The Clark and Miller English Podcast

An engaging chat with Zdenek, an ESL teacher, covers topics like the use of L1 in the classroom, discrimination against non-native English teachers, the value of taking the DELTA, and even Zdenek's weird cat. They discuss teaching strategies, Delta certification, accent diversity, and balancing creativity with structure in teaching.

It's always the same: The same mistakes. Again and again. Mistakes like: “We’ve got more five tickets left.” “We work four days in a week in August.” “I want that my kids go to a public school.” “Thank you that you helped me.” “His parents made him to do extra classes at the weekend.” “It’s not so big than my city.” But who can help us stop making these small but common mistakes? Amy Winehouse and Britney Spears, that's who! Check out this episode of the Clark and Miller English podcast where we try to answer questions like: - What are we thinking when we use language? - What is pattern grammar? - How can these songs help us correct the same mistakes we've been making FOREVER? And please accept my apologies: These songs will be stuck in your head for the rest of the day. Music: bensound.com

Have you ever walked away from an English lesson saying, “What?! How?! Why does this language have to be so complicated?!” If you’ve felt like this, you’ve either just walked out of a lesson on reported speech, or you were in the Arabic class by mistake. (Don’t do that again.) But if you're getting frustrated with reported speech and all its stupid rules, there's some good news: It doesn't have to be this way. In this podcast episode, we look at more common, more natural alternatives to reported speech. We also ask why English learners and English teachers can be so obsessed with "good English" and "correct English" and "proper English," why lawyers speak trashy English, and why the English we think we speak isn't the English we really speak. Music: bensound.com Youtube clip courtesy of: Easy English on YouTube

Why is the past tense not the past tense? Why are "done," "swum" and "gone" just adjectives dressing up as verbs so they can get into a "verbs only" party? How do you hide yourself in a sentence that isn't about you? And did you know that the future doesn't exist in English, and we have no way of expressing the future? Let's take a look at the world of philosophical grammar and discover imposters, impossibilities and Schrödinger's adjective, whatever that is ... ... or isn't. Audio credit: Sweet by bensound.com

If you're anything like me, then you love cooking. Also, if you're anything like me, you have a weird fear of frogs and a passion for experimental music. But let's talk about cooking! How often do you find yourself sharing recipes with friends and talking about your latest success in the kitchen? Cooking, like many subjects, comes with its own little collection of vocabulary. In this podcast episode, you'll hear me use this vocabulary in context as I talk about the three main stages of making something yummy: preparation, cooking and serving. Once you get to the end of this, I guarantee you'll feel hungry.

Here's a question for you: Do you need grammar to understand what people are saying? Really? What about this sign I saw in a posh restaurant? "No shirt. No tie. No service." No grammar, right? But we totally understand what's going on here. Interesting, right? Well, there's more. Join me on this deep dive into how we really understand language. (Clue: it's not all about the grammar.) We'll also look at why reduced relative clauses are so weird, how language is just a collection of ideas bunched together and how you can use "theme" and "rheme" to make better presentations, essays and conversations. All stemming from an email from one of our listeners – shout-out to Hannah from Vietnam! (Music in teaser section: Sweet by bensound.com)

A mad, mad story about a live sex show, uncomfortable bars and an elephant walking down the street. In this podcast episode, I talk to Martin from Rock 'n' Roll English about that time he went to Thailand without doing ANY research about the place. Listen to Martin's story and answer the True or False questions. Then listen to us talking about the interesting vocabulary from the story. Vocabulary like: - Is he f**k! - what you had in mind, - getting strange looks, - grin and bear it, - going at it. We also talk about how the internet has changed since 2004 and how much we like swearing. WARNING: There is a lot of swearing in this episode. If you don't like swearing, I'd recommend maybe giving this one a miss. :)

I talk to Luke from Luke’s English Podcast – one of the longest-running ESL podcasts – about one of our favourite topics: comedy. We discuss our favourite British sitcoms and comedians. We also look at how you can improve your communication skills by “keeping things light” and even being weird and surreal. And you also get to hear at least three pirate jokes (and two cheese jokes, too). List of shows and comedians mentioned in this episode: Alan Partridge (also referred to as simply “Partridge”) Monty Python (also referred to as “The Pythons”) The Mighty Boosh The Young Ones The Goon Show The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band The Office Tintin Asterix Hancock’s Half Hour Gimme Gimme Gimme Keeping Up Appearances Only Fools and Horses Blackadder Fawlty Towers One Foot in the Grave The Thick of It Peep Show Phoenix Nights The Day Today Brass Eye Peter Cook and Dudley Moore Have I Got News for You Tommy Cooper Book: The Naked Jape by Jimmy Carr and Lucy Greeves

In this interview, I discuss pragmatics and pragmatic competence with Andreas Grundtvig, author of "English is Context," a new book for teachers and learners about English pragmatics. This is a big one! And we talk about a lot of amazing topics, including: - how gamers now, the gay community in the early twentieth century and London Cockneys evolved their own language ... and why; - why they rap the news in Senegal; - how learning about Grice's maxims can help you see through propaganda; - how to understand people from a particular country beyond the food, the flag and stuff like that; - how to terrorize people ... by being polite! - three things you can do right now to improve your pragmatic competence.

Here's why your English learning journey is just like the Beatles' career. Except without the millions of dollars. Sorry about that! :) In this episode, we look at how the Beatles changed during their ten-year career, how those changes are just like the changes you experience when learning English, and what you need to do to sound mature and wise in English. Mature and wise ... just like "Hey Jude."