You're listening to Luke's English Podcast.
Hello listeners, welcome back to Luke's English Podcast.
How are you doing today?
I hope you're doing fine.
So let me tell you what I have lined up for you in this episode.
So this time I've decided to turn our attention to writing in English.
The plan is just to talk about the whole subject, a discussion on writing and writing skills, including considerations of what skills are involved in being a good writer and What makes a good piece of writing.
What are the challenges faced by learners of English who want to write well?
What are some solutions to those challenges?
The experiences of using AI to help develop writing skills, and even what it takes to write your own book in English.
To do this today, I've enlisted the help of Fabio Chirpiloni, who you might remember as From his previous appearance on this podcast.
He was in episode number 850, which was called Any Language You Want with Fabio Cerpolone.
Let me just give you some background info about Fabio.
So Fabio Cerpolone is an Italian writer, writing teacher, ghostwriter.
That means he writes work for other people, who then put their name on it blogger author, English language tutor, YouTuber and podcaster.
In terms of Fabio's credentials, he's a fully qualified teacher of English.
He's got the CELTA, that's the Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults, the DELTA, that's the Higher Diploma in English Language Teaching to Adults.
He also has a Master's Degree in Professional Development for Language Education and And he's got the Cambridge C2 Certificate of Proficiency in English.
And as you will hear, all of that, all of those things involved doing a lot of writing.
Fabio has been an English teacher for years, working at the British Council and also at other institutions.
He is a writer for the EL Gazette and also for storylearningcom, which is one of the biggest language learning websites that you can find.
He also writes some things for Medium and he's got his own blog and Substack newsletter.
So why is Fabio a good person to talk to about writing?
Well, he's got a special interest in writing.
He focused on it in his master's degree.
He helps learners of English with it in lessons and in writing workshops.
And he's written plenty of blog post articles about writing.
And also he's written two books, one about his personal journey learning English and how there is no single correct way to learn a language, which is what we talked about in episode number 850.
And his other book is called Tiny Book Author.
There's a tiny book in you waiting to be written, a tiny book to help you write your own.
So Fabio knows a lot of things about writing.
He does writing himself.
And in fact, he's written a book about writing a book.
So let's talk to Fabio about writing.
We're going to start in just a second.
First, I have two things to say, two more things to say.
The first thing is that you will find a transcript of this episode.
If you want to check it, you will find it.
There's a link for it in the description.
You can just get it, check it, read it and whatever.
The second thing is that at the.
So if you feel that you've missed something or if anything isn't clear, just keep listening, because I will summarise it all at the end.
And this will ensure that all the main insights about writing in this conversation are summarised nice and simply and clearly for you at the end, which should make it all a bit easier to understand and remember.
So I do encourage you to listen all the way through to the end, to have this packaged up for you nicely, summarised for you nicely, so that you've got all of those bits of wisdom and advice packaged neatly for you to take away.
Okay, right.
So without any further ado then, let's get started.
Let's meet Fabio.
Let's talk about writing.
Here we go.
I've never been one of those kids who wrote stories when I was five.
I never had this big passion for writing since I was a kid.
But I basically started writing because I had to.
I had to write for my teaching training courses.
So I had to write academic, not academic papers, but academic assignments.
And I started liking it from the very first page.
I like seeing meaning.
I like seeing a sentence building and then creating meaning for another person that they can read.
And that was what I like about writing.
But All the writing that I did until 2021 was all writing because I had to.
Like for English exams, because I took several English exams, like the first certificate, the IELTS CPE, you know, C2 proficiency, now it's called.
And it was all writing for an examiner or for a tutor.
And then in 2021, I started my blog.
I was one of those teachers who moved online, teaching online.
And I saw that other teachers had a blog and I thought, okay, I must, I need to have a blog as well.
And I started blogging.
I started blogging about language learning at the beginning.
I still have that blog, but I don't, I don't really talk about language learning anymore.
And yeah, I guess this is what attracted me to the written word.
Did I answer your question?
Absolutely, you did.
So what is different about writing compared to... are the ways in which we use English.
So if we're talking about productive skills, we talk about speaking and writing.
I think a lot of the time our learners focus on speaking skills unless they are preparing for an exam, in which case they definitely need to work on writing different types of text.
But a lot of the time people focus on speaking.
So what do you think is the difference between spoken English and written English?
I would say that, okay, the main difference is that speaking is not permanent.
Like you can speak and speak and speak, but your words, like they kind of disappear in the air.
Whereas writing is more, it's permanent.
It's there.
It's there maybe forever.
Yeah.
And so this is kind of scary.
