Everythng you need to learn English in under 10 minutes

I have been an English language teacher for over 25 years, teaching in Taiwan, Poland, the UK, and Brazil. I am from the UK, but I have been living in Brazil for the last 15 years.

My podcast aims to give English language learners the tools they need to achieve their goals. There are three main topics on the podcast. I have listeners from all over the world. My two biggest markets are India and Brazil.

1. Learning Strategies - what good learners do to learn English as effectively as possible.
2. Word Stories - stories about the origin of words and how they are used today.
3. Reasons for English - stories and explanations for some of the quirks in the English language.

All of the episodes are around 10 minutes so that students can give their undivided attention to the podcast. Having an episode of this length means students can also listen more than once. There is also a transcript for each episode.
 

I had been a fan of podcasts for ages and always wanted to start my own. My wife got sick of me going on about it and bought me a microphone for Christmas. And the rest is history.

My initial goal was just to et my name out there and see what happened. I started in June 2020, and so far I have achieved everything I wanted and more.

Once I decided what I wanted to do, it took me about a week to record and edit my first show.
 

I release an episode once a week. I try to upload it on Sunday mornings and promote it on Monday mornings.

I have lots of ideas for future episodes, so I know most of what I want to say. It takes me about 40 minutes to write the script, produce visuals, find any links, etc, that I want to include.

I pay for hosting on Buzzsprout and a WordPress site. I have recently realised that the Wordpress site isn't doing what I want it to do, but this is going to take me some time to figure out.
 

I have gained more recognition from students around the world. I have also managed to increase the hours that I teach online, and I now charge more for my classes.

I have never had any sponsorship, and I don't really see this as being something that I am interested in. I do regular shout-outs for other podcasts in the same field.

I am hoping to launch online courses in the near future and I hope my podcast will tie in with that.
 

I have a USB microphone that I plug into my computer. I record directly into my laptop, using Audacity. I then edit in Audacity. At the start, editing took a long time, but nowadays, for a 10-minute episode, I can usually edit it in 15 minutes.

I prepare a script for every episode, which cuts down on editing. I also use the script as a transcript for listeners to read.
 

I post on Facebook (personal, business, and group pages) and Instagram. I have tried Linked In and Twitter, but they don't seem to work for me.

Historically, about 30% of my listeners have come through my site. Over recent months, Spotify has been my largest source. Apple Podcasts does not seem to be a big deal for my listeners. I think this is because most of them live outside the USA and an Apple phone is just way too expensive for a lot of people.
 

I am shocked at how easy the whole thing is. A little bit of research into how to use Audacity and what podcasting host is all it took really. I wish I had known how easy it was years ago!
 

You can find my site at https://englishwithstephen.com/
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/englishwithstephen/
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/EnglishwStephen