Category Archives: Health

852. How does it feel to be blind? (Article & Vocabulary)

How does it feel to have a visual impairment? How do blind people navigate the world? How do other people treat you, if you are blind? And, how do we talk about blindness and other forms of disability in English? This episode is inspired by a listener called Hafid, who contacted me recently. I talk about the subject of blindness and disability in general, read an article written by a partially sighted person, and explain a list of words and phrases we should use when describing different forms of disability. Also includes various medical vocabulary such as the different parts of the eye and other related topics.

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Click here to read the article by Christina Hartmann on Slate.com

849. STORIES OF INSECTS, BUGS & CREEPY CRAWLIES with Zdenek Lukas

Bed bugs in Paris & London, Mosquito hunting in the middle of the night, a home invasion by fleas and the terrors of cockroaches – listen to some anecdotes about encounters with insects with Zdenek who has recently relocated to Vietnam. Also watch out for various insect idioms which appear during the conversation.

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Insect Idioms

Here are the idioms which popped up during this conversation.

1. **To have a Bee in Your Bonnet** This idiom means that someone has an idea or a thought that’s constantly on their mind, often an obsession.

2. **To have Ants in Your Pants** If someone has “ants in their pants,” it means they are restless or fidgety, unable to sit still.

3. **To be as Busy as a Bee** This idiom describes someone who is extremely busy and productive, like a hardworking bee in a hive.

4. **To have Butterflies in Your Stomach** When you’re nervous or anxious, you might say you have “butterflies in your stomach.”

5. **To be The Bee’s Knees** This expression is used to describe something excellent or outstanding.

6. **To Make a Beeline for** If you “make a beeline for” something or someone, you head directly towards it, just like a bee flying straight to a flower.

7. **Like a Moth to a Flame** If someone is drawn to something or someone despite the potential dangers, they are said to be like a moth to a flame.

8. **To bug someone** To annoy someone

Also, to bug a place means to hide recording equipment in a place in order to spy on the people living there. Zdenek believes his apartment is not bugged, thankfully.


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Luke on Other People’s Podcasts recently 🎧👇

847. RANDOM TOPIC GENERATOR (A 1-Hour Rambling Episode)

Join me for an unplanned rambling episode about various things including: hump day, bed bugs in Paris 🐞, fashion trends I followed when I was younger 👟👖, CDs 💿 vs cassettes 📼 vs vinyl 🎵, the most relaxing place in the world 🛏, Japanese zen gardens ⛩, Hunter S Thompson 🚬, the most disgusting job I ever had 🤮, and more…

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Random Topic Generator 👉 https://capitalizemytitle.com/random-topic-generator/

843. The Birth of Our Son

Talking to my wife (and daughter) about the birth of our son, who came into the world just a few weeks ago. We describe what happened, and explain how it feels to become parents for the second time. This is a very personal, first-hand account of childbirth and the experience of bringing a child into the world. Watch out for the language of childbirth and children which has previously been explained in episodes 162, 491, 492 and 814.

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Previous episodes on this subject, including specific vocabulary explanations:

161. She’s Having a Baby (with Amber Minogue) | Luke’s ENGLISH Podcast 

162. Having Babies: Vocabulary / A Male Perspective | Luke’s ENGLISH Podcast (Vocabulary Explanations included)

491. Becoming a Dad (with Andy & Ben) Part 1 (Vocabulary Explanations included)

492. Becoming a Dad (with Andy & Ben) Part 2 (Vocabulary Explanations included)

502. The Birth of My Daughter | Luke’s ENGLISH Podcast

515. Becoming “Maman” with Amber & Sarah – Bringing Up Children The French Way

597. Growing Up / Getting Older / Becoming a Father (with Paul Taylor) 

814. The Language of Children & Parenting (with Anna Tyrie / English Like a Native) (Vocabulary Explanations included)

836. Life & Life Only with Antony Rotunno [Part 2] David Blaine, Food & Diet, The Shining, Conspiracies, Comedy, Happiness

Since recording part 1 of this conversation, Antony caught COVID-19 and lost a bit of weight, but he managed to talk for about 100 minutes here about more topics he has previously covered in episodes of his podcast “Life & Life Only”. Here we discuss diverse things, including the extraordinary feats of endurance by David Blaine 🕴🏻, food and dieting 🍔, Stanley Kubrik’s film “The Shining” 🪓, the term “conspiracy theory” 🤫, the ways that comedy shows can reveal the truth 🎭, and the complex art of happiness 🙂.

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☝️The audio version includes some extra content at the end, including a song on the guitar

Topics covered in this episode

David Blaine

  • Who is David Blaine? 
  • What can we learn from his tricks?

Food

  • Do you watch what you eat or have a particular diet?

Films

  • What are your favourite films? 
  • What’s so interesting about The Shining?

Conspiracy Theories

  • What’s wrong with the phrase “conspiracy theory”?

Comedy

  • What’s your favourite comedy show?
  • Is British and American comedy different?

Happiness

  • What is the art of happiness?

Song Lyrics – “Coffee & TV” by Blur

https://tabs.ultimate-guitar.com/tab/blur/coffee-and-tv-chords-800996

Luke & Antony talk about the film “Sorcerer” (1977) on the Film Gold podcast

835. Life & Life Only with Antony Rotunno [Part 1] Cats, Titanic, Travelling, Teaching & Life Coaching

Antony is an English teacher, podcaster, life-coach and writer and he returns to LEP today for a conversation about topics which he has discussed in episodes of his podcast called “Life & Life Only”. Listen to us chat about why cats are good for your health 🐱, what the Titanic disaster tells us about social class 🚢, how losing his backpack while travelling taught Antony a valuable life lesson 🎒, how psychology is involved in English teaching 🧠 and more.

