The Level Up English Podcast
🇬🇧 I'm Michael Lavers and this podcast will help you improve your English. I'm an online English teacher for students learning as a second language. In this podcast, I look at a variety of different fun topics and teach you British English at the same time.
Each week, I cover topics related to language motivation, vocabulary and grammar, or something totally random! Once a month, we have a guest episode where I talk to a teacher or expert on topics related to language.
Episodes
352 episodes
#349 Cycling the Shimanami Kaido (Casual English Chat)
I just came back from a trip to Japan where I cycled the 80km Shimanami Kaido trail that connects two of the main islands by a group of small islands and bridges. It was a beautiful experience, and in this episode I share an overview of the tri...
•
Season 1
•
Episode 349
•
53:57
#348 Sharing My Shower Thoughts
Shower thoughts are basically deep thoughts that tend to come to us when we're in the shower, or at other times in the day free from distractions. In this episode, I go through a few funny thoughts, and a few deep and philosophical ...
•
Season 1
•
Episode 348
•
47:05
#347 The Reality of Running a Podcast for 16+ Years (Luke's English Podcast)
Ever wondered what goes on behind the scenes of a top English learning podcast? In this episode, I chat with Luke from Luke's English Podcast about the challenges and joys of content creation....
•
Season 1
•
Episode 347
•
1:01:01
#346 Learn English with Proverbs
"The more you know, the more you realise you don't know"This is an example of a well-known proverb (that is so true for language learning too, by the way) and in this episode, we'll be looking at several proverbs, quotes, maxims, and aph...
•
Season 1
•
Episode 346
•
41:58
#345 How to Make Your English Sentences Longer
Sentences that are too short and simple is an issue that all language learners face. We can say what we want, but we don't sound natural because all of our sentences sound like children.In this episode, we're going to practise ext...
•
Season 1
•
Episode 345
•
33:42
#344 How to Actually Set & Achieve Goals
It's great to have goals, but what's the point of having them if we never actually achieve them?Or maybe you do eventually get there, but wouldn't it be nice if we could get there faster and more efficiently?In this episode, I tal...
•
Season 1
•
Episode 344
•
42:52
#343 When 'Terrific' Meant 'Terrifying'
This is an episode I'm excited for because we'll be looking at a group of words that have gone through a similar history; namely, they have all had quite a drastic change in their meanings over time.Many words we use today in English suc...
•
Season 1
•
Episode 343
•
35:19
#342 Small Talk & Spirituality with Ray
Rayhan is back for his second appearance on the podcast since Episode 144, about 4 years ago, to talk about a range of topics from getting better at small talk, self-improvement, the o...
•
Season 1
•
Episode 342
•
1:00:54
#341 Are You Being Rude in English?
As you may know, politeness in English - especially in British English - is a very important thing. Learners often struggle to keep up with the confusing grammar and long sentences, so in this episode, I break down a few key phrases that you ca...
•
Season 1
•
Episode 341
•
54:25
#340 Why Is Everyone Leaving the UK?
In this episode, I mix a serious topic with some fun where I talk about my reverse culture shock returning to the UK after one year while trying to answer the question why so many people are deciding to leave the UK and move elsewhere in the wo...
•
Season 1
•
Episode 340
•
47:43
#339 How NOT To Learn a Language
Inspired by a viral video of a Chinese boy doing his English homework, I thought I'd make an episode where I list 10 common mistakes that language learners make and what you should avoid.To be clear, I'm sure that boy will master English...
•
Season 1
•
Episode 339
•
42:06
#338 Overcoming Shyness (Anna, Confident Business English)
Today we have a conversation between Anna Connelly and me on the topic of overcoming shyness. This was originally an episode we record on Anna's podcast, Confident Business English,...
•
Season 1
•
Episode 338
•
36:29
#337 11 Things I Learnt Teaching English
I've been teaching English online for almost 10 years now, and over that time I've picked up quite a lot of patterns and similarities between all my students. In this episode, I share 11 life lessons and other interesting things tha...
•
Season 1
•
Episode 337
•
31:23
#336 Moving from UK to Thailand: The Good & The Bad
Have you ever wondered what it's like to cycle through Bangkok?That's exactly what I'm doing in today's episode. I'm taking the podcast to the streets and I'm riding my bicycle across the city while avoiding stray dogs, and sharing my vi...
•
Season 1
•
Episode 336
•
31:12
#335 I Got Ghosted...
In this episode, we'll be talking about relationship slang. In the modern day of internet and social media, slang is used all the time when it comes to dating, finding a partner, and flirting.I share a handful of slang phrases that have ...
•
Season 1
•
Episode 335
•
41:39
#334 From Employee to Entrepreneur: Business English with Rob
Rob from the Business English Podcast joins me for a fun discussion about jobs, work, business, and entrepreneurship.We share some cultural experiences both in the UK and abroad, t...
•
Season 1
•
Episode 334
•
49:28
#333 How Adverts Use English to Catch Your Attention
This is a fun episode where we look at some famous advertising slogans from different companies and analyse why they work so well, but also take from interesting English lessons from each one. We'll be learning things like alteratio...
•
Season 1
•
Episode 333
•
44:22
#332 I Hate Mondays...
How do you feel about Mondays? If you're like most people, it's probably your least favourite day of the week.Many of us hate waking up and realising it's Monday, and that means we have to get up early and go to work. It's a ...
•
Season 1
•
Episode 332
•
41:09
#331 How to Make Better Decisions
In this episode, we'll be talking about making decisions and the idea of being an indecisive person. I'm sure, like me, this is something that you have also struggled with at least some point in the past, and whether we're talking about life-ch...
•
Season 1
•
Episode 331
•
57:17
#330 How to Prioritise Your Life
I feel passionate about the topic of priorities because understanding how they work can have a big and positive impact on your life. Once you decide on what your priorities in life are, every choice you make becomes so much easier. ...
•
Season 1
•
Episode 330
•
44:29
#329 Training Your English Accent with Jesús Flórez
Jesús Flórez is originally from Colombia but now resides in the USA, and despite not being a native English speaker, has built up his English to an impressive level of fluenc...
•
Season 1
•
Episode 329
•
1:09:50
#328 The Fascinating Origins of 8 English Words
This is an episode I've been planning for a long time and I'm quite excited to share. We'll be looking at the origins of 8 different English words and the deep stories behind them. Each word originally comes from another language or...
•
Season 1
•
Episode 328
•
46:07
#327 Fewer or Less? (Confusing English Quantifiers!)
In this episode, I'll be going through pairs of confusing quantifiers (and similar pairs), such as So or Such, Many or Much, Fewer or Less? Some of these are even a struggle for native speakers, so if you can master these, you'll be...
•
Season 1
•
Episode 327
•
38:48
#326 Is Your Screen Time Too High?
I recently reailsed that my own screen time is too high and may be causing a lot of health issues and other problems in my life. With that realisation, I decided to make some changes to fix this problem, and it got me thinking: How many other p...
•
Season 1
•
Episode 326
•
46:22