Show 563 Tuesday 27 November

Watch today’s show at YouTube or BlipTV.

Hi, I’m Sarah, welcome to The Daily English Show.

I have an announcement today. We are going to carry out a survey – the first ever survey for The Daily English Show.

There’s a link to that survey next to this video. So I’d like you to go there and cut and paste it into an email and answer it and send it to this address: tdessurvey@gmail.com

The reason why we’re doing a survey is because we’d like to know more about our viewers.

One reason is that it could help us to get some ideas about how to improve the show and another reason is that it could help us to get some funding for The Daily English Show.

As you know The Daily English Show is non-commercial so making money is not our purpose. But we would like to find a way to generate some income so that we can work on the show full-time – and be able to do things like buy some equipment. We don’t need a lot of money, most of what it takes to make the show is just time, but there are some expenses.

So there are some different ways that we could generate income and I have a few ideas of some things that could work. And I have a long list of things that I know for sure that I don’t want to do – like putting a 30 second ad in the front of the video or endorsing some ridiculous product that I don’t believe in ... no way, I’d never do that. So you’re never going to see an ad for something like McDonalds on the Daily English Show. There are a lot of things like I don’t like actually, so it does make it kind of hard to find a sponsor. But there are some things that I do like, like my electronic dictionary for example. Fantastic tool and I truly believe every student should have one of these. And other things like my favourite textbooks, things like that.

And there are other options too, with finding funding, for example grants.

And ... what we did in Canada with Acadia University was perfect. We helped them promote the university to international students so it was good for them – and it was great for us because we got to hang out at this good university and do lots of interesting things and get lots of great material for the show.

And we’re going to continue to do some work with Acadia too which is great. And hopefully similar opportunities like that will arise.

But in any case, people will ask us: Who are your audience? How old are they? Where are they from? Are they all actually real people that are interested in English language study or did they all just accidentally click on your videos?

So that’s a bit about why we’re doing the survey. If you have some free time and you feel like helping us out, please fill it out. It’s good English practice too.

And don’t worry, we won’t do anything dodgy with the information like collect all your emails and start bombarding you with junk mail or something ... that’s not cool and I wouldn’t do that.

I would like to talk about some general statistics on the show because I think people will find that interesting. Like 17% of people watching The Daily English Show come from Malaysia or whatever it is ... I think it’s going to be interesting to see the results.

The survey is going to finish on Tuesday the 11th of December, so please send it back before then or on that day.
Thank you!

STICK NEWS

Kia Ora, this is Stick News. The Nova Scotia government has introduced a road safety bill that would outlaw the use of hand-held cellphones while driving.

In Nova Scotia, Canada, it’s legal to drive while talking on the phone.
That may soon change. The Nova Scotia government has introduced a bill that would make it illegal to use hand-held cellphones while driving. The bill would also prohibit panhandlers and solicitors from stopping or approaching vehicles on the road and double the fines for drivers who fail to stop for pedestrians on crossings.
The Transportation Minister said, "We've seen too many tragedies, too many deaths, too many accidents involving serious injury."
The new law would ban drivers from holding phones to their ears – but they’d still be able to talk on phone if they use an ear piece or speaker phone.
Currently there’s only one province in Canada with a cellphone ban for drivers.

And that was Stick News for Tuesday the 27th of November.
Kia Ora.

conversations with sarah
#342 Have you tried applying for any grants?

Step 1: Repeat Lucy’s lines.
Step 2: Read Lucy’s lines and talk to Sarah.

Lucy Have you tried applying for any grants?

Sarah No, not yet. The trouble with grants is that they are usually country specific – so grants in Canada are for Canadians ... which makes sense, of course.

Lucy Right. So you’d need to apply for something in New Zealand.

Sarah Yeah, well, I’m a New Zealand citizen but I don’t actually live in New Zealand at the moment, so I don’t know if that would work either.

Lucy Have you tried contacting the New Zealand government?

Sarah Yeah, I have actually. The, um, Ministry of Education ... but no luck.
That’s the thing ... I think you really need to have some contacts and some luck, in a way, to find someone who sees the potential in what you’re doing.

Lucy Just keep trying.

Sarah Yeah, yeah, I will. It just takes time. And I don’t have much extra time because it takes a lot of time to make the show so ...

Lucy I’m sure something will come along. There’s a lot of money out there for worthy educational projects like yours.

notes

non-commercial
By commercial, I mean "making or intended to make a profit". We would like to generate some income to cover the expenses of making the show - in the same way that non-profit organizations need money to run their organization.

links

today's news
today's STICK NEWS pictures

music

show start
artist: Anawin
album: A glimpse inside the bubble
track: Little jazzy
from: Arles, France
album at Jamendo
artist at Jamendo

cws start
artist: San Sebastian
track: Happy Sad
artist site

qa start
artist: ioeo
album: Groovetracks
tracks: groovetracks ending
from: Saint Raphael, France
album at Jamendo
artist at Jamendo
artist site

qa bgm
artist: OPRACHINA
album: The jazz farm
track: Grigioscuro
from: Roma, Italy
album at Jamendo
artist at Jamendo
artist site
YouTube channel

Did you notice a mistake in this script? Please leave us a comment and tell us! We really appreciate people pointing out our mistakes.Thank you.

Have you translated this script - or part of it - into your language for English practice and published it on your blog? Please leave a comment and a link so other people can read your translation. Thank you.