Learn English Language Through Listening
Learn English with a smile, listening to today's positive news stories. You know, the magic of this type of learning is how it combines language learning with fascinating content. You're not just memorizing words - you're absorbing English through engaging stories you want to listen to.
🎙️ Why Join Our Lessons?
- Engaging podcasts to improve your listening and speaking.
- Practice with British English and news articles.
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✔️ Lesson transcript: https://adeptenglish.com/lessons/learn-english-language-with-positive-news/
Science is the poetry of reality.
⭐ Richard Dawkins
As you listen, you're picking up new vocabulary in context, improving your listening skills, and learning about cool inventions. It's like hitting three birds with one stone!
This way of language learning keeps you motivated because you're genuinely interested in what you're hearing. And that is the secret sauce to language fluency. You're learning English almost without realizing it. Isn't that beautiful?
Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.
⭐ Steve Jobs
We have English language courses that take this way of learning to the next level, check out our latest "New Activate Your Listening" English Course video here.
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More About This Lesson
Use this lesson to practice your English while enjoying good news stories that highlight innovative solutions like natural cooling systems and hand-operated washing machines.
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The earth is what we all have in common.
⭐ Wendell Berry
You'll learn English through fascinating, real-world content. This lesson helps you:
- Enjoy positive news while learning English.
- Expand vocabulary with real-world examples.
- Improve listening skills with repeated practice.
- Learn about global issues and solutions.
- Understand complex concepts in simple language.
- Gain knowledge on sustainable innovations.
- Pick up new words and phrases naturally.
- Engage with stories from around the world.
- Follow clear explanations of technical terms.
- Stay updated on current events and ideas.
Discover how eco-tech innovations like natural cooling systems and hand-operated washing machines can enhance your English learning. Improve your British English vocabulary and listening skills by exploring the latest in eco-tech.
Struggling with understanding spoken English? Watch our sales video at Adept English and discover how our course makes listening practice simple and enjoyable.
Learn new words in meaningful contexts, stay motivated with engaging stories about innovative solutions, and broaden your knowledge with real-world applications like bee-inspired air conditioning and ancient Egyptian cooling practices.
This practical approach helps you understand different accents, converse confidently, and gain insights into global innovations.
Nature is not a place to visit. It is home.
⭐ Gary Snyder
Improve your English with uplifting news stories for a positive learning experience. Follow and subscribe to our podcast for more lessons and to enhance your English fluency!
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
- What is the main focus of this English lesson? This lesson helps you practice your British English while listening to uplifting news stories. You'll learn about innovative solutions like natural cooling systems and hand-operated washing machines, expanding your vocabulary and improving your listening skills in a positive context.
- How can listening to good news stories help improve my English? By engaging with positive content, you're more likely to stay motivated in your language learning journey. These stories introduce you to new vocabulary and phrases in context, helping you absorb the language naturally while also learning about inspiring innovations from around the world.
- What are some specific language skills I can improve with this lesson? This lesson helps you enhance several key areas: listening comprehension, vocabulary expansion, understanding complex topics in English, pronunciation of scientific and technical terms, and the ability to discuss current events and innovations in English.
- How often should I listen to lessons like this to improve my British English? For optimal results, try to incorporate lessons like this into your daily routine. Even 15-20 minutes of focused listening each day can significantly boost your language skills. Remember, consistency is key in language learning!
- Are there any specific techniques I can use while listening to maximize my learning? Listen multiple times, focusing on different aspects each time, such as overall meaning, specific vocabulary, and pronunciation. Pause and repeat phrases to improve your pronunciation. Take notes on new words or expressions. After listening, try to summarize the stories in your own words. Discuss the content with other English learners or native speakers to practice your speaking skills.
Like opening a window on a sweltering day, you'll find not only a refreshing breeze of natural cooling systems inspired by beehives but also the ease of hand-operated washing machines.
Most Unusual Words:
- Bio-mimicry: Copying designs from nature to solve human problems.
- Terracotta: A type of red clay used for making pots, tiles, and other items.
- Evaporates: Changes from liquid to gas, often causing a cooling effect.
- Privilege: A special advantage that some people have.
- Gerund: A noun made from a verb by adding "-ing".
- Statistic: A fact or piece of data from a study of a large quantity of information.
- Scarce: In short supply; not enough.
- Ethical: Related to what is right and wrong.
- Immune: Protected against disease.