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Antony’s Podcast 👉 Subscribe to Life & Life Only wherever you get your podcasts https://plinkhq.com/i/1549021296?to=page

Topics for discussion in this episode

Life & Life Only (the podcast)

  • What is Life & Life Only, and what’s it all about?

Cats

  • What do you like about cats?

The Titanic

  • Why are you interested in the Titanic?
  • Can you give us a quick version of the story?

Travelling

  • Tell me about your travelling experiences.
  • Where have you been?
  • Did the experience change you at all?
  • What about losing your luggage? What happened?

Teaching English

  • How have you found the group dynamics and interpersonal dynamics of teaching?
    • Groups
    • Individuals
  • Have you had good and bad groups? What’s the difference?
  • What have you done in order to try to get the right atmosphere in a classroom?
  • Have you ever had bad or difficult experiences with students?
  • What are some of the weirdest situations in which you have taught English?

Life Coaching

  • What is life coaching and how do you do it?

Antony & Luke talk about the film “Sorcerer” (1977) on Antony’s Film Gold podcast

809. Toilets, Titanic & TikTok with AMBER & PAUL

An unedited conversation with Amber & Paul about toilet habits, Titanic (1997), weird videos on TikTok & YouTube and plenty more. Advanced level listening practice with the POD-PALs. Video version available.

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The audio version ☝️ has about 15 minutes of extra rambling by Luke at the end, not included in the video version 👇

Introduction Transcript

Hello, listeners, I hope you’re doing well today. Welcome back to my podcast. This is where you can do plenty of listening in order to improve your English. Because listening is a vital part of the process. You have to listen, listen, listen and generally get used to hearing natural English as it is spoken and my podcast can help you to do that. 

In this episode Amber & Paul are back on the podcast. In case you don’t know, Amber Minogue and Paul Taylor are my friends who have been regular guests on this show for many years. They are both stand-up comedians from the UK, living in Paris, like me. 

A couple of weeks ago, before I had a haircut, the three of us got together here in my room and had a conversation for this podcast. We didn’t plan the topic in advance. So you’re going to hear a lot of spontaneous natural speaking. We’re not slowing down or trying to use the easy words. This is just how we speak normally when we’re together. As you will notice, I try to explain things or clarify things as we go, in order to help you a bit, but still, it might be difficult, depending on your English level. 

If you like you can think of this as a kind of listening test. Can you follow what we’re saying and keep up with all the changes in the conversation?

You’ll see that the episode title is Toilets, Titanic and TikTok which gives you a general idea of what we talk about. 

We didn’t have a lot of time, so I just pressed record, and then quite quickly we found ourselves talking about toilets first of all.

So there’s a good 45 minutes of us talking about toilets.  

By the way, in British English the word toilet means both the room and the thing in the room that you sit on.

In American English the toilet is just the thing you sit on, and the room in American English would probably be called the restroom or the bathroom, although when we go there we’re not resting or having a bath, but anyway… This is a conversation about toilets.

We talk about what people do in the toilet, on the toilet, near the toilet and even above the toilet in some cases. 

So, be ready for some rather specific and possibly disgusting details about this topic. 

I don’t know how you feel about this subject. Personally I find it quite fascinating to learn about this very private thing that we don’t always talk about, except maybe when we’re together with close friends like this. 

For example, any women listening – do you know what happens in men’s public toilets? And men, do you know what goes on in women’s public toilets? I think we know what basically happens, but what about certain, other, unknown things?

For example, why is there usually a much bigger queue at the women’s loo (“loo” is UK English for “toilet”).

Do men always stand up when they pee or do they sometimes do it sitting down? And which one is actually easier or better? 

How do other people deal with public toilets, which can be dirty or messy? And in fact, why are they so messy, especially in the toilet cubicles? What are people doing in there?

And have you ever argued, with someone you live with, about leaving the toilet seat up?

Women often get frustrated with men who leave the toilet seat up. 

Toilet seat up? toilet seat down? What’s going on here? Why is that annoying? And who is right?

That’s just a sample of the kinds of things we’re talking about, OK? 

So, brace yourself – toilet talk is coming, with some specific references to hygiene and cleanliness too. 

Then, somehow we go from the toilet, to the film Titanic, and that will be generally less disgusting and problematic I think, although arguably what happened on the Titanic is much much worse than what normally happens in the toilet, but I don’t know your habits, I don’t know your life.  

Then things get a bit more graphic again at the end of the conversation as we talk about some weird, disgusting and yet strangely satisfying videos we like to watch on TikTok and YouTube.

So here is an unedited talk full of tangents about tea, toilets, Titanic, TikTok trends and more, and here we go…

Ending Transcript (These are the things I say at the end of the audio version + a few spontaneous bits)

OK audio people, how was that for you?

  • Did you manage to keep up? 
  • Did you learn anything new?
  • Do you have anything to add to this conversation?

Congratulations for making it this far. You just entered over 1 hour of English into your head. Think of the people who didn’t do that. They now have 1 hour less of English exposure.

