Campcast with Mike Brennan

Welcome to the Campfire Poetry Course. This podcast is an introduction to the course and a brief explanation of what to expect. Before we get started, I ask the questions: what's the difference between poetry and prose? how is poetry similar to music? why should we care?

#Campcast with Antoine from Resource Education. Check out his page on VK - https://vk.com/resourceeducation 

00:03:00 - Thunderstorms 00:05:59 - Comedy 00:11:33 - The never-ending nativespeakerism debate 00:24:28 - Comedy again  00:41:40 - British vs American comedy 00:54:30 - Puns 00:58:33 - Shows we like / recommend*  *Blackadder (super advanced) Peep Show That Mitchell and Webb Look A Bit of Fry and Laurie The Thick of it (super advanced) Keeping up Appearances (a little dated) Monty Python, eg: The Life of Brian, Meaning of Life

Check out all of Julia's latest content on her VK page - https://vk.com/discoverenglishteaching 

00:02:02 - All the preparation I've done for this podcast 00:04:51 - The "vocative case" (звательный падеж) in Russian 00:07:30 - Getting over lockdown 00:10:10 - The UEFA Championship 00:14:39 - Bad parenting 00:26:57 - How history is taught differently in different countries 00:38:54 - The history of the English language (briefly) 00:51:54 Linguistic doublets 01:01:40 - The Bouba-Kiki effect

SHOW LESSOn this episode of #Campcast, I speak to language teacher, coursebook writer, and city-centre bon vivant, Vladimir Pavlovich. Check him out on VK - https://vk.com/getreadyforexams 

00:02:38 - Baba Vanga 00:05:02 - Vova's move to Tyumen 00:07:30 - How to get a diploma from Hogwarts 00:14:48 - Having a creative outlet 00:15:55 - Sometimes the old ways of teaching are the best, or are they? 00:20:49 - The lexical approach 00:31:07 - Subjunctives 00:32:28 - The Queen & the Royal Family 00:44:16 - Vova and Suzie's new course book

In this episode of #Campcast, I meet with Anton the Hedgehog for one of our classic bilingual conversations.  

0:04:03 - Endonyms / exonyms

0:19:07 - Buying second hand cars in the UK and Russia 

0:44:00 - Japanese anime 

0:48:40 - Truth and lie

In this, the first episode of season 3 of #Campcast, I speak with Sergey, who I have worked with and lost the game with for several years now. Sergey has just started a new page Firehose of English (https://vk.com/firehose). So, if you want to be blasted with English right in the face, that's the place for you!  

00:04:24 - Communicating over Zoom 00:05:22 - The Game 00:09:21 - Who is Sergey? 00:14:00 - CELTA 00:19:53 - Communication in podcasts is more natural 00:22:24 - Firehose of English 00:29:15 - Eggcorns 00:32:50 - Running a page as a hobby / as your main job 00:34:36 - Learning German vs learning English 00:46:47 - Skills you learn growing up in Russia / Britain 00:51:16 - Working as a Cambridge speaking examiner  

By will of the workers / listeners: Campcast will be released once every two weeks form now on.

In this episode of #Campcast, I speak with Maria Likhomanova, who runs the page Mary_pro_writing on VK. Check her out here - https://vk.com/mary_pro_writing 

Interested in joining the Campfire speaking club? Use promocode "CAMPCAST21" when you enquire and get a free lesson when you buy your first packet. https://vk.com/public195014952 

02:10 - Good idea for an April Fool's Day prank for teachers 04:16 - Spring is here! 08:43 - Who is Maria?  12:00 - Writing for writing's sake 17:08 - Is fiction completely separate form reality?  25:00 - Reading in English for pleasure / reading to get new vocabulary 28:51 - Weddings and funerals 33:19 - A hurtful comment from a former colleague  36:10 - The role of religion in helping us deal with death  39:04 - Yin Yang: order and chaos 45:00 - Getting close with your students 52:41 - Visiting Moscow during Putin's inauguration

On this episode of Campcast, I am joined by Hugh Dellar. You can find out more about Hugh's publications and online courses on -https://www.lexicallab.com/​

Visit the Campfire page on VK - https://vk.com/public195014952​ 

Interested in joining the Campfire speaking club? Use promocode "CAMPCAST21" to get a free lesson when you buy your first packet.  

09:10​ - Hugh's travels around Russia 10:31​ - Who is Hugh Dellar? 17:40​ - Planning your life 20:31​ - The lexical approach 40:06​ - Is prescriptivism dead? 48:28​ - Students who always ask "why?" 52:00​ - The intermediate plateau 55:18​ - Accent and grammar prejudice  59:24​ - Hugh's thoughts on accent prejudice in general and the Russian ESL community 1:04:28​ - Mike's slight disagreement  1:12:45​ - Regional accents

On this episode of #Campcast​, I speak with well known ESL professional, Paul Newson. You can check out all of Paul's content, upcoming courses and conferences on his school's VK page - https://vk.com/newsonsplace​ 

Visit the Campfire VK page here - https://vk.com/public195014952

Interested in joining the Campfire speaking club? Use promocode "CAMPCAST21" to get a free lesson when you buy your first packet.   

02:12​ - Paul tells us about his life. I eat a banana.  0-6:31​ - Staff wellbeing and Paul's thoughts on the English education system 12:29​ - Why are more teachers going freelance?  21:00​ - Emotional intelligence  24:01​ - Parental pressure  26:04​ - The pros and cons of the Soviet education system  32:23​ - Curriculum management 38:39​ - Certificates vs real experience  40:11​ - Why Paul got banned from YouTube, political correctness, etc 52:32​ - Russian, European and American understandings of "conservatism" 01:02:38​ - Brexit

In this episode of #Campcast, I speak to the creator of the VK page Skills for Exams (https://vk.com/skills4exams), Susanna Safarova.   

Visit the Campfire page on VK - https://vk.com/public195014952 

Want to join the Campfire speaking club? Use promocode "CAMPCAST21" to get a free lesson when you buy your first packet.   

02:05 - Questions students shouldn't ask in the classroom 11:22 - Universities are back open! 11:35 - Rogozin's social media 13:59 - Fake video from Mars 18:00 - Freedom of speech and the spread of fake news on social media 31:46 - Parsnips conference  35:13 - Recent protests 44:13 - Aleksey Navalniy  48:51 - Limitation creates meaning