IELTS Speaking for Success - 🔎 Learning English through podcasts (with Luke's English Podcast)

Episode Date: September 24, 2020

In this very special episode we have Luke Thompson from Luke's English Podcast with us! We talk about the most useful practices of using podcasts to improve your English, active and passive listening, accents, and give you step-by-step guide on how to get the best out of a language-learning podcast! Tune in and have a great day! - Luke's English Podcast: https://teacherluke.co.uk/ Guide on learning English through podcasts: https://bit.ly/33wcHuj IELTS Speaking for Success PREMIUM: https://linktr.ee/sfspremium Find an IELTS Speaking Partner: https://bit.ly/ieltsspeakingpartners Our social media: https://linktr.ee/successwithielts © Success with IELTS Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, lovely. Today we have a very special episode because we have a very special guest on our podcast. He is my favorite person and I admire all his work. Luke Thompson from Luke's English podcast, ladies and jans. Hello, Luke. Hello. Wow. I'm your favorite person. Yes, you are. I wonder how many people you know. I don't know. But anyway, that's very nice of you. Hello. Thanks for inviting me onto your podcast. Welcome into the podcast. Did I pronounce your name correctly, Luke? Yeah, yeah, that's great. Yeah, because normally it's luck or it's look. I've had rook before. I've no idea what that is, rook. But no, Luke, yeah, you got it right. Look, tell us, are you, do you call yourself a podcaster, a podcast master, an English teacher? I wouldn't say I'm a master podcast, although I might jokingly refer to myself as that on my website as a Jedi podmaster, I think. But no, I'm just a podcaster.

I think the order is these days it's podcaster first, then teacher, and then stand-up comedian. I think it's in that order. So, yes, these days, since I do more podcasting than actual teaching now, I think that comes first, yeah. But do you have any classes at the moment? Yeah, yeah, I teach some classes at the British Council in Paris. And so it's a very weird time, though, because our school has recently opened up

its doors again and so we've got students in classrooms but people are sort of like you know having to distance from each other I'm wearing a mask while I'm teaching some teachers are going around with big visors plastic visors on it's like Darth Vader's walking around with a you know with like you know it's very weird uh time indeed for teaching it's like teaching meets star wars with with a sort of zombie element thrown in there too but um yeah so I still teach um normal classes as well as podcasting And how long have you been into podcasting? Oh, I mean, as a general podcast enthusiast, oh, I don't know, since I first got, like, my first computer and got online.

And probably around 2004, I think is when I've discovered it. The Ricky Jervais podcast, I think was the first thing I listened to. But then I started doing mine in 2009. So that's kind of when I got the bug and started doing it myself. So it's been over, what, over 11 years now? Oh my God, wow. Yeah. So look, because you've been into this language learning podcasting for ages,

so we're going to be talking about how to get the most out of a language learning podcast. So basically, like as a language learner, what can you do to boost your English while listening to podcasts, yeah? And how to use podcasts? Is it true that we can improve our English just with podcasts? Yes, it is possible to improve your English with podcasts. I don't know if it's if podcasts can be the only thing. I think that, I don't know, it depends because language learning to an extent is a bit of a mystery and you do get certain cases where people seem to just learn the language through one very specific exposure to it. But I wouldn't say it's the only thing you need to do. And I've never said that that's the only thing you need to do. But I think it can be huge. helpful and beneficial to your English. And the difference between, for example, a learner of English that I might meet in one of my classes who listens to podcasts to improve their English and a learner of English who doesn't, I mean, there's usually a huge difference between the two. Oh, that's true.

Yeah, I've noticed that in the many years I've been teaching and I've been teaching for about 20 years now, that, you know, you meet some students who just seem to fit the right profile of the kind of person who's going to take the right approach, has the right attitude. has the right level of initiative to succeed in language learning. And I don't know if it's a coincidence, but they tend to be the ones who do things like listen to podcasts for learners of English, listen to podcasts, not for learners of English. They're reading books in English, they're watching TV series in English, with and without English subtitles. Those are the sorts of people who seem to do well. Whereas the people who've just kind of drifted into the language school because their parents expected them to do it and who think that basically just by being there in the room,

they will somehow learn English by osmosis. Yeah, it's like this magic, you know, happening in the background. It's a language. It's not a virus. You don't catch it like just by being in the same room. You do have to apply yourself to it. But anyway, so I suppose using podcasts as part of your learning English process is an extremely good idea. And I've got to, probably two ways to talk about it. So the first way is just the fact that podcasts are, by their nature, very engaging and quite, what's the word for it? Fun. They're fun.

