specific instructions.

Can you write a 300 word text containing useful phrases for talking about using the toilet?

No speaking: Remember, Chat GPT won’t “say” any of these sentences because it is only in text form.

Can you create a 200 word story to present the use of narrative verb tenses in English?

What I want from this is a range of verb tenses. Past simple, past continuous, past perfect, with good clear examples of how those forms are used and how they are different to each other.

Did it do that?

Was it a good story?

Can it help with Cambridge Exam test preparation?

Let’s see if it can do a Cambridge First Certificate writing task. 

Sample answers can help us to practice our writing by providing a model which we can learn from. 

Let’s input a task directly into ChatGPT.

CAE Writing Part 1

You have received this email from your English-speaking friend David.

From: David

Subject: touring holiday

Some college friends of mine are visiting your area soon for a week’s touring holiday. They would like to travel around and learn about your local area and its history.

Can you tell me about some of the places they could visit? What’s the best way to travel around – car, bike or coach?

Thanks,

David

Write your email.

Write 140 – 190 words in an appropriate style. 

Dear David,

It’s great to hear from you!

I’d be happy to give some recommendations for your college friends’ touring holiday in our area.

There are plenty of places to visit and explore around here. If your friends are interested in history, I would suggest they start with a visit to the local museum, which houses exhibits on the area’s past, including its early settlements and industrial heritage.

Another must-visit is the old castle, which is one of the most famous landmarks in the region. Your friends can take a guided tour of the castle to learn about its history and its role in the area’s development.

As for the best way to travel around, I would recommend a car. There are several car rental agencies available in the area, and it’s an efficient and flexible way to travel and explore. However, if they are more comfortable with public transport, there are several coach tours available that take visitors around to the most popular sites.

I hope your friends enjoy their time here and get to experience everything that the area has to offer.

Let me know if there’s anything else I can help with.

Best regards,

[Your Name]

Can you give me some advice on how to do a Cambridge FCE writing task, like the one I gave you?

The answer was pretty good but it got some things wrong.

  • It said that I should use a formal tone, but this isn’t always the case. 
  • The email to David shouldn’t be formal. In fact this advice contradicts what it did in the writing task. It used some informal language there. 
  • It didn’t refer to any assessment criteria.
  • I’m not sure ChatGPT is consistent or reliable enough to replace proper English language teaching.

Ask it to create IELTS practice tests

I asked it:

Can you create an IELTS reading section 3 practice test?

It created a test which looked good at first glance, but it was not a proper section 3 reading test. 

The test format was different and did not follow the true, false, not given format of IELTS part 3. 

So this means it is not providing sufficient practice for IELTS reading section 3. 

Each part of IELTS is specifically designed to test different reading skills and each reading test is very carefully created to test those skills. 

Chat GPT didn’t do this to the same standard as you would find in proper IELTS test preparation materials.

Part 2 ending

That is where we are going to stop part 2.

I hope you’re enjoying these episodes and finding them useful.

Don’t forget to leave your comments in the comment section if you have something to say. 

We are going to continue in part 3 of this episode, which will be available soon. In fact it might be available for you now – check the episode description for links.

In part 3 I will be attempting to get answers to these questions:

  • Can you use ChatGPT like a dictionary?
  • Can it give us the same information about words that we can find in a good dictionary?
  • Can it give us correct definitions, information about parts of speech, pronunciation, example sentences, synonyms, antonyms, collocations?
  • Can it provide information about the etymology of words and phrases?
  • Can it transcribe things into phonemic script? 
  • Does it accurately transcribe things into British English pronunciation or is it just standard American?
  • Can it convert between different dialects of English, e.g. will it convert American English into British English, or into specific dialects of British English?
  • Is it able to help us to use the right sentence stress, word stress, pausing and intonation when reading things out loud?
  • Can it help us practise grammar by creating quizzes or tests? Are those tests reliable?
  • Can it help you to remember vocabulary with tests and quizzes?
  • Can it help you remember words and spelling with mnemonic memory devices?
  • Can it create text adventure games?
  • Can it adapt its English to different levels?
  • What are my overall thoughts and conclusions about ChatGPT?

