We want to know your opinion about the usefulness of the weekly Monday “Podcasts This Week” blog posts. Since we, here at ESL Podcast, have limited time and resources, we try to use them in the best way to benefit our listeners and readers. Your answers will help us a lot. Please feel free to comment below about the “Podcasts This Week” posts.
We wish you a very merry Christmas and hope that your holidays are filled with peace and joy.
We thank those who have already donated or become members, and who are helping to keep ESL Podcast going. If you enjoy our podcasts, please consider supporting ESL Podcast, too, by becoming a Basic or Premium Member today!
………
ON MONDAY ESL Podcast 854 – Singing Christmas Carols
In the Learning Guide: Get a full transcript (written version of every word you hear), vocabulary list and sample sentences, and comprehension questions.
In “What Else Does it Mean,” learn the other meanings of “just this once” and “to compose.”
In the “Culture Note,” learn about “Animated Christmas TV Specials.”
“Many Americans “eagerly” (with a lot of excitement and enthusiasm) look forward to “Christmastime” (the time before and during Christmas…” - READ MORE in the Learning Guide
…
ON WEDNESDAY
English Cafe 378
Topics: Redshirting; Mesa Verde National Park; to wrap up; to bother versus to interrupt versus to disturb; blind spot
In the Learning Guide: Get a full transcript (written version of every word you hear).
In “What Insiders Know,” you will read about “The Magnificent Seven.”
“The Magnificent Seven is a “western film” (a film about cowboys usually set in the western part of the United States in the 1800s) that was released in 1960…” - READ MORE in the Learning Guide
…
ON FRIDAY ESL Podcast 855 – Learning Fire Safety
In the Learning Guide: Get a full transcript (written version of every word you hear), vocabulary list and sample sentences, and comprehension questions.
In “What Else Does it Mean,” learn the other meanings of “rash” and “overload.”
In the “Culture Note,” learn about “Smokey the Bear.”
“Smokey the Bear, sometimes called just Smokey Bear, is a symbol of fire prevention and a…” - READ MORE in the Learning Guide
Have you been busy buying gifts for friends and family? How about getting yourself the gift of English?
Getting the Learning Guide will help you learn English even faster. And plus, when you buy a Basic or Premium Membership or one of our Premium Courses, you also help to keep ESL Podcast going, and we thank you!
………
ON MONDAY ESL Podcast 852 – Working in a Factory
In the Learning Guide: Get a full transcript (written version of every word you hear), vocabulary list and sample sentences, and comprehension questions.
In “What Else Does it Mean,” learn the other meanings of “plant manager” and “every other minute.”
In the “Culture Note,” learn about “Rosie the Riveter.”
“During World War II, many women “left the home” (got a job outside of the home) and began working in factories while the men were…” - READ MORE in the Learning Guide
…
ON WEDNESDAY
English Cafe 377
Topics: The Sam Sheppard Trial; Plymouth Rock; to counsel versus to consult; to hit (one/someone) head on; to scare the crap out of (one/someone); a bee in (one’s/someone’s) bonnet
In the Learning Guide: Get a full transcript (written version of every word you hear).
In “What Insiders Know,” you will read about “The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan.”
“Bunyan wrote The Pilgrim’s Progress while he was in jail. He had been sent there because of religious crimes, such as…” - READ MORE in the Learning Guide …
ON FRIDAY ESL Podcast 853 – Reading an Obituary
In the Learning Guide: Get a full transcript (written version of every word you hear), vocabulary list and sample sentences, and comprehension questions.
In “What Else Does it Mean,” learn the other meanings of “personally” and “lucky me.”
In the “Culture Note,” learn about “Premature Obituaries.”
“In some “instances” (cases; occasions), the obituaries of famous people have been published…” - READ MORE in the Learning Guide
In the emails we get from listeners, people often tell us when and where they listen to the podcast. Many tell us that they listen to the podcast while they commute, traveling between home and work or school. Others tell us that we keep them company (are with them) when they exercise or run errands (do things like going to the store or post office). Some people listen to the podcast when they do housework or other chores (routine tasks, usually related to the home).
In addition to telling us how and where they listen to the podcast, some people have told us about the effects of the podcast. A number of (several; many) parents have told us that their babies and young children like to listen to Jeff’s voice. I should tell you that I have been out in public with Jeff, and I have seen how babies react to him. They love him. I don’t know if he just has a friendly face or if, because of his bald (without hair) head, babies think he is one of them? I’m not sure. But parents have written to tell us that babies love listening to Jeff’s voice, often being lulled (made to feel sleepy in a calming way) to sleep.
Do you have babies? Have they fallen under the spellof (felt the magical effects of) Jeff’s voice?
I guess babies aren’t the only ones. Many people have told us that they listen to Jeff in bed, right before going to sleep. They tell us that Jeff’s voice has a calming effect on them, helping them fall asleep. We know that Jeff isn’t boring, so what is the secret to Jeff’s soothing (gently calming) powers? Perhaps Jeff has hypnotic (when people are awake but very sleepy and does whatever someone tells them to do) powers that he doesn’t even know about.
How and where do you listen to the podcast? Have you had or observed any special effects of Jeff’s voice? Do you think Jeff’s voice has other strange powers we don’t know about?
ESL Podcast celebrates its seventh anniversary this month. We started our podcast back in 2005, and since then have produced more than 1,100 episodes, or around 450 hours of English to listen to and learn from. We’ve enjoyed every minute of these past seven years, and are very appreciative for having the opportunity to help people from every country of the world improve their English.
As we do every year, we want to thank all of those who have made ESL Podcast possible, including: Adriano, our wonderful webmaster; Jessica, our fantastic main writer and customer service expert; Sue, our post-production genius, and our other writers and helpers.
