Life at BBC Learning English

Life at BBC Learning English

Hello everyone!

Good to talk to you again! I had a brief stint as a teacher blogger last year as some of our regular readers might recall.

I thought you might like to hear a little bit about daily life here at BBC Learning English.

Our office is located right in the middle of London, very near the River Thames and not far from the Houses of Parliament, Big Ben and the London Eye. We're also quite near Fleet Street (where most British newspapers used to be based) and the Royal Courts of Justice (also known as the High Court).

It's a great location in a lot of ways, but it does mean that parking is very difficult, so most of us come to work by public transport - train, bus, or tube - and quite a few people come to work by bike. Cycling in Central London is not for the faint-hearted - but I take my hat off to Nuala, Callum and Paul who all cycle to work regularly. They all wear special clothes for cycling - high visibility jackets, shorts, and head protection, and warm, wind-proof jackets and gloves. So the mornings in our office sometimes look like a training camp for the Tour de France!!!

Here's a picture of Callum and Nuala in their cycling gear. The 'shiny hearts' they both appear to have are the special light reflectors on their jackets - which are glowing because of the camera flash. I don't know why they are located over their hearts...?




Luckily we have showers and lockers in our building so at some point in the morning, the cyclists nip off for a quick wash and brush up so by lunchtime everybody is looking normal (!) again. We don't have a dress code in our office and most of us wear casual clothes, except for Andrew, the head of BBC Learning English, who always looks very smart in his suit.

Here's a photo of Andrew at his desk. He's looking fairly relaxed without a jacket and tie...



We have an open-plan office so we can all see and talk to each other. It gets quite noisy at times... and at other times it is so quiet that you could hear a pin drop. Everybody has regular tasks to do - for example, Nuala and Elena are busy with the new episode of Flatmates every Tuesday, and Carrie checks the blog comments most mornings - but most of us get to work on new projects fairly reguarly too. Sometimes we work alone but a lot of what we do is collaborative: for example, Callum worked with an expert from the BBC pronunciation unit when he was developing the new pronunciation series, and I was lucky enough to work with the lovely William when we were developing Grammar Challenge.

We have a lot of technical equipment in our office - cameras, recording equipment (including 2 very small studios) and various laptops, PCs and a lovely new Mac. Matt is our studio manager and he looks after most of the equipment - so if we need to set up any recording equipment, we ask him in advance and he makes sure we have everything we need. He's very friendly and co-operative and very patient and helpful with those of us who need technical support. He has to be very organised to make sure everything is where it should be, and that all the cameras etc. have the right cables, batteries etc.!!!

This is a photo of Matt and his very well organised equipment cupboard:



So I have probably given you the impression that our office is full of cyclists and cables. It's not quite like that! It's a great place to work and people are very friendly and relaxed (we do get a lot of work done, too). I'll tell you a bit more about some of the things we get up to the next time I write.

In the meantime, do write in and let us know a bit about your own working environment! You can pinch some of the vocabulary from this blog if you like - I won't mind!!!

All the best
Catherine

Vocabulary

I had a brief stint - I did a duty, task or job for a short time

not for the faint-hearted - difficult, tiring or dangerous

I take my hat off to (someone) – I have a lot of respect and admiration for someone

nip off – quickly go somewhere

to have a quick wash and brush up - to quickly wash your face, brush your hair, change your clothes etc. so that you look and feel clean and tidy.

a dress code – rules about what clothes people should wear in a particular situation or event

so quiet that you could hear a pin drop – this is a fixed expression that means 'very, very quiet'

collaborative – is the adjective form of collaborate: to work co-operatively with somebody

get up to - an informal way of saying 'do' - especially when the thing that you do is unusual, exciting or interesting

pinch – steal (informal)