They're fun. Very personal and quite intimate as well, because you listen to them, usually on headphones. You don't tend to gather around with other people and listen to a podcast. You normally listen to them when you're on your own doing things. And so as a result, it's just a voice in your head, which can be. become a very personal, intimate kind of thing, which is great, obviously, for learning English, because the more personal, the more meaningful, emotional even. It can be the more engaging it is. And as a result, the language is more likely to stick in those cases. So that's one argument that just podcasts are just very motivating. The second thing is that if you're

listening to podcasts like yours, for example, or mine or one of the other podcasts out there for learners of English, there's loads of metacognitive strategies that you're, you're going to learn. Metacognitive strategies. Yeah. Whoa. That's a posh word. Do I get bonus points for saying metacognitive strategies?

Yes, you have an Oscar for using metacognitive strategies. Sounds good, doesn't it? Listeners, slip that one into your next conversation. Metacognitive strategies. Do you know what I'm talking about when I say metacognitive strategies? Tell us. Tell us. Tell the world.

So it's quite a posh term for ways of approaching language learning. So not just language learning, but the ways in which you look at language learning from outside. So you kind of look at the way that you do it and approach different strategies for doing it. So it's not just language learning. It's like looking at how you language learn. And these podcasts, you know, are full of advice. You've got lots of people publishing episodes with all the advice they can possibly give. There are no secrets.

Even though you see YouTube videos with the 10 secrets for learning English. Like there aren't any secrets. People are podcasting all of their knowledge. They're publishing all their knowledge in textbooks. All the knowledge is being devoted to training courses and the industry itself. So, you know, there's so much stuff that you can learn about learning as well from these things. Learning about learning. Yeah. But then we get into this area of sort of directly learning the language through podcasts, not just the fact they motivate you or provide you, with a good resource, but the fact that the way that you actually pick up language from them. So it kind of gets down to active and passive language. Yeah, so active and passive learning or active and passive listening. Or can I be like a passive listener, an active listener, both, you know? Or like on Monday I'm a passive listener.

On Tuesday I'm an active listener. You know, I combine this too. I'm a passive, active learner, listener. We throw these words around like passive listener and active listener and stuff. And, you know, honestly, when these things are said, I think most of us think, passive listener basically means lazy bastard who just lies down on the sofa listening and doesn't do anything else. They're just like, no, no, no, like, you know, whatever. Yeah, and passive listeners, they listen to a podcast while driving or while washing the dishes,

I don't know, washing their hands, their face. But, however, like, passive listening is better than no listening, right? Oh yes Absolutely Absolutely right So it's a bit like Hmm Let's think of a drink-based analogy

Now this is a terrible analogy already No it won't work I was going to say that passive listening is like water It's like the basic Sort of daily ingredient Thing that you need Just to keep you hydrated

And then on top of that You know you've got like a You know delicious food Which is actually very tasty That you No It doesn't work at all this analogy.

No, it's kind of like, podcasts are like your daily routine, right? Yeah, yes. It's very easy to fit them into your daily study routine. Yeah, like they should be your daily routine. You get up and you start listening to a podcast. You know, you do your chores, you listen to a podcast. Yeah. Yeah, that's right.

You go and record a podcast. And that is my daily routine. I get up. After all the, you know, business of getting my daughter to school and all that stuff is done. I listen to podcasts on the way back, walking home from my daughter's school. And then I go in, go upstairs,

stop listening to a podcast, start preparing a podcast. Then I have lunch. Then I record a podcast. Then I go and do some housework and listen to it. So basically, yes, just living and breathing podcasts. Anyway, so the point about active and passive listening, what do we actually mean?

