A Little English

About A Little English

What if the stories in your English course could make you laugh? What if they could break your heart?What if you just had to know...what happens next?My name is Cooper, and I'm an English professor in Hiroshima, Japan. I love teaching, I love English literature, and I love podcasts. So, I decided to combine all three into this show! Each episode, I will read a short story in English. Some of them are famous, some not-so-famous. Some of them I even write myself. For example, I read stories by AA Milne (Winnie-the-Pooh), Ernest Hemingway, and Philip K Dick. I choose the stories carefully and read slowly, so they're easy to understand. After each story, there are three tiny lessons. Not too much, just A Little English. Visit https://www.alittleenglish.com to get a Podcast User's Manual with some idea about how to study using this podcast! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

Publisher

Edward Cooper Howland

Category

education · education · fiction

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

19 Jul 2022

Latest episode

2 Aug 2023

Latest episodes

45 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   2 Aug 2023

   Forty Stories - "Alone"

   This is a story about popcorn, mostly. It's also about religion and weddings and cleaning. But mostly it's a story about microwave popcorn. It stars Matthew, who was sort of the villain of the story called "Flow." And if we're being honest, he's the villain of this story, too. But I love him. I hope you do as well. 👉The story begins at 2:00 and the tiny lessons begin at 15:12 👉You can find the transcript after the Credits! 👉Visit our website to download the Podcast User's Manual and find out more! https://alittleenglish.com/ (https://alittleenglish.com/) A Little English is written, produced, recorded, edited, mixed, mastered and scored by Edward Cooper Howland. All stories are either in the public domain, or written by me. Copyright 2024 Edward Cooper Howland ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ TRANSCRIPT: Hi. My name is Cooper, and this is…A Little English. Every episode, I read a short story. After the story, there are three tiny lessons. Before we begin, I’d like to say thank you for listening, and ask you to tell your friends about the show. I don’t do any advertising, so you spreading the word is really the only way that the audience can grow. Thank you so much! Now Where I come from, we were always taught that there are two things you don’t discuss at dinner: religion and politics. The reason for that is, because people will start shouting at each other. But this story opens with a conversation about religion. Ok it’s not a conversation, it’s people shouting at each other. But don’t worry. This is not really a story about religion. Actually it’s mostly about….popcorn? Anyway, the name of this story is, “Alone,” which is also the name of my favorite song to sing at karaoke. —------ “If it’s in a church, I’m not going,” said Matthew. Mom and Dad were already dressed for the wedding. Dad was wearing his suit and Mom even put on earrings. They looked at each other and sighed. “He gets this from you,” said Mom. Dad rested his head in his hands for a moment. Then he stood up and spoke to his son. “Matthew, it’s a wedding. Of course it’s in a church.” “Well if it’s in a church, then I am not going. I will not worship your false gods. You’ll have to leave me here.” “You don’t have to worship anything. Just sit there like a normal human being and then we go and have cake. It’s a party. It’s a celebration of love.” “It’s a lie!” shouted Matthew. “It’s all lies! It’s a scam! They scare you with stories of hell and pain forever. Then they take your money.” “Matthew, it’s a congregational church. They don’t have any money.” “I don’t care! They get money for free and then they don’t pay any taxes! It’s the biggest scam in the world. And if you go, or if I go, we are saying that this scam is okay. So you can do whatever you want, but I’m not going.” “This is just some stupid stuff you saw on the internet. You need to get off the computer and get out in the real world.” “I AM in the real world, Dad! I believe in science and YOU PEOPLE believe in magic!” “You don’t have to believe in the religion to go to a wedding, Matthew. You just go to support your family and friends on their big day.” “I’m. Not. Going.” Matthew sat down on the floor. His parents went to the living room. Matthew could hear them shouting at each other through the closed door. After a few minutes, they came out. Mom was fixing her eye makeup with a tissue. Dad spoke first. “Fine. You’re fourteen years old now. If you want to stay home alone, you can. We will be back by ten pm. Try not to burn the house down.” Four hours later,

2. 

   19 Jul 2023

   forty Stories - "Mixtape"

