916\. Learning English in 2025 📈 with Luke’s English Podcast
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Hey there, Ryan Reynolds here. It's a new year, and you know what that means. No, not the diet. Resolutions. A way for us all to try and do a little bit better than we did last year. And my resolution, unlike big wireless, is to not be a raging a**.

and raise the price of wireless on you every chance I get. Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch. $45 upfront payment required equivalent to $15 per month. New customers on first three-month plan only. Taxes and fees extra. Speeds lower above 40 gigabytes on unlimited. See mintmobile.com for details. You should celebrate yourself every day, but some days you should celebrate with jewelry. Whether you want to commemorate an unforgettable moment or just bring some added sparkle to your collection,

Hello, happy new year. It's 2025. Can you believe it? 2025.

It's crazy, isn't it? Science fiction stuff. Anyway, in this episode, I'll be talking about learning English with my podcast. If you're considering listening to a podcast this year to improve your English, then I think this is an excellent idea, of course. And I'll tell you exactly why during the episode and exactly how you can do it. So loads of advice and motivation to pump you up for the year ahead learning English.

Yes, you've probably noticed that this episode is quite long compared to other podcasts because I just have a habit of talking a lot, which hopefully is what you wanted anyway when you pressed play on this episode. But anyway, I promise that if you just start listening and you follow my words, then you will find that the time goes by very quickly. And before you know it, you will have listened to the entire thing, which, by the way, is about...

16,000 words in English, all in sentences, all with correct grammar and pronunciation. All of that English will go directly into your brain and will have an immensely positive and beneficial effect on your ability to use this language yourself later.

Don't feel you need to listen to the entire thing in one go. You can just listen to it in stages if you prefer. Just pause and come back later to continue. There are useful things to learn all the way through the episode.

plus some special things at the end. There's a PDF for this episode, by the way, with a full transcript, more or less. You can use it to check what you've heard and to note down vocabulary items, check spelling and do other types of studying. If you look at the PDF, you'll see some bits of English highlighted in a lurid orange colour. These

These are just some bits of vocabulary that you could notice and perhaps try to pick up from the episode. They're all multi-word phrases rather than just single items of vocabulary. And at the end of the PDF, you'll find all of those highlighted phrases in a list. There's about 18 of them, so not too many.

They're all in a list with example sentences and definitions, and you'll also find a vocabulary quiz and some other exercises to help you remember those phrases and check that you've really understood them. You'll also find some discussion questions at the end of the PDF, which you can use to practice your speaking with all of this vocabulary. How can you get the PDF, you might be asking? Well, you'll just find a link for it in the episode show notes section.

And also on the page for this episode on my website, the links are in the description and it's all free. You're welcome. Also, if you listen until the end of the entire episode, you can get a special certificate of achievement with 100 bonus points and a shiny gold medal from me to you as a special reward for being so wonderful.

All of that is waiting for you at the end of the PDF, but you can only claim it if you listen to the entire thing. So I hope you enjoy episode 916 of my podcast and that it helps you make progress with your English in 2025 and beyond. So now let's start as we mean to continue and begin this episode properly. And we're going to do that right now. So here we go.

You're listening to Luke's English Podcast. For more information, visit teachaluke.co.uk. So, hello, happy new year. This is my first episode of 2025. Let's hope this is going to be a good year, a productive year, a positive year, and a generally fantastic year for you and your English. Let's start 2025 on a positive note by putting our best foot forward.

In this new year period, what I usually do on my podcast is record an episode like this to welcome new listeners who might have recently discovered the show. Hello. To welcome back old listeners. Hello again. To re-establish the main aims of this podcast and to talk about how this podcast can help you with your English. So I'm going to talk about the importance of listening.

in your learning of English, how podcasts can help with that, and specifically how you can use my podcast to improve your English in various ways over the next 12 months and beyond. I will also share some comments and testimonials from people who listened to this podcast in 2024 and whose English definitely improved as a result. Lots of listeners have written to me over the last few weeks and

and describe their experiences of improving their English with this podcast. And I would like to share their experiences and tips with you.

So this is episode 916, Learning English in 2025 with Luke's English Podcast. I'm Luke Thompson. Hello. And this is my podcast for learners of English around the world. Just in case you're new to the show, let me introduce myself so you know who you're listening to and learning English with. So yeah, I'm Luke and that's Luke, not luck, not look, not Luke's, not Luca, not Lucas. Now

No, it's Luke, like Luke Skywalker from Star Wars. So I'm from England in the UK, so I speak British English. That's what you're hearing right now. I come from both West London and the West Midlands, if that is possible, which it is. So two parts of England. I spent time in both places growing up as a child.

I lived in Ealing in West London until the age of nine. And then my family moved to a small village in the middle of nowhere in the countryside near Birmingham in the centre of England, not far from Stratford-upon-Avon, where Shakespeare was born, and also not far from Warwick, which has one of the country's most impressive medieval castles. You might have been there.

So those are the two places I'm from, West London and the West Midlands. So I'm both a city boy and a country boy.

In terms of my accent, I don't have a particularly strong regional British accent. You could say that I speak with a standard British accent, which is generally called modern RP. That's received pronunciation, which is the general name for the accent that you often hear on the BBC or which is associated with the phonemic chart in English as presented in Oxford or Cambridge dictionaries.

I spent half my upbringing in the Midlands, so you might notice occasional traces of that accent in my voice, but not much really. And another half of my upbringing in London, so you might also be able to hear a bit of London possibly. But basically, I speak modern received pronunciation from the southern half of England. I pronounce bath, grass, path, laugh and podcast with an R sound and not an A sound.

So that would be bath, grass, path, laugh, podcast. So I say bath, grass, path, laugh, podcast. This distinction is a general indication of whether you're from the north or the south of England. Right. So in the south, it's podcast. Right. I'm going to have a bath and listen to a podcast podcast.

That would be in the south of England. And generally speaking, in the sort of northern half of England, it would be I'm going to have a bath and listen to a podcast. Anyway, so I speak modern southern British English received pronunciation. That's my accent. So I've been teaching English for nearly 25 years now in classrooms with groups of adults from all over the world. I started doing that in 2001 and have never left the classroom since.

Except to go to the toilet, obviously. But what I mean is that I have never stopped being a teacher. I first became an English teacher when I did my CELTA, that's the Cambridge Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults, in 2001. And later I did the DELTA as well, that's the Diploma in English Language Teaching to Adults.

In my time as a teacher, I've met thousands of learners of English from different countries and helped them to improve their English. I've always made the same amount of effort with all my students. I just try to teach English to whoever is in front of me. But the ones who made the most progress were the ones who had the right approach and the right mindset. Because you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.

I don't know if you know this saying, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. I've always felt as a teacher that there's only so much I can do for you. I might be responsible for about 50% of the learning you can do, which is obviously a lot, isn't it? I mean, it's not everything. It's half, isn't it?

Obviously, you're responsible for the other 50%. Maybe more, in fact. Maybe it's more like 20-80, sort of 20% me, 80% you. But basically, I can't learn English for you. I can help, but ultimately, only you can learn English for yourself. So the old saying goes, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. That's a bit like how it is for me as an English teacher. Obviously, in this analogy, you're the horse.

Right. I'm leading you to water and water in this case is English. So I can provide the conditions for your learning, facilitate it as best I can, encourage you, provide you with English input, answer your questions about the language, give you words you need, correct your pronunciation and grammar and also entertain you while doing it. But ultimately, the responsibility to take control of your learning.

and make sure it actually happens, that responsibility lies with you. And it's always worth remembering that. What you're going to see on the PDF next is a picture to represent the expression, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. And you can see a picture there of a man who's obviously led a horse to some water. And he's pointing at the horse saying, and now drink this. And as I said before, I'm the man, right, who's led you to the water. You're the horse and the water is English.

And I made this image. You can see it on the PDF if you're listening to this, and you can just check it out for yourself. I made this using generative AI, and it's amazing what you can do with AI these days, obviously.

But sometimes when it does make these images, they do end up being a bit weird. If you look carefully, you can see strange details. Like, for example, in this one, the man here has got three arms. And this is obviously me in the picture, right? So I don't know why I have three arms in this picture. That's just one of those weird things that ChatGPT does when it makes images. So that's a bit weird. Anyway...

Does that help? Would that help me be a better teacher? I suppose so. I could kind of point at something with one hand, write something with another hand and, I don't know, gesticulate with the third hand, I suppose. So this is one of the reasons why, you know, I'm considered to be such a fantastic teacher is because I have three arms. Most teachers only have two, but I've got three. If you're watching the video version, my third arm is just...

It's just having a little nap at the moment. Anyway, in my experience, the students who know this, you know, that they have to take responsibility for their learning and that they can't shift the responsibility to someone else, like a teacher that they're paying to do a lot of work. The students who know this and really apply themselves to their learning actively and actually love it. These are the ones who have the most success and who make my job a genuine pleasure. So,

Feeding your love and enthusiasm for learning English in any way you can is a very healthy thing to do. And if you are a horse and I lead you to some lovely fresh water, drink it. Or if you're not a horse and you're in fact a human who wants to learn English and I lead you to where all the nice English is, then just go ahead and learn it.

Over the years, I've taught countless general English classes, but also business English, legal English, exam courses for IELTS and other Cambridge tests, as well as some slightly more specialised and specific English... What happened? What happened to his voice? I don't know. As well as some slightly more specialised and specific English courses, which were really interesting, including...