But what about active listeners? If I'm an active listener, what do I do? So passive, yeah, like I listen to a podcast, while driving, right? It's my daily routine. But if I'm an active listener, what do I do? Okay, so I, any, basically, as an active listener, to qualify as an active listener, you just, in my opinion, need to just do anything above and beyond just listening and following it. So that could even include, as a bare minimum, just making a conscious note of certain bits of language as you hear it, right? Just a little, just noticing, which is actually a small step that

can make a huge difference. Oh, I quite like that phrase. Did you like that? Sounds like a good advertising slogan. A small step can make a huge difference. Anyway, so just noticing trying to be engaged, not only with what's being said, but how it's being said at a bare minimum.

Make your brain work while listening. Yes, that's right. Try, if possible, to make your brain work. work. I know it's difficult. So as well as all of the advantages, the, you know, the language acquisition and the familiarity that you get from just regularly listening a lot, that it, you know, all that stuff, you know, language acquisition theory and Stephen Creschen and, you know, all that sort of thing. Using an active approach is basically where you make choices to do, yeah, more than just listen. So I've got some ideas here. I've got some things that you can do to directly

work on your speaking using a podcast as a resource. So the podcast is not just something you listen to, but it's a tool that you start to use in different ways to work on your speaking in this case. Okay. So the first thing is obviously some of these things are quite common sense, but still. First one is listen and repeat. Now I've also noted down the phrase shadowing here. Yeah. Yeah. So what do we understand by shadowing? What is it? And do you think it's, do you think it works. What do you reckon? I reckon shadowing, which is basically you repeat everything the speaker says simultaneously. Like you say it at the same time, it's by far the most effective way of boosting your English. Because you know what I do? I switch on your podcast. I listen to

your podcast and I shadow your podcast. I've shadowed many of your episodes. So have you really? Yes. But how do you know what I'm going to say next? I have no idea. I have no idea. You're like, I listen to you and I repeat everything you say, the way you say it. And especially, you know, if I run a webinar in English or a presentation in English, so I need this warm up, you know. So like 10 minutes before I go to Lux English podcast app and then I switch it on and I start shadowing. Yep. This is my warm up routine. That is actually an excellent idea as well, warming up before you have to do your whatever English language communicate. act if you warm up in advance, it's a very good idea. So I was wondering about shadowing, but it's interesting that you give it such good feedback. And obviously, you're an extremely successful language learner yourself. Oh, thank you. So, you know, well, yes. But, um, uh, oh, thank you. Well, thank you, Mr. Thompson. You, with these compliments, you're, so,

Thompson. You're spoiling us. Shadowing has, like, incredible results. And it's tiring because you do make the efforts and you repeat everything after the speaker and like five minutes later you are basically you're tired yeah well good that's actually a very good sign the more tired you are it means basically the more brain work you've you've had to do but yes repeating uh after someone is extremely good work because it's yes it's basically forcing you to do many things at the same time so obviously the motor skills of getting your mouth and throat tongue lips and everything to make the right noises but also processing you language. You're processing language at extremely high rate where you're like, you know,

basically understanding, computing and then reproducing what you're hearing, which, yeah, is like sort of fast-tracking language into your head. I was wondering about shadowing versus just listen and repeat. So shadowing is exactly as you said. As the person's talking, you're trying to repeat what they say as they go along. Whereas listen and repeat is where you like you pause the podcast after a certain utterance and you try to repeat what you've heard and maybe even skip back and sort of go again and again. I was wondering if that would be more useful because it's a way of sort of stopping the flow and then repeating. But I mean, you know, so I guess it's whatever, whatever works for you. Shadowing has been

effective for you. I've heard some people say that they think it's less effective and that stopping and then repeating is more effective. But anyway, essentially it's about playing with repeating you're hearing yes in one way or another i think that if you are at the very beginning of your english journey and you're at a lower level like listen stop repeat after the speaker but when you're just like upper intermediate or you have the confidence you can just like play it and repeat after the speaker which is also great for your pronunciation for this you know intonation patterns pauses when you make a pause you know like maintaining the flow right right right what else do I have? I've got transcribing, so that's making transcripts.