All of that, coming up in part 3!

End of part 2

551. Catching Up with Amber & Paul #8 – Stereotypes

Chatting to the pod-pals Amber & Paul again and this time the conversation turns to the subject of national stereotypes, and why Paul has bleached his hair blond. Notes & transcripts below.

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Intro Transcript

OK Amber & Paul are back on the podcast today and I promise to keep this intro as short as possible.

It’s been a while since the last episode with Amber and Paul so it’s great to have them back. It’s been a little difficult to get the three of us in a room together, because we’ve all been busy, especially Paul who has been doing his stand up and working on a TV show and other projects.

So, anyway, here is “Catching Up with Amber & Paul” #8. The idea behind these catching up episodes is that we just see what my friends Amber & Paul have been doing recently and then see where the conversation takes us.

You can expect the usual mix of us talking quite fast, going off on various tangents and making fun of each other. That’s what usually happens in these episodes, and everyone seems to enjoy that, which is great! It’s the tangential trio, the PODPALs – reunited again for much pod-related fun.

Just to help you a bit, here’s a rundown of what we’re talking about in this episode.

  • In my coworking space, not on the terrace or in the sky pod this time. The co-working space is quite trendy and “hipsterish”, and empty.
  • Paul looks very different. His appearance has changed – what’s going on?
  • Paul’s new TV show about stereotypes, called “Stereotrip” (first revealed on this podcast last year)
  • Some talk of stereotypes, focusing on Italian people, Swiss people, German people, Swedish people and English people. What are the stereotypes of those places and are they true, based on the research that Paul and his team did for the TV show?
  • How is Amber’s show with Sarah Donnelly going? The show is called “Becoming Maman” and is about learning how to become a mother in France.
  • The importance of marketing for things like comedy shows, Vlogs, YouTube videos, podcast episodes and the way that certain episode titles or comedy show titles (names) get more success than other ones, like how “clickbait titles” are often more successful. What makes something go viral?

I just want to say again – when the three of us get together we do get a bit excited and we all have things to say, as a result we end up speaking really quickly, talking over the top of each other and cutting each other off. So, be warned – you are about to hear some quite fast speech. See if you can keep up, I hope you can! Listening several times will actually help a lot, so try doing that.

Just one more thing. You might hear some beeping in the background of this episode. There was an electrician working in the next room at the time.

Right, that’s it for this introduction. Let’s now listen to some superfast English from the PODPALS and here we go!

Ending Transcript

So, we’re going to pause right there and carry on in the next episode.

How’s this going for you? It’s nice to have Amber & Paul back on the podcast again isn’t it.

As usual, I wonder how much of this you understand because we do speak very quickly when we’re together.

I realise it might be difficult to follow, but hopefully that’s not such a big issue because it’s just pretty enjoyable listening to the three of us just rambling on like this. Certainly the impression I get is that people out there in podcastland enjoy listening to us.

You can let me know in the comment section.

Also, share your thoughts on the topics in this episode.

What do you think about stereotypes? What are the stereotypes people have of your country? Do they have any truth in them? Why do people have those stereotypes and where do they come from?

Also, what do you think about the titles of episodes? When you listen to this podcast, do the titles make any difference to your listening choices?

Let us know in the comment section and part 2 will be coming your way soon.

STEREOTRIP CLIPS

351. BREXIT: Should the UK leave the EU? (A Conversation with my Dad) The Rick Thompson Report

Hello everyone, I hope you’re well. Here is an episode featuring a conversation with my Dad about Brexit – The UK’s referendum on the EU. Finally! I’ve been mentioning this for a while so here it is. You’ve seen it in the news, you’ve read it in the papers – the UK is having a referendum on membership of the European Union and who knows, we might end up leaving. It’s all over the news and the internet in the UK at the moment, everyone’s talking about it – you can’t escape it and it’s going to get more and more intense the closer we get to 23 June, the date of the referendum. I’ve had plenty of messages from listeners asking me to talk about this on the podcast, so here we go.