It's what?
At the beginning it scared me a little bit because you know, if you submit something and it's full of nonsense or even mistakes like, your reputation is on the line, as always.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
But I think this is what makes it a little bit, maybe less approachable, writing I mean, compared to speaking.
And also writing.
We don't really need to write, apart from emails and other type of texts that we write, like text messages, emails.
Like most people that I know, they might write...
Emails and text messages.
And that's it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Maybe emails for work.
Email for work.
Yeah.
Yes.
If we talk about the different types of things people write.
Yeah, exactly.
Most people just write emails for work, probably some personal emails and text messages and stuff.
But if you do like you did, the C2 proficiency exam and the writing part of that requires you to write various things, and that's that's one of the key skills of a writer.
You've got to know how to write different types of text and there are different sort of conventions and structures and stuff for each one.
What are some of the things that you had to write for your c2 proficiency writing exam, do you remember?
Yeah, I think there were two tasks, as always in the Cambridge exams.
I think, if it's still like this,
One was a summary.
Like I had to summarize two texts into one.
I had to write a summary of two texts.
Okay.
And another one was an article for a magazine, probably.
I don't know why, but I remember that I wrote about polar bears.
Polar bears.
Yeah.
Sounds like a very typical Cambridge exam subject.
Really, I don't know.
I think it was about the environment and I threw some polar bears in it because, you know, when we talk about the environment, we always talk about polar bears, right?
Yeah.
I mean, everyone loves a polar bear, don't they?
In a piece of writing.
The examiner must have loved that.
Oh, fantastic.
Polar bears.
Brilliant.
Yeah.
On topic.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So those two and for IELTS, what did I do for IELTS?
I was going to say you must have done an essay.
Did you do the essay?
Was it the academic IELTS?
Yeah, academic essay and that boring report with graphs and I didn't get a good score, I remember.
Oh, that's awful, isn't it?
Nobody likes that.
You've got like, what is it, 150, 180 words, something like that.
And you've got to describe a graph or some other visual chart or something like that.
And yeah, that's not pleasant.
The essay is a little bit easier. actually.
Okay.
So the reason I brought that up is because when we write yeah, there are various different types of text that we have to write
But yeah, most people probably write emails and text messages.
Yeah.
Okay.
What makes a good piece of writing, in your opinion?
All right.
If we're talking about writing...
When I talk about writing, I talk about writing for self-expression.
So I don't, I'm not really focusing on writing for exams or writing emails.
When I talk about writing, this is what I like doing and this is what I teach.
This is what I help people with and a good piece of writing about, in any, in any genre, in any um writing style is um well, it's writing that makes sense yeah, that you can understand.
Uh, it's writing that does the job.
So if you're writing an email to complain, like that email, it should be clear that you are complaining.
Yeah, seems obvious, but it's worth making that point.
Or it's something in terms of writing for self-expression.
To me, it's writing that connects, writing that connects with the intended audience.
And if you find, if that piece of writing connects with that person, with your reader, then it's a good piece of writing to me.
It doesn't matter if it's you know.
Okay, we can talk about grammar vocabulary, but the number one requirement, in my opinion, is that that piece of writing should create an emotional connection.
The reader should.
When they read your stuff, then they think oh okay, I've never thought about this, or I see myself in this text.
Or this now motivates me to go and reach my goals, or whatever.
So there is an emotional connection.
I don't know how else I can describe this.
I guess like effect on the reader, or impact on the reader, something like that.
Which is one of the things that, going back to Cambridge exams and I often refer to Cambridge assessments because
If it's good enough for them, it's good enough for me, basically.
The way that they assess your writing is that they have different criteria that you're judged on.
One of the terms that's used in assessment in those Cambridge exams is effect on the reader, and i think that's more or less what you're talking about.
You know, like the, the impact on the reader uh, how the reader feels when they are reading a piece of writing and um, if the reader is well obviously, completely confused by what they've written, like they don't know what the purpose of the piece of writing is um, because it's not clearly structured, it's not um coherent, or if The writing isn't well organised.
That makes it difficult for the reader.
These are basic things.
Also, if just the level of...
The grammatical accuracy is so low that it affects the person's ability to understand what's being written.
Obviously, that's another barrier.
In order to get that effect on the reader, you need to have a certain level of control over the language, using the right grammar and vocabulary.
You need to be able to organize and structure your piece of writing so that it's nice and easy to follow and, as you said, it needs to do the job that you want it to do.
So in an exam it might be write an email to complain about blah blah, blah and your email has to exactly hit.
Hit that task.
You know it has to achieve that task.
