Does this mean goodbye?

Emily and I had a lot of fun teaching English, teaching radio, and yakking on the podcast. But I'm leaving Seattle now. We hope to keep Radiolingual alive as a multi-city project with a little more focus.

Here's a journey through some of our students' progress. At the end, some unaired content from the Speakers' Bureau about what it feels like, emotionally, to learn English.


It's sad, but celebratory. Listen in.

Music from Jason Bianco at magnatune.com

Fish are flying!

It's what we've all been waiting for: a personal tour with star reporter Ai Ikeda! In this audio postcard, Ai shows us the vibrant sounds of Pike Place Market. She made two versions, one in Japanese and one in English. She started with the Japanese, so she could get all of her ideas out first. Then, with the Japanese version as a guide, she recorded the English version--and it's obvious in both languages that she's a natural!

Here's the English version.


And here's the Japanese postcard.



If you speak both languages, listen in, and tell us what you think of the pair!



Pike place fish photo from Jhuffmanphotography's flickr photostream.

Liza's Loss

Liza Enriquez achieved her childhood dream of becoming a nurse. She also lost her house in the economic crisis.

But this story wasn't coming out clearly. So I kept asking her to say it again, in different ways.

Eventually we got it just right. But then, more than words came out.


Listen to Liza share her story, and the way we worked together to make it come from the heart.


Liza will be reading her story in libraries and schools around Seattle as part of the Speakers Bureau, a public speaking class for ELL students. Special thanks to Rachel Leadon.

picture from respres' photostream, music from trip wamsley at magnatune.com

An apple a day...

Last week, our Radiolingual students ventured out to different Seattle locations and recorded sounds for audio postcards. They'll be making two versions of the postcard--one in English (for you, our listeners!) and the other in Japanese for their friends and family back home.

We listened to Ai's tape from Pike Place Market, and she captured some great sounds that evoke that busy market feel. But while we were listening and imagining ourselves in the market, Hammad and I got into an intense discussion about confidence and negotiating prices in another language. If you'd like to listen in, click here.




Yummy-looking candy apples from cursedthing's flickr photostream.