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Brexit: A Complex Issue

I’ve been wondering how to approach this topic for ages. It’s actually a very complex issue which I would like to cover properly, taking into account the different arguments in some detail in order to bring some genuine insight to the issue. I think that one of the problems with the subject of the EU and Brexit is that the issues are genuinely difficult to understand, and it takes proper effort and patience to understand them fully. I think it’s fair to say that these days people just don’t feel they have the time or the willingness to look deeply at the issues, and instead just arrive at their opinions based on an emotional reaction. There’s little tolerance for nuance or broad-mindedness it seems. So, I could just skate over the issues and cover this in just one short episode – but you know, I don’t like to do that on this podcast, and in fact podcasting as a medium is generally a great way to have an extended conversation on a topic. You rarely get extended, natural conversations on TV or on the internet about subjects like this. More and more there’s a pressure to make TV broadcasts short and quick, but as a result some of the subtleties are lost. There’s a tendency towards soundbites and short emotion-driven arguments. As a result, some of the more complex arguments are not heard. Certainly with the issue of Brexit in the media – our emotions are being played upon all the time – it’s either ‘fear’ like in the case of David Cameron who suggested that a Brexit could lead to World War 3 or it’s patriotic nationalism on a ridiculous level, like Boris Johnson comparing the EU to Hitler and saying that Britain could be the heroes of Europe. That’s all highly emotional political rhetoric. But let’s have a normal conversation about it shall we?

I think there are several ways to deal with the Brexit subject on this podcast. I could start with the vocabulary and terminology – because there’s a lot of specific language involved in this, when you consider that the whole thing relates to issues like the economy, immigration, sovereignty, legislative procedure, social policy, the environment, security and the workings of the EU institutions. So, I could take a bottom up approach and start with the terminology or the language of Brexit. Or I could go with a top down approach and just talk about the subject. In the end I’ve decided to go with the latter – and that’s to just jump right into the topic here by having a conversation about it. And who better to talk to than my Dad, Rick.

So this is the first thing you’ll hear on the subject – a conversation with my Dad – before I expect to go into Brexit in a bit more detail in some later episodes.

Now, you’ve probably heard my Dad on this podcast before. I thought it could be interesting for you to hear on this podcast a conversation between a well-informed, articulate and intelligent man, and his father. (ha ha)

 

Just one final point here before we listen to the conversation. The day before I spoke to my Dad for the podcast, I posted a question on social media, saying “My Dad’s going to be on the podcast talking about Brexit – do you have any questions?” I got loads of questions from interested LEPsters. Thank you very much if you wrote one. What I did was to consolidate all your queries and points into a just a few simple questions which I then used as a basis for this discussion. So, I don’t actually read out your questions or mention any names, but thank you for your questions – I think we managed to cover a lot of them in our conversation. Anything we didn’t deal with, I’ll come back to later on.

Alright, so without any further ado, let’s now hear the conversation with my Dad Rick about the UK’s referendum on Europe, and here we go.

*Conversation Begins*

The questions below are a summary of the questions I received from LEPsters on Facebook.

1. WHAT IS BREXIT?

2. WHY HAS THE BREXIT QUESTION COME UP NOW?

3. WHAT ARE THE MAIN ARGUMENTS FOR AND AGAINST BREXIT?

  • The ‘leave’ campaign
  • The ‘remain’ campaign
  • What are the main arguments of the ‘leave’ campaign?
  • What are the main arguments of the ‘remain’ campaign?