Deep breath. English for doctors, English for journalists, English for ministers and state secretaries in the Norwegian and Swedish governments. Bit random. English for waiters, English for the oil and gas industries. A lot of people from Kazakhstan on that one. English for airport staff, English for French train drivers and all manner of other people in different walks of life. So...

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm a qualified and experienced teacher with a particular set of skills and three arms. So don't worry, you're in safe hands with me. Three of them, in fact, three safe hands.

I have other things I would love to bore you with about me and my career and stuff, but I want to make sure I stick to the point here, which is all about you and your learning of English in 2025. So let me now move on to talk about making a fresh start with your English and New Year's resolutions.

So, at this time of year, a lot of people choose to turn over a new leaf, make a fresh start and brush up on their English. Maybe that's you. Is that you? Are you making a fresh start with your English at this moment? Maybe not. Maybe just one year kind of just blends in with another year and it's more of the same thing, just under a different name. I don't know. But maybe you've made a New Year's resolution to improve your English skills and you're determined to stick to it this year.

If that is the case, fantastic. That's great. The next step, though, is actually to make it happen. And this is all about building good habits into your daily life that will make it easier for you to achieve your goal and then keep going every day long term all through the year. It seems to me, of course, that subscribing to a podcast and listening to new episodes when they arrive has to be one of the best ways to help you to do this.

Listening to podcasts in English on a regular basis is a relatively new thing. Podcasts didn't exist until fairly recently.

And we should all feel lucky about that. We live at a time when technology makes it easier than ever to learn a language. Podcasts and other tech are quietly revolutionising the way people learn English. Years ago, people never had access to this kind of lively, fresh audio English content. Now, you have all sorts of interesting things to listen to in English which are made specifically for you, a learner of English, to listen to. So do it.

listen to this stuff. It can make a huge difference to your English long term. And I'll talk about why and how later in this episode. So most people give up their New Year's resolutions, right? Now, do you make New Year's resolutions? Have you made one this year? Most people give up after a few weeks, don't they? We've all done it. Whether it's going on a diet, stopping smoking,

Cutting down on your drinking, eating more healthily, reading a book every evening, trying not to pick your nose so much, or something else. We all start with the best of intentions, but then somewhere along the line, maybe in March...

You just lose that sense of self-discipline and let things slide. And eventually, you're back to your old habits. This happens to most of us. Why? Well, I expect it's because of one or all of the following reasons. And I'm now going to go through some reasons why people give up their New Year's resolutions. And I think this also applies to learning English.

and why some people give up doing that too. So basically, watch out for these things. So you might give up your New Year's resolution because, A, the thing you're trying to do is actually quite boring and not particularly enjoyable. So perhaps you just know it's important to do it, or someone is imposing it on you, but there's no real motivation from within you

to do it and you just don't find it personally enjoyable or stimulating. It's like an external obligation rather than an internal desire or drive. For example...

I know it's important to keep fit and I tried signing up to a gym a few years ago and I used to go every week but frankly I hated it and as a result I just quit going. I didn't like spending time around the people there, I didn't like the look of the place, I didn't enjoy any of the exercises and simply doing it because it was healthy was not enough of a motivation for me.

Signing up to the gym was not the right way for me to keep fit. And so that particular New Year's resolution died after a few months. So when it comes to doing exercise, for me, there needs to be more fun involved or some other reason for doing it. And the exercise ends up happening as a consequence, like playing football. I know why I'm doing that.

to win the game or to score a goal or whatever, or just to enjoy playing. I like the game and exercise happens as a consequence. Going for a long walk is similar. I know why I'm doing it because I get to see interesting things and I can clear my head. The exercise happens as a consequence.

Going to the gym, though, I didn't find it enjoyable in and of itself. I just used to look around and think, this is ridiculous. Everyone is just crowded into this dark room, running on the spot and not going anywhere. It doesn't make much sense to me. Now, maybe the gym works for you, but it's not for me. So my point is...

What you're trying to do has got to be an enjoyable, entertaining experience or at least something that you are happy to do. I mean the way you're choosing to do it. You have to find the way that works for you or that suits you. It's the same with learning English. It doesn't have to be a chore. There are various ways you can do this. So you can explore different ideas until you find something that clicks. Listening to interesting and entertaining podcasts is one of those things.

And I get quite a lot of messages from people who say they've become addicted to the show, largely because it's a pleasant, stimulating, cosy experience. And this is actually a surprise because previously learning English was something that felt like homework.

Now, self-discipline is also important. It's not all a walk in the park, though. I know that self-discipline is important, too. It's not all about just being passive and making no effort and learning English the easy way. Self-discipline and making deliberate, conscious actions do come into it, just like with anything else that requires some effort. But you have to search around for the way that works for you. Some people...

seem to thrive on the disciplined, hardworking, no pain, no gain approach. They seem to get a big buzz from having some kind of punishing exercise routine or study routine, like those people who get up at 5am to hit the gym or to memorise word lists while everyone else is sleeping. But those people, they're not really normal humans, are they? I don't think so. No, they're not.

And I'm assuming that you are a normal human who would much rather just be in bed sleeping at 5 a.m. Thanks very much. However, self-discipline is part of this. A little bit of self-discipline goes a long way. And maybe that's the point. You don't have to have a mad full on study routine that makes that takes over your life, because frankly, who can keep that up? But you might need to push yourself just a little bit more than normal.

It's like that comment from Arnold Schwarzenegger in a recent episode. And no, I didn't interview him, unfortunately, but I did read some quotes from him. So the episode was number 904, Bits and Bobs number one.

He was talking about finding motivation to hit the gym. And I paraphrase, sometimes you just don't feel like doing it, but it's important to drag yourself out of bed and just do one thing. Even one little thing is better than doing nothing. Also, doing just one thing, even if it doesn't feel like enough, is much, much better than doing nothing and then criticizing yourself and feeling bad about it.

So basically, a little bit of self-discipline is important, especially in those moments when you feel you don't have the energy to do anything. Like, for example, on a miserable grey and cold Tuesday morning in February, when you'd rather crawl into a hole in the ground and stay there, if you could actually be bothered to do that, because obviously in order to crawl into that hole in the ground, you'd need to get out of bed and probably get dressed first and then leave the house.

But anyway, just force yourself to do a little bit, because even a little bit is better than nothing. And when I say a little bit, I mean...

More than just listening to the podcast, there are some other little things you can do. And beating yourself up about not studying or practicing English is one of the worst things you can do. The end result of that is that you can get into a negative spiral, which can be very damaging to your self-esteem, your confidence and the time you spend practicing English. So avoid, avoid, avoid negative spirals, right?

Positive spirals, they're wonderful. Oh, so much fun spinning around a positive spiral. But negative ones, no, bad, bad, bad. Avoid them.

So my specific instructions to you are this. Take it easy on yourself. Relax, chill, have a cup of tea, maybe a biscuit, just one, and listen to my podcast. You don't have to climb a mountain for this. Just relax and listen to an episode. You can even do that in bed if you like. No need to get up and crawl into a hole or anything. See? But consider doing one or

two other things which will be outlined later in the episode we'll get there we'll get there pretty soon it helps if you subscribe to the podcast in a podcast app on your phone so you can listen to the audio while you do something else okay so you can kind of stack your habits you can be listening to the podcast while you're doing something else that helps

Another reason why people might give up their New Year's resolutions is that this, even with the best will in the world, your New Year's resolution just doesn't become a habit or part of the routine. It just doesn't stick because there's too much effort involved, as I said, or it's too inconvenient.

It's basically the, oh, I can't be bothered factor. Podcasts seem to solve this because they're extremely convenient. And if you're subscribed to a podcast, each new episode just, bing, arrives in your phone right there in the palm of your hand. You don't need to travel anywhere. You don't need to devote specific time to it. You get a notification and all you have to do is press play and then listen and enjoy, even while doing other things.

like that other New Year's resolution which was to go running or something. Of course, you could do more than just listen, but you'd be surprised at what can happen if you take the pressure off yourself and choose to do just a little bit, and over time, that ends up being quite a lot. Another reason people quit their New Year's resolution is that the goal you've set is unrealistic or badly defined.

And as soon as the challenge sets in, it becomes demotivating and in fact just makes you feel bad about yourself because you're not sticking to your own self-imposed standards. Also, you didn't actually define how you were going to do it.

The problem here is about setting unrealistic, massive goals for yourself and not defining the specific actions you will take to do them. So just chill out, keep it simple and achievable. Try to set a resolution that is an action, not the result of an action. Does that make sense? Try to set a resolution that is an actual action, not the result of one.

For example, instead of saying, I will improve my accent, you could say, I will do 10 minutes of shadowing every day. Or instead of just saying, I will improve my vocabulary, you could say, I will read these graphic novels and keep some notes of words and phrases. Or instead of saying, I will improve my pronunciation, you could say, I'll learn to transcribe words in the phonemic script and then do five sentences a day. Or instead

I'll listen to two episodes of Luke's English podcast a week, the latest one and another one from the archive. Or I'll complete a page in my learning diary every time I listen to an episode. Those sorts of actionable resolutions are probably more effective and more, you know, more achievable. So my most basic advice to you is obviously just listen to this podcast and I'll explain all my good reasons for that later. And that's it.