As I said at the start, this conversation was fast (as usual) and there were probably things you missed.

I started the recording before we were ready to begin, that’s because I just needed to get started because we didn’t have a lot of time (Amber had to leave at about 3.30 as usual). So I just hit record.

Paul asked about which audience is bigger – the video viewers or the audio listeners. I said the audio listeners outnumbered the video viewers and so Paul said he wouldn’t do too many visual things, like visual jokes.

Then he pretended to take his trousers off (I guess this was in order to make a visual joke). In fact, he unzipped his jeans, but didn’t actually unbuckle his belt.

This led to Paul commenting that men only unbuckle their belt or fully undo their trousers twice each day, and then we were off and the topic turned to the topic of men undoing their trousers in the toilet, and we asked Amber about what it’s like for women to use the toilet when they are wearing a one-piece outfit, like a jump suit. Isn’t that complicated?

And that’s how it all started, you see. I guess if you’re still listening to this, you got that. I wonder how many people just gave up after the first 5 or 10 minutes. 

Anyway, that’s enough waffle at the end.

Like I said before, leave your comments (if you have a comment section where you are listening – use my website if you can. The link for the relevant page for this episode is in the show notes for this – check your podcast app of choice. The notes will be there, including a link to the website page)

Actually, could you do me a quick favour? If you enjoy my episodes, give me a rating and a quick review – on the Apple Podcasts page or Google Podcasts page – wherever you listen to this podcast. If you’re able to leave a quick review and a rating, that would really help the podcast. 

If you don’t want to help the podcast, then never mind. But if you’d like to help even in a small way – spread the word, leave a review, leave a rating and all that good stuff.

Of course you can also go further and send a donation to help support the show – there’s a PayPal donate button on my website. 

And if you have sent me a donation recently – thank you very very much. YOu make this podcast possible and you allow this show to exist. Seriously.

And then there are the premium subscribers. More premium content is coming soon I promise. As I always say, it does take some time for me to produce the premium content because it requires a lot more preparation due to the more rigorous approach that I take to those episodes, with their PDFs and everything. I’m working on more Story episodes for the premium content. I’ve been writing and re-writing some stories about my life – childhood tales and more. That’s coming soon. Thank you if you are a premium subscriber – again you are keeping the show alive.

If you have questions about LEP Premium, including “How do I get the PDFs? How do I find all the episodes?” and more – check my website. All those questions are answered there – www.teacherluke.co.uk/premiuminfo All the frequently asked questions are there.

Thank you for your support everyone! Let’s keep this thing going.

Take care out there in LEPland. Keep your chin up, keep a smile on your face if you can. Be good to yourself, be excellent to each other, have another lovely morning, afternoon, evening or night and I will speak to you in the next instalment, coming soon. Good bye bye bye bye bye! 

Call me a photoshop master

What do you think listeners? Leave your comments below 👇

799. The True Story of a LEPster’s Waking Nightmare (and how LEP came to the rescue) Email Story

Sharing a disturbing true story sent in by a LEPster by email. This episode contains some slightly scary and graphic descriptions of nightmare scenarios, visions, hallucinations and bad dreams, but there is a happy ending. Video version also available.

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Episode Transcript

Iñaki’s Nightmare (and how LEP came to the rescue)

Hello listeners, welcome back to the podcast. In this episode I’m going to tell you the terrifying true story of a LEPster who went through a horrible nightmare but was rescued thanks to LEP. 

This episode is based on an email I received a while ago (quite a long time ago now). I have been meaning to read this out on the podcast for some time now and I am glad to say that today is the day I am doing it. 

I feel compelled to share this story with you and I sincerely hope you enjoy it.

LEP Ninjas

I often talk about LEP Ninjas on this podcast and complain that the vast majority of my listeners never get in touch with me, and I wonder who you are, what you’re doing while you’re listening and what this all means to you. 

I often say that, but in fact I must say that I do get a lot of correspondence from listeners in various forms – episode comments, tweets, YouTube comments and emails. I love receiving your messages because it really helps me to know that there are people on the other end of this podcast – not just numbers but people, receiving my words and connecting with what I say. 

Every now and then I receive a message that I simply have to stop and respond to there and then, even if I’m in the street or something, and there are also some emails which I feel I must share on the podcast with my audience. This is one of those emails. 

I absolutely felt compelled to share this particular email with you, and felt it had to be in an episode of its own. So here we go.

It’s a compelling story which you might find fascinating, stories are good for learning English, as we know, I’m sure little bits of language teaching will come up here, and in this particular story I emerge as the hero who saves the day! So, naturally I am delighted to let the world hear it! (haha)

A slightly disturbing story

Some people might find this story a bit disturbing because it involves descriptions of surgery. So this is a heads up about that. 

There are references to some physical, body related stuff, but also some slightly disturbing mental images too – some nightmarish visions and bad dreams, let’s say. 

You’ll just have to listen to the story to understand what I’m referring to, but FYI the story has some slightly disturbing moments.

I should also say that this story has a happy ending. Things turn out fine in the end. So, if this makes you anxious, then don’t worry, the story ends in a happy place. 

So, without any further ado, let’s just get straight to the email which I received from a listener called Iñaki.

I’m going to read it out as it was sent to me. It’s very well-written, but I might make a few changes here and there – I will correct one or two little errors relating to vocabulary or grammar.

Also I will comment on certain words in this story to help you learn some things as we go.

