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

Hello, welcome back to LEP. This episode is called the lying game, and it's one of those ones in which I play a speaking game with my friends Amber and Paul. Click here for the page for this episode http://wp.me/p4IuUx-59z. A transcript for the first 15-20 minutes is available, just click the link given above. In the introduction you'll hear me welcome new listeners, talk a bit about my speaking speed on the podcast, mention the importance of listening to native speakers of English (even if it's a bit difficult to understand every word) and explain some of the content of the conversation you'll hear between Amber, Paul and me. Then, the speaking game begins properly. I really hope you have as much fun listening to this as we did recording it, because we really enjoyed ourselves! In part 2 (coming soon) you'll hear the conclusion of the game and I'll explain how I use this activity with my students in my English classes. http://wp.me/p4IuUx-59z Sign up to LEP Premium on Acast+ https://plus.acast.com/s/teacherl

'Peeling back the onion' on management speak and corporate jargon. This episode focuses on defining and explaining the examples of language you heard at the beginning of the last episode. You'll hear Paul and me going through all the phrases and by the end you should be able to understand it all, and you could create your own version of bullsh*t bingo! Click here to read definitions and to print some bulls*t bingo cards http://wp.me/p4IuUx-5cf Sign up to LEP Premium on Acast+ https://plus.acast.com/s/teacherluke. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Why do people in meetings at work keep talking about "thinking outside the box"? Why does my boss say we need to "get all our ducks in a row"? And why does my project manager want to "touch base with me offline"? If it's all a mystery to you, don't worry - LEP is here to decode all this weird language. If you work in an office in an English-speaking country I'm sure you'll have heard of 'corporate jargon' or 'management speak'. This is one of the things that people complain about the most, in offices all around the UK. It seems that managers, bosses, project managers, corporate leaders all speak a strange version of English full of bizarre idioms, over-complicated metaphors and unnecessarily big words. But what is 'management speak', why do people use it, and why do people find it so annoying? In this episode I'm joined by former Apple employee Paul Taylor as we 'peel back the onion' and decode the phenomenon of management speak. Listen to find out all the details and to learn some management speak in the pro

In this episode I'm going to talk about: lessons we can learn from the story, a few fun facts, the 2015 predictions, how the DeLorean works, theories about time travel and some temporal paradoxes in the story. So strap in, let's go back to the future again. Click here for a transcript & more information http://wp.me/p4IuUx-5bi  #backtothefuture #timetravel #2015predictions Sign up to LEP Premium on Acast+ https://plus.acast.com/s/teacherluke. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello listeners, welcome to Luke's Film Club, this is one of those episodes of Luke's English podcast in which we focus on a classic moment from the movies. This one is an episode about Back to the Future, which is one of my all time favourite films and I'm not alone because it's one of the most popular films of the last few decades, all over the world. It's a really entertaining and fun film, which also contains some sub-texts related to the complexities of time travel as well as a few visions of the future. Also, in the film's sequel, the main characters Marty McFly and Doc Brown end up travelling into the future - and to what date? October 21, 2015. That's today (when recording this). So it seems to be the perfect moment to do an episode of Luke's Film Club, devoted to this modern classic. This is basically international Back to the Future day, and there's only one! So, this has to be the day on which I record this episode. This episode mainly deals with the plot of the 3 Back To The Future films. The next

This year marks the 75th anniversary of The Battle of Britain, and since this is such a pivotal moment in British history, I thought it would be appropriate to cover it in some way in an episode of this podcast. Also, I was asked recently by a listener in the comments section of my website to talk about the story of the Battle of Britain, specifically the role of one particular group of Polish pilots known as Squadron #303. So, here it is - the story of one of the most important moments in modern British history - The Battle of Britain, and the contribution made by a small group of pilots from Poland. http://wp.me/p4IuUx-528 Sign up to LEP Premium on Acast+ https://plus.acast.com/s/teacherluke. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi, this is the second part of a two part episode in which I'm telling you a few things about recent trending news stories, some anecdotes and other things that are in my head at the moment. There's no specific language focus this time. Instead I'm focusing on general cultural information. Last time I talked about David Cameron and the pig, a story of a bad gig, and who the hell is Ronnie Pickering? In this one I'm going to ramble on about a bad trip to the dentist, some rising excitement about the new Star Wars film, Adam Buxton's new podcast, some music that has been bouncing around inside my head, some news about a new jingle which is in the pipeline and how I want to hunt Jarvis Cocker for my podcast but I don't know how to do it! If you don't really understand those things, then listen on! All will be explained! All you have to do is listen. Click here for more information http://wp.me/p4IuUx-59J Sign up to LEP Premium on Acast+ https://plus.acast.com/s/teacherluke. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/priva