Just press play and get carried away like you're relaxing on a boat on a river on a summer's day in Oxfordshire or something. Nothing else to worry about. And I've generated another AI image of you lying on a boat on a summer's day in Oxfordshire, relaxing and listening to a podcast. And you can see in the image that.

you're lying there in the boat, your hands behind your head as you lie down in the boat. But weirdly, again, there's a third, there appears to be a third hand in this picture because you're lying there with both hands behind your head relaxing. And then somehow your phone is being held. And I'm assuming this is your hand that's holding the phone unless it's another part of your body. But that's probably best not to think about that right now. Anyway,

So you can do plenty of other things to improve your English, as you will hear later. But at the very least, just relax, give yourself a break and listen to a podcast. Which one? Well, mine, of course. What else? Other podcasts are available, though, as I'm sure you are aware. Another reason is this. You haven't actually planned how to achieve what you want to achieve. Maybe you just said lose weight, but the hard part is knowing exactly how to do it. Feels like I've already said this, doesn't it?

By the way, for some specific advice on specific things you could do to improve your English, keep listening and also check out some other episodes from my archive. Two which come to mind would be number 669 called How to Learn English and number 723 called Baha from Iran, who was a runner up in my competition I did a few years ago. And she described her seven step method for improving her English.

Another reason is that you get frustrated because you don't see immediate results. Often it takes a long time to get measurable results and so a lot of people just give up. But long-term practice pays off in the end, especially with English. So keep going even when you're unaware of any difference in your English. And then one day after you've done hours of listening, in this case,

you'll suddenly be aware of the difference it's made. Just listen to some of the stories of my listeners in the next episode and you will see. So sometimes progress is being made under the surface. You don't notice it at first, but it's a long term thing.

Another reason is that your life just gets in the way. So the new year period is often quite quiet and so you have time to introduce new habits into your life. We often try to start new ambitious projects at this time, but you forget how busy life can get during the rest of the year, which is when you end up stopping the new habit when things kick off again in March or something. So this happened to me a few years ago when I decided to launch a daily phrasal verb podcast in January.

The plan was to do a mini phrasal verb episode every day for a year, and I called it A Phrasal Verb A Day.

I managed to do a phrasal verb a day for about three months, but then normal life really kicked in around March with new work commitments and just loads of other life-related things, including Easter holidays, and I couldn't keep up the routine. It was over-ambitious, and I forgot how life has a habit of getting busy after the relative quietness of January and February. So you can still listen to my phrasal verb podcast, though, despite the fact that I didn't get to 365 episodes.

There are about 150 episodes available free with a different phrasal verb in each one. And each episode is only a few minutes long just to prove that I can make short episodes when I really want to.

So just search your podcast app for a phrasal verb a day or click the link in the description. And that's how you can find my phrasal verb podcast. So we're still talking about why people don't stick to their New Year's resolutions, by the way. Another reason is perfectionism. So people quit because they expect to be perfect. And anything less than that is considered a failure or

which is unrealistic. So learning a language is hard and it requires humility because you're constantly reminded how imperfect you are, but you have to carry on anyway. So you can never feel too pleased with yourself and you're often humiliated by errors or moments when you can't do it, but you also have to be stubborn in that you keep going anyway despite the setbacks.

Often the thing that helps you carry on is that you simply enjoy the process and it is a process. It's about the journey, not the destination, because your English will never be perfect. Your English will never be perfect and neither will mine either. So get over it. Never mind perfection. It doesn't exist. Focus instead on using language to make effective connections with people and to enjoy it when it happens successfully.

Oh, and listen to Luke's English podcast. Did I mention that before? Another reason is overwhelm. Overwhelm. The whole thing becomes overwhelming. So this is when you try to do too much and it gets impossible and you feel exhausted. But it's OK. Just relax and listen to Luke's English podcast, of course. Yes. So anyway, that was a list of reasons why most ordinary people don't stick to their New Year's resolutions.

Obviously, the solutions to all these problems, as I have firmly established now, is just to subscribe to my podcast and listen to new episodes when they arrive and brew yourself a lovely cup of tea and just enjoy the time you have on Earth, which is, as far as we know, the most wonderful planet in the universe. And I know Earth can sometimes be absolutely bloody awful, but I still think it is by far the best planet in the universe.

Because, right, as far as we know, none of the other planets have a breathable atmosphere, water and an Internet connection. So consider yourself lucky that you live here.

Anyway, most people on earth give up their New Year's resolutions within a few weeks of setting them. But of course, you will not be one of those people. You won't have to worry about not sticking to your New Year's resolution because my advice to you is quite simple, really. Just don't make a New Year's resolution. There. It's easy. Oh, that and just listen to my podcast, right?

But anyway, if you've already made a resolution and it is to improve your English, then I am sure that you won't give up. And in fact, you will develop some very beneficial habits that will see your English improve steadily, step by step, bit by bit as the year progresses.

Hey, I'm Ryan Reynolds. Recently, I asked Mint Mobile's legal team if big wireless companies are allowed to raise prices due to inflation. They said yes. And then when I asked if raising prices technically violates those onerous two-year contracts, they said, what the f*** are you talking about, you insane Hollywood a**hole?

So to recap, we're cutting the price of Mint Unlimited from $30 a month to just $15 a month. Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch. $45 upfront payment equivalent to $15 per month. New customers on first three-month plan only. Taxes and fees extra. Speeds lower above 40 gigabytes per detail. You should celebrate yourself every day. But some days you should celebrate with jewelry. Whether you want to commemorate an unforgettable moment or just bring some added sparkle to your collection.

Blue Nile can offer you expert guidance and a wide assortment of jewelry of the highest quality at the best price. Go to BlueNile.com today and experience the ease and convenience of shopping Blue Nile, the original online jeweler since 1999. That's BlueNile.com. BlueNile.com.

Now, at this point, I want to briefly mention some of the things my audience said about this, about how they improved their English with this podcast last year. So I want to mention some of the things my audience said about this so that you can take some inspiration and encouragement from it. So at the beginning of episode 900 and... was it 912? Yes. Published at the end of the year. Was it 912? Yes.

Uh, I'm confused by numbers. I might've got all the episode numbers wrong in, in this one. Uh, which episode is this? This is episode what?

Alright, okay. Okay, yeah, I did get confused. At the beginning of episode 914, which was published at the end of the year, I asked my audience for their responses to two questions. First question was, how has your English improved with this podcast? Meaning, in what ways has your English improved by listening to this podcast?

And secondly, can you give any recommendations for how to improve your English with this podcast? And I was looking for tips that you could share with other listeners who want to find new ways to improve their English with this podcast, right?

I got loads of responses to these questions and it was great to read them, despite the fact that about 50% of people completely misunderstood the second question and assumed I was looking for recommendations for how I could improve this podcast.

And then they sent me loads of advice for how I should make my episodes shorter and yet always include vocabulary explanations, a vocabulary quiz at the end, a short story, pronunciation practice, a conversation with my dad and clips of native speakers talking in different accents, but make the episodes shorter and keep them the same length too, because long episodes are awesome, but not too long.

but definitely not too short either. So somewhere in the middle, which is more or less exactly as they are now, but different, but still the same. Anyway, despite that misunderstanding, the responses from listeners were very enthusiastic and useful. So thank you for taking the time to write to me if you did.

In fact, I was overwhelmed by responses, to be honest. For some reason, I thought I wouldn't get that many. But every day since I uploaded that episode, I got more and more comments and emails from listeners who were gladly writing about how Luke's English podcast has helped them improve their English and also quite a lot of specific tips for how they actually did it.

The responses are still arriving, in fact. So thank you very much for your comments. I will give an overview of the main points in a second and will respond with my comments too. Also, I will read out some specific messages from listeners in the next episode of this podcast, which will be dedicated to listener success stories. Episode 918, the one after, will be a Sherlock Holmes story, by the way.

So here's a brief digest of some of the comments I received. And I'll get more specific about all of this later in the episode and certainly in the next episode. So here's the comments digest from episode 914.

So in terms of general feedback, listeners praised the podcast's quality, diversity and educational value. A lot of people commented on my clear pronunciation, the sound of my voice, my good vibes and my humour. The most popular episodes are the short story episodes, especially on YouTube, the spontaneous rambling episodes and guest appearances, particularly family members and the pod pals Amber and Paul.

In terms of impact on your English skills, improved listening comprehension was a common benefit, unsurprisingly, with listeners better understanding all spoken English, including native speakers.

Plenty of people described how they struggled to understand the podcast at first, but then persevered. The result was that gradually their listening skills improved and they were able to understand almost everything in my episodes. And this opened up a whole new world of English for them. That was a very common story.

Many people reported enhanced speaking skills to citing improvements in their pronunciation, accent, vocabulary, fluency and overall confidence because improved listening skills transfer to your speaking skills. Some people achieved exam success, for example, IELTS, TOEIC and other Cambridge exams, attributing a lot of their progress to the podcast, which is amazing. Thirdly,

some tips for using the podcast from listeners who actually understood the question. So suggested methods included listening to episodes more than once, and lots of people said that, checking transcripts to confirm and reinforce understanding, actively taking vocabulary notes,

using PDFs and shadowing for pronunciation practice. Listeners recommended focused vocabulary exercises, engaging in discussions based on podcast episodes and using Luke's English Podcast premium episodes for faster progress.

And I'll give more specifics on this stuff later. So that was a brief overview of some of the responses I got. But there is a lot more for me to share. So I will be coming back to that in some detail later. In fact, there was so much to share, including quite a few personal stories that, as I've said, the next episode will be completely based on those messages. And that will arrive next week. So you might have to wait a bit longer for that Sherlock Holmes story, which I promised...

would come in episode 917. I think that story will end up being episode 918 instead. Sorry about that. But you know, you understand, don't you? Yes, you do. Of course you do. Good. So let me now get back to talking about this podcast and what this is all about. Again, just reestablishing my intentions and showing that there is method to my madness. So what am I trying to do with this podcast? What are the aims of the podcast?