Inaki’s Email

Email
Message: Hi Luke:
How are you doing? My name is Iñaki and I am writing from San Sebastian, in the north of Spain.

First of all I’d like to thank you for your podcast. I started listening to it some six months ago because my wife recommended it to me (she’s been a premium subscriber for a year or so). 
I have been listening to you ever since because I think what you do is very entertaining and interesting and I think that my English gets better too.

I know what I am about to tell you looks a bit boring in the beginning but please keep on reading because you show up in the middle of the story.

On the 29th of March I got a surgery operation to cure my apnea. 

For your information, this operation took around 6 hours while I had general anesthesia. 

They cut both sides of my jaw. Also they cut below my nose to move the position of my palate. Then they put everything together again in another (slightly different) position by using some screws. 

All of this sounds a big frightening but it is a very usual operation with very low risk. All the surgery is done from inside your mouth so it doesn’t leave scars. 

I took the decision to go ahead and everything went OK, and now I am fine at home and getting recovered but it is also true that when I woke up I felt a bit lost and my mind was not thinking straight and this was the most difficult part of my recovery.

So my operation was on a Monday at 08:00 and I woke up on Tuesday at 13:00. The doctor told me that the operation went fine. After, when my wife came to visit me she also said that the operation had gone right. 

So why did I think that this was not true? Why did I start to suspect that something very bad had occurred during the operation? 

I can’t quite explain since I don’t think I am such a negative person or I am not so hypochondriac. 

But the truth is that my mind freaked out quite seriously and my paranoia was that the doctor had committed a fatal mistake during surgery and now all the doctors and nurses were backing one another up to hide this mistake. 

Since this idea was on my mind I couldn’t let it go and it only went bigger and bigger. All of the things I heard or saw fitted perfectly in MY reality. For example, a nurse said to me “Iñaki, why are you so sad? The operation has been v… successful”. So my head went: “why successful? Why not VERY successful? Why did she start the word VERY but she didn’t finish it?”

And this went on and on without control. My wife was with me all the time and she did a great job but still she didn’t manage to get these ideas out of my head.
Monday night I was totally sedated with the anesthesia. 
Tuesday night I couldn’t sleep (and I mean not even a minute) because I was so frightened…
Tuesday and Wednesday I couldn’t eat anything.

So by Wednesday evening I was exhausted due to the lack of rest and food. This didn’t help my mind get stronger. So on Wednesday evening I was quite certain that their plan was to let me die on medication. 

I could feel that my wife had taken part in that decision. I thought that the idea was that since my life was not going to be worth living it onward, they decided to let me go. 
Of course, now I see that it didn’t make any sense at all but my mind was not able to work better than that on Wednesday evening.

I accepted this idea and I decided to be collaborative in the process. They gave me medication to calm me down and I could feel that my mind was even more clumsy. My wife told me once and again that the most important thing was to rest, to sleep. In this way the next day I would feel stronger. 

For me this was a soft way of saying: “If you calm down and you get to sleep soon, then your death will be more pleasant”. 

This sounds terrible to me now but I also think: in some situations in your life you need to lie to the ones you love in order to protect them, don’t you? 

I mean, what would my girl tell me in a situation where I really was about to die? Would she clearly say it? Would she tell me straight? I don’t know…

I tried to sleep but this was very difficult because when I closed my eyes I could see some horrible images. 

These images were not dreams. 

All the time I knew that I was in the hospital and my wife was beside me. So I guess the images were a result of the medication and also my lack of strength.

The images were really terrifying. All the scenarios were dark, humid and steamy. In many of these images there were thick fluids (black, brown, dark grey…) flowing in different directions. 

Among these ugly liquids there were macabre things floating: a pig’s mask, the face of my son in the 3D radiography when he was still in his mum’s belly, bones, parts of bodies…. 
I could also see parts of machinery like gears or parts of motors. These metal parts were broken and I was looking at them from very close and I had the feeling that they were looking at me, judging me… and it didn’t feel good. 

Also crazy things like a kid crawling on the ceiling (clearly inspired by the film Trainspotting) or even me crawling on the ceiling. In another moment I was like a video camera up in space and suddenly I went down to the earth, to England and I ended up inside Brian Jones’ swimming pool and I could see his corpse from the inside of the water. 

I also had to say no to entering inside tunnels with a light in the end. A couple of times I was brave enough to go inside the tunnels because I thought“OK, this must be it, let’s end it all now”. But then nothing happened….

With all these images in my mind I was not getting calmer, my breathing was out of control and I couldn’t sleep. This took like 2 or 3 hours, I think.

Then my wife came up with a new idea. She said: “Iñaki, what about listening to that episode of Luke’s podcast that you liked a lot? That one in which he read the short story by Roald Dahl? Maybe that’s going to calm you down….”. 

Honestly, I didn’t believe that this would work but at least it was something different and since I was desperate I agreed that it was worth giving it a try.

When I heard your voice, the images automatically changed to something different. I started listening to your words, but since the images where suddenly very nice I was paying more and more attention to them and even if I could hear your voice in the background I wasn’t listening to your words anymore. 

Now the images where very colourful ones. For example I saw some based on cartoons that my kids see on the TV. 

I remember seeing characters of the series “True and the Rainbow Kingdom” and “The Octonauts”. I also saw some very nice cartoons in the style of Sgt. Pepper’s artwork and the Yellow Submarine film. 