A special thanks goes to Warren Ediger of SuccessfulEnglish.com for his always interesting and excellent blog posts on American life and culture.
Most importantly, we want to thank YOU, our listeners, and especially our subscribers anddonors. We could not do what we do without your support, so thank you, thank you, thank you!
Note: In the past we have had a special video for the anniversary, but this year, due to some technical problems, we were unable to produce one. However, we hope you’ll look forward to our 8th Anniversary Video next year!
Jeff & Lucy
Photo credit: Isaac Newton’s Seven Colors of the Rainbow, Wikipedia CC
I’ve been writing scripts for our podcasts for over six years and I think it’s time to get your suggestions on new topics. We do get emails from listeners with suggestions, but it would be nice to share ideas here on the blog.
We have nine categories of regular podcasts that are released every Monday and Friday:
- Business
- Daily Life
- Dining
- Entertainment
- Health and Medicine
- Relationships
- Shopping
- Transportation
- Travel
Please give us your suggestions within these nine categories. Within these categories, we try to select topics that are relevant (appropriate; of interest) for a large number of our listeners, and include vocabulary and language useful beyond just that one script and podcast. If you’d like, you can do a quick search on our homepage (search for your topic suggestion under “Search Podcasts” on the left-hand side of the page) to see if we have already covered (included; used) that topic.
Your suggestions are very important to us and we always appreciate them. Keep in mind, though, that with this post, we are only asking for topics for our regular podcast scripts/dialogues (not for the English Cafe, which we’ll ask about another time). We can’t promise that all of your suggestion will be included in future podcasts, but we’ll do our best to include the most popular ones. Let us hear from you!
Join us at English as a Second Language (ESL) Podcast in celebrating our sixth anniversary with our annual video episode! This one is called The (Really) Serious Episode, and when you watch it, you’ll see why.
Thanks to all of you who have listened to us the past year, and especially to those who have either donated money or become a member of ESL Podcast. Your financial support is necessary for us to continue. If you’re not a member, consider joining today.
Thank you again!
~Jeff, Lucy, and the ESL Podcast Team
P.S. The transcript for the video is below.
Video Transcript
Welcome to English as a Second Language Podcast’s Sixth Anniversary Video. I’m your host, Dr. Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California. We want to begin our episode by thanking you, our listeners. We recently released our one-thousandth episode and we have thousands of you in almost every country around the world listening and improving your English.
Now, you may know that in the past, our anniversary videos have been funny, or tried to be funny. But not this year. This year, we’re going to do a serious anniversary video podcast. It’s serious business learning English, and we thought that we should do a serious video podcast this year.
Now, before I do that, let me just say that some people have emailed us suggestions about things we should do. People have emailed and said, “Oh, Jeff, you should wear a funny hat. And you’re from Minnesota, maybe, maybe a Viking hat because the Minnesota Vikings are the Minnesota football team, a hat, something like this. Well, I’m not going to do it. I’m not going to wear a hat. That’s just not serious. It’s not dignified.
Where was I? Oh, yes, I also to want to thank those who help us here at ESL Podcast: Jessica, one of our writers and our customer service representative; Sue, our video editor and proofer; Warren Ediger of successfulenglish.com who writes blog posts for us; and Adriano, our wonderful webmaster.
Before I forget, some other people have emailed other suggestions, things they thought would be funny on our anniversary video podcast. Some people said, “Oh, you should grow a mustache, you know, something, something maybe like this. Oh, that would be funny.” Well, it’s not funny. As I said, this is a serious podcast episode and I’m not going to wear a mustache, mustache, just to be funny – not going to happen.
Our biggest thanks go to those of you who are members of ESL Podcast or who buy courses in our store. Your financial support is absolutely necessary for us. If you’re not a member, go to our website at eslpod.com and become a member and help us keep this podcast going.
Now, one more thing I got as a suggestion. Someone who thought it would be funny if I sang on this video episode, as I have in some of our previous anniversary video podcasts. They suggested I sing something by the Bee Gees, something like, you know, something like one of those horrible 70’s songs – [sings “How Deep is Your Love”]. No, that’s not going to happen. I’m not going to sing the Bee Gees as part of this anniversary video podcast.
Finally, I want to thank Dr. Lucy Tse, our producer and scriptwriter, for her wonderful work this year. Lucy also wanted to send a serious message as part of this episode. Lucy?
Thank you. From Los Angeles, California, I’m Jeff McQuillan. Thank you for listening.
If you own a Nokia phone, you can now download ESL Podcast audio files directly onto your phone with our new Ovi app. Go here for more information and to download the app onto your phone. (If you like the app, please rate it five stars and write a good review for us!)
For iPhone users, you can simply access the podcast on iTunes.
For Android users, any program that can access an RSS file will work. Try the Google Listen app. You will need to enter our RSS feed address, which is:
Because some of you requested it, Lucy recently appeared on two English Cafe episodes so that listeners can hear more than one voice when listening to the Cafe’s cultural topics: English Cafe 275 (SeaWorld) and 277 (X Games).
Please tell us what you think. You opinion is very important to us.
Today we have a guest blogger, Warren Ediger. You can read his explanation of 2009 buzzwords in the next post. (What’s a buzzword, you ask? Read Warren’s post to find out!) Warren will be writing posts every now and then (sometimes) about American culture and English, and we are very happy to have him writing for us. He is an experienced ESL teacher here in Southern California, as well as one of the top (best) online English tutors I know.
Be sure to take a look at Warren’s website, SuccessfulEnglish.com, which has some excellent resources and tips for improving your English. Those interested in online tutoring can contact Warren via (using, by means of) email by going to his website.
Let’s give Warren a warm (friendly) welcome to the blog!
Loading ...