Basically, my main aim has always been the same, and that is to help people do more English listening on a regular basis for longer periods of time, long term, because I really believe that doing plenty of listening to authentic spoken English is a vital part of the process of learning to be a better user of English, especially in terms of your direct listening skills, but also across the board in all other areas of your English too.

So let's talk about learning through listening, right? Because first and foremost, this is all about learning English through listening. Now, I think there are many ways you can and should improve your English.

There are various factors to think about, right? You've got the four skills, listening, speaking, reading, writing, and different language systems, grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation. And you should find ways to work on all of those things. English is quite a complex machine. It's a sort of process which involves all of these different skills and systems all working together. So you have to pay attention to all of them.

There's also the issue of memory, of forming the right habits and the hugely important issue of mindset. So how do you get into it all? Where do you actually start? How do you actually learn English? This is obviously a huge question. Actually, three questions, if you noticed, which people talk about all the time and never really work out a single answer to.

I think there are lots of ways to approach learning English. The main thing is that you actively engage with English in a meaningful way on a regular basis. So this means using the language rather than just studying it like it's a set of rules you need to learn. English is something you can do, not just something you know. So use it regularly. This could mean listening to it, reading it, speaking it and writing it.

Of course, there's more to it than that because you might need your English to be corrected. You might need to make shortcuts in your learning by explicitly studying the grammar rules or get vocabulary input or work on specific aspects of pronunciation. But you definitely need to be connecting with English in a meaningful way on a regular basis. Let me talk about passive and active practice. There is also the important distinction between passive practice

an active practice and you should try to be active in your learning rather than just passive. So passive learning is important in order to absorb language naturally. You have to do a lot of it, but you can accelerate everything by being more active, applying yourself to the learning process. It's also worth making a distinction between receptive and productive skills. So

try to practice those productive skills, the writing and speaking, as well as the receptive skills, the reading and listening. So there's a lot to deal with and quite a lot of ways to approach it.

I've never thought that this podcast was the only thing you need to learn English. I've always said that this podcast works best when it's part of a balanced approach to learning English. So that means that you should also do other things like speaking practice, some study and practice of grammar, memorising vocabulary, working on pronunciation, reading, writing and so on. But having said that, we need to see that podcasts can be a surprisingly powerful resource for your English learning.

Podcasts essentially are a delivery system which allows you to get English listening directly into your life in a way that's never before been possible in the history of human civilization. Listening to English in such a convenient way on a regular basis for slightly longer periods can be immensely impactful on your English and you should not underestimate its importance.

So, just in case you're not convinced, here are some reasons why it's important to do plenty of listening in English. And by the way, this is all backed up by the comments that were made by my listeners, a lot of research and academic commentary about listening that I've read over the years, and also just the things I've observed about learning English during my very long career, a career in which I've developed a very particular set of skills.

So the impact of listening practice on your English. First of all, improved listening comprehension. This seems obvious, but it's probably worth saying. Listening to plenty of English on a regular basis helps you understand natural speech, including variations in accents, intonation and rhythm.

I'm still often amazed at how my students that I meet in classrooms just never listen to English outside of class. And as a result, they are often completely confused by natural spoken English. They can't deal with different accents or even connected speech and have no real grasp of what spoken English actually sounds like. Everything has to be written down for them.

Listening to English regularly also allows you to become familiar with spoken English. And how can you expect to speak this language properly if you don't know how it even sounds? Now, you might think you know what English sounds like, but do you really know? The only way to be sure is to listen to it regularly a lot and really become familiar with the sound, the rhythm of spoken English and the way all the words can be connected.

Listening practice develops your ability to grasp meaning from context, even when unfamiliar words or expressions are used. And as far as I'm concerned, this is a vital skill for being able to effectively communicate in English. When you first begin listening to English, it's confusing and a lot of it is invisible to you, right? When you listen, you don't know or can't identify a lot of the words being used, right? And so they're invisible to you.

It's not like writing or reading, right, where you can see words that you don't know. You can actually see all the words and the ones you don't know really stick out to you. It's not like that when you're listening, because when you're listening, those words are just sort of formless noises. And your first instinct is to ignore them.

But with practice, you learn to fill in the gaps and the world of English, oral English, opens up to you as you understand more and more. And this helps you to gain the ability to work out what you are hearing. Secondly, you've got exposure to real life language. Listening a lot introduces you to authentic language as it's used by native speakers or fluent speakers, I should add. Right.

So learn how learn how English is actually spoken, not how you expect it to be spoken based on the rules you've learned or what you see when you read written English. Everyone has an idea of what English sounds like based on what they expect. And that expectation is probably built up by the way the language looks and the way English looks and the way it sounds are two different things.

Also, listening helps you with understanding idiomatic expressions, phrasal verbs and slang.

Spoken English is a different beast to written English. It's often more informal, it breaks grammar rules and it involves certain phrases which you might not get in more formal written English or even in textbooks. But this is the real living language and obviously listening to a lot of it means that you will come across idioms, phrasal verbs and loads of other expressions and vocabulary. You will just meet them on a regular basis.

Thirdly, vocabulary acquisition. Listening reinforces vocabulary you have already learned and you learn new stuff. Okay? So...

But in terms of reinforcing what you've already learned, this is very important because you get a sense of the frequency of certain vocabulary. You know that certain vocab becomes more important because you hear it more and more regularly. Doing this also introduces new words in context, making them easier to remember. You learn words when you understand them and you naturally understand them when they are presented in context. The context provides you with

a lot of the time, a lot of the information you need to know in order to kind of work out what new words mean. Listening shows you how words are used in different situations and in collocations. So you don't just learn words on their own, right?

but you start to notice how they're used in combination with other words and also how different situations involve different phrases as you notice the way the tone shifts and how the situation or tone can change the wording of something.

For example, in episode number 837, in which I showed how English changes depending on the situation, that one was called, what was it, describing a car accident in 15 styles of English. And it was all about how different situations or different purposes change

affect the wording and grammar of English completely. And I looked at describing the same events, but in different modes. For example, there was just someone describing an accident in the form of an anecdote, a police report, a formal letter, an informal letter, even like a stand-up comedy routine, a news report, a movie script, all those different things, all describing the same events, but

we noticed how the English changed depending on the mode of communication. The fourth point is improved pronunciation.

Listening enables you to hear and then to copy natural pronunciation and intonation patterns. So this is the same point I made before. To learn to speak English, you need to know what spoken English actually sounds like. And I've met countless learners of English who were speaking a form of English that was completely influenced by a combination of written English, how they expected English to sound based on its spelling, and how their first language works.

Listening to plenty of spoken English just shows you what you should be aiming for. Listening increases your familiarity with sound patterns, which helps with speaking and understanding. So this includes things like connected speech, how words blend together, and also the subtle art of sentence stress, how meaning is interpreted by emphasising different parts of a sentence. That's really hard to learn on paper. It has to be done in practice.

Fifth is better grammar awareness. Listening to hours of meaningful spoken English provides you with exposure to correct grammatical structures in context, helping you internalise grammar naturally.

There are entire approaches to language learning which state that exposure is all you need to gain a natural insight into the structure of a language. Just listen to what Stephen Krashen has to say on the subject. Now, some people disagree with this approach, but I think there has to be a lot of truth to it. Studying grammar is important, and obviously it helps if you enjoy it, because it can give you a shortcut to understanding how a language operates.

But actually noticing how grammar is applied when a language is used in a meaningful way is absolutely vital, I think. It's important to develop a certain instinct for grammar based on what you have already heard. Because when you speak, you don't have time to process grammar. It has to happen spontaneously. And listening to English, exposing yourself to a lot of English really helps to develop that sense of instinct.

As a result, listening reduces your reliance on explicit grammar rules by offering you real-life examples. So you can kind of liberate yourself from the grammar-focused, book-oriented, rule-obsessed mindset of learning a language and instead listen to how English is used again and again and again. Imagine learning to play tennis.

by studying the rules of physics as they apply to the way a ball bounces and how the position of your legs, arms and body influence the way the ball hits the racket. Just play tennis every day and watch other people play it, right? That would be better. So that's just an analogy, of course, because tennis and English are not the same. But you get my point. Listening a lot is a way of learning grammar by observing how it actually applies to English in action.

Sixth point is cultural understanding. So listening to my episodes gives you insights into cultural nuances, humour and social norms. And these things are super important when you're using English socially. Again, English is not just the words and structures, but how they are applied socially. Again, listening to English being used helps you understand how language use varies in different contexts, such as formal versus informal settings.

Seventh point, increased fluency. Listening can definitely help you think in English by immersing you in the language. I think listening to English leaves an imprint of spoken English on you, which then comes out when you speak it, right? Listening a lot leaves a sort of imprint on you. Now, I listen to some French podcasts sometimes, and I find that the first things the host says at the beginning of his episodes stick with me, and I'm able to replicate them more easily.

Okay, so listening leaves an imprint on you which comes out when you speak. This seems obvious to me, really. So I'll make the point again: how can someone expect to produce fluent spoken English when they don't really know how it sounds or what the rhythms are, etc? They will just end up producing a form of English which is basically just the same as their first language but with English words. And that never sounds right.

So, speak English as it is spoken and do it according to the conventions of English as a system. You become familiar with that system by hearing it a lot. Hopefully, this all happens easily, by the way, when you just listen for the pleasure of doing it. It's a bit like me going to the gym, which is unpleasant, but if I go out and play football, I end up doing a lot of exercise just as a consequence of doing something that I enjoy.

