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Greetings all,

Over the next month or so, Englishpod will publish fewer new lessons.

How many? ODE will publish just 2 lessons for the next 2 weeks (the same amount as this week) and then just one lesson/week for the 3 or 4 weeks after that. I know this sounds like very few lessons, but wait - there is a positive side. ODE currently has 107 lessons on the website - this is a chance for everyone to review the lessons and practice what you’ve learned. I know from previous experience it’s good to take breaks and re-energize whatever you’re learning.

Why? There are several reasons for the slowdown. On reason is the Holiday season. As you may know, people in many countries celebrate Christmas, and they take holidays to visit family and loved ones. All business in Western countries slows down a bit at Christmas (with the exception of retail because of Christmas gift shopping).

Another reason is that I am leaving the company to pursue other career options. ODE is going to find the right person to continue on with the podcasting, blogging, and other tasks I do, but it takes time. The good part is that they’ll be a new voice - variety in the voices you hear can really help build listening skills. Plus, I’m confident ODE will find someone with more business knowledge than myself.

In addition, everyone at ODE thinks this is a good moment to re-think the podcasts and see if there are some improvements we can make in them. Sometimes the staff here spend so much time and energy on production, and we don’t take a step back and look critically at the lessons. So this is a good opportunity to re-tool and improve the podcasts. It will also give our tech team a chance to grow and make improvements to the website.

It was great being a part of Englishpod and helping so many great students. I wish all the people behind ODE the best - I know they will do well, and of course, to the students, I hope every one of you can reach your goals and become confident speaking professional English.

Best Regards,

Kris Fedorak

Hey everyone,

Just wanted to share what lessons are coming up over the next couple of weeks. We’ve been doing a lot of office English over the past few weeks, but of course business English goes beyond the office.

Over the next 4 weeks or so we’ll have lessons on airlines, hotels, insurance and banks. They’ll be lots of great language, both for people who work in these fields and the rest of us, who are customers of these industries.

Enjoy, and as always, feel free to comment on our lessons or suggest some for us to produce.

Kris

Hey Students,

We want to know what you think of our podcasts. After listening to a few, rate them. Those of you who’ve signed up for the free trial or paid subscriptions, go to your My Course. For any podcasts you’ve added to your My Course, you’ll find a link on the right side of the screen to rank them. If you think they’re great, give ‘em a 10… if you think they’re a little useful give them a 6… if they’re not good at all - 0.

Please be kind. Did I mention we love you?

Today I was wondering about learning languages and about the topics that are necessary/interesting to learn. I am both a student and teacher of languages, but I must admit I don’t have all the answers yet about what to learn and when to learn it.

Oviously at the lower levels the basics of communication are vital: talking about numbers, especially price, finding out where things are, and directions for how to get there, how to say what you like and don’t like… Describing people and objects is also key. Most of the textbooks I’ve used concentrate on topics like hobbies and jobs. Talking about your hobbies, families and what you do in your free time is alright, but not a necessary skill, and it’s a bit vague to be of much help. Given that EnglishPod’s structure allows us 10-15 minutes to discuss a topic, each individual hobby could be a topic.

Let’s think about what people ask you and what you want to know when you meet someone who speaks English. The typical American will ask you:

What’s your name? = introductions
How are you? = feelings
Where are you from? = talking about your hometown
Great weather today. = talking about the weather
What do you do = jobs/school

Howeverm, some websites and textbooks just dont get it. The topics taught are either irrelevant, useless or both. A prominent English language website for kids has topics like “Aztecs” - something the student will probably never use in their life. Other topics include “volcanoes”, “monsters”, “dinosaurs”, “polar animals”, “snow travel”, “haunted houses”, and the “circus”. Some of these topics are for kids, and that’s fine, but even “haunted house” is really only useful when living in cultures that actually have this concept.

Other websites and textbooks have great topics, useful language and teach things that can be used immediately and throughout one’s life. Check out the BBC’s street language topics including work, moods, sport, food, money here.

More advanced learners need topics that are more developed and specific. But we’ll get into that another time. Any suggestions out there for topics you’d like to learn about?

We’ve had some requests for the old lessons, or as I like to call them, “classic EnglishPod”. If you want to get all the old mp3s and pdfs, here’s what you do:

1) Get BitTorrent. You can follow this link to the site to download it for free and install it. (Note, lots of websites will try to get you to pay for BitTorrent… if you have any trouble, try the link again or type in the url. http://www.bittorrent.com/download.myt
2) Go to the podcast archive at Englishpod.com
3) Click on the mp3 or pdf and BitTorrent will ask where you want it and download it for you and put all the files nicely into a folder. (Note, there are lots of lessons, so this could take awhile - maybe do it over night.) The mp3 names are just our file numbers, but if you right click and look at the properties, you’ll find the topic name.
4) Smile, relax, and go over the old lessons as much as you like.
5) Any questions? Leave a comment here, or email us at englishpod@gmail.com

Kris/Team EnglishPod
P.S. If I can do it, so can you.