Among these “visions” I remember one in particular. It was very pleasant and it stayed for a while: there where some magic carpets with stripes of very beautiful colours. They were floating in the air and my 6 year old twins were jumping on them and using them as slides.

They were laughing and having so much fun. 

Mixed up with this action I could see pictures floating around in the air. These were pictures of the 4 members of the family together: my wife, the kids and me…..
When your voice stopped because the chapter ended I noticed it. I was conscious for the first time that my breathing was very calm. I also was conscious that I was thinking in a more positive way. I was thinking: “OK, maybe I don’t have to die tonight”. Since my breathing was calmer and my mind was calmer too I got more relaxed and I finally managed to get to sleep. 

That night I slept and woke up many times but I think I got to sleep a total of around 3 hours.
Early next morning, at around 6:00 am I listened to birds singing. It made me feel good because by then I was totally convinced that I would hear that sound many times in the future. 

I was also a bit ashamed that my mind had been so confused and I made my wife suffer so much. I thought a lot about you too and I felt grateful that you helped me in my recovery. 
I was also grateful that my wife came up with this great idea which really made the difference. 

But, of course, my mind was mainly with my kids. Can you imagine the infinite happiness of knowing that I would be able to hug them again when only a few hours back I thought the opposite?

All of these words are only to explain to you how I went through a very rough situation and how you helped me get out of it. The moment I heard your voice is the exact moment that I started to get out of this horrible hole I was locked up in. So in the end all of this is only to say thank you. Just because it makes me feel good to do so.
Thanks Luke!!!
Iñaki

Luke: Summarise the story in your own way, in your own words.

Iñaki and I exchanged a couple of emails after this and he said he was happy for me to read this out on the podcast. 

Here is my response.

Hi Iñaki,

I’m glad you’re ok with me reading out your story on the podcast. I think it’s absolutely fascinating, and of course I’m always happy to tell the world any story in which I emerge as the hero!! 

Joking aside, your experience must have been absolutely terrifying and horrendous and I am genuinely amazed and pleased that the sound of my voice was reassuring for you in those moments.

I don’t know if you’ve heard my Sick In Japan episode (episode 118 – I think). I ended up in hospital in Japan once. I felt dreadful and I didn’t really know why I was there because I didn’t really understand what the doctor was saying. Thankfully it turned out that I was not seriously ill, but the first couple of nights were very frightening because I felt very bad and my diagnosis was lost in translation. \

I thought I was seriously ill and was afraid that I might die. I felt very paranoid and had to work hard to keep my mind calm. Like I mentioned – my experience wasn’t quite as bad as yours, but still – I have a slight sense of what your experience must have been like, and it’s incredible to me that the sound of my voice helped you to get through it. It’s flattering to know that, but also very reassuring and encouraging that my podcast can bring comfort to someone.

I also think your story is very compelling and well-described, so I think it should be fascinating for the LEPsters to hear it. 

And, I truly believe that bad experiences become a little better in our minds when we turn them into stories which we can share. 

You certainly have a great story there, and I think my audience are the perfect people to appreciate it.

So, I’m very glad you’re happy to let me share it. Hopefully it will provide something gripping for the audience and I really hope you enjoy hearing me read it out on the podcast.
Congratulations on your English too by the way. You described the story very specifically and clearly. 

In any case, I’m glad to hear that you’re basically back to normal again.
Thank you for sharing your story with me. I read it again this morning and I found it very moving – especially the moments when the joy and colour came back into your mind when you listened to my episode, particularly the visions of your happy family. 

Have a great week, and all the best to you.

Some words & phrases to review

  • A compelling story
  • A waking nightmare
  • A vivid dream
  • To have surgery
  • To have an operation
  • To have a local anaesthetic
  • To have a general anaesthetic
  • An anaesthetist
  • To anaesthetise 
  • Jaw
  • Palate
  • Hypochondriac
  • Sedated
  • To (not) think straight
  • To suspect that something is happening/has happened
  • Paranoia / paranoid
  • To back someone up 
  • To manage to do something
  • To tell something/someone straight
  • Macabre
  • Breathing / breath

Ending

Thanks again to Inaki for providing that story.

Quite a scary one!

I often wonder where you are and what you’re doing while you’re listening to this podcast, and if you have a similar story, don’t be a ninja – let me know in the comment section.

But for now, it’s time to say bye bye bye bye bye

794. The Surprising Power of Reading Aloud (Article) 📖🗣️

Reading out loud can have lots of surprising benefits for our memory and our mental health. How can it also help with your English? In this episode I read an article to you, help you understand it and give comments on the importance of reading, both quietly in your head, and out loud. Video version and full transcript available.

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Video Version (with on-screen text)

https://youtu.be/JLaeBWgodhA

Read the article on the BBC Future website here https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200917-the-surprising-power-of-reading-aloud


Download the full PDF transcript for this episode


Full Episode Transcript 👇

Hello listeners,

Welcome to this new episode. This one is about reading and the power of reading aloud (reading out loud) and I think it can definitely help you with your English in various ways. Stick with me, there’s a lot to discover here.

I found an article the other day on the BBC’s website and I thought it was really interesting and definitely something I could turn into an episode of this podcast. 

I am going to read the article to you in this episode. You can read it with me if you like. The link for the article is in the description, or if you are watching the video version you will see the text on the screen. 

