Hello, and welcome back to No Word Is An Island Advanced English, the podcast for English language learners who want to be more fluent and articulate. Remember that this podcast is designed to be used with he interactive transcript and Quizlet flashcards available at BetterLanguageLearning.com/podcast. As you read the script you’ll notice words and chunks highlighted in pink. By hovering over them with your mouse or finger you’ll see a complete definition with information on register too. Now that we’ve got that out of the way, on with the show!
For years one of my favourite newspaper columns was This Column Will Change Your Life by Oliver Burkeman. It was a charming, humorous and critical look at pop psychology, social science research, philosophy and religion. He brought to all of his columns an insatiable curiosity to understand human experience and a healthy scepticism and [tooltip tip=”the ability to say things that are clever and amusing”]wit[/tooltip]. [tooltip tip=”used when you are telling someone something that they probably know or expect”]Needless to say[/tooltip], when he announced his retirement from the column about six months ago, I was really disappointed. The good news is that there’s a huge archive of past columns that we can all explore, and I urge you all to do so using the link in the interactive transcript. We shouldn’t take for granted that The Guardian is virtually the only [tooltip tip=”something that is top-notch is of the highest quality or standard”]top-notch[/tooltip] international newspaper whose online content remains entirely free. [optinlocker]
Last week I was listening to an interview on The Psychology Podcast, hosted by the endearingly nerdy Scott Barry Kaufman, with Oliver Burkeman, who’s promoting his new book Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals. This is a time of year when a lot of us are taking stock of our goals and are thinking about our plans for the future. As you’re probably well aware, this is a process full of [tooltip tip=”pitfall: a problem or difficulty that is likely to happen in a particular job, course of action or activity”]pitfalls[/tooltip]. It’s easy to get ahead of ourselves and make ambitious plans that, [tooltip tip=”when you are secretly sure about something although you may not admit it”]in our heart of hearts[/tooltip], we know will never [tooltip tip=”(formal) if a plan, project, etc. comes to fruition, it is successfully put into action and completed, often after a long process”]come to fruition[/tooltip].
The more [tooltip tip=”someone who is jaded is no longer interested in or excited by something, usually because they have experienced too much of it”]jaded[/tooltip] among us might take this as proof that setting goals is just [tooltip tip=”a task or activity that has no hope of success”]a fool’s errand[/tooltip]. Why bother with goals if we aren’t going to reach them? And, to be fair, there is something appealing about this question. I for one have given up countless times on goals in the past based on this logic. Unlike practically every other person writing on goals and personal development, Burkeman’s ideas are [tooltip tip=”(formal) be completely lacking in something”]devoid of[/tooltip] [tooltip tip=”when you believe that what you want to happen will happen, when in fact it is not possible”]the usual self-help wishful thinking[/tooltip]. His point is almost the opposite. He claims that it’s precisely once we accept that we’re going to miss out on almost everything in life that we can get down to the business of actually giving our all to whatever is right in front of us. It sounds [tooltip tip=”contrary to intuition or to common-sense expectation.”]counterintuitive[/tooltip], but hearing this grim reality actually cheered me up.
I’m not sure I’m able to capture quite how insightful – and entertaining – this interview is. But if you [tooltip tip=”if you are torn, you are unable to decide what to do because you have different feelings or different things that you want”]feel torn between[/tooltip] different priorities in your life and feel that you’re somehow not fully committed to them, this interview may help you find a greater sense of clarity. I think we’re all collectively primed to think that clarity is the natural state of things when nothing could be further from the truth. Uncovering our values and motivations is a constant work in progress – and the sooner we can stop wishing our problems away but using them as the fuel for our development the better. This takes effort and is uncomfortable.
Take this podcast. It is the result of my deep desire to put my own spin on language learning. It is about sharing the things I love and being [tooltip tip=”(adverb, formal) without embarrassment or shame”]unabashedly[/tooltip] myself. But it isn’t a walk in the park, if only because it’s surprisingly scary putting myself out there and [tooltip tip=”(formal) being observed or examined in a critical way”]being subjected to scrutiny[/tooltip].
