YEP Competition Results, news and some rambling about mosquitoes and TV documentaries about ghosts. Right-click here to download.
Welcome back to Luke’s English Podcast. Over the course of this episode you are going to find out the results of the YEP Competition which I launched this summer.
In case you’ve forgotten the details, or you’ve been living under a rock for the last two months, here is a re-cap of has happened so far in the competition. I launched it in August as a way to celebrate the 5th birthday and 200 episodes of LEP. I thought – it’s time for another competition! So I did a bit of planning and scheming, and came up with the idea of “Your English Podcast”, which I launched in episode 200. I invited listeners to send me up to 5 minutes of audio, as if they were recording a portion of their own English podcast. I had no idea how many people would enter but in the end I got about 80 recordings. Then I realised, “oh my goodness, that’s about 8 hours of podcast time! What am I going to do?” In the end I just broadcast them all, in a mini-series entitled Your English Podcast. If you’ve managed to listen to them all you’ll have heard people from around the world telling us about themselves. There was a range of different voices from different parts of the globe and personally I found it quite inspiring and even touching to listen to. Admittedly it was quite a long series and you may have struggled to keep up with it all. In fact, you might have just skipped them entirely – that’s your choice, it’s a free country (depending on which country you’re in) but when it comes to LEP you’re free to do whatever you want and that includes skipping over the YEP episodes if you choose to, although I hope that you didn’t do that because I think there’s plenty of value in hearing non-native speakers speaking English from time to time, and anyway, it was an international celebration! After uploading all the competition entries my website exploded with comments & votes, which suggests that the competition was a bit of a hit with most people. Voting ended at the end of last month, leaving me with a bit of counting to do. I’ve done that, and now it’s time to publish the results, and that’s what you’re going to get in this episode.
– Winners of each group
– The numbers of votes cast
– The overall winner of the whole competition
– What’s going to happen next?
– Some general news
The first thing I’d like to say is that everyone’s a winner.
I know this is a competition, and therefore there have to be winners and losers, but for me it’s like cricket – it’s not the winning, it’s the taking part, and I think everyone took part magnificently.
Well done for plucking up the courage to enter in the first place.
I’m really impressed by everyone and it’s actually really touching to hear from you all. It brings home to me the fact there are loads of actual human beings listening to my words, and engaging with my episodes.
I’m also really impressed by the number of votes cast. 666 votes in total! (This means absolutely nothing) That’s an average of about 85 votes per episode.
Here are the results for each group (in ascending order):
9th place: Arturo from Mexico & Ashish from India – 0 votes – Chin up guys ;)
7th place: Artur from Kazakstan & Alexis from Canary Islands – 1 vote
6th place: Adam from Poland – 4 votes
5th place: Bella from Russia – 5 votes
4th place: Bruno from Brazil – 10 votes
3rd place: Alexander from Russia – 21 votes
2nd place: Anna from Ukraine – 24 votes
1ST PLACE: ARITZ FROM SPAIN – 26 VOTES – Congratulations Aritz!
9th place: Dega from Mexico & Eliza from Finland – 0 votes – No worries Dega, and Eliza wasn’t taking part anyway so no hard feelings ;)
7th place: Dmitry from Russia & Charley from Sri Lanka – 1 vote
6th place: Daniel from Poland – 2 votes
5th place: Chriss from Mexico – 3 votes
3rd place: Daniele from Italy & Dharmendra from India – 5 votes
2nd place: Edgar from Brazil – 6 votes
1ST PLACE: EDGAR FROM MEXICO – 100 votes – It’s a landslide victory!
8th place: Enrique from Spain, Gerald from France/Belgium & Gudu from Ethiopia – 0 votes – commiserations guys!
6th place: Evgeny from Russia & Gabriella from Italy – 1 vote each
5th place: Gabriela from Brazil – 5 votes
4th place: Eugenia from Romania – 7 votes
3rd place: Gabor from Hungary – 9 votes
2nd place: Guillaume from Switzerland – 10 votes
1ST PLACE: GIOVANNI FROM ITALY – 33 votes – congratulations!
10th place: Irul from Indonesia – 0 votes – You’re still awesome Irul!
8th place: Harvey from Colombia & Hydy from India – 1 vote each
6th place: Hien from Vietnam & Irina from Russia – 3 votes each
4th place: Hiroshi from Japan & Ivan from Russia – 4 votes each
3rd place: Ivan from Indonesia – 20 votes
2nd place: Hamid from Pakistan – 26 votes
1ST PLACE: JAVIER FROM SPAIN – 35 votes – Well done!