I’ll help you understand it all, we’ll consider the main points being made by the writer, I’ll give my thoughts on how this all relates to learning English and I’ll point out some bits of vocabulary for you to learn along the way.

Reading out loud ← what does this mean?

Normally when we read, we read silently. We read in our heads. 📖👀

But when we read out loud we actually say the words we are reading with our voice so that other people can hear you. 🗣️ That’s what out loud means.

Aloud and out loud are synonyms.

  • To read out loud (I had to read out loud in front of my class during my French lesson and it was a bit embarrassing)
  • To say something out loud (Don’t say that out loud, it’s supposed be a secret!)
  • To think out loud (What are you talking about? Oh, sorry, never mind, I’m just thinking out loud really)
  • To laugh out loud (LOL)

The Article

The title of the article I found is The Surprising Power of Reading Aloud, and I found it in the “Future” section of the BBC’s website. 

BBC Future https://www.bbc.com/future/ 

BBC Future is a section of the BBC website where you can read some really interesting articles about lots of different subjects. 

The articles are written in an academic style (so we are looking at academic English here to an extent), but these articles are very readable and they are exactly the type of reading text that you might find in an IELTS reading test. You often find academic texts about scientific subjects, or history, or psychology in IELTS tests.

So, it would be really good practice for you to read articles like this on a regular basis, whether you are preparing for IELTS or you’re just interested in developing your English generally. The articles on BBC Future are quite advanced – they are for native English speakers, but with a good dictionary and a bit of motivation, they could really help your English. 

I’m going to help you do that in this episode with this particular article. I’ll take you through it and will explain things.

Let’s get started.

Before we start reading, I’ve got two tasks for you (and they’re important)

1st task: Consider some questions

Here are some questions to get you thinking 🧐🤔💭

I want you to consider these questions because this will get you in the right mental space to understand the article we’re going to read. It’s important to do this because this is how you get your mind ready before you read. So, consider these questions (below).

If you like you can pause this episode after I say these questions in order to actually answer them, in your own head or out loud. 

Saying your answers out loud would be the best thing to do – to practise your speaking and putting your thoughts into words. So, if you can do that, do that, right now, with these questions.

Questions to consider before reading

  1. When was the last time you read something in English? What was it, and why did you read it?
  2. When you read in English or in your first language, do you usually read silently in your head or do you read out loud? Why?
  3. In what situations do people sometimes read out loud? 
  4. Do you think reading out loud is more or less common these days than it used to be?
    Do people read out loud more these days, or did they do that more in the past?
    Why could this be?
  5. Can you remember a time when someone read something out loud to you?
    What was the situation? How did it make you feel?
  6. How about when you were a child? Can you remember any moments when someone read out loud to you? How do you feel about those memories?
  7. What do you think is better for your English – reading texts silently in your head, reading texts out loud, or listening to other people read out loud to you? Why?

2nd task: Read the text 📖

Here’s a reading task for you 

Before I read this article to you, I want you to read it yourself. Twice

🔗 link in the description 🔗

First, read the text silently, then try reading it out loud.

You don’t have to read the whole thing. Maybe just do the first few paragraphs if you prefer. 

But try it. Go on.

Read it silently first, then read it out loud.

Try not to sound like a robot 🤖

Put some life into the reading ❤️‍🔥

If/When you read it out loud, consider these questions. you .

  • Where are the pauses? Where should you pause when you read? 
  • Which words in each line should be stressed (emphasised)?
  • Where does the voice go up and where does the voice go down? 
  • How would you read it out like a TV presenter or a university lecturer?

Imagine you are reading this out for an audience. 

It might affect the way you read it. 🗣️

You can do that now. The link to the article is in the description. 

Read it – first silently, and then out loud like a presenter.

I’ll let you pause the episode right now and do that. I’ll continue speaking to you again in a moment.

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This is where you pause to read the article

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OK, welcome back. I know some of you didn’t pause the episode and read the text, which is totally fine.

But some of you did. Nice one.

I wonder how it was for you. 

Was difficult or not? 

Was it difficult to read the text?

It’s a different experience isn’t it, reading it out loud. 

It has its own challenges. 

Unknown vocabulary, difficult pronunciation, understanding the overall flow and structure of the text.

Now, let me read the article to you. You can read it with me too, or just listen. It’s up to you. 

I’ve broken the text into sections. I’ll read a section of the article, then paraphrase what I read, add my comments and explain some words. Then we’ll move to the next section.

Whenever there’s a break in the text like this, it’s the end of a section.

– – – – – – – – –

When that happens, I’ll stop and explain things, then we’ll move on to the next section.

You’ll see some words highlighted in bold. These are words that you might not know, so I’ll explain them as we go. 

Try reading aloud with me to work on your pronunciation if you like.

BBC FUTURE: NEUROSCIENCE

Why you should read this out loud

By Sophie Hardach /ˈhædək/ 18th September 2020

Most adults retreat into a personal, quiet world inside their heads when they are reading, but we may be missing out on some vital benefits when we do this.

For much of history, reading was a fairly noisy activity. On clay tablets written in ancient Iraq and Syria some 4,000 years ago, the commonly used words for “to read” literally meant “to cry out” or “to listen”. 

“I am sending a very urgent message,” says one letter from this period. “Listen to this tablet. If it is appropriate, have the king listen to it.”

Only occasionally, a different technique was mentioned: to “see” a tablet – to read it silently.

