Hi,

I just found out about ESL Teacher Talk recently and I've been working my way through some of the old episodes. I tried both subscribing on iTunes and downloading through the blog links, but I can't seem to download the older podcasts (starting with the Genki English one and going back from there). Have the files been moved to another location? Even though it seems like ESL Teacher Talk is no longer running it looks like there's a lot of good information hidden away in those older podcasts that I'd really like to get to if possible

I'm glad you like the podcasts and find them helpful.

I guess I should have dealt with this problem already. People have been having issues with downloads ever since the file host made some changes midstream. The immediate solution is to offer that you simply need to change the file path to any link that doesn't work. That's where the error is occurring. The file name is constant.


The reason I don't have all of the podcasts on MES-English is that the files are extremely large and use a lot of bandwidth. When I began MES-English most sites were limited to the amount of bandwidth they could use. These days most hosting plans don't limit bandwidth and so it is possible for me to put all of the files on MES English for download.

I'll try to get that done as soon as I can. That seems like the easiest and surest way to solve the problem.

ESL Teacher Talk hasn't completely been abandoned, it just lies dormant (no new posts.) Hopefully, Matt and I can settle on a new direction and get the time together to start up season 4.

Thanks for the reply and it's good to know that the podcast hasn't been abandoned.

This may be a bit of a selfish request, but it's a bit difficult to access the older podcasts. They don't come up automatically through the podcast feed on iTunes (it only went as far back as "Interview with Patrick Jackson") and navigating the blog to download each file individually takes a lot of time and clicking back and forth. Is there any way to update the iTunes feed so that it goes back to the absolute beginning, or am I stuck with the most recent 40-odd episodes?

If it's not too much of a hassle to fix it's a lot easier for me to download the files through the iTunes feed rather than through the blog and it helps with organization and labelling of the files (maybe only for people like me who primarily use iTunes rather than other players).

I'm thinking about my future in EFL right now which may possibly include opening up my own school, so the podcast has been really great as far as introducing a lot of situations other than the one I'm familiar with (Japanese elementary schools). Thanks again for doing it and I hope to see a season 4 some time in the future!

To be completely honest, I don't even know how they get posted to iTunes And I have never used iTunes to download music let alone podcasts. So, I'm a little unaware of the benefits.

The guy I was doing podcasts with original set up the feed and I believe the feed was added to iTunes under the ESL Teacher Talk account. ??? I think I checked at one point whether the old links could be updated but it didn't seem possible at the time.

Another option might be reposting all of the older podcasts in one big "Season 1" and "Season 2" post and just seeing how that gets added.

I'm glad the information is helpful. Some shows are better than others but hopefully there's always something you can take a way from the show or something that makes you think.

The difference between a podcast and a normal audio file in iTunes is that the podcast automatically displays all sorts of information and remembers where you stopped in order to continue from the same point the next time. It's mostly just an aesthetic difference, which is why I said it's kind of a selfish request If it's difficult to update the podcast feed I don't have any problems with the regular audio files.

If you could make batch .zip/.rar files for each season in their regular audio file format and put the link up on the blog, I think it would be really helpful for people who just stumbled upon the show like me and want to catch up. It's quite difficult to navigate the blog and download all of the episodes one by one.

I just finished going through all of the episodes that were available through the podcast feed, and they gave me lots of new ideas and stuff to think about. Thanks again!