Today's phrase is “to have no qualms” and if you have no qualms about doing something, it means you're not worried that it may be wrong in some way. You have no hesitations, apprehensions, uneasiness or moral difficulty with the action. For example. if you recommend a certain way of doing something you can say, I have no qualms with this. It means I don't have any problems with it. I don't have any issues with that. Now, we only ever use this in the negative. Okay, you can’t say I have qualms with something. Maybe in Old English, that was the case, but we don't use that now. Let's look at some examples. So, the doctor is low on resources and he has to decide which patients he's going to treat. Is it going to be the one with cancer first? Or maybe the one with the flu. And the doctor might say, I have no qualms about my decision. And in the past tense he can say I had no qualms. Likewise a business owner, who's going to fire his employees during a tough economic time. He might say I have no qualms about downsizing the company. In the past, I had no qualms or maybe even I will have no qualms in the future. Um, imagine that there's a breakup between two of your friends. Uh, maybe a relationship coming to an end. You might hear one of them saying I have no qualms about this. No qualms about this coming to an end. Uh, another example, Someone who jumps out of aeroplanes and hopes his parachute will open in mid air, he might say, I have no qualms about risking my life. And also, with speaking your mind, Uh, if you're quite a direct person you can say I have no qualms about telling people how feel.

To Be fed up means to be a bit bored or depressed. today I talk about a student called Roberto who was "fed up learning". Here are some questions to think about after hearing the podcast: Intention - Monday In what way is Roberto’s Intention hindering him in learning? What kinds of Intentions would be more encouraging for Roberto? How could the power of imagination help Roberto in this case? Language - Tuesday Why was Roberto so apprehensive to talk in English? Who do you think Roberto sought out a Spanish speaking English Teacher? Why did the Teacher (me) choose not to speak in Spanish? Attitude - Wednesday Roberto booked a lesson but talked in Spanish, knowing he had no time to learn – why did he do that? How did Roberto’s background of managing others, affect his attitude to learning  and his attitude towards the teacher? He said that he simply “couldn’t retain anything”. Why do you think Roberto had this problem? Success - Thursday Roberto is clearly a very successful man, why has he not been successful in learning English? Roberto clearly understood everything I was saying – what does this tell us about Roberto and his English. How does Roberto’s idea of success hinder him in seeing how good his English is? Your Learning - Friday Can you relate to Roberto’s situation?  What advice would you give him? Why do you think the teacher said “Being here is a good start but unless you can free up time and are prepared to speak in English  there is nothing I can do”. I spoke in English during the lesson – How would that have helped Roberto? Exercises - Saturday Write out your intentions about learning English and why you chose to learn? What has helped or hindered you the most? Where is your English going? When was the last time you learnt some new words? Exercises - Sunday In what ways could we describe Roberto’s experience as painful both for him and the teacher. How do you stay on track?

Are you worrying about your accent when speaking? This recording will be useful for IELTS speaking exam takers as well as for people who prepare for a job interview. When it comes to your communication in English - does an accent play an important role? How much? How can you avoid having your mother tongue language influence it? Above all, what can you do with the thought itself - "what if others don't understand my accent', "what if I will make others confused". For most people - they continue to run these kinds of thoughts through their minds not doing anything about it and the idea is to train your mind to replace them. Listen to the podcast, it's only 5 minutes to A) train your listening B) get some ideas to succeed in an IELTS speaking exam or a job interview. Let me know how I can assist you in your spoken English development journey. It's been a passion of mine that enabled me to help people from 60 countries and teach over 15 thousand students 1-1. I'd love to have the opportunity to support You too. Look at my schedule and lets succeed together.

Today. I want to explore with you the difference between face-to-face classroom lessons and e-learning lessons on the internet. I've done both and there's a very real difference. And if you're someone who hasn't had an online lesson before or you're just not sure how they work, we're going to be looking at that today.

Would you like someone else to pay for that? Maybe you'll find today's VOCABULARY BUILDER podcast interesting. Let me know what you think!

In today's podcast, I talk about a story in one of our newspapers today and it's saying that pints of wine will be on sale from this coming Autumn.

Practica tu listening con este bonito cuento... ¡Prepárate para expandir tu mente y descubrir un nuevo mundo a través de tus auriculares! Practice your listening with this beautiful story... Get ready to expand your mind and discover a new world through your headphones!

In this podcast I am in the supermarket, I am buying some food.

Are you keeping going back and forth in your IELTS speaking? Have you found yourself saying the same thing over and over again when you answer various part 1, 2, or 3 questions of the IELTS?? Students are too eager to try to be perfect, and with this perfectionism, they get stuck on being dissatisfied with what they are saying (almost always!). Have you had that? In this podcast, I go over one element that can make a huge difference in your performance if corrected.  You may feel enlightened just by noticing it and becoming aware of it, and once corrected, the rewards might surprise you. Jump into the recording, improve yourself there, and check my availability if you are preparing for any kind of interview or English-speaking engagement ahead of you. I've helped thousands of people succeed in the spoken English arena; I can do the same for you.

Today's phrase is to be rigged. Now when something is rigged, it is believed that it's operated using some kind of dishonest behaviour to promote a desired outcome. Now, let me just give you some examples to show you what I mean: So, if we say, for example,  The job vacancy has been advertised in the newspaper but I believe it's been rigged. We all know who's going to win.  The football match was definitely rigged. I don't think the football players were playing in their usual way today.  The competition to win a holiday in the local newspaper has been won by an employee of that newspaper. That was definitely rigged.