Today, silent reading is the norm. The majority of us bottle the words in our heads as if sitting in the hushed confines of a library. Reading out loud is largely reserved for bedtime stories and performances.

But a growing body of research suggests that we may be missing out by reading only with the voices inside our minds. The ancient art of reading aloud has a number of benefits for adults, from helping improve our memories and understand complex texts, to strengthening emotional bonds between people. And far from being a rare or bygone activity, it is still surprisingly common in modern life. Many of us intuitively use it as a convenient tool for making sense of the written word, and are just not aware of it.

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Colin MacLeod, a psychologist at the University of Waterloo in Canada, has extensively researched the impact of reading aloud on memory. He and his collaborators have shown that people consistently remember words and texts better if they read them aloud than if they read them silently. This memory-boosting effect of reading aloud is particularly strong in children, but it works for older people, too. “It’s beneficial throughout the age range,” he says.

MacLeod has named this phenomenon the “production effect”. It means that producing written words – that’s to say, reading them out loud – improves our memory of them.

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The production effect has been replicated in numerous studies spanning more than a decade.

In one study in Australia, a group of seven-to-10-year-olds were presented with a list of words and asked to read some silently, and others aloud. Afterwards, they correctly recognised 87% of the words they’d read aloud, but only 70% of the silent ones.

In another study, adults aged 67 to 88 were given the same task – reading words either silently or aloud – before then writing down all those they could remember. They were able to recall 27% of the words they had read aloud, but only 10% of those they’d read silently. When asked which ones they recognised, they were able to correctly identify 80% of the words they had read aloud, but only 60% of the silent ones. MacLeod and his team have found the effect can last up to a week after the reading task.

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Even just silently mouthing the words makes them more memorable, though to a lesser extent.

Researchers at Ariel University in the occupied West Bank discovered that the memory-enhancing effect also works if the readers have speech difficulties, and cannot fully articulate the words they read aloud.

MacLeod says one reason why people remember the spoken words is that “they stand out, they’re distinctive, because they were done aloud, and this gives you an additional basis for memory”.

We are generally better at recalling distinct, unusual events, and also, events that require active involvement

For instance, generating a word in response to a question makes it more memorable, a phenomenon known as the generation effect

Similarly, if someone prompts you with the clue “a tiny infant, sleeps in a cradle, begins with b”, and you answer baby, you’re going to remember it better than if you simply read it, MacLeod says.

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Another way of making words stick is to enact them, for instance by bouncing a ball (or imagining bouncing a ball) while saying “bounce a ball”. 

This is called the enactment effect. Both of these effects are closely related to the production effect: they allow our memory to associate the word with a distinct event, and thereby make it easier to retrieve later.

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The production effect is strongest if we read aloud ourselves. But listening to someone else read can benefit memory in other ways. In a study led by researchers at the University of Perugia in Italy, students read extracts from novels to a group of elderly people with dementia over a total of 60 sessions. The listeners performed better in memory tests after the sessions than before, possibly because the stories made them draw on their own memories and imagination, and helped them sort past experiences into sequences. “It seems that actively listening to a story leads to more intense and deeper information processing,” the researchers concluded.

Reading aloud can also make certain memory problems more obvious, and could be helpful in detecting such issues early on. 

In one study, people with early Alzheimer’s disease were found to be more likely than others to make certain errors when reading aloud.

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There is some evidence that many of us are intuitively aware of the benefits of reading aloud, and use the technique more than we might realise.

Sam Duncan, an adult literacy researcher at University College London, conducted a two-year study of more than 500 people all over Britain during 2017-2019 to find out if, when and how they read aloud. Often, her participants would start out by saying they didn’t read aloud – but then realised that actually, they did.

“Adult reading aloud is widespread,” she says. “It’s not something we only do with children, or something that only happened in the past.”

Some said they read out funny emails or messages to entertain others. Others read aloud prayers and blessings for spiritual reasons. Writers and translators read drafts to themselves to hear the rhythm and flow. People also read aloud to make sense of recipes, contracts and densely written texts.

“Some find it helps them unpack complicated, difficult texts, whether it’s legal, academic, or Ikea-style instructions,” Duncan says. “Maybe it’s about slowing down, saying it and hearing it.”

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For many respondents, reading aloud brought joy, comfort and a sense of belonging. Some read to friends who were sick or dying, as “a way of escaping together somewhere”, Duncan says. One woman recalled her mother reading poems to her, and talking to her, in Welsh. After her mother died, the woman began reading Welsh poetry aloud to recreate those shared moments. A Tamil speaker living in London said he read Christian texts in Tamil to his wife. On Shetland, a poet read aloud poetry in the local dialect to herself and others.

“There were participants who talked about how when someone is reading aloud to you, you feel a bit like you’re given a gift of their time, of their attention, of their voice,” Duncan recalls. “We see this in the reading to children, that sense of closeness and bonding, but I don’t think we talk about it as much with adults.”

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If reading aloud delivers such benefits, why did humans ever switch to silent reading? One clue may lie in those clay tablets from the ancient Near East, written by professional scribes in a script called cuneiform /ˈkjuːnɪˌfɔːm/.

Over time, the scribes developed an ever faster and more efficient way of writing this script. Such fast scribbling has a crucial advantage, according to Karenleigh Overmann, a cognitive archaeologist at the University of Bergen, Norway who studies how writing affected human brains and behaviour in the past. “It keeps up with the speed of thought much better,” she says.

