When we started the ESL Podcast Blog over two years ago, we decided on a policy not to allow links in the comments sections. The following is an excerpt (section) from our original post about this:
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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.
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Since that time, we have become lax (not strict) about this policy, mainly because of the interesting things our listeners post. However, as much as we hate to do it, we will need to ask you once again to leave out links, so that we can focus our time on producing the best podcasts we can!
Thank you for your understanding, and we appreciate your comments very, very much!
At this time each year, we at ESL Podcast, pause to say, “When is our next vacation?”
No, no, no! We stop every year on September 24th to say HAPPY BIRTHDAY to our own Dr. Jeff McQuillan, a man who survived the icy (very cold) climates of Minnesota, many (many, many, many) years as a poor and lowly (insignificant) student, to become our fearless leader here at ESL Podcast.
So, let’s drink a toast together to Jeff and wish him a happy and healthy 29th birthday (again)!
It’s hard for us to believe that it’s been four years since ESL Podcast began. In fact, as of next Monday, we will have released 500 ESL Podcast episodes and 200 ESL Cafe episodes! It’s amazing to us that we are still going and that you are all still listening!
We want to thank all of those who helped us by sending us their Flat Jeffrey photos for our Fourth Anniversary Video Podcast. We were able to include at least one from each submission and Flat Jeffrey got to see some very interesting places!
Finally, we want to thank all of you listeners, especially those who have become Premium and Basic Members, who have purchased courses through the ESL Podcast Store, and those who have sent us donations. It is through this generous support that we are able to continue producing ESL Podcast. If you want to support our efforts, please also consider becoming an ESL Podcast Member.
Below is the Fourth Anniversary Video Podcast. We hope you enjoy it!
~ Jeff and Lucy
ESL Podcast Fourth Anniversary Video Podcast: The World Tour
ESL Podcast is celebrating our fourth anniversary! It’s an important event…
so we decided to have a big party.
There was drinking –a little too much.
And things, well, they got really crazy.
I got flattened after the roof fell on me. But don’t worry, this is a good thing…
Now I can visit some of my friends around the world.
The first place we decided to go is Montreal, Canada, to visit my friend, Abdelmajid.
Here I am in Montreal. My friend told me they speak French, so I can practice my French. Luckily, they speak English, too!
Here I am in front of the famous church in the old Montreal called Notre Dame. I’m going to pray that my French gets better! Canada is great, eh? But now we have to take a trip to England.
We’re going to fly British Airways. They’re not as advanced in technology as the Americans technology.
Here I am in London with my friend, Suzana. She’s originally from Argentina, but don’t cry for her – she’s just visiting her sons who live there. Here we’re in front of the Parliament building in London. Suzana is a little embarrassed about being seen with me, so she put me in her purse. Not very comfortable. Next I decided to take a train to the famous university in England, or one of them, Cambridge.
Gregorex, my old friend, is showing me some of the great old buildings here in Cambridge. Here I am in front of King’s College. I’m hoping to study a little Shakespeare and maybe meet Harry Potter.
Well, I have to get back to London. Since I don’t have a lot of money, my friend suggested I take a boat called a punt. I told you the British were a little behind in technology.
Next, we’re on a train to Paris, going through the “chunnel” between England and France.
Here I am eating some very typical French food, cheese, with my friend Frederic’s beautiful daughter, Apolline. Isn’t she beautiful?
Well, now I’m off to Spain. I’m going to to the capital, Madrid, to visit my friends Emiliano and Cuca who are going to show me the city.
The first place we go is the Gran Via of Madrid, a busy street where I have to be careful so I don’t get run over by cars. I’m already Flat Jeffrey – I don’t want to be Dead Jeffrey!
Next, we visited the Plaza de Callao and we get some Spanish wine.
Then we went to see a statute of Don Quixote. But I guess we drank too much wine, because it’s a little blurry!
Finally, Emiliano and Cuca invited me back to their apartment for a nice meal. We had a great time. Notice also what a wonderful artist Emiliano is.
