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555. Raphael Miller’s Summer School Report

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Raphael Miller is back on the podcast to tell us about his experience of running a summer school for international teenagers in Liverpool.


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The conversation includes lots of stories and descriptions of what happened at the school this summer, including things like teenage sleeping habits, a Chinese celebrity teenager, the proper way to eat a pizza, piano-playing Italian wonder-kids, making tie-dye t-shirts, riding roller-coasters, and blossoming friendships across national borders.

Your English Summer website https://www.yourenglishsummer.co.uk/

Goofy and Pluto – WTF?

Donald Duck?

Alton Towers – Oblivion

Raph’s previous appearance on LEP (April 2018)

522. Learning English at Summer School in the UK (A Rambling Chat with Raphael Miller)

522. Learning English at Summer School in the UK (A Rambling Chat with Raphael Miller)

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Talking to my ex-colleague Raphael Miller about his new summer school for teenagers as well as many other topics, including British social and communication culture, growing up in Liverpool, studying at Oxford University, the famous Star Wars actor Raphael knows and remembering some of the old-fashioned ways we used to describe computers and the internet. Transcripts and links below. 👨‍🎓🌞🇬🇧

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Your English Summer – Links

Website www.yourenglishsummer.co.uk

Facebook www.facebook.com/yourenglishsummer/

Introduction Transcript

In this episode you can listen to a conversation I had with my friend Raphael Miller. Raph and I used to work together as teachers at the London School of English, along with Andy Johnson, Ben Butler and Carrick Cameron – all of whom have featured in episodes of this podcast.

Since those days, Raph has done lots of work at summer schools in the UK and has recently set up his own summer school project called Your English Summer. This is a school for teenagers from around the world who want to come to the UK to develop their English skills while having a really cool experience living away from home for a couple of weeks.

I thought I would ask Raph about his project, about the benefits of sending your teenagers to the UK for a summer school English experience and also about Raph’s own experiences of learning languages as a teenager and into adulthood.

I hadn’t spoken to Raph for a while – not since the last time he was on this podcast perhaps, and so it was really fun to catch up with him, find out about his project and also just ramble on about all kinds of other things, like his experiences at Oxford University, his childhood in Liverpool and a famous actor that he knows from university, who has had a big role in a Star Wars film. To find out all about that, just keep listening.

This might be a difficult conversation for you to follow, depending on your level. Reasons why it might be hard are:

  • The conversation was done over Skype, so the sound quality isn’t 100% perfect – but it’s good to get used to listening in less-than-perfect conditions, like when you have to do tele-conferences in English at work.
  • Raph has a slight Liverpool accent (but actually I think this isn’t really an issue because it’s really not that strong)
  • It’s all done at natural speed and there are quite a lot of idioms, jokey bits, specific phrases and fluent speech that might be hard to understand.

But the point here is that this is an authentic chat which ultimately is good practice for you.

If you are a parent of teenage kids and you’re thinking about sending them to a summer school in the UK to learn English, you should check out Raphael’s school, which is called Your English Summer – more details at yourEnglishsummer.co.uk

Now, let’s get stuck into the conversation.

Just before I hit the record button, Raph and I had been struggling to get connected on Skype. It wasn’t working properly on his computer, but to solve the problem he just turned it off and turned it back on again, which fixed it, of course – because that’s usually how you fix technical problems. What do you do when something doesn’t work? How do you fix it? Well, have you tried turning it on and turning it off again? There are other generic solutions to typical technical problems of course… can you think of any?

After that we talk a little bit about a recent episode of LEP that Raphael had been listening to – a recent one with Amber & Sarah called “Becoming Maman”… and the conversation just keeps on flowing from there, taking in some details about the social rules related to talking to new parents about their children (in fact, like me, Raph is also a new father – his son is just 6 months old now) British social etiquette in general, how we both know each other and how we first met, and then onto the details Raphael’s project, learning English at summer schools in the UK, Liverpool, Oxford University and various other things…

So, now that you’re ready, let’s dive into this chat with Raphael Miller … and here we go.

Raph also appears in…

160. The A to Z of Christmas

Liverpool Accent Episodes

469. British Comedy: John Bishop
470. Understanding the Liverpool Accent

Your English Summer – Links

Website www.yourenglishsummer.co.uk

Facebook www.facebook.com/yourenglishsummer/

Ending Transcript

That was a rambling chat with Raphael Miller.

