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

Hang out with me while the rain pours down outside

A conversation with my brother about one of the most successful British bands of all time - Madness. We talk about the story of the band, our early memories of their music, the songs, the members, their lyrics, their popularity and why we've always been big fans!Episode page with links, music videos and more

A spontaneous monologue about being taken by surprise by public holidays in May (in France), a podcast recommendation, and seeing a hard-rocking and hilarious band perform live in a big arena last week. Includes a song at the end as a tribute.Episode page with links etc

Here's a list of jokes about different countries which I found on the website Bored Panda. I'll tell you the jokes and then explain them all (dissecting the frog), including any homophones, double meanings or specific cultural references. Can you "get" the jokes? Do you find any of them funny, or are they all just terrible dad jokes? And, what vocabulary can you learn in the process? Includes a vocabulary review at the end of the episode.Episode page with notes, jokes and vocabulary list

Barbara Serra is an award-winning Italian journalist who has spent much of her career reading the news in the UK on various high-profile well-established English language news networks including the BBC, Channel 5, Al Jazeera English and Sky News. Barbara has quite a specific relationship with English. It’s her dominant language but not her native language. She has a certain accent, which does place her outside the UK somehow. So how has this affected her career as a news reader and reporter? What is the story of her English? What kind of challenges has she faced while reading the news in the UK? And what does this all tell us about learning English, what it means to improve your accent, the relationship between accent and identity, the definition of “native” and “non-native speaker”, the status of different English accents in the English speaking world?

I read an article about Paris' preparations for the 2024 Olympic Games, discuss the issues, summarise the article and explain plenty of vocabulary. Is Paris ready for the games? What are the attitudes, complaints, expectations and fears ahead of this potentially controversial event.

Top tips for spontaneous speaking

These days Elena Mutonono is an experienced business coach who helps online English teachers to gain independence and control over their own careers, but Elena's journey started as a learner of English herself. In this conversation I ask Elena about how she learned English, making the step to becoming an English teacher, then teacher trainer and what challenges online English teachers face when trying to work in a crowded and demanding job market.

This conversation is a preview of my Zoom workshop on Thurs 18 April 2024 at 10AM (UK time), as part of the Advanced English Summit. In my workshop I will be talking about how to really learn vocabulary, and not just stare at word lists.This is a conversation about the subject of the workshop, and summit organiser Clare Whitmell asks me questions about why vocabulary is important, why I love teaching it, common mistakes made by learners, ways of learning vocabulary more effectively, and some tools you can use.

Listen to me rambling about Daylight Saving Time, weird AI generated images for Luke's English Podcast, and lots of comments and responses to recent episodes including the Birthday Party story

Learn English with another short story. I'll read the entire story to you, and then go through the text again explaining and clarifying the main events and plenty of vocabulary. This is a wonderful adventure story written by HG Wells, a very influential and imaginative English writer from the late 19th century. The story is full of vivid descriptive language, action, adventure and extraordinary moments. I hope it captures your imagination and lets the English come alive in memorable ways. The story starts after about 12 minutes.

Here is an episode in which I walk through the streets of Paris, rambling about a particular subject. This time the subject is Paris itself. This summer Paris is hosting the Olympic Games. The city will be filled with visitors. I am very curious to see how the city will handle this moment. Will it be a huge success? What will visitors think of the city? Will anyone suffer from the mysterious "Paris Syndrome"? Join me on my walk, follow my words, look out for vocab and consider using my questions for your own speaking practice. Episode page https://teacherluke.co.uk/2024/03/25/874-walk-talk-paris/ Sign up to LEP Premium on Acast+ and add the premium episodes to a podcast app on your phone. https://plus.acast.com/s/teacherluke. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The MBTI Personality Test (aka "16 Personalities") is a very well-known and widely used test which claims to be able to give you a "freakishly accurate" analysis of your personality type. In this episode I take the test, explain the reasons for my answers, explain some vocabulary and give my thoughts on the test results and the test itself. Includes plenty of expressions for describing personality traits, behaviour, ways of thinking and feeling and the subject of psychological testing.

Learn English with another short story. This time it's a 300-word story by Katherine Brush often used in literature classes, full of vivid imagery and with an emotional twist. I read the story to you, and then go through each line, explaining vocabulary and grammar.

A very long rambling episode with a big mix of vocabulary, stories about my trip to Rome, comments from listeners, lots of thoughts about episodes I've published over the last 12 months, more advice about learning English, and a story about being Jackie Chan's English teacher.

Returning guest Kate Billington suddenly decided to move to the other side of the world, to Taipei in beautiful Taiwan. In this episode we talk about meeting LEPsters in Taipei, her decision to move there, and how everything is going, with the usual conversational tangents along the way. 

In international diplomacy, "communication is everything". This is the main point of this conversation, in which I talk to my friend who works for the UK delegation at UNESCO in Paris. We discuss the work that UNESCO does, and the various communication challenges involved in working together with representatives from countries all around the world, including the collaborative writing of official documents where the use of a single comma can be debated for hours, and the meetings and conversations in which cultural sensitivity and good-will are essential elements for success. Also includes some communication idioms and guitar playing near the end of the episode.

Talking to Lindsay from All Ears English about social, economic and political changes happening in the USA (and the UK) at the moment.Includes some rambling and a song at the end of the episode.

This episode is all about the different modes of communication that we use beyond the 4 linguistic skills of reading, writing, listening speaking. My guest is Nik Peachy who has helped to write a new paper published by OUP called "Multimodality in ELT: Communication Skills for Today’s Generation". Listen to Nik and me chatting about the importance of multimodal literacy in our social interactions and in the ways we consume and produce media online.

Here are my reactions to getting 1 million subscribers on YouTube, and probably 1 million+ on audio platforms too!Listen to me rambling on my own and with my daughter (6 years old now) while the subscriber number gradually goes up, and eventually reaches this big milestone.Episode page https://teacherluke.co.uk/2024/02/02/1-million-subscribers-on-youtube-x1f389/ Sign up to LEP Premium on Acast+ and add the premium episodes to a podcast app on your phone. https://plus.acast.com/s/teacherluke. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.