Similarly, if you find something you enjoy listening to, just enjoy listening to it. And a lot of this stuff will happen as a kind of natural consequence. And you'll end up doing a lot more of it than you would do if you were kind of seeing English as a homework task. So I'm sure, I'm certain that listening a lot improves the speed and confidence with which you can process English in your mind and produce English better.

And I've noticed this plenty of times in my students. In my experience, the ones who do plenty of listening just tend to be able to process English more quickly and with more of an instinct for it than the ones who don't. So as a teacher, right, imagine being a teacher. So as a teacher, you look at your class of students. Let's say there's 12 people here.

I look at my class of students and there are some students who are just switched on and reactive. And then there are other students in front of you who appear to be sort of behind some kind of invisible wall. And you have to

Break down that wall every time you interact with them. For example, at the start of class, I often just engage each person in a mini conversation like, hi, how was your journey to school today? Or did you sleep well last night? Or do you feel ready for class today? And some of them need to be able to

need to have the question given to them several times, or perhaps they need it to be written down, and they don't really have the skills to negotiate the situation when they don't understand. For example, simply by saying, "Sorry, what did you say?" or something similar. They just kind of sit like a rabbit in the headlights. And bear in mind that all the students in the class are at the same level, right?

They've all been placed into this class, so they all technically have the same level, but perhaps not across all of the skills. So you might have some students who have a really good level on paper, but when it comes to the actual learning,

act of processing and producing language in the moment, they struggle. So, right, so these students might be good at writing or a grammar test. They might have a decent level of vocabulary, but they can't handle this kind of instant spoken interaction. Then there are others in the class who are switched on. They're on the ball and English comes to them more quickly. They can follow what you're doing when you talk to them.

They're able to process and produce language more quickly. In my experience, these are often the ones who have certain habits, including listening to things in English. And yes, that includes my podcast. I do have students in my classes who listen to my podcast. And every time I have a student in my class who listens to my podcast, they are always in that second category.

In my experience, they're more reactive and just able to process and produce English more quickly. Now, maybe it's a coincidence, right? Maybe it's not. Maybe they're like that already. And in fact, that's why they listen to the podcast, because they are that kind of person who engages with English on a personal level. So it might not be that my podcast is causing them to be like that. In fact, it might be the other way around. I don't know.

So maybe it's a coincidence or maybe these people listen to podcasts because they have a natural inclination towards spoken English or maybe their English has been improved by the podcast. I'm not sure what the relationship is, but it's interesting that there is a definite correlation between people who listen to my podcast or other similar things and people who can deal with spontaneous conversation in English. It's interesting. Don't you think that those two things are in the same category?

Another thing I've noticed is my students ability to deal with a certain task in class and that is a simple listen and repeat exercise which I think probably demonstrates that ability to process and produce language. So a simple listen and repeat exercise.

I think the ones who do listening practice outside class are better at this than others. The exercise is simple, but it involves quite a lot of complex language processing all at the same time. And I'm sure that regularly listening to English helps to develop this. So at first, this is a basic listen and repeat exercise where I say a sentence and the learner has to repeat it without pausing.

For example, I will say, "Do you know if there's a newsagents around here somewhere?" Or, "Do you know if there's a newsagents somewhere around here?" Right, do you, do you know if there's a newsagents somewhere around here? Do you know if there's a newsagents somewhere around here? So I have to say, I say that they have to repeat it and it's not written down. Now that, or you can see already that that poses a lot of challenges.

because it's, you've got to understand all the words, you've got to, you know, you've got to identify every part of the sentence, and then you've got to be able to remember it and reproduce it. It's actually a really difficult task. Do you know if there's a newsagent somewhere around here? And you're like, a newsagent? What's a newsagent? It's just a shop where you can buy newspapers, milk, you know, bits and pieces.

Do you know if there's a newsagent around here somewhere? Now, I might extend it to, I might extend the sentence. After they've done it once, I might add things to it. I might say, excuse me, do you know if there's a newsagent somewhere around here? I'm trying to top up my travel card. Okay. And so they've got to, as I extend it, they've got to repeat that.

all of it with the extensions. Now this is quite difficult because the student has to understand what is said, remember it, hold it in their mind, reproduce it accurately, pronounce the whole thing like me and not pause at all. And that involves a lot of language systems, right? There's listening, there's vocabulary, there's pronunciation, there's probably a bit of grammar maybe as they have to try and crunch the sentence in their minds.

It helps if they know all the words they're hearing. It all involves a certain amount of processing and production of English, and it has to be instant. Again, the ones who listen to podcasts are usually the ones who deal with this better. It's no surprise, really, because listening to podcasts, you are constantly processing information delivered in spoken English in words, phrases and

and sentences, your mind becomes far more capable of understanding and holding entire sentences in your short-term memory at a time because this is what we naturally do when we listen to language being spoken. Another point, engagement and motivation.

So, listening to content that interests you, such as podcasts, songs or films, keeps you motivated. This is again quite obvious really. If you enjoy what you listen to, you're much more likely to listen to it more and the benefits are clear. Listening provides a sense of achievement because you notice gradual improvement over time.

This is one of the most common comments I got from my audience who responded to my questions in episode 914. The sense of gradual improvement from not really understanding everything, then persevering and feeling fantastic because they understand so much more after a few months of regular listening. Um...

Surely, feeding your English through listening like this ends up feeding all the other aspects of your English because they're all connected, especially listening and speaking. So that's the oral side of things. And number nine... Number nine...

Improved speaking skills. Listening to spoken English serves as a model for you to replicate in your own speaking, as I've mentioned. It also teaches very important conversational norms such as turn-taking and responding appropriately. So these are the social dynamics of using English with other people and you don't really get it from a grammar book. The best way to learn how to converse with people is to observe it happening and to practice doing it yourself, of course.

And point number 10, which I think is probably the last one, is it? Maybe not. Enhanced listening strategies. So listening trains you to listen for key information, main ideas and details. These are key.

Basic listening skills. When you take an English course, these basic listening skills are taught to you explicitly through certain tasks which focus on those skills. For example, listening to an audio recording and doing tasks like answering questions that require you to get the main idea of what was said or to get specific details.

Or to understand ideas that were not explicitly stated, right? So these are specific skills. And these skills are defined in test criteria for IELTS and stuff, you know? Those listening exercises you have to do, they test these specific listening skills. But in my experience, unless you make it explicitly obvious...

Right? So if I'm doing this in class, if I'm teaching these skills by doing these exercises in class, unless you make it explicitly obvious, the learners don't even realise this is what is being worked on. It all seems a bit forced to teach these otherwise intuitive listening skills by focusing on them so explicitly.

Perhaps it makes more sense to develop these different listening skills by just listening to plenty of English and focusing on just enjoying it and gaining information from it. You know, when you do an English course, the amount of actual listening practice you do in class is pretty minimal, really.

Of course, you listen to the teacher at times, but, you know, in classrooms, the teachers generally are trying not to speak too much. And so you do listening practice by playing, you know, recordings and listening to the recordings. But it's rare that those recordings are anything more than just a few minutes at a time. And you're always focusing on certain specific tasks which are supposed to support your development of these listening skills. But it all seems a bit kind of like...

I don't know, just seems a bit sort of contrived, you know. As you follow the flow of a conversation or a monologue, you naturally start to practice and develop these different skills as a consequence of getting into a kind of flow state. Again, you do, you know, you get fit playing football as a consequence. Similarly, you learn listening skills more.

By listening to a podcast just as a consequence of trying to understand what what is Luke trying to say or what is this person actually getting at? What is the funny side of this story that's being told? What's really being explained here? How does the person feel? You know, all these things are kind of intuitive to an extent.

Listening a lot helps you develop the ability to cope with incomplete understanding and still follow the conversation. Now, this is actually a massive thing. Being able to cope with a listening situation when you don't understand everything. When you listen to English, a lot of the time there are things which you simply don't understand. What do you do in that situation? Now, some people can't handle it.

They need to understand 100% all the time and anything less is a failure and so they don't listen because they don't understand. But if you persevere and keep listening, even when you don't really understand 100%, you slowly develop the ability to fill the gaps in what you are hearing. You do start to understand more and more, but that only happens if you tolerate that sense of confusion or of getting a bit lost.

Listening a lot and continuing is a great way of training yourself to deal with the bits you don't understand rather than just stopping. Remember, you have to be like a shark. Just keep moving forwards all the time. Keep the English flowing through you always. Sounds a bit like Star Wars as well. Of course, you have to be a Star Wars shark.

Number 11, preparation for real life situations. Listening to real English builds confidence for interacting in English in real life. It's just slightly less daunting when your brain is already filled with spoken English. I mean, it's less daunting to have that conversation, to do that job interview when you're already doing half of the work all the time anyway by listening.

It simulates real-world listening scenarios, such as understanding announcements, conversations, lectures, or one half of a conversation. This is a no-brainer, isn't it, really? Accessibility and flexibility. So listening can be done anytime, anywhere, with minimal resources, thanks to technology. Yes, you can add listening practice into any part of your day. Just stick in the headphones and switch on a podcast while you're walking, on the train, doing the washing up.

This is why podcasts are so great and I would say even better than YouTube, in my opinion, because you can squeeze English into every part of your day and you can listen while you do something else. Whereas on YouTube, you end up just kind of looking at the screen, although apparently seeing me talking has its benefits as well.