Don’t forget to visit www.yourenglishsummer.co.uk

and https://www.facebook.com/yourenglishsummer/

…for more details about his summer school in Liverpool. Could be a great thing for your teenage kids to do – or if you know any other parents who are looking for a small, friendly and genuinely fun English summer school experience – tell them about Your English Summer.

A note about LEP Premium

I’ve been mentioning this for a couple of weeks now. I expect it to arrive in May. Things slowed down a bit this week because I got really ill with a very nasty throat infection – tonsillitis to be exact. Tonsils are glands at the back of the throat. Mine got infected and all swollen, which was intensely painful for about 5 days. My whole head felt like it was going to explode, I felt like someone was stabbing me in the head and neck with needles, while also periodically stepping on my legs and back in a pair of Dr Marten’s boots. Swallowing was like torture. Not nice at all. It was a lot like when I was sick in Japan. Thankfully this time it was just the tonsilitis and not something more serious. Anyway, the French healthcare system and my wife, looked after me and I’m feeling a lot better. Also, for a week to 10 days this month we’re going to the UK on holiday, which means taking some more time out from podcasting duties. There should be another episode coming out while I’m away but the launch of LEP Premium is unlikely to happen until May. I’m also still working with Libsyn to actually do things like make additions to the app and some other things before LEPP can happen.

Anyway, it should come along in May and when it does you should find that one of the first Premium episodes is a language review of this episode, also there are some language features from the episode about pets I wanted to look at, so that’ll probably come up too.

Remember that one of the aims of LEP Premium is to make sure you really learn the English you’ve heard on the podcast – not just hear it but really learn it properly – the English you might not have even noticed but with which you need a guiding hand – in this case my guiding hand, with all those years of teaching experience, podcast experience – so I can help you with your English and have some fun while doing it.

So, a language review for this episode with LEP Premium coming up.

Remember too that LEP Premium will work like this:

  • You’ll create a profile with Libsyn, my host
  • You pay a small amount per month (e.g. the price of a coffee for me) to access the Premium content
  • You can get the content in the LEP app or via a webpage – same account login.
  • It’s a chance for you to get content that focuses specifically on language teaching, while also making a contribution to LEP.
  • You’ll get those LEP Premium episodes, and also new Phrasal Verb episodes + more bonus stuff just for premium subscribers. You’ll be my VIP club and I’ll be happy to reward you with exclusive content.

Coming soon in LEPland.

Right, time to go now – have a great day, night, morning, afternoon, evening, milkshake smoothie or tropical fruit juice or whatever you’re having. Cheers!

Luke

Full episode transcript available here 👇

522. Learning English at Summer School in the UK (A Rambling Chat with Raphael Miller) EPISODE TRANSCRIPTDownload

471. Andy Johnson at The London School (Part 1) Lego, Self-directed learning, accents

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Talking to Andy about stepping on Lego, Andy’s job, self-directed language learning, accent, and British/American English.

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Intro Transcript

Today on the podcast I’m talking to Andy Johnson my friend and former colleague from the London School of English, who also looks a bit like Moby if you remember.

Andy has been on this podcast 4 or 5 times before so if you’re a regular listener you’ll know his voice already.

Andy is an English teacher, a marathon runner and a father of two children – in fact his second son was born very recently.

In this conversation you will hear us talking about:

  • The pain of stepping on Lego
  • Recording the podcast in what used to be the boss’s office at The London School of English
  • Developments in Andy’s job and his career
  • Andy’s next conference talk about self-directed learning
  • Where Andy comes from and his accent, including the ways we both say certain words like “Bath, grass, laugh, podcast, ask and after.”
  • The time when my Dad visited The London School of English
  • British and American people speaking English

This is part one of a two part conversation.

Without any further ado, here is part 1.

Andy’s survey

At the next IATEFL conference Andy is planning on doing a presentation about self-directed learning. You heard him talking about it in this episode.

Andy would like some help from you in preparing for the talk. He needs to do some research and he’d like to ask you a few questions about your English learning, particularly how you use this podcast, my website and any other resources for learning English.