4. WHAT WOULD BE THE CONSEQUENCES? (I don’t think we really answered this – so I’ll come back to it)

5. WHAT DO WE THINK PERSONALLY?

*Conversation Ends*

I said there at the end that it’s all a bit complicated. While recording that interview I was thinking that it was bound to be very difficult to follow. Actually, after listening back to that conversation, I think we managed to deal with it in a fairly clear way, especially my Dad, who is very articulate and well-informed on the subject.

I have a variety of listeners with varying levels of knowledge of this subject, so I’m sure some of you followed that without too many problems whereas others might have been a bit lost at times.

So, I do think it’s worth talking more about Brexit on the podcast and I plan to go through some of the key vocabulary associated with this and also revisit the main arguments in forthcoming episodes. Also, as we move closer to the referendum date I am sure more things will happen in the news and it will be interesting to keep an eye on the opinion polls. So watch out for more Brexit-related commentary in the near future.

As ever I am very keen for you to express your opinions on the website. So please leave your comments. What do you think? What do you think about my Dad’s opinions in this episode, and how would you vote in the referendum?
Should the UK leave the EU or should the UK remain a part of the EU?

The LEP EU POLL

In fact, let’s do an LEP EU Referendum of our own, shall we? I wonder how the LEPsters would vote in this referendum.
I have opened up a Brexit poll on my website (you can see it below) – so please visit and cast your vote. It’s anonymous and you don’t need to add your email address.

[socialpoll id=”2363089″]

Thanks very much for listening and take care! BYE!

Luke

Comments & Questions from LEPsters on Facebook

General questions and points of view

Luciano: What is BRETIX??!!
Elizabeth: Right now the UK has some bargaining power. Instead of leaving they should use that to see if they can’t get the worst transgressions off their back. Right?
Roland:  UK has been EU member since 1973. I am wondering why did brexit question come up now? Isn’t it because of the massive migration problem in continental Europe and part of Uk population tend to mix up the two different issues (migration vs. uk-eu renegotiation)?
Mollie:  Happy Birthday , Teacher Luke !
Luciana:  I’d like to know what is the real motivation behind the pro exit campaigners. Will they have any personal gain? Or is it only an ideological matter?
Alessandro:   Hello everybody, hi Luke, I’ve spoken to many Britons so far and all of them are for remaining in Europe. Is there anybody who’s really going to vote leave? In my view many are unable to decide what to do because they have different feelings or there are different things they want. My question is: is the referendum ripping apart British society?
PROs & CONS
What are the main arguments for and against us leaving?
Ricardo:   Hi Luke, my name’s Ricardo and I’m from Brazil. for that Reason I don’t understand why Uk still have a Queen and what’s pro and con for UK’s to be membership of EU.
Aritz:  Hello Richard! Hope you are fine!
My question: why do you think it’ll be better for the UK to stay or to go out? (depending on your point of view).
I’d like a precise answer, and nothing vague please. I’m from Spain and I live and work in London, so I am deeply interested in this issue.Thank you very much!!!
CONSEQUENCES

Anna :  If the UK finally decides to abandon the EU, would it still be a member of Schengen area? Yaron:   I would like to know how it going to affect you personally, if UK will leave (as English man who currently live and work in France)… In addition, I would find it interesting if you will discuss whether UK will leave the EU, would it be the start of the end of the EU. ie, would other countries will also leave the EU eventually (maybe not France and Germany… But other nations)

Kenichi : I would you like to summarise how people supporting the Conservative party or the labour one think about the Brexit. And If the Brexit happens, what would happen on daily goods imported from other EU countries such as wine, beer, sausage, etc. The reason why I’m asking is because I suppose the UK has been getting a lot of benefits from the cheaper trade as a member of EU so far, and those benefits would be lost after the Brexit.

Robert:  If UK leave UE, it will mean that citizens other EU other country (for example Polish) have to leave UK? What do you think. If UK leave UE it would be end of EU?

PERSONAL OPINION

Anna:  Luke, what is your personal attitude towards this issue? How are you going to vote?