In this episode I'm going to have a bit of a ramble about some stuff that's in the news at the moment and a few other things that have come into my brain. I'm not going to teach you anything specific in this one, no language anyway - just some bits and pieces about modern day British life. So generally I'm just going to keep you company for a while and talk to you one to one for the duration of the episode. Just you and me, and perhaps a bus load of commuters. Click here for more information http://wp.me/p4IuUx-59H Sign up to LEP Premium on Acast+ https://plus.acast.com/s/teacherluke. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome back to this landmark episode of the podcast. In this one we're going to carry on listening to messages from guests I've featured on the podcast over the years, then we'll hear messages from some extra-special celebrity fans, as well as some of imitations of me sent in by lepsters. Click here for more information and to make a donation http://wp.me/p4IuUx-58u Sign up to LEP Premium on Acast+ https://plus.acast.com/s/teacherluke. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Here it is - Episode 300. This is quite a landmark episode for me. I've been doing the podcast for 6.5 years now, and I've uploaded about 300 hours of content for you to listen to. In this episode I talk about the significance of the number 300 in history, and then we take a trip down memory lane and hear messages from people I've spoken to on this podcast over the years. Click here for more information and to make a donation http://wp.me/p4IuUx-57C Sign up to LEP Premium on Acast+ https://plus.acast.com/s/teacherluke. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome back to this special double episode in which we are planning a bank robbery as part of a communication game. I strongly recommend that you listen to the previous episode because it will help to make this one much easier to understand. In part 1 I explained the rules of this communication game, which involves a team coming up with a plan to rob a bank. I gave you all the key information which the team has to share, I clarified some useful language that you'll hear and then we listened to the first part of the bank robbery meeting, with our team of Amber, Paul and Sebastian. In this episode you're going to hear the rest of the meeting, and then we'll find out exactly what happens to them, and the full solution to the whole puzzle. Click here for lots of information and transcripts http://wp.me/p4IuUx-57f Sign up to LEP Premium on Acast+ https://plus.acast.com/s/teacherluke. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode you’re going to hear a group of my friends do a communication game in which they have to plan a bank robbery. We’ll listen to the whole meeting, hear their plan come together and then find out what happens in their version of the robbery. We’ll also consider some of the language used in the planning process. If it makes it more exciting, let me tell you that the stakes are very high in this episode – the team could get away with about £200 million in gold, cash and diamonds, or die trying. This is the bank robbery episode. As ever, you can leave your comments on the page for this episode and read transcripts and more http://wp.me/p4IuUx-575 Sign up to LEP Premium on Acast+ https://plus.acast.com/s/teacherluke. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On the podcast today I'm talking to Jessica Beck who has been working in English language teaching for over 10 years. She is an instructor, a teacher trainer and an author of 14 textbooks for learning English. You may also know Jessica from her work on the IELTS Energy Podcast (www.ielts.allearsenglish.com), which is part of the All Ears English. I talked to Gabby and Lindsay from AEE on LEP last year about culture shock, remember that? Well, Jessica is part of the All Ears English team, and is known there as the "Examiner of Excellence". So, she knows a lot about the IELTS test, and he's got some good advice for any of my listeners who plan to take the test, including how you can improve your speaking score if you have a good sense of humour. If you're not planning to take the test, these skills can also be applied to your use of English in general life too. http://wp.me/p4IuUx-54f Sign up to LEP Premium on Acast+ https://plus.acast.com/s/teacherluke. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more informa