He’s created a quick questionnaire and you can find it on the page for this episode. Click the link, answer the questions and you’ll help Andy a lot in his next presentation.

CLICK HERE TO TAKE ANDY’S SURVEY

It basically asks how useful LEP / teacherluke.co.uk and other sites are for learning English and how you find these sites. Andy also asks whether you pay for – or would pay for – additional language tuition. He’s trying to investigate why people are choosing LEP over traditional language courses (if indeed they are).

Stay tuned for the next episode, coming soon, in which you will hear Andy talk about his very personal reasons for training to run the London marathon – and I have to say that the conversation was much more surprising than I had expected and was also quite moving for a few reasons, so check that one out when it arrives.

Don’t forget to join the mailing list so that you’ll get email notifications whenever new episodes are uploaded over the coming days and weeks, and don’t forget to watch out for some website-only content coming soon too.

Thanks for listening and have a great morning, afternoon, evening, night or day whichever part of the world you’re in and whatever you’re up to.

Bye!
Andy and Luke

424. With Andy & Ben from The London School of English (Part 2)

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Talking to Andy Johnson and Ben Butler about teaching English to millennials, cross-cultural experiences we’ve had as English teachers and some funny stories about Andy.

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London School Online offer – 10% discount with offer code LUKE10

Before we get started here I would just like to remind you that The London School of English, where I used to work, is running a promotion for my listeners, and for a limited time you can get 10% off all their online courses, and those are proper, extensive, professionally developed courses for general English, business English, IELTS and TOEIC exam preparation, legal English and English for other specific purposes. So, if you or perhaps someone else you know is looking for a decent online course that will arm you with practical skills and language you need to be competitive in English – check out London School of English Online at www.londonschoolonline.com and use the offer code LUKE10 at checkout to get your discount.

Intro

OK here is part 2 of this conversation which I recorded with Andy & Ben in a hotel lounge recently. If you haven’t listened to part 1 yet, you might want to check that one out first. At the end of part 1 we paused the podcast in order to buy another overpriced and undersized beer from the hotel bar, and in this part we’ve bought our tiny, expensive beers and we then continue the podcast by discussing Andy’s presentation on the subject of millennials. Millennials – that generation who came into adulthood in the 21st century. This generation that so many people have written about and done management training seminars about. This generation of young people who have been labelled by some as lazy, entitled, self-centred, distracted by technology and hard to manage. This group of people that probably makes up the majority of my audience. This generation of people that probably includes you! What do you think? Is that a fair assessment? Are millennials lazy, entitled, self-centred, distracted by technology and hard to manage? Or is this just small-minded prejudice against a younger generation that’s facing just as many challenges as previous generations, but just in ways that are harder to notice?

And, how should we be teaching this generation in our English language classes? So, there’s some discussion on that – because that’s how we like to spend our Friday evenings, clearly! As you’ll hear the conversation does turn into a kind of anecdote sharing session about some cultural misunderstandings we’ve experienced as English teachers and then there are plenty of other tangents, including some detailed descriptions of what we all look like and how we’re dressed and one particularly funny story from Andy near the end of the episode … you know what? I don’t need to tell you everything you’re going to hear in this episode, do I? I don’t need to go into all the details. All you need to know is that it’s going to be brilliant and even more amazing and awesome than the last one, so strap in, let’s fly back the hotel lounge in Paris on a Friday evening, in the not too distant past, with some mini bottles of beer with giant prices and here we go.

***

Moby and Richard Ashcroft

Moby and Richard Ashcroft

I have to say it was a lot of fun to have Andy & Ben on the podcast. I hope you enjoyed it too.

London School Online

Don’t forget that you can get 10% off all the online courses run by The London School of English by going to www.londonschoolonline.com and using the offer code LUKE10 at checkout.

Previous episodes of the podcast with Andy & Ben

45. Luke & Andy’s Crime Stories (with Andy Johnson)

9. Travelling in India (with Ben Butler)

Andy & Luke’s Presentation at The BESIG Symposium 2012

Andy’s Presentation about Millennials

Here are the slides which Andy used in his presentation about millennials. This might not make sense without Andy talking, but you can see some of the statistics, quotes and facts that relate to this subject. Click the –> arrow to move between the slides.