Jairo:   I am going to borrow a question from BBC News and ask your dad :

What do you think the EU referendum says about Britain ? ,
tell us in ” six ” words 😊.
Adam:    However, I think I know how you are going to vote, but am curious to hear your father’s point of view, cheers
Piedad:  What will happen with EU citizens already living in UK?
Gabor:  and the same question from a different point of view, what will happen with the UK citizens living abroad in the EU?
Jean:   what will be the real consequences if UK choice to exits from UE… Try, please, to explain us this complicated topic with some examples. Thanks 😉
Abdelhmide:   Hi Luke , my question is ; if the UK leave the EU will you would need visas to go to EU ??Thanks
Other comments from listeners
Burak: Dont exit from EU ..
Adam :  I believe that if Brexit actually happens, the EU will then browbeat the UK to accept some new treaties like those of Switzerland or Norway so that the UK wouldn’t be totally free of the EU anyway. Moreover, this argument is actually being skated around by the Brexit campaigners. Not that I am particularly fond of the EU myself, but still don’t think there is an alternative to it than just being part of the block and fight for a shift.
Nataliya :  Boris Johnson VS David Cameron on this matter
Francesco :  I’m gonna answer you with a Pink Floyd quote: “Together we stand divided we fall”.
Konstantinos : Hello Luke. Thanks for asking.. I don’t think that the Euro-zone has any future in case that the citizens of the United Kingdom, would like / take the decision to continue their destiny as a country, outside from the Europe. The question there is, what are the advantages or disadvantages from this kind of catalytic decision? ..and what’s will be going on with a large group of people who live and work in the UK? Of course, and as we all understand, there’s a domino under the possibility of the negative answer, but from the other side, the British have the opportunity with that referendum to think finally, what are their interests for them and for their country.. My point of view..(?) I think the result surprise us positively.. The sure is that would be a historical moment for the England, which the humanity will remember forever.. and by the way If I have a title earlier in advance for this mini article that would be “The Funeral of the Europe”..
Francesco:   It’s more of an opinion than a question, but here it is: i think it would be really bad for us all if you left the EU and the UK would lose a great deal!

 

322. With The Thompsons

Hello again, how are you? Welcome back to the podcast. Here’s a new episode for your listening pleasure. This one is a rambling conversation with my parents and my brother about everything and nothing.

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Some News & Stuff

Just before we get started – here are just three announcements or bits of news.

First: I’ve received loads of emails recently, especially over the Christmas holiday period. I managed to write back to quite a few of them, but unfortunately some of them go unanswered – so I would just like to say sorry if I didn’t get back to you. Even if I don’t reply, I love getting messages from listeners, and please know that I read everything that is sent to me.

Second: The LEP photo competition. I’ve received loads of photos and the competition ends soon. Then I’ll post all the pics and you can vote for your favourites, and the one that gets the most votes will get an LEP mug plus a t-shirt or bag. The runners up will get a mug each. Personally I love seeing the contexts in which you are listening to this podcast. It is really cool! I’m looking forward to sharing them on the site for all to see.

Since we’re talking about competitions, this is usually the time of year that I ask you to vote for me in the Macmillan Love Dictionary Awards, but it seems that they’re not running it this year. Perhaps they got fed up with me winning it every time! I don’t know. But anyway, that’s not happening, but I’d like to ask you a favour – if you know of any other awards at all for learning English websites or online services, please do consider nominating me and my podcast. Awards are a great way of bringing exposure to the podcast. The Macmillan Awards were really helpful for bringing new audience members to the show every year, and for giving the website a bit of kudos too. So, please do nominate LEP for any awards that you’re aware of, if you think I deserve it of course – I would really appreciate it.