Next, I decided to visit my friend Miguel in Zaragoza, Spain. Miguel wants me to climb the mountain behind him, but he does not know me very well. I don’t climb mountains, Miguel!
I have to say good-by to Spain, because my friend Carlo is waiting for me in Cremona, Italy.
Here I’m standing in front of the cathedral of Cremona – I guess my friends think I need a lot of prayers! Cremona is famous for producing musical instruments. You can see here I’m playing a Stradavarious.
Well, after visiting Cremona, it’s off to Rome. My friend Mario invited me to come and visit him, and I thought I’d get to see all the famous sites of the city. But instead, I’m at his office working. Some vacation this is! At least I got to see Mario’s fake (not real) Oscar statue. I’m hoping this video will win an Oscar, too.
Now we go to northern Europe, to Germany.
Hermann invited me to Stuttgart. Here I’m in the first four-wheeled motor vehicle, developed by two German engineers. We’re next to the first television broadcast tower in the world. And I’m about to take my first drink of German wine. Tastes great!
Here I am in the vineyard that Hermann has, where they grow grapes to make wine from. If I owned a vineyard, I’d probably be drinking all the time like Hermann here.
Next, I rent a car to drive next to Brno, in the Czech Republic. This Mercedes Benz looked nice. We were going there…
…to meet my buddy Michal. Here we are in front of a pub or bar, ready to get a drink. No wonder I need to pray a lot – I never stop drinking!
Michal takes me on the bus to see the town. Not as nice as my Mercedes, but that’s okay. Because we’re going to see..
My girlfriend, Barunka. Here she’s holding my hand. Well, actually, she’s Michal’s girlfriend, but don’t tell him – or my wife.
Next, we’re off to Russia, with love, before Michal finds out about me and Barunka.
Here I am in the Red Square of Moscow with my friend Nikolay. Good thing I have my red tie on.
Here I am again in Red Square. It’s so beautiful, so red! Thanks, Nikolay. My other friend in Moscow, Stanislav, arranged a meeting for me with the president of Russia, Dmitry Medvedev. We talked for a while, and then old Dmitry said he was “busy” and had to go to another meeting with some guy named…Obama.?
I later found out Dmitry didn’t like me too much. He told Barak about me. Notice how he’s showing Obama what I look like. And Barak says, No way! Meaning I don’t believe it. Jeffrey! Of course, the president knows all about me. Well, I decided it was time to visit my female friends up in St. Petersburg.
Here I am with Anna at the Peterhoff, the home of the Russian tsars, built in the 18th century, near St. Petersburg. I’m thinking of buying of it as my summer home.
Here I am with Nastia, also in St. Petersburg. She showed me some of the popular sites in St. Petersburg.
Here I am in front of the horses.
Next we decided to visit the Russian Vodka Museum. More drinking?
And here Nastia is showing me where she lives.
I’m not exactly sure what I’m doing here– taking a nap, I think. Don’t tell Barunka.
Well, now I’ve had a good nap, it’s time for me to go to Asia – to Singapore to meet my good friend, Cynthia, from China.
Cynthia takes me to this beautiful hotel. She tells me is where Michael Jackson used to stay. Hmm. Not sure this is a good place for me.
Next we visit the famous symbol of Singapore, the Merlion. It’s hot today, so I take a little swim.
Next we go for some rest and relaxation on the beautiful beach of Setosa Island. Ah, this is great!
Well, now I’m off to Vietnam.
I’m going to visit my friends Ngugyen and Tien in Ho Chi Minh City celebrating the Tet holiday flower festival. That’s Tien here in the photograph. I love Vietnam, but I have to go to Taiwan to see my friend Yvonne.
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We take the Hello Kitty airplane, my favorite.
Once we get to Taipei, we go and have some good Chinese food. I eat but, once again, I have to get going because I have a long trip to South America to visit my friend Luiz in the beautiful country of Brazil. Luiz wants to introduce me to some friends of his in Pocos de Caldas.