As language teachers we are often trained and socialised to see our main goal as the teaching of information, be it grammar, vocabulary or pronunciation. Yeah, there’s some cultural stuff, but for the most part it’s an [tooltip tip=”something that you mention or add later because you did not think of it or plan it before”]an afterthought[/tooltip]. We may teach the [tooltip tip=”synonym: occasional”]odd[/tooltip] short story or poem here or there, but it’s not part of the official syllabus. Nowadays the very idea of [tooltip tip=”all the books that are recognised as being the most important pieces of literature”]a literary canon[/tooltip], that is, that there’s a set of great books that everyone agrees on, [tooltip tip=”has become obsolete, old-fashioned”]has become an anachronism[/tooltip]. Still, I think we’re doing ourselves and our students a disservice by carrying on without good quality extensive reading programmes in place. And we’re depriving our students of what constitutes the core of a true education: challenging and rewarding reading. There’s a word for this attitude: [tooltip tip=”hostility or indifference to culture and the arts”]philistinism[/tooltip].
What’s more, we get our students to write countless essays without ever exposing them to good models. How many language school students have read an essay that brings them to tears or makes them laugh uncontrollably? How many have read an essay that’s [tooltip tip=”(colloquial) intended to be sexually exciting, in a way that seems immoral or shocking”]raunchy[/tooltip] or subversive or disturbing? Such essays exist and the world is better for them. But our students remain in the dark, convinced that an essay is nothing more than a few dull paragraphs stuffed with furthermores and therefores.
And why do we never suggest that our students try and write for themselves as their primary reader? There is solid evidence showing that journaling on a regular basis about challenging events in the past as well as contemplating your ideal future has a positive impact on physical and mental health. For instance, university students who struggle academically are more likely to finish their degree if they engage in this practice. And yet as teachers we carry on doing what we’re familiar with, handing out assignments that are at best [tooltip tip=”indirectly/slightly meaningful”]tangentially meaningful[/tooltip] to our students and then pretending to be surprised by their [tooltip tip=”not exciting, impressive, etc.”]lacklustre[/tooltip] writing.
That, ladies and gentlemen, is what we call [tooltip tip=”do something because you have to do it, without being very interested or enthusiastic”]going through the motions[/tooltip], that is, doing things without really believing they’re important and meaningful, simply out of a kind of existential inertia. Now, if you think I’m suggesting we all start a riot and burn down the schools and universities, well, no, that would be missing the point. What we need to do is [tooltip tip=”(formal) persuade someone that what they believe is not true”]disabuse students of the belief that[/tooltip] good writing is simply pretty turns of phrase. This takes me back to a point I made in an earlier episode that far too many language learners mistakenly assume that reaching a C2 level in English consists of simply learning more ways of saying the same thing rather than of learning entirely new concepts.
So, as a student what are you to do? Find compelling, challenging reading material in your areas of interest. A huge amount of language development comes about through a process called lexical priming. If I said to any English-speaking child “Once upon a ____” they would no doubt fill in the gap by saying “time”. How is that? Well, that’s how every story a child hears begins. And so the brain is primed to expect that word in this pattern. This is why in previous episodes I’ve recommended long-form journalism from sources like The New Yorker, The Economist and The Times Literary Supplement, because you’ll be primed with the kind of language
you’ll need at C2. What’s more, you’ll be primed in other ways, that is, you’ll be primed not just lexically but intellectually – you’ll be exposing yourself to the careful thinking of expert journalists and essayists. With any luck some of their coherence and insightfulness might [tooltip tip=”if a feeling, quality, or habit rubs off on you, you start to have it because you are with another person who has it”]rub off on[/tooltip] us.
Your only risk is discovering a detour that’s even more rewarding than your final destination. If you’re wondering where to start, why not read this absolutely mind-blowing piece from The New Yorker entitled The Science of Mind Reading. And if you haven’t ever kept a journal, what’s stopping you?
Don’t forget to rate and review this podcast if you’re using Apple Podcasts. And why not share the show with a friend? Subscribe to my newsletter to get free monthly bonus review materials and follow my Instagram account BetterLanguageLearning for your C2 Chunk of the Day building on the vocabulary in the weekly podcast. Thanks for listening!
The first Quizlet set contains the definitions of each word and chunk while the second provides gap fills with the vocabulary in new contexts.
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