Third: Disappearing Comments. *Actually, this is now resolved! I found a way to fix it and you can read comments on the homepage again :) * You might have noticed that comments have disappeared from the front page of my website. Normally I have a load of comments that show up under the text on the front page of my site. It’s important for me because new visitors to the site can see the positive comments and it’s a great endorsement of my podcast, but the comments are gone and I don’t know why. I find that quite annoying. I run my website myself and I’m no expert, as you may be able to tell. The site looks pretty basic but it does the job. I use WordPress to manage the site – so if any of you out there can explain to me why the comments on my front page have disappeared, I’d really appreciate it. The comments box is still there, and the comments are still visible in my admin dashboard, but they’re just not showing up on the front page. Comments are visible on all other pages and posts on my site. I think it may be something to do with the template, and .php files and stuff – but it all gives me a headache and I’m a bit cautious about messing with the template files of my website. So, if you know about this stuff then let me know if you have a solution to my missing comments section.

OK, that’s enough technical stuff – I don’t want to bore you! Let me hurry up and introduce this episode.

Introduction

As you know I was back at home in England this Christmas and while I was there I managed to record a few rambling conversations with various members of my family. You already heard the geeky conversation with James about Star Wars, but in this episode I’m speaking to my Mum and Dad too.

At Christmas time, or in fact whenever we’re together as a family, we like to sit around and talk rubbish for a while, often over a glass of wine or a meal or something. It’s sort of a family tradition – I’m sure it’s the same thing for many of you. I like talking rubbish with my parents, and as a family I think we’re quite good at wittering on about whatever comes into our heads. Usually there’s some disagreement, arguing and bickering involved, like you heard a few years ago in an episode of LEP called Family Arguments and Debates, in which I recorded arguments and discussions with my Mum, Dad and brother about various things. Well, here’s another one.

For this episode I decided I’d like to give you the chance to listen in on one of our family rambling sessions. You can imagine that for an hour you’ve joined us at my family’s home in Warwick, you’ve had a glass of wine or three, and now we’re all sitting around enjoying each others company and generally setting the world to rights.

In terms of language learning – there’s no target language which I’m teaching you in this episode. Instead I’m just letting you hear some natural conversation between native speakers. As usual I recommend that you just follow the conversation, try to understand it all, get carried away with it, think about your own responses to the questions I’m asking, try to notice certain bits of language and grammatical usage as it comes up naturally. My parents are both educated and well-spoken people. They have standard British accents – they speak RP, which is like BBC English. In fact, my Dad worked for the BBC as a news broadcaster for many years. My Mum works in a charity bookshop and also likes to study subjects like art and history in her free time. You’ll also hear my brother James who you already know. He’s a freelance designer who still likes skateboarding in his free time even though he’s getting on a bit now, and last year he fell of his board and dislocated his shoulder. You can hear all about that story in episode 180 “Dislocated Shoulder”. https://teacherluke.co.uk/2014/05/20/180-dislocated-shoulder/

In this episode I wanted to get my family talking a bit, so I prepared some random questions and posed them to the group. If you like you can write your answers to any of the questions in this episode as comments on the page for this episode. It’s a good way to interact and practise your English at the same time.

So now, just sit back, relax and enjoy this rambling conversation about everything and nothing, recorded in the company of the Thompsons at Christmas time.

271. Catching Up with Amber & Paul

Today I’m joined by my mates Paul Taylor and Amber Minogue, both of whom have been on the podcast before. Let’s catch up with them and see what they’ve been doing. Listen to the episode to hear a completely unscripted and authentic chat between 3 native speakers from England, as we talk about having babies, pedestrian crossings, having ginger hair, the difficulties of being English in the sunshine, and some of our favourite TV shows and films.
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Amber
Click here to listen to Amber’s previous interview on LEP, in which she talked about having a baby.
How was the birth?
You said you would go with a natural birth before. Did you?
What’s it like being a mum?
Best things? Worst things?
Sleep? Nappies?

