Shall or Will?

In Podcast 1 I say "I shall assume that your English is proficient enough to follow most of what I am saying." You may wonder why I said "I shall" instead of "I will." Both are correct. Many years ago schools taught that for the first person singular (I) and the first person plural (we) one should use "shall" and for the second and third persons singular and plural (you, he, she, it, they) one should use "will." Today both are considered correct, and in fact, you are more likely to hear "I will" than "I shall." The contraction for both is "I'll."