Here I am in front of the lovely Palace Hotel. I believe Michael Jackson used to stay here. Next, we decide to play a little tennis.
Here I am with Jacare and Ronaldo.
Here’s Luiz, in the blue T-shirt, next to Jacare.
And of course, Luiz and I win all of our games.
Finally, we visit Luiz’s beautiful wife, Deborah, next to this great waterfall. Now I am off to…
Uruguay, to Montevideo, to visit my friend, Juan Manuel.
He’s preparing a special drink for me called “mate” a very strong tea made from leaves of a plant called Yerba Mate. Uruguayans get together to drink mate and to talk. At least it’s not alcohol!
Finally, it’s back to the United States. But after all that traveling, I think I need a vacation from my vacation, and the best place for that is Hawaii!
Fortunately, my friends Roberto and Loreto invited me on their Hawaiian vacation. They’re originally from Spain. Notice that Loreto put a hat on me so I don’t get sunburned. Well, that’s the end of our trip. I want to thank everyone who invited me to come and visit them. You know, next time I should probably invite Lucy.
We want to thank all of those who helped us by sending us their Flat Jeffrey photos. We were able to include at least one from each person.
We also want to thank all of you listeners, especially those who have become Premium and Basic Members, who have purchased courses through our Store, and who have sent us donations. It is through this generous support that we are able to continue producing ESL Podcast. If you want to support our efforts, please also consider becoming a member of ESL Podcast.
ESL Podcast’s fourth anniversary is at the end of July, and we need your help with our video podcast this year.
We have listeners all over the world, and as much as Jeff (and Lucy) would like to visit all of you, that’s not possible. However, there is someone who can make the trip: “Flat Jeffrey” (“Jeff” is short for “Jeffrey”).
We got the idea of Flat Jeffrey from Flat Stanley. Flat Stanley is a character in a children’s book from the 1960s. Stanley was a normal boy, but while he sleeps in his bed, a large bulletin board (board placed on the wall so notes and papers can be pinned to it) falls on him and he’s now flat! In fact, he’s so flat, he can fit inside of an envelope. In recent years, many students in U.S. schools have created their own Flat Stanley, sending him to many places, making friends in different cities and countries.
So, we need your help with our own Flat Jeffrey. We have created a Flat Jeffrey that you can print and take to see some interesting places and/or do some interesting things with. We ask you to take a picture of Flat Jeffrey at these places and doing these things, and we’ll include some of them in our Fourth Anniversary Video Podcast. By doing this, those of us here at ESL Podcast and all of the listeners all over the world will get a better idea of who our listeners are and where they come from, and Jeff will get to visit your city!
You can download and print Flat Jeffrey here, and email a photo to video@eslpod.com. Please remember to include in your email:
- Your first name and the first names of the (other) people in the photo
- Your city and country
- Where Flat Jeffrey is in the photo and what he’s doing
Please send us your photo no later than JULY 7, 2009, and we hope to see you with Flat Jeffrey on our Fourth Anniversary Video Podcast!
We are very happy to announce a new course available in the ESL Podcast Store: “Introduction to the United States.” This course is for anyone interested in learning more about the U.S., while improving their English.
We’ve taken the 100 questions asked on the U.S. citizenship test, the test taken by people who want to become an American citizen. However, we go far beyond the simple answers. We give explanations about how the U.S. government works, major events in U.S. history, and the people who helped create this country. Each explanation brings the facts about the history and stories behind the simple answers alive, making it easy to learn about the U.S. as you improve your English.
Learn more about “Introduction to the United States” here and you can listen to a sample by clicking on “Listen to a sample” after clicking on any of the course options.
Over the past several years, many of our listeners have asked us about English courses for children, especially at a low English level. We have finally completed three courses called “Simple English Stories” just for children — and for adults who want to learn English, too!”
Stories for Children
“Simple English Stories” are children’s stories written at a low level. These fun and exciting stories include useful vocabulary that is repeated many times in an interesting and meaningful way within the story. Hearing English used many times while hearing a fun story will help children learn English quickly and in a fun and exciting way!