This episode features a conversation with my friend Paul Taylor, who you already know from previous episodes of LEP. Paul is back from the Edinburgh fringe, where he was performing for the whole of August in a comedy show, and a couple of days ago he came over to the flat for a cup of tea and a bit of a chat. We started talking about the Edinburgh fringe and how it went for him. It was his first time and I think he found it very challenging because the audiences were hard to please, apparently they had some tough shows where nobody laughed, and he realised that the standard of stand-up comedy in the UK is much higher than he expected, but it was a learning experience. Then we ended up talking about the similarity between learning how to do stand-up comedy and learning a language. During the conversation I quickly decided to record our thoughts so that I could make it into an episode of my podcast. We wrote down a few brief ideas and then went upstairs to start recording. You can now listen to that conversatio

Hi and welcome back to LEP. This is episode 295, and it will be the final part of this 8-part series which is inspired by my trip to the west coast of the US recently. I'm going to talk about the final part of our journey from San Francisco, down the coast via Monterey, Carmel, Big Sur, San Luis Obispo and back to LA. I'll also talk some more about customer service and give you some tips on how to make complaints in English and how to talk to strangers in slightly sensitive situations, like when you want a person sitting behind you to stop talking because you can't sleep. You can expect to hear those things and more in this episode. Click here for more information http://wp.me/p4IuUx-53v Sign up to LEP Premium on Acast+ https://plus.acast.com/s/teacherluke. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello listeners and welcome back. This is part 7 in this series which is based on my recent trip to California. I didn't expect this to be a 7-part series, but it just keeps going because I've found more and more things to talk to you about! It's like the podcast episode that refuses to die, it keeps coming back for more! It's like the Lambton Worm or something - just when I think I've finished it off, it gets longer! I think this will be the last episode, but who knows. Time seems to shrink when I'm recording episodes of this podcast. An hour seems to disappear in just a few minutes because I get really involved in what I'm saying. I wonder if it's the same experience for you. I hope so. Click here for the page for this episode http://wp.me/p4IuUx-53o Sign up to LEP Premium on Acast+ https://plus.acast.com/s/teacherluke. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to episode 293, which is in fact part 6 in this mini series based around my recent trip to California. There's still a lot to talk about, and in this episode I'll tell you about our time spent in San Francisco and that's going to include these things - my interview with AJ Hoge the well-known online English teacher, more British and American English, earthquakes, a short biography of Robin Williams, a history of the peace & love movement in San Francisco, more descriptions of our trip down the west coast of California, and some more tips about how to talk to waiters and customer service staff. It seems pretty obvious to me that that is too much for one episode, so I think there will probably be a part 7 to this series, and after that we'll return to normal podcasting and English teaching, with perhaps some more UK oriented topics in future episodes, and more episodes featuring authentic unscripted conversations with my friends Amber and Paul. Click here to visit the page for this episode http://wp.me/

Hi listeners, I hope all's well. Here's part 5 in this series which I'm doing about my California road trip. In this episode I'm hoping to talk about these things: TThe Church of Scientology, Yosemite National Park and our slightly dramatic adventure there, more British and American English, and if time I'll talk to you about San Francisco, where among other things I met and interviewed AJ Hoge. So let's get started. [In fact I only managed to talk about Scientology and the Yosemite experience - British & American English, and AJ Hoge will be in the next episode]. Click here for more information and a transcript http://wp.me/p4IuUx-52G Sign up to LEP Premium on Acast+ https://plus.acast.com/s/teacherluke. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi everyone, here's part 4 in this road trip mini-series. How are you? Are you keeping up with all these new episodes? I suppose if you're listening to this it means you are keeping up, but don't feel rushed. Take your time, listen to them at your leisure, in your own time and at your own speed. I hope you're finding this series interesting. In this one I'm planning to cover these things: Hollywood Boulevard and celebrity culture, an analysis of the mysterious lyrics to Hotel California by The Eagles, a visit to the extremely wealthy area of Beverley Hills and some more differences between American and British English vocabulary. Click here for the page for this episode http://wp.me/p4IuUx-52w Sign up to LEP Premium on Acast+ https://plus.acast.com/s/teacherluke. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is part 3 in what could turn out to be quite a long series about my recent trip around California. In this episode I'm hoping to talk about Venice Beach, Baywatch, Segways, the grammar of telling stories and anecdotes in English, some facts about the Hollywood sign, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, and British & American English vocabulary related to driving. That's a lot of subjects to cover, so let's get started right away! Click here for the page for this episode http://wp.me/p4IuUx-520 Sign up to LEP Premium on Acast+ https://plus.acast.com/s/teacherluke. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.