   Have you ever lost a friend? Not, like, lost them at a concert. I mean, have any of your friends died? A few of mine have. This is a story about losing a friend. And the pain of losing that friend. It's a story about how groups of friend cope with the loss of a member. And about family, and brothers. But mostly, it's a song about the power of silly pop songs. I hope you love it, because I'm very proud of this story. Season 3 Episode 16 Thank you for downloading this episode. 👉The story begins at 03:20 and the tiny lessons begin at 15:45 👉You can find the transcript after the Credits! 👉Visit our website to download the Podcast User's Manual and find out more! https://alittleenglish.com/ (https://alittleenglish.com/) A Little English is written, produced, recorded, edited, mixed, mastered and scored by Edward Cooper Howland. All stories are either in the public domain, or written by me. Copyright 2024 Edward Cooper Howland ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ TRANSCRIPT: Hi. My name is Cooper, and this is…A Little English. Every episode, I read a short story. After the story, there are three tiny lessons. I hope you guys are all enjoying this Forty Stories project. If you are, please do me a huge favor and share this show with a friend. Do you know anyone else who likes podcasts? Or who is trying to improve their English? Please share this show with them. I don’t do any advertising or anything, so I need your help to reach a larger audience. Thank you! I think I can safely say that we have entered act two of forty stories. Pretty much every story has three acts. There is a beginning, a middle and an end. Middles are usually the hardest part to write. But actually I’m really excited about this, because it means I’m done introducing characters. The world is built. So it’s time to really explore these people and this world. Time to have them meet each other and interact! I think it will be really exciting. By the way, there is a content warning on this story. It’s about death. Specifically, it takes place a few years after someone commits suicide. So nobody dies in the story, but somebody did die a few years ago. So if you don’t feel good about listening to that right now, come back another time. It’s a good story, and important, but it’s kind of…heavy. Also, there are a lot of song titles in this story. And I think that if you don’t know the songs, it would be very helpful for you to read the transcript, get the names and listen to them on youtube or whatever. I think the story will make more sense when you hear the songs. So anyway, here’s the story. It’s called “Mixtape” I thought I was early, but they were already waiting for me. Kevin and Ben were sitting in camping chairs around a pile of wood. And there was another person with them. Maybe a girl? Or a little kid? Either way, I was pretty upset. It took a few minutes to climb down from the top of the sand dune, and a few more to get close to where they were sitting. The mystery person was sitting on the other side of the pile of wood. I dropped my case of beer down next to me and just started yelling. “Guys, what is this? This is supposed to be our night. Remember, we talked about this? No girlfriends, nobody but us and - “ The kid stood up, and I could see that it was Finn. He was apologizing. “Tommy, I’m not gonna stay. I was just talking to Kevin last week, and I told him about this thing that I found, and we thought you all should see it. Or, like, hear it.” I was so shocked that I just sat down in the sand. “Oh Finn,” I said, “I’m so sorry, kid. I had no idea it was you. I thought one of these knuckleheads brought their...

3. 

   5 Jul 2023

   Forty Stories - "Brave"

   I'm doing a little survey to find out more about ALE listeners. There are just four tiny questions. It will only take a minute or two, and will help me a LOT! Please check it out. Thanks, Cooper 👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇 CLICK HERE FOR THE SURVEY (https://forms.gle/o2uPx2PAz1cGwjGh9) Season 3 Episode 15 Thank you for downloading this episode. 👉The story begins at 03:40 and the tiny lessons begin at 15:15 👉You can find the transcript after the Credits! 👉Visit our website to download the Podcast User's Manual and find out more! https://alittleenglish.com/ (https://alittleenglish.com/) A Little English is written, produced, recorded, edited, mixed, mastered and scored by Edward Cooper Howland. All stories are either in the public domain, or written by me. Copyright 2024 Edward Cooper Howland ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ TRANSCRIPT: Hi. My name is Cooper, and this is…A Little English. Every episode, I read a short story. After the story, there are three tiny lessons. Before we get started, I’d like to ask you a favor. I really hate social media, and I don’t really want to pay for advertisements. That means, the only way to grow the audience of A Little English is…you. If you’re enjoying the show, and you think it’s helping you learn, please go tell someone about it. You guys must have done it the last couple weeks, because listeners are going up! Please keep going! I’m very grateful for the help! This week’s story is about horses. Have you ever ridden a horse? I have. Actually, I grew up in the country and our neighbors had a horse boarding business. That means that rich people from Boston, who didn’t have any space to keep a horse, they would rent a spot for it from our neighbors. And then come ride them on weekends and stuff. So I grew up like right next to horses. They were around all the time. But I never got to ride those, because they were someone’s like private, luxury item. Later, when I was a kid at camp (like we talked about last episode), I did learn to ride. We went for two or three or five-day camping trips, riding horses all over Colorado. I was probably 12 years old, and I just can’t believe how lucky I was that I got to do that. Man I gotta write a story about that camp, one of these days. Anyway, let’s get to the story. It’s called “Brave,” and it has nothing to do with the animated movie. Sorry, nobody turns into a bear. —------------- “Careful now,” said Dad. “Don’t show him your fingers. He might think they’re little carrots and take a bite.” Cassandra froze, terrified. “It’s OK,” the teacher said. “Just be careful. Turn your hand around and let him smell the back of it. Like with a dog.” Cassandra got a little closer. The horse was enormous, and it smelled like sweat and dust and grass. She took another step towards it and held out her hand. The horse leaned its head in and sniffed her. Its breath was so loud! When it opened its mouth, Cassandra could hear the sound of its lips separating. When the mouth closed again, she could actually hear its teeth bang together. It was like hearing someone breathe or talk right next to your ear, except it wasn’t even that close! Cassandra knew a lot about horses. She had a few books and a lot of youtube channels on her mom’s phone. She knew about bridles and saddles and she knew how to brush a horse’s fur after a ride. She knew that you start from the front and go to the back, never the other way. She knew how much horses love being brushed. But she didn’t know until today what they smell like. And she didn’t know how noisy they were. The horse didn’t bite her. It breathed in and out over her...

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

1 ratings

Contact A Little English

Guest appearances

Does not typically book guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.