In this episode, I talk to my student Barbara who is a very interesting young woman. She was born in Chile, but lived most of her life in Europe. She went to a British school in Spain. She also spent 1 year in France studying French and 2 years in Austria studying German. And this year she is in the Czech Republic doing a bit of Czech for a change. We talk about her life journey, challenges of learning and forgetting languages, wearing uniforms in the British school and playing field hocked, and...
Dec 07, 2018•35 min•Ep. 452
This time I am joined by a podcast regular Mark from the UK. We have about 20-minute catch-up chat in which I manage to throw in a lot of idioms related to health, illnesses and dying. Mark decided to visit me in the Czech Republic just to record this podcast. We both had a lot of fun recording this. There is a bit of chitchat about my game Kingdoms of Deceit and at the end we are also joined by Helena, my colleague.
Nov 25, 2018•25 min•Ep. 450
It does exactly what is says on the tin.
Nov 15, 2018•28 min•Ep. 449
In this episode I caught up with Franta who had previously featured in one of the most successful episodes on this podcast ever. This time I visited Franta in his hometown - Brighton (England) and the episode was actually recorded on the beach. In it, we talked about Franta's current life, reminded everyone of his success story, we answered some questions from a listener, and simply just bantered about everything that came to mind.
Nov 08, 2018•50 min•Ep. 448
During my time in England this summer I struck up a friendly conversation with one of the group leaders and before you know it, I was invited for a pint of Guinness. I said to myself, I might as well capitalise on this and recorded a nice interview.
Oct 24, 2018•25 min•Ep. 446
In this episode, I tell an anecdote and talk about what I have been up to lately.
Oct 16, 2018•37 min•Ep. 445
In this episode, I introduce you to an American friend of mine with whom I took the CELTA course a few years ago. This summer we both worked for the came company in England, but in different centres. The episode is little bit light-hearted because we are good friends so wind-ups and jokes at each other's expense come to us very naturally.
Oct 07, 2018•30 min•Ep. 444
This episode does exactly what it says on the tin. Firstly, I tell you some information about the meet-up, how it was organised, where it happened, and how it compares to the previous one organised a year before during which I had met Luke Thompson of Luke's English Podcast but failed to meet everyone else. As one of the main attraction were board games, I will tell you a bit more about the games we played a well. And then finally I conducted short interviews with each participant about asking a...
Sep 18, 2018•49 min•Ep. 443
In this episode I speak to Aisha who I had a pleasure to work with during summer 2018 in London as an activity leader. She has studied at a music college and is a musician, singer, and composes music.
Sep 05, 2018•30 min•Ep. 442
In this episode I talk to my former colleague and a friend Marzena from Poland about her not always positive experiences of working for a language school in Oxford.
Aug 21, 2018•23 min•Ep. 440
In this episode, I talk to my coworker Neimo from England. The episode was recorded in Oxford and we speak about our job on that day. But more importnatly Naemo tells us about herself, her life in Romania where she is studying medicine at a university.
Jul 21, 2018•30 min•Ep. 439
This is an utterly imporvised episode. I had to kill time while waiting for a group at an airport.
Jul 16, 2018•31 min•Ep. 438
After exactly one year I met up with Mark who is originally from Russia and has been living and studying in England for a while. This means he has a perfect British accent. We talked a bit about his school and I asked Mark a lot of random questions which gave me the opporutnity to insert lot of idioms and expressions related to maths.
Jul 14, 2018•30 min•Ep. 437
In this, to my mind, very positive and motivating episode I talk to Ryoko, my former Japanese student and a well-travelled person, who has lived, worked, and done her research in developing countries in Africa, namely she helped to deliver babies in Cameron and Malawi. On top of that, she has studied in the USA and has now completed her premedical course in the Czech Republic. We also touch upon Japanese mentaility and try to tread on a dangerous ground trying to compare the way people think in ...
Jul 04, 2018•43 min•Ep. 436
In this episode I would like to update you on what I have been doing. I had a free June which means I did a lot of things to kill time. I speak about LEP Premium which is a new service Luke from Luke's English Podcast offers, I talk about my plans for July, and last but not least, I spend considerable amount of time talking about the world cup and the chances of the teams who qualified. This is a completely unedited episode so excuse my mistakes, ramblings, and hesitations.
Jun 30, 2018•53 min•Ep. 435
This episode was recorded outside by the river. In it I have an informal chat with a high level English speaker Marija who has been on the podcast before several times this year. We have a very relaxed conversation which mostly focuses on English exams. Marija also makes an attempt at evaluating her academic year. A second part which will only be available for patrons will follow soon.
Jun 10, 2018•33 min•Ep. 433
In this episode, I talk to a friend and another playtester of the game I have been developing called Kingdoms of Deceit. Nick is currently studying political science in Japan and so our chat naturally revolves around Japan, whatt is is like to live in Japan, Japanese mentality, Japanese history, and Japanese language. Admitedly the discussion is rather geeky at times, but Nick is a very well-spoken person with a nice clear accent therefore even if you know nothing about Japanese language, you ca...