- Genetically modified: Changed the genes of an organism to alter its
Most Frequently Used Words:
| Word | Count |
|---|---|
| Washing | 12 |
| There | 10 |
| System | 9 |
| Without | 9 |
| Which | 8 |
| Other | 8 |
| Cooling | 8 |
| People | 7 |
| Where | 6 |
Listen To The Audio Lesson Now
Transcript: Learn English With Positive News Stories
Good News Stories
Hi there. Today let's cover some more of those good news stories. You like these positive news stories, I think. Perhaps because there is so much bad news around in the world at the moment. News which doesn't make you feel good. So let's get into some news stories that might make you feel good. Use this podcast to practise your English language understanding, of course. And don't forget to repeat listen to help you remember any new words or phrases.
📷
A cooling terracotta water feature. Learn new vocabulary naturally while enjoying real-world examples and practical uses.
Before I get into that, just a quick message about Spotify. Thank you to Dani from Switzerland for pointing out that comments don't seem to be there at the moment. Or rather, it seems they're not there if you've updated the app recently, if you've updated Spotify. So it looks like it's not possible to leave comments on Spotify at the moment. We saw that Spotify are rolling out a new version of the comment system this week, so we hope that that will resolve soon. It's not Adept English, it seems. So please bear with it. Hopefully comments will be back on Spotify soon. In the meantime, you can still comment on YouTube and lots of other places if you want to speak to us about the Adept English podcast. We look forward to hearing from you.
Hello, I’m Hilary, and you’re listening to Adept English. We will help you to speak English fluently. All you have to do is listen. So start listening now and find out how it works.
Another reason to love bees!
First good news story. If you live as much of the world's population do, in a place where it gets very hot in the summer, then you may be really interested in this story. When the temperature gets above 30 degrees Celsius, most of us get a bit uncomfortable. And above 35 degrees Celsius, many of us get very uncomfortable. Hot and sweaty if you like! And in some places, the temperature is even higher than this. Very uncomfortable indeed. So if you have access to it, then switching on the air conditioning is the answer. No? Vocabulary here? 'Air', A-I-R, and 'conditioning'. That's a noun made out of a verb, the verb 'to condition'. And 'air conditioning', that's a system inside a building that cools everything down and makes it comfortable. So if the temperature outside is 35 degrees Celsius and you're in an office building and you're supposed to be working, it's quite hard to concentrate without air conditioning, because you're too hot. But if you're worried about global warming, temperatures rising, then running an air conditioning system is not going to help the problem. In fact, it makes it worse. Having access to air conditioning - well, that's a privilege. Many people in the world live in hot countries and just don't have access to air conditioning. So how to solve this problem?
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Enter Indian architect, Monish Siripurapu. And he's founder of a company called CoolAnt. Monish and his co-workers have developed an air cooling system inspired by the architecture of beehives. A 'beehive', that's a word you may not know. 'Bees', B-E-E, they're insects that create honey. Honey's what you might eat on your toast in the morning or you might use it to sweeten your tea. And bees live in a hive. That's where the honey is created. Hive is H-I-V-E, of course. So this design uses the specialised architecture of the inside of a beehive. In other words, it uses nature's own design to make an air cooling system. And this is called 'biomimicry'. B-I-O-M-I-M-I-C-R-Y. 'Bio' just means 'of the natural world' and 'mimicry' means you copy something. So in other words, the design of this new air cooling system 'copies or mimics nature'. So Monish Siripurapu's design uses terracotta tubes and tiles. Terracotta is made from red clay. In the UK, we're familiar with these terracotta plant pots. But in many countries, terracotta is used to make roof tiles. If you wet the terracotta tubes and tiles, if you pass water over them, in other words, there is a cooling effect as the water evaporates, as it dries. And this provides a natural cooling system. This natural cooling system reduces the reliance on energy. It uses water, terracotta, and evaporation to cool down the air. So this type of air conditioning unit still does the job of cooling the air, but without so much damage to the environment. And it also helps local people who produce the materials, who produce the terracotta, in other words. CoolAnt have installed these no-electricity air cooling systems. They're already in schools, in government buildings, and in some other public places in India. And there's a great need for air conditioning in India. The systems are proving very effective. And if you want to learn more, there are some links in the transcript. What a brilliant idea! Air conditioning without that heavy use of electricity, and using ideas from nature or 'biomimicry'. I like that!