Of the whole episode? No, not the whole episode. No way. It's too long, especially if it's my episodes. Yeah. No, you can just transcribe bits. So it could be, I mean, it doesn't even have to be a podcast. It could be anything, really. But you just pick a bit that maybe you like or you find interesting and you try and write it down word for word. Probably about two minutes worth is enough. Just write it down word for word. Now, what you really need, to make this work is you need to get the answers.

So you need to be doing maybe something that's already got a transcription. So it could be the first five minutes of one of my episodes. Or it could be episodes of a TV show where you have the subtitles or any audio with the transcript. You try to transcribe it and then you check to see what you've heard. And then also you can turn it up a bit more by doing a bit of speaking while you're doing your transcribing too. so you're kind of combining a bit of writing, listening, vocab, grammar with some pronunciation and speaking in there too. I've got just this kind of formula, listen, repeat, record, compare.

Okay, listen, repeat, record, compare. So that's where you just listen to a little section of audio. You repeat it. Then you record yourself saying it, and then you compare your recording with the original. And you kind of reflect on how you produce the English compared to, for example, how I do. Wow. So listen, repeat, record, compare.

What do you think about that as a language, as an English learner yourself? This is super active. Yeah. I think it does work. Yeah. Like, transcribing the episodes, like recording. But recording what? Recording yourself saying what I've said on a podcast.

Right. So if it's maybe a paragraph and you've done some listen and repeat with that paragraph, you then record yourself saying the paragraph. or maybe the opening minute of one of my episodes, trying to copy my intonation and all that stuff. And then you compare that recording that you've made of your voice with the original one. And you try to notice any things. I mean, that can be a bit tough because we don't like to hear our own voices usually. So that can be a bit tough, but I think it's worth doing it.

I wonder why, Maria, it is that although these sort of techniques exist and they're known and people share them and stuff, Why doesn't absolutely everybody do this? Because people are lazy. It's okay that we're lazy and just we just enjoy like driving our car, listening to a podcast, do nothing and just hoping for this magic to happen. Like, you know, I get up, bam, and I'm an advanced learn of English, you know. Yeah. Because like this is super, this is how you go from a passive listener to an active listener, you know, listener, you know, listen, repeat. record compare, but this is your work, like you are putting the effort.

And unfortunately, not all people are, you know, hardworking and, yeah, have the time, for example. Yeah, some of the very successful language learners I know tend to be very sort of obsessive, compulsive about it. They're obsessed with it. They just can't stop working. They're getting up at the crack of dawn in order to start working on their language learning routines. and they just think about language learning constantly and they're very competitive. But not all of us are like that. Some of us are just more like,

oh, I think I'll just stick on a podcast while I'm making some toast. Yeah. That's my ambition for the next five minutes. Eat bread and not be bored. Yeah. But again, like why not? You know, like this is their way.

This is somebody else's way. Yeah. Like, why not? But we know that the things we're talking about do work. if you put yourself into them. I've got other things as well. So a podcast could just kind of inspire you to talk, to produce English yourself. I've talked in the past about the importance of writing English regularly, maybe even every day and in the form of a diary, just so that you're

putting English down, you're expressing yourself in English on paper, finding a voice. But similarly, you could try to do the same thing with speaking. It's just socially a bit more weird to essentially do to speak out loud to yourself writing a diary fine society says that's fine but speaking aloud on your own is considered to be a bit weird

so there's a social block for why people might not do that but talking to yourself can actually be quite useful absolutely I totally agree with you yeah like you should speak to yourself out loud

and also it could be useful to read the transcripts out loud Oh, yes. Reading out loud. Yeah. The transcripts, right? Transcripts. Because when you're reading a transcript, you have to be like, hello, you're listening to Luke's English podcast. Today, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And otherwise, you'd be like, hello today, you're listening to. You have to make it sound like, like me. What else did I write down here? So talking to yourself, you could do your own podcast.