Paul
Click here for Paul’s previous episodes on LEP. Part 1 and Part 2.
What have you been doing?
Click here to visit Paul’s YouTube channel for Taylor’s Top Tips

Topics in this Episode
We talk about various things including:
– Amber’s baby, the birth and what it’s like to be a Mum
– Paul’s news, including his short YouTube videos called Taylor’s Top Tips (started on Instagram, then moved it to YouTube).
– The sound effects from my terrace (the sounds of the street, the sounds of people stepping in dog poo in the street)
– Pedestrian crossings in Paris vs Dog poo
– The dangers of crossing the road in Paris
– The difficulties of being English in the sunshine
– Struggling with a folding chair while avoiding a spider
– Ginger people / having a ginger beard / being a ‘ginger ninja’
– Are Italian people obsessed with ginger people?
– Game of Thrones and other TV shows like Breaking Bad, Suits, Dexter, The Walking Dead, Lost, House of Cards etc.
– TV series vs Films
– J.J. Abrams the director of the new Star Wars film, and his love of lens flare.
– Amber doesn’t like ‘wiggly camera’ – shaky, handheld camera effects – like in the Jason Bourne films and the Taken films.
– The film Cloverfield (directed by J.J. Abrams)
– The Blair Witch Project (1999)
– Recommended TV series (plural – series, singular – series). Amber: Game of Thrones and The Wrong Man’s, Paul: Fawlty Towers, Luke: Louie.
– Vocabulary: A TV series (e.g. Game of Thrones) – not a serie, a season (e.g. season 1, season 2 etc – in the UK we used to say ‘series’ not ‘season’ but now most people say ‘season’)
– Serial? It’s an adjective to describe a series of things – e.g. a serial publication. In my opinion we don’t say a ‘TV serial’, we say a ‘TV series’. Amber and Paul don’t agree.
– Criticisms of French television (a bit of French bashing here? or genuinely valid criticisms of French TV?)
– Summarising the conversation: Jumping into gingers (“Don’t jump into anyone too quickly, you have to give them fair warning in advance”), we detoured into TV, the escapade/debacle with the chair, spending time in the sun
– Orphan Black (TV show)

Taylor’s Top Tips

For the Geeks: What is lens flare?

The trailer for Cloverfield
Directed by J.J. Abrams. Lots of shaky, handheld camera (or ‘wiggly camera’ as Amber described it)

Orphan Black trailer

AmberPaulPIC

163. Skype Chat with My Brother / British Films

The return of James Thompson + some British film recommendations.

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Sometimes my listeners ask me “Where’s your brother, James?” It seems, for some mad reason, that you like listening to him. Well, in this episode he’s back! And he has some British films to recommend to you.

This is what happens in this episode:
– I call James on Skype, and commence a ‘trans-channel broadcast’, improving ‘Anglo-French discourse’.
– We discuss a pointless plan to go back in time in order to assassinate Hitler.
– We talk about James’s new year’s eve and his new year’s resolutions.
– James recommends some of his favourite British movies of all time!
– His mate Will arrives with a nice bottle of French wine, and immediately becomes famous in Colombia.

Click here to help write a transcript for this episode on a Google document.

(Some of) James’ Favourite British Movies of All Time
Here are some links and trailers for the films James mentioned.
1. Withnail & I
The IMDB page.
Trailer:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xT5qhPoRS9g&w=500&h=375]
Full movie on YouTube:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yhq-8TrRlsM&w=500&h=281]
2. Dead Man’s Shoes
The IMDB page.
Trailer:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFi6FrAV9SE&w=500&h=281]
3. Shaun of the Dead
The IMDB page.
Trailer:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfBewQPFdKE&w=500&h=281]
Full movie on YouTube:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_IK4438vNA&w=500&h=375]
4. Hot Fuzz
The IMDB page.
Trailer:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NiQfvx_qrE&w=500&h=281]
5. The World’s End
The IMDB page.
Trailer:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQA7HcRcLNg&w=500&h=281]
6. The Ipcress File
The IMDB page.
Trailer:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QesO-BRvUAM&w=500&h=375]
7. Performance
The IMDB page.