Something For Adults and Older Children, Too!
For older children and adults, each set of “Simple English Stories” contains a “Bonus Story” that takes a fresh and different look at the traditional classic story (Story A). This is a humorous and fun way to introduce useful vocabulary. Children and adults can listen together to Simple English Stories — and learn English together!
Today is Dr. Jeff McQuillan’s birthday! If you’ve been a longtime listener, you know how old he is (but I won’t tell).
Here at ESL Podcast, we wish him the very best for this special day. It’s hard to know what birthday present (gift) to get him–let me know if you have suggestions. In the meantime, join me in wishing Jeff a very happy birthday!
It’s finally here – our Third Anniversary Video! Thanks to all of you who posted questions for us to answer on the video. We’re sorry we didn’t have time to answer them all. We had some technical difficulties so it took us a little longer to get the video ready. (Our actual anniversary was July 22nd, so we’re a little behind!)
The complete transcript for the video is below. Thanks to all of you for listening!
~ESL Podcast Team
Jeff: Hello and welcome to ESL Podcast’s third anniversary video podcast. We are now three years old, and as we do every year we are recording a short video podcast for you. This year, we asked you to send us some questions to answer, and in this podcast I and Lucy will be answering some of your questions.So, the first question is: “How did the podcast get started?” Well, back in the spring of 2005, three years ago, I read about podcasting in the newspaper and I decided to investigate it and learn about it. It sounded very interesting, a very good way to reach many people directly, and I wanted to do some more English teaching over the Internet. And on July 22nd, 2005 we had our first ESL Podcast episode, and here we are three years later.The podcast originally was done by me during the first week or two, and then Dr. Lucy Tse came and started writing the scripts and helping produce the podcast, and basically making it more professional, and Lucy and I now work together as a team to do that.We also have other people that help us now with the podcast in different ways. Adriano, our webmaster, is an excellent technical person, and he helps us with all of the website information that we need. We have Jessica, who does a lot of our writing, especially for the Learning Guides, and she also now does some customer service. She helps us with our communications with you, the listener. And we also have Sue, who does what we call postproduction. She does all of the editing and putting the audio together and making sure everything sounds good, and she also does some video editing. So, Sue is an expert in many things. And, we are very lucky to have someone as talented as Adriano, someone as smart and as creative as Jessica, and someone who’s such an expert in all things technical, that being Sue.
Next question is: “How did we think people would receive the podcast? Did we think it would be a success?” And the answer is absolutely not. We were very surprised, shocked when we got 100 listeners, and then 500 listeners, and soon after 1,000 listeners. Now we have thousands and thousands of listeners all over the world, and we are very happy but very surprised, and we have always been surprised by that.
Someone asked: “How long does it take to record and produce the podcast?” Well, if you start from the writing of the script, which Lucy does, and the Learning Guides, and recording, and the editing, and the web work, and all the rest, it’s probably a total time for all of us together of somewhere between 10 and 12 hours per episode – each episode. So, we do three episodes a week plus we do special courses, so it’s – it’s a very big job, but we love doing it. We really enjoy it.
Someone was commenting on my reading of the scripts and wanted to know if I had an acting career – if I was an actor. Well, I live here in Hollywood, in Los Angeles, and actually I was an actor many years ago, more than 20 years ago. I was in a movie, you may have heard of it, called Star Wars with Harrison Ford. Harrison’s a great guy! I was the character called Chewbacca, who was the big gorilla with all the hair all over his body. That was me! And unfortunately, as you can see no more hair, so no more acting jobs for me.
When did Lucy and I first meet? Well, Lucy and I met more than 15 years ago. We met in graduate school. We were both studying here in Southern California and we met at, I think, the first class we had together. We were studying the similar subject. We also worked in the same building, teaching English to international students at the university. So we’ve known each other for a very long time.
Now, some of you have also asked questions of Lucy, and many of you wanted to see what Lucy looks like. So, I’m going to invite Lucy. Lucy, would you like to come and sit down?
