I was interviewed by a website in the Czech Republic about ESL Podcast. If you are interested in reading the interview from earlier this year, you can read it here. The questions and answers are all in English.

I talk about the podcast in general and specifically about the nature of (the basic principles of) language acquisition, related to the post last week on learning phrasal verbs.

~Jeff

Some of our listeners have emailed us to let us know that they are spreading the word (telling other people) about ESL Podcast.

Thank you to our wonderful listeners!

Some of the things they have done are:
§ To tell their friends, family, and co-workers about the podcast;

§ To post messages on blogs and message boards;

§ To send a message to a newspaper or newsmagazine in their country about the podcast;

§ To tell their teachers about the podcast;

§ To give friends and family a gift certificate to the ESL Podcast Store; and

§ To start a site for fans or listeners of the podcast.

If you’d like to help us out (assist us, help us), please try one of these suggestions.

One of our listeners, Eduardo, has started a Google discussion group here for ESL Podcast listeners. Eduardo has put in (done) a lot of work on the group, and is a very dedicated (loyal) fan. Thanks, Eduardo!

If you already using Facebook, there is also an ESL Podcast Group that you can join as well.

If you have done something to spread the word about ESL Podcast or have ideas about how to tell others about the podcast, please send us a comment to let us know!

~Jeff

Thank you to everyone who has been posting comments to our blog. Lucy and I appreciate it!

We have received some posts recently with website links (addresses). For security reasons, we prefer not to post any active links in the comment sections. The reason is that it takes extra time for us to investigate these links and make sure they are not spam or are not redirecting you to another site. (We receive a lot of spam messages on the comments section!) For that reason, we have decided not to put active links in the comments. We know this is inconvenient, but most things can be found using a simple Google search, so if you mention something you saw (such as a YouTube video or newspaper article), most people will be able to find it another way.

Thank you for your understanding - and your great participation on our blog!

~Jeff

If you own a Nokia cell phone, you can now listen to ESL Podcast right on (directly on) your phone! Nokia has a piece of podcasting software that allows you to listen to various podcasts on your phone.

To get the software, simply go to this page and click on the Download Nokia Podcasting button and install on your phone.

~Jeff

ESL Podcast listener Fabio Okipney has started a page for ESL Podcast listeners on MySpace. MySpace is a social networking site where you can becomes “friends” with other people you know or who have similar interests. If you have a page on MySpace, you can become friends with other ESL Podcast listeners.

MySpace is very popular among many younger people in the United States. Like a blog, it allows people to express their ideas and share information on the web. Many thanks to Fabio for setting up this page!

~Jeff

Today’s podcast, 312 - Different Work Styles, got me thinking about working with our beloved Dr. Jeff McQuillan. I won’t say if he’s a type A or type B person, a workaholic, or an alpha male at work (see “Culture Note” in the Learning Guide), but here are three things I do know about Jeff from working with him over the years.

1. Jeff drinks tea or soda all day, and he will usually have a large cup of tea or a large glass of soda when he records podcasts. But, be careful! He doesn’t allow any drinks on his desk—his own drinks or his visitors’—after what happened to his laptop computer earlier this year (see English Cafe 71)–a very good idea.

2. Jeff has a great memory for songs and you can hear him whistling (singing through a small hole made by his lips) or singing all day long. Maybe that’s the reason why he sings so well.

3. He really likes puns (jokes with words that have two or more meanings) like this one:

“I wondered why the baseball was getting bigger. Then it hit me.”
[If something hits you, it means that something strikes your body, or it may mean you suddenly think of an answer or idea.]

~ Lucy

If you own an Apple computer (a Mac), you probably know that you can use your Dashboard to view widgets (small software programs). One of our listeners, Orlando Chicconi, from the iPhoneStory.com website, has very generously created a widget that allows Mac computer users to listen to ESL Podcast right on your Dashboard! On the back of the widget (press the small “i”), you can see the topic for the podcast, and click on links that bring you to the website and the ESL Podcast Store.

The widget is free! To download it, go either to the Apple Dashboard site or to Orlando’s widget page. Orlando also has some other very cool widgets that you can download on his site.

ESL Podcast sends a big THANK YOU to Orlando for providing this free widget for Mac users!

~Jeff

Did you know that you can subscribe to our blog? Our blog page has what is called an RSS feed, which allows you to “subscribe” using many web browsers or free RSS software. Every time we put up a new blog post, you will be able to see it on your browser or RSS reader. For those of you who already know about RSS feeds and how to use them, you can find our RSS on the menu on the left side under “Meta.”

Each browser and feed reader is a little different, so take a look at the instructions for your web browser or feed reader software. If you are using Internet Explorer on Windows, take a look at this explanation. If you are using Firefox, look here.

If you use Google, you can use Google Reader to subscribe to the blog.

If you want to get an email every time we put up a new post, do the following:

1. Copy the following URL (website address) (this is our RSS feed address):
http://linguapod.com/eslpod_blog/feed/

2. Go to RSS Forward website and paste the URL into the box at the top of the page. Click Submit.

3. On the next page, type in your email address into the box and click Submit. That’s it!

You will now receive an email every time we have a new post on the blog. The email will contain the first sentence or so of the blog post, and have a link that you can click on that will take you to the post on our website.

~Jeff

Meet our wonderful web designer and webmaster: Adriano Galeno!

Adriano is a native of Brazil, but he and his family now live in Canada. He has a degree in computer science (the study of computers) and has been working with Internet-related projects for the past 10 years. Even though he is very busy in his important day job (main occupation), he still finds time to help us with our website. Adriano and his wife, Maria, have two beautiful daughters–Marina and Victoria.

Adriano’s latest podcasting project is the Brazilian Pod Class, a podcast for anyone interested in learning Portuguese. He works with a veteran (very experienced) teacher of Portuguese to create beginning lessons for listeners. Check out (go see) his website at www.brazilianpodclass.com.

Comment from Ali from Iran:

PS: I’d like to also express my discontent (unhappiness) about your site. I am a Persian native and live in Iran, but your site seems likely to be closed to our country. We have to use proxies (substitutes) to browse your site. I hope political atmosphere and canard (false information) about our public nation will not affect your trust.

Response:

We want everyone to have access to ESL Podcast, no matter what country they live in. We at ESLPod.com are not blocking Iran or any other country. We have had other Iranian listeners tell us about this problem, and we investigated (researched) by contacting our hosting company (the company that owns the computer servers we use). After looking at the information provided by these listeners, our hosting company tells us that our website is being blocked in Iran, not the U.S. We are not sure what the real situation is, however. We only have the information that our hosting company gave us.

If you are in a country where you are having difficulty accessing our website and you have a workaround or another way to gain access, please post a comment here so other listeners can use that information.

Thanks to Ali and our other listeners who are listening to ESL Podcast despite these hurdles (difficulties).