Who is Luke?

Hi, I'm Luke and I'm an English Language teacher from London.

I've been teaching  English for over 11 years. I started in Japan and lived in Kanagawa prefecture for two years. Since then I've been teaching in London and I regularly teach courses in business English, academic English, legal English, general English and English for exam courses like FCE, IELTS and BEC.

I graduated from Liverpool John Moore's University in 1999 with a BA Hons degree in Media and Cultural Studies. I worked at various media production companies before going into English language teaching. I took my CELTA in 2001 and then my DELTA in 2006 at UCL. I now teach full time in a language school in London.

I am a prolific writer of ELT materials, and I often design courses in EAP for which I usually write the material. I have written original courses for English for the Pharmaceutical Industry, English for the Oil and Gas Industries and English for Journalists. I am a semi-published author with some of my work being used in materials publications in several countries.

I started Luke's English Podcast in 2009 and since then it has become enormously popular. I plan to continue writing material and publishing episodes of the podcast before hopefully publishing material of my own and expanding my website.

I am also a musician and a comedian. I play drums and bass in several bands, and I regularly perform stand-up comedy in London. 

I sincerely hope you enjoy listening to Luke's English Podcast and that you find it improves your English. Check my other pages to find useful advice for learning English, and for how to use the podcast as a good way to improve your English in many areas.


Thanks for visiting the site!

Luke		



EPISODE 280. UK Superstitions

Hello listeners, this episode is all about superstitions. Every country and culture seems to have particular superstitions. They can be quite a large part of the life or culture of that place. For example, if you’ve been living in a different country for a while, you’ve probably noticed that certain things are part of the common belief system, and that will no doubt involve some superstitions. Even if you don’t really believe in them, it’s quite useful to know about the main superstitions in a country, so that you can avoid doing something wrong (like opening an umbrella indoors in the UK) or you can just follow what is being talked about and understand all the reference points in conversation, and perhaps add your own comments as part of every day conversation – such as using expressions “touch wood” or “fingers crossed” – both of which are very commonly used phrases which are connected to superstitious beliefs. Now, since Luke’s English Podcast tends to focus on all things British or all things UKish – what are the top superstitions in the UK? What are those things that many people in the UK follow as every day superstitions? Well, in this episode I’m going to go through a list of 13 superstitions, unlucky for some, which are commonly held in the UK. We’ll also consider where these superstitions come from and why people still hold on to them. Join me! And in the comments section you can tell me if you share these superstitions in your countries, what the most common superstitions are where you come from, and generally what you think about superstitious beliefs.

A lot of what you are hearing is written on the page for this episode at teacherluke. If you want to do some studying, you most certainly can. You can check the script – compare what you heard with what you can see. Check out new words, add them to a vocabulary bank, repeat certain phrases after me, record yourself reading parts of the transcript and then compare them with me, or record yourself repeating the transcript, or simply record yourself speaking freely and then listen back to it for some perspective. That can be a good way of self studying with Luke’s English Podcast. Or, if you prefer, you can just sit back, brew a cup of tea or whatever, and enjoy listening to another episode of this podcast! If you fancy making a donation to reward me for my hard work and dedication – you can. There are donate buttons on the page for this episode. Also, don’t forget to take advantage of that offer from Audible – go to audibletrial/teacherluke to sign up for a 30 day trial membership. They’ll let you download one audiobook for free. If you don’t like Audible you can just cancel the membership, and keep the audiobook for free! I’ve been recommending some popular books, but they have about 180,000 titles to choose from so you can just explore the website to find out – but remember, if you’d like to get that 30 day free trial, do it by visiting audibletrial/teacherluke. Alright, let’s carry on talking about superstitions.

What’s a superstition?

It’s the belief in unnatural causality – the idea that one thing causes another thing to happen, even though there is no scientific evidence to explain it, for example the idea that crossing your fingers helps to bring good luck, or the idea that if you talk about the devil he will magically appear. These are ‘leaps of faith’ – beliefs that require you to suspend your need for evidence and just believe something that has no rational explanation, and so many of us make leaps of faith on a daily basis – some more than others, but even the most rational person can be influenced by superstitious beliefs and behaviour.

I don’t believe in superstitions because I like to believe I’m a modern, scientifically minded person. But saying that, I do find that from time to time my behaviour betrays my rational thinking. For example, I don’t like to open umbrellas in the house, walk under ladders, and I often will touch something that’s made of wood and say “touch wood” to avoid tempting fate. I can’t help it! I know that there’s no evidence that superstitions are real, but sometimes I just can’t help acting on some superstitious beliefs. Of course, I’m not the only one.

So, let’s consider the UK’s most common superstitions, and of course I would be delighted if all of the LEPsters in different countries around the world shared their superstitions too. What are the superstitions in your countries? What do you think of the superstitions I’m describing in this episode, and generally – do you believe in any superstitions? Why? Share your thoughts and practise your English too