Listening to podcasts for learners of English makes the listening experience more adaptable to different proficiency levels because the episodes are usually more graded for learners of English. So my episodes are supposed to be natural. I try to speak more or less the same as in my normal life, but I do provide certain kinds of support to you as you listen. And I should say that this is what makes a distinction between podcasts like mine and just like listening to any other podcast's

or watching movies or Netflix or things like that. So I do provide certain kinds of support to you as I'm talking to you. I'm a teacher, right? And I never stop teaching, even in little ways.

And this includes repeating certain things, explaining certain things, very slightly adapting my pronunciation sometimes to avoid connected speech in certain things, basically just speaking more clearly sometimes. But I mix this up a lot, okay? Most of the time I speak at a totally normal speed, but when I think it's necessary, when my inbuilt teacher sense starts tingling, when I feel like, "Oh, they're going to find this bit difficult,"

Then I make things clearer. Now, this might be why you can understand me easily, but still find it hard to understand other native speakers. This is another question for another time, by the way. But basically, my show is supposed to be a bit of a set, a stepping stone to understanding other things like content for native speakers, which might still be too difficult.

The English in my episodes is graded in very subtle ways, but I think I managed to do this without it being patronising and without it being annoyingly slow or simple. It is just slightly adapted for learners of English, and this is done on purpose and in order to make English comprehensible, which in turn ensures that you are always learning from it. Sometimes my episodes are easier to follow.

and sometimes they're more complicated, like when I have guests and things move more quickly. Hopefully, the end result, when you listen to all the episodes, is the right balance. And point 13, cognitive benefits. Cognitive means relating to thinking processes. Listening regularly enhances your memory and concentration as you naturally focus on understanding what you are hearing.

It's good for your brain, basically. This is an argument for longer episodes, too, in my opinion. My episodes are long, but I think that is actually very good training for you. Sometimes my episodes are over two hours long, and that is a lot, I know. But then I'll publish a one-hour episode, and when that happens, it will suddenly seem like listening to one hour of English is totally fine and easy.

Right. If I've published like really long episodes and then I do one that's about 55 minutes or something, I'm sure that you will listen to that and think, wow, that went really quickly. It's really easy to focus on an hour of English after having dealt with these longer episodes. This is because I've trained you. You see, it's this method to the madness. I've trained you to focus on listening for longer periods of time. It's good for your English and it's good for your brain. Eventually,

Focusing on your IELTS test for two and a half hours is not so bad when you've been in training with Luke's English Podcast. Listening to the audio podcast can really develop your multitasking skills when combining listening with other activities, for example, with commuting or exercising.

Remember, listening to audio exercises in English lessons. Remember that. Remember being in a classroom and listening to audio exercises in English. Sometimes you had to close your eyes and focus only on what you were hearing.

You're just focusing so hard with all your attention. It was horrible. So this sort of thing becomes a thing of the past when listening becomes more commonplace and casual and you will find that you can do other things while you listen to English. So that was a list of the importance of listening.

in learning English. And I want to move on immediately now to talk about how to learn English with Luke's English Podcast. So I've said countless times already in the episode that you have to just listen, right? That's the first thing, just listen. That's it. That's all you have to do. Just listen and try to follow what you're hearing. Hopefully this just happens smoothly as you listen to my episodes. I do it like that on purpose. The idea is that you press play and off we go. You drift along a little river with me.

Let the current pull you along and enjoy the ride. Just listen and follow my thoughts as we go from one thing to another and try to listen to the entire episode. I'm always teaching you language, even when it's not obvious. And I do this with my choice of words, the way I might repeat something with a few synonyms, the way I define certain things as I go or explain some details I think you might have missed. But it's all supposed to be a fairly easygoing experience.

You don't have to listen to episodes in one go. Have I made this point a million times before? I think I have. You can stop anytime you like and continue later. If you're listening in a podcast app like Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, Spotify, etc., then your app will remember where you stopped and you can just carry on later. I probably don't need to say this to you.

if you've got this far into the episode. Even if you switch off your phone, when you come back to the episode, it will be exactly where you stopped. Actually, with Pocket Casts,

It skips back a few seconds, which really helps. On YouTube, the same thing happens. If you're signed in with your Google account, you can watch an episode for a while and then stop whenever is convenient. Then when you return to the episode, you can continue from where you stopped before. If you can't find the episode, consider adding it to a playlist on YouTube. You can just create playlists there.

You can create a playlist called LEP and add episodes there so you can find them easily. Alternatively, just go to my channel, select videos, and you can find all my episodes, including the one you're looking for.

Also, most podcast apps allow you to create playlists or maybe to save or favorite episodes so you can easily find them later. So try to listen to an entire episode until the end, even if it takes you a while to do it. So that's the main thing. Just listen to the podcast. And I could stop here, but I won't.

Because beyond listening, there are also plenty of other things that you could do in order to enhance or emphasise the learning experience with my podcast. And this is where I'm talking about active learning. So here are some other things you can do beyond just listening. So first of all, focus on understanding. Most of the time, you'll be listening to the entire episode and trying to follow it. But you could choose to listen to a certain short segment afterwards.

and focus on it more directly, zero in on it. It could be a bit that you found particularly interesting, or perhaps a bit that you didn't understand but were curious about. So if you found a segment of an episode, you could listen to it several times, use the skip back button, you could take notes on the things you heard, you could consider transcribing it,

And if there is a transcript for it already, you could compare your transcript to the original. You could use AI to transcribe that section because some AI transcribes audio automatically. And it might be free if it's a short section. Transcribing whole episodes is more costly and complicated. But if you take a little section, AI could probably transcribe that free of charge.

Also, you could find the automatic subtitles on YouTube. If you're watching on YouTube, you can see that you can switch the subtitles on and off and they are surprisingly accurate, especially when I'm on my own.

It's like 98% accurate, I think. You can also actually find the transcript on YouTube, which is essentially all of the subtitles in a text. Look in the episode description and it says show transcript. You can get it. You can look at it. You can read it. You can click on it. It takes you to that part of the episode. You can highlight all of the words in the transcript and copy paste them into a document.

or into some AI or something and play around with it there. Check my website to see if there's a transcription for an episode. You could then work with the specific words and phrases or other details. Check them in dictionaries or a GPT, like ChatGPT.

Take notes, write down new words or expressions and look them up later. I'll refer you back to that episode I did last year, which was called how to learn vocabulary and not just stare at word lists. There's loads of stuff in there, loads of advice about exactly how to record words, remember them and so on. Shadowing. So this means that you should pause after each sentence and try to repeat it out loud, imitating words.

the speaker's pronunciation and intonation. I'll go into more details about shadowing later on. Maybe not in this episode, probably in the next one. Dictation practice. You could write down what you hear, then compare it to a transcript if it's available. Try to shift receptive practice to productive practice. So convert listening and reading to speaking and writing.

Often I provide you with discussion questions, or at least you could just write down your thoughts, write down your responses, or say them out loud. You could record yourself doing that if you want, or just do it without recording yourself on your own or with someone else, you know, even myself.

If you can't speak out loud because there's people around you, you could even just sort of like pretend in your head. Even that is better than nothing, right? That's a way of shifting things into a more productive, active form of practice. Summarize after listening, summarize the episode in your work, in your own words, either written or spoken. Use AI. Okay. Use artificial intelligence. It is incredible what AI can do for us.

And it's not cheating if you use it in the clever way. You can chat to ChatGPT and ask it to correct your errors. If you're using the mobile phone version of ChatGPT, you can just talk to it and it will talk back to you. Ask it to correct your errors or just respond to you in conversation. It's got a lot better.

Over the last 12 months or so, you could share your thoughts on the subject of the episode or just try to use certain bits of English in a successful and meaningful way. I chat to chat GPT in French sometimes. And one of the things I like about it is there is no stress involved because I'm not being judged by someone. It's just a chat bot.

So I have some confidence issues with my French, to be honest, and I feel quite easily ashamed when my French isn't as good as it should be, which makes talking to people kind of a bit stressful and unpleasant for me. And it's hard for me to find exactly the right person to talk to because everyone I know is like not quite the right person to be talking to because I don't want to

Anyway, you know, I could pay someone to have one-to-one conversations with me, but ChatGPT is obviously free if you're using the free version, and it's not judging you, which does remove a lot of the stress. You could use transcripts or other peripheral materials. Many podcasts like mine provide transcripts, quizzes, or vocabulary lists.

Use these to reinforce your learning. So my episodes often have a PDF. Check it and use it. There are often vocabulary lists and quizzes you can use. My premium episodes always have PDFs with memory exercises, vocabulary exercises, quizzes and discussion questions. I haven't talked about LEP Premium, but you can find out more information at teacherluke.co.uk slash premium info.

um, discuss with others. So you could join online communities or forums to discuss podcast episodes. Actually, um, I was going to recommend an online community. There's a, um,

There's a Discord server that I know of that is run by Zdenek Lukas from Zdenek's English podcast and the Footlish podcast. He's been running it for some time. It's a nice community of English learners and some English teachers from all over the world. And they get together. It's a place where you can chat to people, share ideas. It's just a nice community. Being part of a community of other learners of English can be a really good way

healthy, useful thing to do. So his Discord server is called the Achiever's Chamber. Let me just get the details of that. Okay, so you can get the details on Zdenek's website, which is teachersdenek.com, Zdenek, Z-D-E-N-E-K. The Achiever's Chamber, you can find the details there.

