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?

🔗 Barbara's email newsletter "News with a foreign accent" 👉 https://barbaraserra.substack.com/

🔗 Barbara's website with course info 👉 https://www.barbaraserra.info/

📺 Luke talks to Alastair Budge about Paris 👉 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jveYc5vFh7A&ab_channel=LeonardoEnglish on @LeonardoEnglishCom

🎧 Luke on Elena’s mtunonon's podcast "Online Bound" 👉 https://www.elenamutonono.com/2024/04/25/1-mln-subscribers/

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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.

👉 Episode page https://teacherluke.co.uk/2024/04/29/880-is-paris-ready-for-the-olympic-games-2024-article-vocabulary/

👉 Article https://theweek.com/sports/olympics-2024-is-paris-ready-to-party

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Top tips for spontaneous speaking 🏆 with communication expert Matt Abrahams, a professor at the Stamford Graduate School of Business, California. Matt is a leading expert in his field and his new book "Think Faster, Talk Smarter: How to Speak Successfully When You're Put on the Spot" gives you clear, academically-researched advice on how to deal with anxiety, focus on making connections, improve your mindset, learn to listen, and find really useful structures to help you become a more spontaneous and successful speaker.

Episode page 👉 https://teacherluke.co.uk/2024/04/22/879-think-fast-talk-smart-communication-techniques-for-spontaneous-speaking-with-matt-abrahams/

Matt's website (book, podcast & more) 👉 https://mattabrahams.com/

Matt's presentation about communication techniques (34 million views) 👉 https://youtu.be/HAnw168huqA?si=jyE7BpzaIt4el_dl

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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.

👉 Elena's website https://www.elenamutonono.com/

👉 Elena's Instagram https://www.instagram.com/elenamutonono/

👉 Elena's podcast https://www.elenamutonono.com/podcast/

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👉 Join Luke's Zoom Workshop on 18 April 2024 (10AM UK time) https://english-at-home.com/summit/

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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.

👉 Sign up for the Advanced English Summit here https://english-at-home.com/summit/

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👉 Episode page on teacherluke.co.uk https://teacherluke.co.uk/2024/04/11/877-how-to-learn-vocabuary-a-conversation-with-clare-whitmell/

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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 🎂 , the MBTI Personality Test 🙇 and the Walk & Talk in Paris 📹🚶.

🔗 Episode page 👉 https://teacherluke.co.uk/2024/04/08/876-thoughts-comments-on-recent-episodes-a-spring-equinox-ramble-2024/

📄 Get the PDF (no email needed) 👉 https://teacherluke.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/876.-Thoughts-comments-on-recent-episodes-_-A-Spring-Equinox-Ramble.pdf

📺 The Advanced English Summit - book your place for Luke's Zoom talk (free) 👉 https://english-at-home.com/summit/

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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.

📄 Get the PDF here 👉 https://teacherluke.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/875.-Aepyornis-Island-by-HG-Wells-Learn-English-with-a-Short-Story-Lukes-English-Podcast.pdf

🔗 Episode page 👉 https://teacherluke.co.uk/2024/04/01/875-aepyornis-island-by-hg-wells-learn-english-with-a-short-story/

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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/

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