In this episode of Walking With Pete I ask you guys for your advice on what area to focus on if I start making courses to sell on Aussie English. They’d be freely released on the podcast first, and then bundled into a course package to sell once they disappeared off the podcast episode list. Let me know what you think on Facebook!

Walking With Pete: I need your advice!

G’day guys. Welcome to this episode of Walking With Pete. I hope it’s not too windy ‘cause it’s a little bit of a windy day, but it’s absolutely beautiful. It’s a Sunday afternoon. We’ve just passed lunchtime. [I’m] heading to the shops to go get some food ‘cause I’m starving, and I thought I would make a quick Walking With Pete episode.

So, what did I want to talk to you guys about today? Um… Oh I’ll give you a bit of an idea of what I’ve been up to, I guess, so I had work last night. I got home at about 12, so midnight, [I] went to bed, and then got up this morning at about 10:30. So, I had a bit of a sleep in, and then… ah… this morning my housemate and I were wanting to get rid of a whole lot of um… plant material, sort of dried leaves, dried branches, that have built up in the back yard after probably a year or two from this plant that we’ve got. We’ve got this Birds of Paradise plant that ah… has really fibrous ah… leaves and things that fall of it all the time, and it’s become a bit of a fire hazard, and obviously living in Australia bushfires are a bit of a problem, although not necessarily much of a problem here in Melbourne, but because of the temperature that can arrive in summer they can happen. We can have, you know, stints or runs of a few days of 40C or more. We have to quite often get rid of a lot of this material and either burn it off earlier on in the year. So, in spring after winter before it gets to hot. Or you have to have some… get rid of it some other way.

So, anyway, my housemate made a small brick enclosed space that we could put all this stuff in and burn it this morning, and geez it made a lot of smoke and it stank, but we got rid of most of it. Although, I think that we freaked out the neighbours. One of the neighbours was a bit worried I think. She came running out the back and looked over the fence thinking that something was on fire. So, that’s the phrase “To freak out”. “To freak out” means to worry or to scare someone.

Also, I guess, recently with the podcast I’ve been thinking about doing, you know, finding a way of making money from it without necessarily forcing anyone to have to pay for it obviously, because I want to be able to create free resources for you guys to use to improve your English that are fun, that are easy to use. And so, the main thoughts that I’m having at the moment, at least, are to create courses where you have like 50 episodes or so in a course with transcripts and I cover a certain area of English that I can make 50 or so episodes like the episodes I kind of do at the moment. For instance, the Pronunciation episodes. And I would make them… release them for free on the podcast first so that you guys all have a chance to use and listen to these things for free as they come out, but then as they slowly go down the podcast list of episodes, and then eventually disappear at the bottom, once they’ve all done that that is when I would package them into a product that I could then sell through Aussie English. So, that obviously people in the future can use these, but also to, yeah, reward you guys for listening at the moment and give you an opportunity to listen to them all for free, and then when they’re no longer on the available episode list bundle them into a package and sell them to people who haven’t obviously found the podcast when you guys have, and give them a chance to also use these episodes. So, that’s my thinking at the moment. How much and how many episodes and all of that I’ll deal with in the future. I haven’t thought that out too much at the moment, but the basic idea at the moment is to keep doing the Pronunciation episodes and hopefully… I might have to dive into the more basic areas like contracting verbs like “To be” and “To have” and all of that which… you guys… wop! [A] dog just scared the crap out of me. [It] jumped at the fence. Yeah, you guys already know I’m sure but, you know, you have to cover the basics just in case.

So, I’m thinking at the moment that I might finish doing as much of the pronunciation stuff as possible. And yeah, I hope you guys are enjoying that. Let me know what you think. But then after I finish the pronunciation sort of area or theme of English that is what I wanted to ask you about next. What would you guys like me to cover? So, there’s a few options obviously. I have a few ideas in my head like going over phrasal verbs. So, “to go out”, “to look down” whatever, those sorts of phrasal verbs that I know you guys have a lot of trouble with in English at times, or at least, certain people tell me that phrasal verbs are a real difficulty or a real nightmare in English. So, there were phrasal verbs. I could do a series on the fifty most, or the hundred most common phrasal verbs where I would tackle or cover a single verb at a time, in an episode, and give you…, you know, talk about how and when I would use the verb and then give you examples and sentences, listen and repeat or substitution exercises, for each verb. So, that would take a while. So, there’s that, phrasal verbs. And then there’s also the opportunity to do areas like using the verb “To get”, ‘cause I know the verb “To get” is a real nightmare in English as well because it has so many different uses. So, that was another option where I could do a whole series on how to use the verb “To get”. And then obviously Like A Native, the Like A Native series where they’re not necessarily complicated expressions or idioms that I would be covering in Like A Native, but they’re the small phrases that natives use all the time that you may not necessarily be taught in a class. And so, I keep thinking of so many of these. I have a list of probably about 50 different episodes that I have to write for Like A Native episodes at the moment, where every time I come up [with], or hear, or think of some of these phrases in my head I write them down, and I’m sure that they would be really helpful, ‘cause these are the kinds of things that I would really like to be learning if I was learning a foreign language.

So, those are some options. I probably haven’t thought of everything obviously that you guys could or might need help with. So, have a listen to this episode. Let me know what you think is important and what you would like to receive as episodes or as courses potentially for improving your Aussie English or English in general, because my aim here is to kind of give you resources that really boost you from the intermediate level to advanced level in English. So, obviously it’s not for beginners. It’s for people who already have a pretty solid base in English and can speak pretty well, and understand spoken English as I’m speaking it. And yeah, if you have any ideas or any suggestions for the kinds of things that I could give you guys or make for you guys in order to turn into courses that I could sell eventually, obviously to support Aussie English and allow me to keep doing what I’m doing, then let me know in this episode[‘s comments].

So, that’s probably enough or today guys. [I’m] standing outside the IGA which is a supermarket store here in Melbourne and I’m going to go get some food ‘cause I am starving! Chat to you soon. See you!