The ultimate solution to English mastery without living in an English-speaking country, without working with English-speaking people, without having lots of English-speaking friends. It's an international community for high-level learners of English who are ready to take their English to the next level, who can join. So there's all the information here, but basically it's for B2 level and above and at least 18 years old. And they want people who are...

friendly and willing to participate okay um so you can find out all the information on Zdenek's website there's a link um on the pdf here but otherwise just go to teachersdenek.com

And that's where you would find the details, the Achiever's Chamber. Basically, you have to read everything to understand what it is and to fill out a form on the website. Okay? All right.

Other things you can do, you can ask questions. If the podcast creator, me in this case, offers Q&A episodes, submit your questions. Ask questions in comments. I might reply or one of the other listeners will, you know, try to make your questions specific so I don't have to write an essay in response. I haven't done a Q&A episode for a long time.

Maybe that's something I need to do at some point. Also, some listeners asked if I could do some sort of interactive thing where I talk to my listeners. That's very complicated.

I think I'm going to talk about it later. We need to get moving. I didn't want this episode to become incredibly long. In fact, I never want my episodes to become ridiculously long. It just kind of happens because I've got loads of things I want to say. And I'm trying to even trying to speak quickly and fly through this in this one. Other things you can do, you can dedicate a specific time to listening daily or weekly. For example, you could listen during your commute while exercising or before bed. Make

Make sure you're subscribed to the podcast in a podcast app and that notifications are turned on. Um,

It could be great for your listening habits if you listen on a weekly basis and getting a push notification makes sure this happens. Basically, when I publish an episode, your podcast app will go bing. Luke's published a new episode and then you will never miss an episode. This is great for making listening part of your routine, which is so important. Keep a journal.

to note new vocabulary expressions and improvements in comprehension. So to get my specific advice about this, listen to my episode 898, which was my workshop about how to learn vocabulary, as I mentioned earlier. It's full of specific advice about learning vocabulary and keeping a vocabulary notebook. So that was how to learn vocabulary and not just stare at word lists. The main thing is

Right. The main thing is that you should record vocabulary with plenty of examples and test yourself so that you practice recalling vocabulary regularly. Personalized examples also help. Use flashcards. Spaced repetition is effective.

So with flashcards and flashcard apps, you put vocab on one side, some sort of memory prompt or something on the other side. The idea is that you have to try and recall, meaning actually produce, say, the word on the other side of the card. It helps even more if you put that word into a little sentence. So use flashcards. Spaced repetition is effective. Spaced repetition basically means reviewing vocabulary,

different intervals of time. So you review vocab after a day or two, then at increasingly longer intervals. So you revise it after a day, revise it after three days, revise it after a week, revise it after two weeks. This is spaced repetition. It's a known method for helping you remember things. Flashcards with self-generated answers, as well as flashcard apps like Anki,

can really help you to do this. You can create your own flashcards based on my vocabulary notes.

You could periodically revisit older episodes to measure how much your understanding has improved. And you will find when you listen to an episode again and again, you'll find that you understand more details and nuances with each listening, with each listen, and the English will stick in your head more, I promise. This is one of the most frequently recommended things from my listeners. Listen to episodes more than once. Again, try to flip your learning from passive to active.

applying yourself to actively remembering, recalling and reproducing the English that you're hearing. This speeds up the process massively. Luke's English Podcast Premium can help because it is designed specifically to help you do all of those things. Remember that English is about what you can do, not just about what you know. So focus on testing yourself by trying to use English to express yourself. Always measure your success by whether you can use the English language

to do something. Not just whether you know it, whether you recognize it, but can you actually use it? Consider keeping a diary.

This isn't just a vocab journal, but this is just where you write your thoughts and things. You can reflect on things you've learned, but also just describe your day, including how you felt about things. Try to use language you've picked up from the podcast or use different online tools to help you find the words you need. You could keep a Luke's English podcast diary where you write things after listening to each episode. Right. Could be your thoughts and feelings. Could be you retelling, redescribing things I've said.

Even writing just a few lines each time is great. After a year of writing just a couple of lines each time, you will have plenty of stuff written down and you can go back and read it again. And let me tell you, that will be great. It'll be a great experience. We build things bit by bit, little bit by little bit. Remember, learning happens best when you feel relaxed,

and positive about it. And I hope my podcast helps with this. Be good to yourself when you're learning English. Celebrate the small victories. Don't worry too much about those failures which happen constantly. It's all part of the process. Don't beat yourself up. Just enjoy it all if you can. Don't criticise yourself.

It doesn't actually help. Instead, just ignore that critical editor in your head and free yourself from self-judgment. If you learn to do this, it is incredibly liberating and wonderful.

Language learning should be fun, but it does require active engagement and consistent effort. Listening to my podcast every week can definitely send you on the right track, but try to activate your learning in other ways. Celebrate your progress. Don't be discouraged by setbacks or things you don't understand, and enjoy being part of my wonderful community of listeners from around the world.

give your English a chance this year and listen to my podcast. Have I said that before in this episode? No. I usually publish a minimum of 53 episodes a year and more premium ones. So if you only listen to them, even if you don't do any extra studying, just think how much better your English can be 12 months from now. Um,

So I wanted to revisit some of those comments, testimonials and bits of advice from my listeners. The ones I summarised briefly earlier on, I just want to revisit some of those things. So here's that comment digest from episode 914. After four days, these are the comments that came in four days after the episode was published. So here's a slightly more detailed digest of the comments I received

under episode 914 in the first four days after it was published. So what I did with this was I actually gathered all the comments. I copy pasted. I copied all of the comments from YouTube. And then I used AI to generate a summary of the main points that were made.

Now, since then, loads of other comments have been made, but they broadly made the same points as here. So these are more or less the same points I summarized earlier in the episode, but I'm going to include some of my own responses and comments here too.

As I said before, I got so many great messages from listeners and some of them definitely need to be read out on the podcast. So I will do an entire episode dedicated to that, which will probably be the next episode. So that 917 will be listener stories. I also need to do a Q&A episode in which I respond to some questions that people keep asking me. So I will do that too somewhere down the line.

It's only the first week of January and already I have three or four episodes lined up plus all the other ones in the pipeline. So expect some listener comments in the next episode at, um, yeah, also a Q and a at some point and also the Sherlock Holmes story, which I promised I would do as well anyway. So going back to listener, my digest of listener feedback. So, um,

Quiet? That's nice, isn't it? Others commented...

Others commended, in fact. They commended the meaning. They said it was good. They praised my clear pronunciation, good vibes and sense of humour. Many listeners also praised the high quality of the content, noting its diversity and educational value. So my comment on that is great. That's nice. I want to make this process pleasant and enjoyable to listen to. I'm glad if my voice helps. A good microphone also makes a difference. I use...

A very, very well-known microphone that lots of people doing podcasts use. It's a kind of industry standard microphone. I use the Shure SM7B, plugged into various other bits and pieces. But basically, the microphone is a good one. It creates a nice, warm, kind of satisfying sound, I think. So the good microphone makes a difference. But also, I just enjoy what I do, and I think my enthusiasm must come through.

Surely everything is better when you can put some of your soul into it, right? Whatever you do, put some enthusiasm in it. It really makes a big difference.

Several listeners specifically mentioned the rambling episodes where I speak spontaneously about various topics. They appreciated the natural flow and unscripted nature of these episodes and how they were engaging to listen to while also presenting English in a natural way. Others enjoyed episodes with guests, particularly my father, my brother and pod pals Amber and Paul.

So my comment here is that I will keep doing episodes like that. I'm also lining up guests to appear on the podcast over the next few weeks, including some returning favourites as well as some new ones.

Here are some comments describing how the podcast has helped listeners with their English. The most common benefit mentioned was improved listening comprehension. Surprise, surprise. Many listeners reported being able to understand better to understand English better after listening to the podcast, including native speakers from different regions.

Listeners also mentioned improvements in their speaking skills. Some attributed this to the podcast's influence on their pronunciation and accent or to the expanded vocabulary and expressions they had learned. Others found that the podcast helped them develop fluency and confidence in speaking. Some listeners mentioned that other people had made positive comments about their accent, saying it sounded British and even in some cases asking if they were born in the UK. Imagine that.

Some listeners specifically referred to exam successes, thanking me for the positive influence the podcast had had on their skills, allowing them to get a better score in IELTS or one of the other Cambridge exams. So this at this point, I would like to go. This makes me very proud and gives me no end of encouragement. Imagine this actually works.

Sometimes, as a teacher, it's frustrating. As a teacher in classrooms, it can be frustrating because you only spend a relatively short time with your learners. It might just be a few weeks and you try your best to help them with their English in that time. You can help for sure, but you don't get to see the long-term progression of their English skills.

as they take what they've learned and apply it over time. But with this podcast, it is a more long-term thing. And I do get these testimonials from listeners who describe the long journey they've gone on from a relatively low level to something much more fluent. How satisfying.

Third, advice on how other listeners can use the podcast to improve their English. Repetition and active listening were common suggestions. Some listeners recommended listening to episodes multiple times, using transcripts to aid comprehension and noting down unfamiliar words and phrases.

Shadowing, repeating after me, was also recommended as a way to improve pronunciation and fluency. Other suggestions include in using the podcast for focused vocabulary practice, printing out PDFs when available and engaging in speaking practice by pausing the video to answer questions or discussing the content with others.

Some listeners mentioned LEP premium specifically saying that following the premium episodes and doing all the PDF exercises had given their English a very noticeable boost and that if listeners have enough time to devote to this, it can be a way to make much more rapid progress. Teacherluke.co.uk slash premium info. And suggestions for how I can improve the show.