10th place: Jiang from China – 0 votes – sorry mate!
9th place: June from Korea – 2 votes
7th place: Jose from Chile & Krissy from Germany – 3 votes
6th place: Luciana from Brazil – 4 votes
5th place: Klenisson from Brazil – 5 votes
4th place: Konstantin from Russia – 7 votes
3rd place: Lulu from Taiwan – 8 votes
2nd place: Ksenia from Russia – 11 votes
1ST PLACE: KEVSER FROM TURKEY – 32 votes – well done, you smashed it!
9th place: Olga from Russia & Pavel from Russia – 0 votes – don’t let it bring you down!
8th place: Morela from Italy – 1 vote
6th place: Mario from Italy & Nacho from Spain – 3 votes
5th place: Magda from Poland – 4 votes
4th place: Pedro from Peru – 8 votes
3rd place: Nikolai from Russia – 13 votes
2nd place: Oleksander from Ukraine/Denmark – 21 votes
1ST PLACE: MAX FROM ITALY – 38 – give yourself a pat on the back!
9th place: Poom from Thailand & Shaimaa from Egypt – 0 votes – better luck next time guys!
8th place: Terry from Hong Kong – 1 vote
6th place: Tomas from Germany & Renata from Russia – 2 votes each [Renata from Russia – I’m so sorry for not mentioning your name in this episode! Please forgive me!]
5th place: Renato from Brazil – 4 votes
4th place: Ventakesh from India – 5 votes
3rd place: Sergey from Russia – 7 votes
2nd place: Sasha from Russia – 26 votes
1ST PLACE: PHIL FROM ITALY – 42 votes – it’s a runaway victory!
5th place: Yuri from Brazil – 3 votes
4th place: Wilkson from Brazil – 4 votes
3rd place: Yaron from Israel – 6 votes
2nd place: Yayang from Indonesia – 12 votes
1ST PLACE: YANNICK FROM SWITZERLAND – 13 votes – Congrat-YOU-lations!
Let’s not forget: Zdenek from Czech Rep. (not competing) and Alex from Russia – 2 votes (but he was too late I’m afraid)
8th place: Yannick from Switzerland – 13 votes
7th place: Aritz from Spain – 26 votes
6th place: Kevser from Turkey – 32 votes
5th place: Giovanni from Italy – 33 votes
4th place: Javier from Spain – 35 votes
3rd place: Max from Italy – 38 votes
2nd place: Phil from Italy – 42 votes
1ST PLACE: EDGAR FROM MEXICO – 100 votes
What’s the Next Step?
I’ll speak to each runner-up for up to 10 minutes.
The winner gets up to 30 minutes.
Winners – I’ll contact you by email to arrange a time for a conversation.
Eventually, when I’ve recorded all the conversations I’ll publish them in a couple of episodes.
So – winners, check your inboxes and start thinking about things you might like to say to the people of the world.
Listeners – feel free to write questions in comments. I’ll be glad to ask your questions to our winners.
Remember – it’s not really about winning or losing. Everyone’s a winner in my book!
My Dad listened to the competition episodes and he was quite moved by it! I’m quite proud because he sent me this email.
A Message from my Dad:
I have just spent the past hour listening to your latest episode of YEP, featuring contributions from listeners from Brazil, Switzerland, Russia, Indonesia etc. It is truly INCREDIBLE that you have created this international community. Yes it’s a fan club, but it is much more than that. The listeners clearly use it as an English learning resource, and the idea of entertaining while educating works well. But it is also an international society, where peace and understanding is a theme.
I think your podcasts – 5 years on – are really terrific, and I hope that your two jobs and everything else will not prevent you from keeping the service going. Well done you!!
That’s nice, isn’t it. It’s always quite satisfying to get some validation from your old man. (By the way – in case you were wondering, it’s quite normal for a son to call his father his “old man” and it’s not an insult – in fact, it’s quite a familiar and informal way to refer to your Dad)
There might be a little bit of controversy following the release of these results. There normally is a bit of disagreement related to this kind of thing, and it’s to be expected. Here are some of the things I expect might arise:
– Someone might demand a recount. If you believe I’ve miscounted the votes, then feel free to count all the votes again if you’ve got the time! Then you can leave a message with an appeal for a recount. It may be possible that I’ve miscounted by one vote here or there, so I don’t think it will make a huge difference to the final results.