Yep. You can imagine that you've got your own podcast in English and you just do it. You don't even have to record it. you just pretend in the shower or something like that. Then I've got, you know, just the usual things about vocab, like noting down vocab and example sentences, testing yourself, repeating the examples, doing it regularly. Or alternatively, you could just sign up to Luke's English podcast premium where I do most of that for you, of course. Yeah.

Little plug there for my premium service. Yeah. I'm your premium subscriber. Are you a premium lepster? Absolutely. I'm a premium lepster. That's brilliant. Yay, nice one. I've just recorded a premium episode today. It'll be published later.

So, what else? What about vocabulary? Do you think it's a good idea to choose my favorite words from the podcast, that the words that I want to remember that I can learn and use in my everyday life? Or should I, like, learn all the words? No, you can't learn them all. There's too many. Don't try to eat an elephant. You know, how do you eat an elephant? You eat it one spoon at a time. So you can't eat the entire thing in one go. Don't try to be a completist.

It's difficult because some of us just are sort of feel like we're designed that way to just cover absolutely every single angle. It's like when I play a computer game, right? When I play a computer game, I go into the level and I just explore every single corner of that level to make sure I haven't missed any secret little things. Similarly, when people learning a language, they come across a text or something

and they feel like they've got to understand every single word one by one they've got to cover 300. and 60 degrees of it, cover it all before they move on just in case they've missed something. But no, you don't have to do it like that. You should do it in a more natural, organic way. Like you said, pick out your favorite words, or at least words that you feel like somehow are important to, you know, what's being said or whatever. And just like, or words that you notice coming up again and again, or words that seem to elicit a certain reaction, or just generally just try to notice, it's hard to notice words that you don't use.

because you don't hear them. So you've got to try to push yourself to actually try to identify what these other sounds are that's going on and investigating them. You've got to be like a text detective. If you discover something new, you've got to hunt it down. You've got to try and Google it. How do they spell that? And you've got to try and check various ways of spelling it until you finally find the word and hunt it.

you've got it, bang, you move on. So, yes, I've got other ideas. Just recording yourself, talking, not just repeating, but making up your own responses to podcast episodes. And yeah, like you said, reading out transcripts out loud too. Or often I have notes for my episodes. You could just go through the notes and just use my notes as the basis for your own version of the episode I did. You know? And then you could compare that to the,

original recording. There's lots of stuff that you can do, but at the bare minimum, it's just really trying to notice language as you're listening, trying to really engage with what you're listening to, and thirdly, repeating what you're hearing as well, and trying to push yourself there. At the minimum, that's probably what you should be doing, and that's probably a very good idea. Yes, perfect. Yeah, like a perfect recipe. Yay. I hope so. If it becomes your habit, if you get used to it, you kind of do it like on a daily basis and, yeah, you'll just see how advanced you're becoming. Yeah.

So what's your story then? Like, let's say 10 years ago. What was your English like? Oh, 10 years. Oh, where was I? 10 years ago. No, my English was okay. Lost in the wilderness until you discovered my podcast.

Yeah, because like I've been teaching English for gosh, for, I know, I don't even remember how long. But still, I feel that I need to improve certain things. You know, I need to work on my English. I need to listen to something like every day. And then I found your podcast and I really enjoyed like the topics. I enjoyed the format. I enjoy how you say certain things with your, not posh, but British accent.

Yes. Do you enjoy my Russian accent? Yeah, but your accent's not especially strong. No? No, some of our listeners, actually, one listener made a comment. Oh, so like horrible Russian accent. And then I wrote to Rory, you know, Rory, stop using horrible Russian accent. Rory is from Scotland.