Reading aloud, on the other hand, is relatively slow due to the extra step of producing a sound.

“The ability to read silently, while confined to highly proficient scribes, would have had distinct advantages, especially, speed,” says Overmann. “Reading aloud is a behaviour that would slow down your ability to read quickly.”

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In his book on ancient literacy, Reading and Writing in Babylon, the French assyriologist Dominique Charpin quotes a letter by a scribe called Hulalum that hints at silent reading in a hurry. Apparently, Hulalum switched between “seeing” (ie, silent reading) and “saying/listening” (loud reading), depending on the situation. In his letter, he writes that he cracked open a clay envelopeMesopotamian tablets came encased inside a thin casing of clay to prevent prying eyes from reading them – thinking it contained a tablet for the king.

“I saw that it was written to [someone else] and therefore did not have the king listen to it,” writes Hulalum.

Perhaps the ancient scribes, just like us today, enjoyed having two reading modes at their disposal: one fast, convenient, silent and personal; the other slower, noisier, and at times more memorable.

In a time when our interactions with others and the barrage of information we take in are all too transient, perhaps it is worth making a bit more time for reading out loud. Perhaps you even gave it a try with this article, and enjoyed hearing it in your own voice?

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Conclusion

As a language practice exercise, try reading texts out loud. 

You don’t have to do it all the time, but simply trying to read a text out loud as if you are reading it to some people, can be a good exercise. 

Research suggests that it could help you remember words more effectively. The production effect means – producing words (saying them out loud) makes a difference to your ability to remember them later. Even just mouthing words when you read them helps them to go into your brain.

So, read aloud and mouth words when you read them.

Also, being prompted with a clue helps you remember words. This is called the generation effect. This encourages me a lot, because it confirms things I have been doing as a teacher, including in LEP Premium episodes when I use little prompts to help you recall words. For you, you could always create your own clues to help you remember words or phrases, or play word games in English in which you define words and then have to guess which words they are. Do this with new vocabulary. Of course, you would need friends or language partners to play with.

Acting words out, or linking them to physical movements also helps you remember words. So, when trying to remember words, add a physical element somehow, even if it means imagining yourself doing the word or being in a certain physical space when thinking of new words. For example if the expression is “to be wary of doing something” – put your hand to your chin and pretend you are being nervous about something or reluctant to do it. Make a sound like “Naaaaaaah, I’m a bit wary of doing that”. Perhaps imagine yourself at the end of a dark street and say “I’m a bit wary of going down there on my own. I think I’ll take the main road.”

Listening to other people read to you also helps a lot. So, the conclusion here is just keep listening to LEP of course! I am sure this works when someone is just speaking to you as well, especially if you are involved and caught up in what they are saying. That’s what I’ve always thought and I am sure scientific research would suggest that it’s true. My hypothesis is that people will remember more L2 words when they are presented in a meaningful context. It’s pretty obvious really. 

Reading aloud might be good for your mental health. It seems that the exercise can reveal signs of dementia. Maybe reading aloud does require quite a lot of brain work – not only are you reading and decoding the words, but your brain is involved in some motor exercise too – meaning, muscle work, movement work. Surely, making your brain multi-task like this can only be good as a way of keeping it active. Brain training, basically. 

It’s a good way to keep your brain young.

Reading aloud also makes you feel quite good, especially if you do it with others. It could be a good exercise with other learners of English, or with your English teacher. Of course, don’t only read aloud, but include it as part of your regular English practice. It’s especially enjoyable if you are reading out some interesting texts, and try to mix it up – some non-fiction stuff and also some stories and so on.

When you read aloud, consider where you need to chunk the text, pause, emphasise and use intonation.

Reading texts out loud is something I often do with my students in class. I ask my students to work out where the pauses should be, which words to emphasise and where the voice goes up or down. 

This exercise reveals things about the text, including the structure and the real meanings and intentions of the writer.

Try reading aloud from time to time. Also try reading out loud with me, at the same time as me sometimes (if there is a transcript with the episode). It might help you notice more aspects of the language in the text, help you remember it more, and help you practice your pronunciation as well as your reading. It might also just make you feel good.

What do you think?

  • Leave your comments below. 
  • What have you been thinking while listening to this?
  • Has it given you any ideas about learning English?
  • Do you have anything to add?

Put your thoughts into English in the comment section.


A Premium Series 

I’m also publishing a 3-part premium series all about the language in this episode. It’ll be available soon or maybe it’s already available now. I’m going to record them right away in fact. They are the next things I’m going to record.

In those premium episodes I will go through the vocabulary which I highlighted in the text again, and I’ll expand things with slightly more detailed explanations and examples, then I’ll test your memory of those words and phrases (with some prompts and some sentences with missing words) and give you a chance to practise pronouncing all the words in sentences. 

There will also be an episode where we practise reading aloud some of the paragraphs from the text, with advice about where to pause, which words to emphasise and so on, with sentences to repeat after me.

To get those episodes, sign up to LEP Premium on Acast+. You can add the premium episodes to your podcasting app, and also access PDFs and video versions that way. www.teacherluke.co.uk/premium for the premium series focusing on the language in this episode.


That’s it for this episode, but I will be back soon with more things for you to listen to, including more stories which I would like to read to you, and conversations with guests, and all the other types of episode I like to present to you on my show.

Thanks for listening, but for now – good bye bye bye!