If you would like to appeal and demand a re-count, go ahead!
I will take any controversy with a pinch of salt.
In Other News
The academic year has started again and I have rather a busy schedule. In fact, I should be planning my classes now, not doing this. I’ve got kids classes and everything. I’m a bit stressed about this. I shouldn’t be, but I just keep remembering my stressful experiences teaching children in Japan, but that was over 10 years ago at the beginning of my career. Anyway, one thing’s for sure, I’m going to be even busier this year.
This may affect the frequency with which I can upload episodes, which is a bit frustrating. Of course, I have loads of ideas up my sleeve and I do not plan to stop. If I go a bit quiet – you’ll know why. I’m just dealing with a workload. Oh yes, and I’ve got a wedding to prepare in July as well!
I got bitten by a mosquito two nights running. That was annoying. What happens to mosquitoes in the winter? Click here for the answer to that question: Mosquitoes in the Cold. (Thank you to LEPPER Fafi Gutierrez)
Audioboo has become Audioboom. As far as I can see it’s just an image makeover, with a new logo, but the actual service is pretty much the same with a few small improvements. They have a new app on the App Store. At the moment it’s just for iPhone. It’s a much better app than before, but I haven’t used it much. Anyway, I’ll now be calling it Audioboom not Audioboo.
There’s an issue with my RSS feed. They have a limit of 200 items. I have more than that. So, on iTunes some of the early episodes do not show up, which is annoying. If you’re new to the podcast – go to teacherluke.co.uk to find a full archive of all the older episodes.
The podcast has been listened to over 2,000,000 times since I moved to Audioboom about 10 months ago.
That seems incredible – but let’s consider that number at bit more carefully.
I have over 200 episodes on Audioboom, so on average that’s about 10,000 listens per episode. It’s not that many listens compared to some teachers on YouTube. Perhaps I should be on YouTube, because there’s a much bigger audience there. But, this is an audio podcast, not a video one. I’ve said before that I prefer audio, at the moment. Audio is more flexible – you can listen to it anywhere, even while you’re doing something else. It’s quite intimate and I feel like it’s good for the brain because it allows you to picture in your mind’s eye what I’m explaining, without being captivated by visual stimulus. Also, I love radio and I feel there’s a certain romance and intimacy in radio. Also, it is much easier and less time-consuming for me to make audio podcasts. So, with a busy schedule – audio is the best way. For now, those YouTube teachers will get more views than me, but here I am, rocking the airwaves, doing my thing on the podcast, with my awesome clan of listeners. And, 2m listens in a year is really rather a big deal. As I’ve said before though, I feel like this is just the beginning of what I can achieve. I intend to do more with this thing I’ve got going on here.
Going back to that 2m listens statistic – the other thing that I don’t know is how many of those are people who are fully engaged from the start to the end of each episode. I expect there are a lot of people who are subscribed to me on iTunes, and their computer downloads the episodes automatically, but they’re not actually listening. Those will still count as ‘listens’ in my stats. Also, some of those numbers will be people who listen a little bit before deciding that they don’t want to listen any more. So, I don’t know how many are complete listens and incomplete listens.
Well, those of you who listen to every episode from start to finish – you know who you are. You’re the LEPPERS, and you’re an awesome gang of ninjas, who abide by the code of LEP. I don’t know what that code is to be honest, because I’ve never written it down. I think it’s an unspoken code of secret principles based on a love of ice-cream, English, stand-up comedy and dub reggae. Something like that.
You can’t please all the people all the time, so sometimes the only person I can please is myself. As long as I’m happy doing this then I’ll have a sense that my audience can be happy with it too.
Thank you for taking part in this competition. It’s been amazing. Thank you for your entries, for all your votes, and for your support. Thank you in particular if you have recently donated to the podcast. You are personally keeping this podcast going. Without donations I can’t justify doing it. 5 years of my life have gone into this. It would be awful if I realise one day that the whole thing has been a waste of my time and I’ve neglected my career or other aspects of my life because I’ve thrown so much energy into LEP. Do help to prevent that from happening by offering a donation to pay me back for my hard work. As a business model, that’s the best I can do right now. If you don’t want to do that, or can’t – no worries! There’s no obligation, but do consider where all this stuff is coming from – a lot of the time that’s the bottom of my heart.
Ok, that’s enough of that!
BE EXCELLENT TO ONE ANOTHER AND PARTY ON!!!