The latest celebrity English teachers on English, baby! are none other than Layzie Bone and Flesh-n-Bone of Bone Thugs-n-Harmony. When I saw the group was fully reunited and coming to Portland, I thought, “How cool would it be to get them to teach a lesson about being at a crossroads?” Thanks to our friend Cool Nutz who introduced us, that dream became a reality.
Unlike most of our English lesson interviews with famous musicians, which take place before the show, this interview occurred at about 1am, after a Bone Thugs concert. It was fun. The guys were loose and happy to chat. They liked the concept of English, baby! and didn’t want to stop at one lesson, so here is some bonus footage in which they teach some very high-level slang. This was an English lesson for me as well!
It is so cool that these guys spoke so slowly. They seemed really aware of the fact that they were helping people in other countries learn English with this interview. They were such nice people–and to think, the crossroads in the both of their lives involved going to prison! I hope Bone Thugs has lots of success with their new album.
To give someone a buzz means to call them on the phone. We know a lot of the students who use English, baby! to learn English would love to practice speaking English on the phone with an American. So we decided to start something we like to call the Ebaby! Buzz in which one of the actors from our Ebaby! cast, calls you on the phone!
For the first Buzz, we asked our Facebook fans to change their profile photo to the English, baby! logo. Jaider from Colombia was the first to do it, so I gave him a call! Listen in:
My favorite part was Jaider’s mom shouting for him to come to the phone. He explained that he was in the shower because he didn’t think I was really going to call. But Ebaby! Buzz is for real! Watch English, baby! and our Facebook and Twitter to find out how you can win one of the cast members giving you a buzz!
A major Lithuanian newspaper, lrytas.lt, recently created a news story out of our English lesson with Lithuanian NBA star, Žydrūnas Ilgauskas. In the Google translation, you can see how the author pulled quotes from our interview and put them together in the newspaper style. The story has been getting good traffic–it has more than 70 comments.
Finally, if you’re going to interview Weird Al, you’d better hope it gets a friendly post from yankovic.org. Fortunately, ours did.
I’m sure we’ve missed some coverage of our lessons, so if you notice any we haven’t posted here, please leave a comment. Feel free to direct us to sites you like to read that might interested in posting our English lesson videos as well!
After more than three years of acting in our English lesson audio and videos on English, baby!, Beren’s last soap opera episode goes on the site today. She has relocated to a new city and since she may come back someday, we left her character’s exit open-ended. Perhaps one day she will resolve the disagreement that causes her to leave her friend group, but it won’t be any time soon.
Over the years, I’ve seen lots of comments from members saying that Beren was their favorite member of the cast. I remember one in particular said she was “only sensible person in the soap opera.” That seems about right, especially looking back on this description of Beren’s character that we put together for her early on:
Beren is mysterious, with a very unusual personal life that she regards as perfectly normal. Despite this, she’s a kind of oracle to whom the other characters go to for advice. She’s a good listener and the kind of person who comes through at the last minute with an obvious solution to a problem everyone else was wracking their brains about. She’s deadpan, sort of a straight man. She’s also lots of fun at parties. She’s a side character whose comic relief leaves you wanting more.
While it’s sad to lose her character, perhaps Beren’s greatest contribution to English, baby! has been her knowledge of pop culture, which really came in handy for our English lessons about American music and movies. As a musician, she was very aware of culture. I remember she knew who Lady Gaga was before anyone else on the cast. Even if she doesn’t appear in the English lesson dialog, Beren’s influence was often there.
Now that she is settled in her new home in Detroit, I asked her to answer a few questions via email.
Jason: You’re moving on and we’re so sad to see you go. Tell us why you are leaving and what are you going to do now.
Beren: I’m moving on because it’s time to move on!! I loved being in the Pacific Northwest, and will one day return, but for now I’m in Detroit. I’m going to be doing a lot of the same things I did at “home”: playing music, working at a pizza shop…
Jason: Is there a lesson you made that stands out as your favorite or least favorite?
Beren: Ah, yes. My favorite lesson: the infamous evil twin episode. It was fun to make, and still makes me cringe to watch.
Jason: Why should more Ebaby! members come see your band on tour?
Beren: HA!! They should come because the tunes are good, and fun to dance to. And because we will most likely need a place to crash and will hit you up for your couch/bed/kitchen floor.
It’s funny that Al Yankovic’s new book for children is called When I Grow Up, because when I was a kid, I pretty much wanted to be Weird Al when I grew up. I remember the first time I saw the “Amish Paradise” video on TV. I thought I had lost my mind. I simply could not believe something so cool and hilarious could exist and be on TV.
Naturally, I was thrilled when Weird Al agreed to do an English lesson for English, baby! We cover two meanings of the phrase “grow up” in his lesson.
If you’ve listened to Weird Al’s music, you can tell he’s kind of a genius, so I knew he would be a great English teacher. There were so many good vocabulary words in this interview, that it was hard to choose which to highlight. In fact, I’m sure some ESL students will have to watch it a few times to get it. Luckily, the topic of jobs and careers is relatively easy to understand.
The same goes for Al’s book. It’s surprisingly straight-forward. His name appears on the cover as simply “Al Yankovic” and the book isn’t especially “weird” or experimental. The language is really creative. It might be a little advanced for some kids (or ESL students), but the tougher words, like “hydraulic torque wrench calibrator” have fun sounds so you can enjoy them even if you don’t know what they mean.
While if it didn’t have his name on it, you probably wouldn’t guess the book is by Weird Al, the voice is clearly his. It’s easy to picture him reading the book aloud. And in way, the story is a metaphor for his body of work. The book follows the imagination of a kid who runs through many possible careers, some outrageous (giraffe milker) and others more common (teacher), and never picks one. Al is the same way–his music covers every genre and he has also studied architecture, been a filmmaker and now a writer…and lucky for us, an English teacher!