Although I didn't actually ask for these suggestions, here is a digest of what some listeners said with a few responses from me. So the most frequent suggestion was to read more short stories on the podcast. Some listeners specified a preference for non-AI generated stories or more modern stories. Other suggestions included inviting more guests, especially my dad.

featuring more content on specific topics such as vocabulary and grammar or academic subjects like science, medicine and engineering, including written formats like short stories or articles which can be read from and then analysed for language, reading and analysing books, creating episodes about English tenses, playing music from my repertoire on the guitar,

discussing contemporary English proverbs, etiquette and behaviour, playing short clips of people speaking in various accents, providing longer explanations with collocations and examples for vocabulary in premium episodes.

I always do. Adding vocabulary, phrasal verbs and idioms during the podcast. Yep, always do that too. Setting goals for English language students of different levels. Having a live online chat with listeners and giving a room tour. So lots of different suggestions. Actually, in episode 917, I'm going to respond directly to a lot of those things. But let me continue.

Some people suggested that I could offer shorter, more frequent episodes to cater to listeners with different preferences. However, actually, more listeners expressed their enjoyment of the longer episodes, urging me to continue with the current format. So there was a bit of a debate about shorter episodes versus longer episodes.

Here are the main arguments in favour of shorter episodes with some responses by me. So long episodes, this is what some people think, long episodes are intimidating and sometimes I choose not to listen to them because of the length. So my response to that is actually I totally understand this, although I think the platform you're using makes a difference. When I'm looking at podcast episodes in audio format in a podcast app on my phone,

Right, when I'm a listener, I like long episodes in audio format. When my favorite podcasts publish long episodes, I'm very happy to consume that over a few days. But when I'm casually browsing on YouTube in the evening instead of watching TV, I tend to prefer shorter episodes because I feel that long episodes are too much of a commitment.

So I think it depends on the platform. And since this show is first and foremost an audio podcast, it always has been, then I tend to make my content decisions based on that. But I do understand how long episodes can seem a bit overwhelming. But I also believe that when you actually listen to the episodes, the time flies and it's not a problem. Also, you can listen in sections, as I've already explained.

Uh, so another comment is this, my commute to work is 30 minutes. So longer episodes are less convenient and I lose focus after a certain amount of time over one hour is too much for most learners to be able to focus. So my answer to these two comments is that you don't have to listen to the episodes in one single go. You can listen to them in sections. I've already said all that. Um,

Another thing. Also, my episodes often have chapter markers to help you navigate the episodes on YouTube. Right. So don't feel you have to listen to it in one go. It's not live. You can pause it, come back to finish the episode later. I generally don't set out to make long episodes. I don't think, right, today I'm going to make a two hour episode. Instead, I'm

I just try to say all the things I want to say and cover all the points I want to cover. And I don't plan for a specific episode length. Ideally, all my episodes would be about one hour long. That's usually what I'm going for. But sometimes it just takes longer than that for me to achieve everything.

This is particularly true when I'm doing vocabulary explanations. For example, short story episodes often end up being long, mainly because I'm going into so much detail in the vocabulary explanations afterwards. So the story might just be 20 minutes long and the vocabulary explanations end up being over an hour long, which extends the episode. And then people write...

learn English with a short story, but it's two hours long. Yeah, because it's a short story, but a long episode. Anyway, I don't consider it to be a problem because so many people tell me they love the longer episodes. It gives them something to sink their teeth into. I feel like I can achieve a lot more in a longer episode. I feel like people can listen to them in sections if they need to. Also, not many other English teachers make episodes as long as mine.

I don't think there are any, are there? And so I think this makes me distinctive in the world of content creation for learners of English. I think it's a mistake to try to copy the standards which are set by other people. Like I did read a comment a while ago saying all the other podcasters, all the other YouTube channels do episodes that are no longer than 30 minutes long.

But, you know, I want to do things my way and this is the way that works for me. So I'm sticking with it. Also, to be honest, I think making much shorter episodes might fundamentally change the way I do this. For example, if I did a short story episode, I wouldn't really have time to do the language review or analysis of the story. It would just be the story. One idea is to do the language analysis part first.

in a premium episode. So I would essentially cut the episode off about halfway through and say, if you want to listen to the rest of this, you need to sign up to LEP premium. But I think, to be honest, people would be even more unhappy about that, except maybe the premium subscribers. So basically it is impossible to do anything and put your heart into it

which means doing it in a slightly original or different way. It's impossible to do that without some people disliking what you do. You can't please all the people all the time and you shouldn't try.

So, I will do things my way, understanding that whatever I do, there will always be room for improvement. I don't aim to make very long episodes, but the episodes will be long if they have to be. I might experiment with different formats and ideas. I keep all my options open when it comes to making this content. Another thought, and this is the final thought on this. English lessons in class are almost never less than an hour and a half.

And I kind of think my podcast episodes, I think of my podcast episodes a bit like English lessons. It seems odd to do just 30 minutes. What can you achieve in 30 minutes? I think I'm naturally tuned to teaching for a certain amount of time, either 90 minutes or three hours classes.

And this is the influence of teaching in classrooms where lessons are usually 90 minutes or three hours long. My episodes just end up being about the same length as my English lessons. I think I have some kind of internal clock for this after teaching in classrooms for about 25 years. A lot of what I do on the podcast is informed by a sort of intuitive sense of teaching that

So I think it's wise to follow that sense. If anything guides me in the way I make my episodes, it is an intuitive sense of what is working based on the years of teaching experience I have under my belt. So this is the way, this is the way I do things. So to sum up, okay, this episode has explored why listening to English is important for your learning and development and how this podcast can help you achieve that all-important regular listening practice.

Listening to English improves your comprehension, exposes you to real-life English and vocabulary, helps your pronunciation and grammar, provides cultural insights, increases fluency and boosts your confidence.

In this episode, I also shared feedback from listeners who have seen significant improvements in their English thanks to this podcast. So the conclusion is clear, isn't it? Make this podcast a regular part of your English learning routine. And I think you'll be amazed at the progress you make over the coming year. Thank you for listening to this episode. I hope you didn't become a skeleton while listening.

So, to prove that you made it to the end of the episode, why not write a comment with some of your own thoughts that you had while listening? And I hope you had thoughts. Or you can somehow mention the word in your comment. I haven't decided what this word will be yet.

So which word should I ask you to use at the end of this? Maybe let's use the word brain. OK, try to use the word brain in your comment because we've been using our brains all the way through this. So let's see if you can somehow use the word brain in your comment. OK, just to prove you got to the end of the episode. There are there are there's more things on the PDF which I'm going to skip past now.

There was more stuff about my podcast and my podcast logo, the fact I live in France. I've got a French wife, two kids. I struggle with French, so I know what it's like to try to speak another language. My kids are bilingual. My daughter is seven now.

She's been on the show a few times. My son is now 18 months old. Uh, he started speaking a bit in both languages. He mainly in French and English, he mainly shouts his sister's name as loud as possible. And he also says poo poo quite a lot actually. Uh, so his English is a work in progress to be honest. Um, so there was some other stuff about, about things like that as well, which, um,

I am not going to read out because there isn't enough time, but I'll leave it in the PDF. I talked about monetizing the podcast and some other things that people ask me about. I talked about free episodes and premium episodes. I didn't talk about it. I wrote about it, but I'm not going to talk about that now. But you can find all the stuff on the PDF. OK, so this really is the end of the episode now.

But on the PDF, you will find some more things, including a vocabulary list with definitions. That's all of those highlighted phrases, the ones that were in that lurid orange colour. So you'll find a full vocabulary list of those things. There's a vocabulary quiz with answers so you can check your understanding.

and some discussion questions to help you practice using the vocabulary in that list. And that's all there on the PDF. You just have to go through it. You'll see all the vocab in the list to help you remember it.

All of it is there. And there's a vocab quiz to help you remember and test yourself. OK, all of those different expressions are all dealt with. There's an answer key for the quiz discussions for speaking practice for all 18 items of vocab. Right. For example, what's been a stepping stone in your life that helped you achieve something bigger? What decision in your life was a no brainer?

Why was it so obvious? And so on. And then finally, when you get to the end, you will find your Certificate of Achievement, as promised. Your Certificate of Achievement with 100 points and your medal for listening all the way to the end of the episode. This certifies that I have listened to this entire episode of Luke's English Podcast and I have the right to claim my 100 points. Signed, Luke Thompson, Podcast Man.

congratulations you made it all the way until the end and that is the end of this episode thank you so much for listening all the way through uh wow that was a bit of a roller coaster um wasn't it quite a roller coaster of an episode i tried to go through it as quickly as i could um

I hope you're all right out there in podcast land and you're not a skeleton, that your brain has been filled up with English. Leave a comment in the comments section to prove that you've made it all the way until this point. And I'll speak to you in the next episode, which will be all about listener stories of success.

in their learning of English. Okay. I can't wait to do more episodes of this podcast in 2025. I've got loads of other ideas. I love doing this podcast. That's hopefully you love listening to it too. Thank you so much for listening. Um, and I'll speak to you in the next part, but for now it's time to say goodbye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.

Thanks for listening to Luke's English Podcast.

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If you enjoyed this episode of Luke's English Podcast, consider signing up for Luke's English Podcast Premium. You'll get regular premium episodes with stories, vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation teaching from me and the usual moments of humour and fun. Plus, with your subscription, you will be directly supporting my work and making this whole podcast project possible.

For more information about Luke's English Podcast Premium, go to teacherluke.co.uk slash premium info.