Jun 04, 2018•35 min•Ep. 432
In this episode I talk to Shaun from England about his job which is a library assistant. We speak about books and how they can benefit us and we also discuss some knowledge related sayings.
May 26, 2018•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 431
Remember Clare from episode 161? Well, she is back on the podcast. We did a nice skype catch-up discussing various topics such as teaching English, her life in the czech Republic, my experience of working in London, xenophobia, and more.
May 14, 2018•49 min•Ep. 430
In this episode I have a friendly chat with 2 young students of mine from Azerbaijan who have come to the Czech Republic to study medicine. We talk about different subjects such as their studies, cultural and mentality differences, what it is like to become an adult, and how it feels to move abroad and live there.
May 07, 2018•28 min•Ep. 429
For this episode I invited a friend of podcast Nrup who comes from India. The aim of this episode is to clarify idioms which contain colours so if you want to know what red herring, to be caught red-handed, to see red, in the black, to be born with a silver spoon the mounth and more mean, have a listen to this episode. Let me also use this as an opportunity to ask you to write a review for me on I-tunes. Positive reviews on this platform help more people find this podcast, which ultimately helps...
Apr 23, 2018•27 min•Ep. 427
In this episode, I talk to my students Fu aka Cloudy and Nikita. The former is Chinese and the latter Russian. We go through some common stereotypes about their own countries, and discuss whether we think they are true or false. Due to openinmindedness of the guys, we manage to do this successfully even though the topics themselves may appear slightly controversial at first sight. Overall this is a lighthearted and fun chat. Are Chinese products of low quality? Are the Chinese polite? Can they s...
Apr 18, 2018•32 min•Ep. 426
In this episode, I speak to my friend and surprsingly also my former student Max from the United States of America. We talk about Max's journey of learning to speak Czech, the difference in mentality between the Americans and Czechs, Max's further study plans, and last but not least music. Max also exclusively for ZEP performed and recorded a song called Up against the Wall.
Apr 07, 2018•28 min•Ep. 425
Honza back on the podcast in another instalment of Road to Civilization series. Apart from the usual nonsensical banter, we also attempt to play a game of guessing animal sounds. Of course it ends up being a disaster as usual. Towards the end Honza's alter ego is revealed.
Apr 01, 2018•35 min•Ep. 424
In this episode, I will take a look at phonology, namely how "th" is pronounced in English i.e "ð" and "θ" sounds. These seem to be some the most challenging sounds for most non-native speaker learners of English. The first half of this is my the theory presentation, while for the second half I intended to throw in various examples. However, that turned out to be a bit of self-indulging comedy show.
Mar 30, 2018•32 min•Ep. 423
I have always been impressed by the Pink Gorilla Story episode (episode 125) of Luke's English Podcast and ever since I started doing my podcast I have dreamt of trying my hand at an improvised story like that. It has always been an objective that seemed unlikely to achieve especially because I was never able to keep it engaging and make it funny enough. I think I tried several times in the past and it just wasn't doing it for me. Partly it was because I put too much presssure on myself and had ...
Mar 24, 2018•25 min•Ep. 422
In this episode I talk to my three African students from Etiopia, Senegal, and Kenya, as well as a young man from Peru. The talk revolves around the topic of studying languages. We discuss the challenges of trying to use the target language with the natives, we talk about geography of each student's country of origin, and we try to find motivating words for anyone learning a foreign langugae.
Mar 17, 2018•49 min•Ep. 421
This is a continuation of the interview with Key which was published in episode 208. The episode features Kay from Ireland herself, but also Maria from Macedonia, and Nrup from India. In a nutshell, it is a bit of a random chat involving interesting stories, especially the ones with Kay's priest brother quoting Starwars during his sermons, and how she is "sociable" with strangers on the Prague metro, and last but not least Nrup rining the bells of random houses. I have to say that at times I was...
Mar 10, 2018•33 min•Ep. 419
This episode is a hodge-podge of 2 seemingly unrelated recordings. However, they have one thing in common - they are both improvised. In both cases there was absolutely no script whatsoever. The first part is a monologue ramble, which is not exactly information heavy. It was recorded because I had an urge to speak English as I was lying in my bed before mz bed time. Do not expect anmything profound in that one. The second one features a pre-intermediate student of mine, who is a doctor. We recor...
Mar 04, 2018•34 min•Ep. 418
In this episode, I talk to my friend and a regular board game meet-up attendee Kay. Despite her very young age, she has already lived in a lot of countries including Mexico, China, Italy, and Austria. Currently, she is working as an English teacher in the Czech Republic. What is more, she has also taught German, Spanish, Dutch and Irish, which makes her a polyglot. If this is not enough, she is also a stand-up comedian.
Feb 24, 2018•30 min•Ep. 417