Lucy: Sure. Hi Jeff. Hi everybody.
Jeff: Hi Lucy. Thank you for coming.
Lucy: Um…Jeff, you’re the tech expert, but are you sure the camera is on both of us?
Jeff: Yeah, let me see here. Yup, there it is. It’s there, it’s there.
Lucy: Okay. Some of you asked questions of me as well, so I’ll answer a few of those. One of you wanted to know how I came up with the script ideas for the podcast.
To me, the scripts are just a small part of the podcast, really. Jeff does all of the hard work. Coming up with the script ideas isn’t that difficult. I try to think of situations that are common or that may be helpful, and then I write a script around that. Some of the script ideas are sent to us from the listeners, like you, and I want to thank all of you for your suggestions. Those are very, very helpful to me. For me, writing the scripts is one of the best parts of my job; it’s really fun to do.
Another question is: “What is it like working with Jeff?” As Jeff said, we have known each other for many, many years. In the old days, when we were graduate students and then later as professors, we worked with each other quite a lot doing research and doing writing projects. We both have strong opinions, but since Jeff has all the good ideas, and he’s always right, it’s great working with him. There’s a saying: “What you see is what you get.” Jeff, on the podcast, is the way he is in real life. He’s very funny, and he sings just as well as he does on the podcast. I know, because my office is right next to his!
And the last question we’re going to be answering is for both of us. A listener wanted to know if we get tired of doing the podcast. What about you, Jeff?
Jeff: No, I don’t get tired of doing the podcast. I love doing the podcast. I love doing the recording and all of the other things. So no, I have not and do not get tired of the podcast.
Lucy: Me, neither. I like the creative part of it, thinking of new ideas, the writing part of it, and I love hearing from our listeners. So, I can imagine doing this for the next…oh…20 years. Right Jeff?
Jeff: 20? 20 years?
Lucy: 20 years.
Jeff: Um…sure, yeah! 20 years, absolutely.
Lucy: Yeah.
Jeff: Mmhmm.
Lucy: I think we’re out of time. Like Jeff, I want to thank all of our fabulous listeners for their support, especially our members and our donors who make it possible for us to continue our work and allow us to continue producing these podcasts. So, Jeff, would you like to do a little singing for us before we leave?
Jeff: Well…uh…I would. Thank you, Lucy, for asking me. And I want to thank Lucy Tse, here, for coming on, and especially for being on camera like this, and so people can see you. I think that’s really important.
Lucy: Now that everyone sees what I look like, there’s no mystery anymore.
Jeff: Right. You’ll be recognized everywhere now. So…um…now I would like to sing, but my [clears throat] my voice is a little sore today. So, I promise I will do more singing, though, on the regular podcast.
So, from Los Angeles, California, I’m Jeff McQuillan…
We have celebrated our past two anniversaries by producing a video podcast. We want to do that again this year, but we need your help.
This year, Jeff will be answering listener questions. Do you have a burning question (something you want to know very much) about us or the podcast? If so, post a comment here and we will select a few to answer in the anniversary video podcast.
We at ESL Podcast want to wish all of you a peaceful and joyful holiday season. Although you, our listeners, are in more than 80 countries and speak dozens of different languages, we are all united in our common humanity, no matter what language we speak. For us, the greatest gift is being able to influence in some small way the lives of others for the better.
Thank you for giving us that opportunity, and for your loyal support this past year!
ESL Podcast’s fourth anniversary is at the end of July, and we need your help with our video podcast this year.
We are very happy to announce a new course available in the ESL Podcast Store: “Introduction to the United States.” This course is for anyone interested in learning more about the U.S., while improving their English.
We have celebrated our past two anniversaries by producing a video podcast. We want to do that again this year, but we need your help.
We at ESL Podcast want to wish all of you a peaceful and joyful holiday season. Although you, our listeners, are in more than 80 countries and speak dozens of different languages, we are all united in our common humanity, no matter what language we speak. For us, the greatest gift is being able to influence in some small way the lives of others for the better.
