Luke's English Podcast - Learn British English With Luke Thompson

This conversation is a preview of my Zoom workshop on Thurs 18 April 2024 at 10AM (UK time), as part of the Advanced English Summit. In my workshop I will be talking about how to really learn vocabulary, and not just stare at word lists.This is a conversation about the subject of the workshop, and summit organiser Clare Whitmell asks me questions about why vocabulary is important, why I love teaching it, common mistakes made by learners, ways of learning vocabulary more effectively, and some tools you can use.

Listen to me rambling about Daylight Saving Time, weird AI generated images for Luke's English Podcast, and lots of comments and responses to recent episodes including the Birthday Party story

Learn English with another short story. I'll read the entire story to you, and then go through the text again explaining and clarifying the main events and plenty of vocabulary. This is a wonderful adventure story written by HG Wells, a very influential and imaginative English writer from the late 19th century. The story is full of vivid descriptive language, action, adventure and extraordinary moments. I hope it captures your imagination and lets the English come alive in memorable ways. The story starts after about 12 minutes.

Here is an episode in which I walk through the streets of Paris, rambling about a particular subject. This time the subject is Paris itself. This summer Paris is hosting the Olympic Games. The city will be filled with visitors. I am very curious to see how the city will handle this moment. Will it be a huge success? What will visitors think of the city? Will anyone suffer from the mysterious "Paris Syndrome"? Join me on my walk, follow my words, look out for vocab and consider using my questions for your own speaking practice. Episode page https://teacherluke.co.uk/2024/03/25/874-walk-talk-paris/ Sign up to LEP Premium on Acast+ and add the premium episodes to a podcast app on your phone. https://plus.acast.com/s/teacherluke. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The MBTI Personality Test (aka "16 Personalities") is a very well-known and widely used test which claims to be able to give you a "freakishly accurate" analysis of your personality type. In this episode I take the test, explain the reasons for my answers, explain some vocabulary and give my thoughts on the test results and the test itself. Includes plenty of expressions for describing personality traits, behaviour, ways of thinking and feeling and the subject of psychological testing.

Learn English with another short story. This time it's a 300-word story by Katherine Brush often used in literature classes, full of vivid imagery and with an emotional twist. I read the story to you, and then go through each line, explaining vocabulary and grammar.

A very long rambling episode with a big mix of vocabulary, stories about my trip to Rome, comments from listeners, lots of thoughts about episodes I've published over the last 12 months, more advice about learning English, and a story about being Jackie Chan's English teacher.

Returning guest Kate Billington suddenly decided to move to the other side of the world, to Taipei in beautiful Taiwan. In this episode we talk about meeting LEPsters in Taipei, her decision to move there, and how everything is going, with the usual conversational tangents along the way. 

In international diplomacy, "communication is everything". This is the main point of this conversation, in which I talk to my friend who works for the UK delegation at UNESCO in Paris. We discuss the work that UNESCO does, and the various communication challenges involved in working together with representatives from countries all around the world, including the collaborative writing of official documents where the use of a single comma can be debated for hours, and the meetings and conversations in which cultural sensitivity and good-will are essential elements for success. Also includes some communication idioms and guitar playing near the end of the episode.

Talking to Lindsay from All Ears English about social, economic and political changes happening in the USA (and the UK) at the moment.Includes some rambling and a song at the end of the episode.

This episode is all about the different modes of communication that we use beyond the 4 linguistic skills of reading, writing, listening speaking. My guest is Nik Peachy who has helped to write a new paper published by OUP called "Multimodality in ELT: Communication Skills for Today’s Generation". Listen to Nik and me chatting about the importance of multimodal literacy in our social interactions and in the ways we consume and produce media online.

Here are my reactions to getting 1 million subscribers on YouTube, and probably 1 million+ on audio platforms too!Listen to me rambling on my own and with my daughter (6 years old now) while the subscriber number gradually goes up, and eventually reaches this big milestone.Episode page https://teacherluke.co.uk/2024/02/02/1-million-subscribers-on-youtube-x1f389/ Sign up to LEP Premium on Acast+ and add the premium episodes to a podcast app on your phone. https://plus.acast.com/s/teacherluke. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The return of the lying game on LEP! Amber, Paul and I play a speaking game which I sometimes use in my English classes. Listen to our stories and try to work out if we are lying or telling the truth. The second half of the episode contains story summaries and vocabulary explanations. 

Amber & Paul return to the podcast for another tangential conversation about various things, including:why Paul is angry (again)

Join me as I talk without a script about lovely cold weather ❄️ being too lazy to wash my cups

A new year episode to welcome you back to my podcast, to encourage you to reflect on your learning of English over the last 12 months, to consider your English learning in 2024 and how this podcast can help you. Includes plenty of ideas for how to improve your English, some reflections on my learning of French, and some 'help' from my baby son

[2/2] Stephen from the Simple English News Daily podcast asks me questions about news events from this year. This is part 2 of a 2-part episode.

[1/2] Stephen from the Simple English News Daily podcast asks me questions about news events from this year. This is part 1 of a 2-part episode.

Listen to me telling this classic Christmas ghost story - "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens. I have read this story on the podcast before (in episode 320) but it's a good one so let's do it again, shall we?

How about some English rambling at Christmas time? ChatGPT (who can speak now) helps me with some questions and ideas, and I ramble about Christmas plans, traditions, post-gift melancholy, upcoming episodes, how to do a King Charles impression, and more...