I think those sorts of attitudes are pretty, well, I don't agree with that kind of thing. I mean, some people are very sensitive and intolerant to different. accents and people seem to be very easily triggered by accents. I'm not in that category. For me, I like accents. I like the variety of accents. And I like the fact, I would promote the fact that in English, accent variety is definitely a strength. And it's also an advantage for learners of English because you realize that ultimately what you don't need to learn to speak exactly like me, for example, that there's no hierarchy here. You just have to try and get into the club. Okay? So it's not like you've got to get up to the top table. You just get into

the club and everyone's in and having a party. And the club is basically all these different versions of English. So there's like even in England, you've got people who speak like me, people who speak with different regional accents, regional accents from other countries. And if we all understand each other, then that's great. It's just variety and interesting different sounds, but we all understand each other. And it within what's considered to be, the native English speaker world, in that world of speakers of English as a first language, there's a massive variety of accents. Even just, you know, in some very small areas of the UK, there's a huge variety of accents.

So variety in accents is not a problem, and it's part of who you are, and as long as it doesn't stop people understanding you, that's the main thing. So if you sound a bit Russian, or if you sound a bit French, or if you sound a bit Japanese, whatever, that's all right. You should be proud of it. I sound a bit English. A bit. Yeah.

I mean, compared to an American or Canadian or Irish person or Australian or something, I sound English. And that's because I am. So if you're Russian and you sound Russian, that's all right. It would be weird if you were Russian and you sounded English unless, of course, you wanted to be a spy. In which case, you know, well, you need to take my special English for spies course to prepare you for that. Yeah, we need to create a special podcast. I'm joking of course, everybody. And is there an accent that you personally, you don't understand?

an accent that I don't understand no not really I've been asked that question before but it's not an accent that I don't understand but an individual so it's very rare that I hear speak to people in English and don't understand them but there was a fisherman off the south coast of Ireland

that I met once he took my brother and my dad and me on a trip on a little boat to an island and we couldn't understand a thing he said he was speaking English but we couldn't understand any of it so you see dear listener sorry sorry You see, the listener, even native English speakers can't understand each other sometimes. Sometimes, it's not very often.

But, I mean, it depends. I mean, I think that I just happen to, you know, really be paying attention to all the different versions of English. And I love to try and copy them and stuff. But whereas many other people are less familiar. And so, for example, American TV audiences are often not prepared to hear accents from Ireland or the UK. You know Colin Farrell, the actor? He's Irish, actually. And he was interviewed on American TV once,

and they had to subtitle him because they couldn't understand what he was saying, even though he was speaking English. So, you know, for the Americans, they can't understand some accents, just because they don't get exposed to them very much. But no, I don't find there are any accents that I can't understand,

except very sort of extremely rural, places like some Scottish farmer in the highlands or something like that maybe but otherwise now I'm I'm okay what about you do you find certain accents tricky what about Rory do you actually I understand Rory yes but I've been to Ireland and I understand what you mean and we it was Dublin and we went on this ghost tour and the guide would tell us this interesting stories about ghosts I had no idea what he was saying he was Irish yeah Seriously, I wanted to understand and then like, no, I lost it. If you're not familiar with the different accents, yeah, you will be definitely shocked and caught out.

Like, yeah, I can imagine Irish or Northern Irish can be very difficult. Welsh. Yeah, that's why you, Welsh, yeah, you've got to try and hear all the different accents as much as possible. Yes. Thank you so much. I think we should kind of wrap up. Thanks very much for inviting me. It's been interesting to discuss this.

Yeah. Thank you so much. So we've discussed useful, like effective tips, like listen, repeat, and shadowing, right? So we've discussed that trend. What did you discuss? Transcripts. We've discussed transcripts and your super formula, listen, repeat, record, compare. And some other useful tips.

So, dear listener, you can just listen to us again, talking through different life hacks and strategies. And then choose one, two, three. or four, which is like good for you. Yeah, I would say so. Noticing, repeating, transcribing. Yeah, give it a try. Just try some of these things. See if they work for you.

Thank you so much for being on the podcast. It's been a pleasure. Thank you very much. Hello, listeners. It's very nice to talk to you. And Maria and guys, you know, you're doing a great job. Good luck with the podcast. Good luck with your English, everyone.

I hope you absolutely smash the IELTS test. You'll go in. Next time you do it, you'll go in. and you'll come out of the test and other people will be going in and you'll just say to them, no need to go in, I destroyed it. The a else doesn't exist anymore. I actually smashed it. Whoa!