Fed up with handwashing your clothes?! Spare a thought….
Second good news story. In countries like the UK, we might complain sometimes about having to do our washing, our laundry. Clothes washing, in other words. Here we use washing machines, and probably something like this. But actually, we're very fortunate. In many parts of the world, there aren't washing machines, and nor is there electricity in people's homes to run washing machines. Here's a statistic that might surprise some people. 60% of the world's population do not have access to washing machines, which means that hand washing the laundry is necessary. And if you've ever done your laundry by hand like this, it's a bit of a pain, and it takes a long time. It's estimated that for many families without access to a washing machine, that's 15 hours a week where someone could be doing something more interesting, or constructive, or more satisfying. And much of this hand washing is done, of course, by women and girls. And it's not just the time and the effort taken. Hand washing uses a lot of water, something which is scarce, which there already isn't enough of in some hot countries.
So again, a new idea, an invention, without electricity. So here, Navjot Sawhney's Washing Machine Project. The project makes hand-operated washing machines for use by people who live without electricity. Navjot Sawhney works for an organization called Engineers Without Borders. Sounds a bit like Médecins Sans Frontières, doesn't it? But this is an organisation which operates worldwide and is dedicated to helping people through the thoughtful use of engineering. Navjot Sawhney observed just how much time his neighbour, Divya, spent doing her laundry, hand washing the clothes. And he was inspired to invent a washing machine that didn't use electricity, a machine that saves time and the physical effort needed. Navjot Sawhney's project has distributed machines across the world. Places like India, Iraq, Lebanon, the US, Mexico, and Uganda. And through the Whirlpool Foundation, the aim is to help 150,000 people in the next five years. Again, practical, sustainable solutions which improve people's daily life. Without the use of electricity, without using so much water for laundry, and this one with the added bonus of helping women and girls in particular, escape that 15 hours a week chore.
Speeding up medical trials
Third good news story. One of the things that gets in the way of scientific progress, especially around health, we use mice for scientific experimentation. Mice, M-I-C-E, is the plural of mouse, M-O-U-S-E. Think of Mickey Mouse. That's the type of animal I'm talking about. Though on reflection, Mickey Mouse, is a long way from looking like an actual mouse, I think! Anyway, poor mice get used in scientific experiments, where it's seen as too dangerous or unethical to use human beings. So the poor mice that are sacrificed in these experiments do tell us a lot, though many people don't agree with animal testing, of course.
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But no matter how many scientific studies you do using mice, people can always say "But that study only tested this on mice. It hasn't been tested in humans." And this holds up medical progress. Until now, perhaps. Scientists at the University of Texas Health Center have developed a mouse called TruHuX, a mouse which has a fully functioning, human-identical immune system. They've genetically modified it, of course. This development allows for more accurate testing of drugs and vaccinations because it mimics the human immune system's response. You may remember from previous podcasts where I've covered health topics, the immune system, that's I-M-M-U-N-E, is our body's system for fighting off disease or infection. That's our 'immune system'. So the problem normally is, with mouse studies, a mouse's immune system operates in a completely different way to ours. So being able to create mice with an immune system which is identical to ours is a real breakthrough. This could mean that drug development is speeded up, it may be that vaccines can be tested and developed more quickly, and there are probably lots of other uses as well. The results of this study were published in the journal Nature Immunology. So this possibly represents a significant breakthrough in medical scientific studies. How good is that? Science is delivering all the time improvements and good things. It gives us hope.
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Let us have your comments!
So there you are, three good news stories for you today. Let us know if you like these and you want more, and don't forget to listen on repeat. Give us a thumbs up, share our podcast, give us a positive feedback comment - where you can, not necessarily Spotify this week! Enough for now.
Goodbye
Have a lovely day. Speak to you again soon. Goodbye.
Thank you so much for listening. Please help me tell others about this podcast by reviewing or rating it. And, please share it on social media. You can find more listening lessons and a free English course at adeptenglish.com
Links
- Cool buildings without electricity
- Designer was inspired by beehives
- Ancient Technology Is Helping Millions Stay Cool
- Ancient terracotta air coolers
- 60% of globe hand-washes laundry
- The burden of hand washing clothes
- Anjali from Kuilapalayam, India
- Ramla from Kampala, Uganda
- Engineers Without Borders UK
- Mice created with full human immune systems
- A breakthrough for biomedical research
- New insight into immunotherapy development
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