So ultimately, effect on the reader is a really big thing.
So yeah, you describe it as an emotional connection with the reader, which is interesting.
And I suppose that goes back to what you say about the kinds of things you like to write these days, which are sort of for self-expression, as you say.
And it's what you do as well, I guess, with your...
With this show, with your blog, you write to help your audience.
You write for self-expression because you tell stories.
You share a lot about your life and yourself.
So this is exactly the type of writing allows you to.
It's a medium that allows you to do this more effectively, in my opinion, than speaking.
Maybe it's something to do with context as well, because it's rare that you get the kind of platform that you get through writing when you speak.
I mean writing allows you to essentially grab the person's attention and keep it.
You know, because you've sent them an email and they just then read that email.
It's just in front of them.
I suppose in speaking we get these opportunities when we do some sort of presentation or when we do stand-up comedy.
You stand up and everyone is basically you've got their attention for five or ten minutes or something, whereas in other situations, when we speak there's a conversation and you have to do the turn taking back and forth.
It's rare that you get to just say what you want to say start, middle end, done.
That's kind of unique in writing.
You know that you get to structure the entire thing from start to finish without any interruptions, without having to be spontaneous.
So yeah, that's an interesting, unique thing about writing which you don't always get in speaking, unless you're doing some presentation or something like that.
Yeah, I agree.
Yeah.
Totally.
Yes.
Okay.
What do you think are the challenges for a lot of learners of English when they write?
Well, I can tell you about my challenges when I well, there are still challenges today, not in terms of, you know, grammar or vocabulary, but it was more about when I started writing to me.
It was.
I had a million questions in my head.
Like, is this correct?
Do I need a preposition here?
Am I messing this up?
Because it was the first time for me, as a non-native English writer, to put pen to paper and write in a language that wasn't mine.
That was probably to prepare for your exams, right?
Is that right?
In practising how to write those different texts for Cambridge exams or IELTS or something like that.
That was kind of your entry point into writing.
And as you said, then ultimately when you did your master's degree and stuff like that.
Right.
Okay.
So...
Yeah, so the challenges were about language, about what language should I use?
Is this word correct?
Spelling misspelling, all these type of problems that we?
I still have those problems, but not in terms of.
You know, I'm not there asking myself if the grammar is correct.
I'm more like...
How can I say this in a different way so that the reader will engage more with the text?
It's not, I need a preposition.
If I have that kind of question, which sometimes you know as all writers, even Stephen King, I would say I've never talked with Stephen King, but I guess that he gets those language doubts right.
And so what I was going to say?
So when I have those type of question, we have a wonderful tool today which is called chat GPT or uh Claude, or whatever AI chat bots.
And I find them very effective, not not to generate texts, because that's not what I want to do, but to answer my language questions.
So, for example, If I'm not sure if I need this preposition or the other preposition, I can just ask the chatbot to tell me why.
So, like, I want a full explanation of why this is the way it should be.
If I want to find a synonym, I sometimes write...
I need a word, I need, what other words can I use in this sentence?
Please give me 10.
And then I can look and I can use a dictionary to see which one fits the best.
Right. your initial question was, sorry, I'm kind of rambling.
Okay.
The challenges that learners of English have.
Yeah.
No, you're free to ramble.
This is the, that's definitely a welcome on this podcast.
Okay.
So the challenges, um, they were about, about language.
This is what I find also in, um, in language learners.
They um, They try to use advanced vocabulary just because it's advanced, when actually you can use a simple word which might do a better job.
Using idioms just because, you know, you learned idioms.
So you try to insert an idiom anywhere you can to sound advanced or to sound more native.
Um, and so, but the text doesn't require that.
Maybe, maybe it doesn't require that, um, that expression.
And so it sounds kind of, it sounds weird.
It sounds off.
I agree.
I think that probably most learners of English, when they approach writing, they initially think it's all about accuracy.
So that's using language without making errors and just using sort of flashy, impressive words.
And this is how you're going to score points.
You score points by making correct English and using flashy words and phrases.
But there's a lot more to it than that, as we discussed earlier, right?
Yeah.
Yes, I want also to say that part of this problem is on us, on us, I mean, teachers.
Because many teachers who teach writing never write.
And so all they look at is, is your grammar correct?
Is your vocabulary correct?
And is the essay or whatever you've written on topic correct?
But what about the emotional connection?
Like what about the self-expression?
Like writing because you can writing to express an interesting idea, to share a story, no matter how like bad your grammar is, if we still can understand it like
I never had that kind of teachers in high school or maybe even when I took exams.
It was all writing to display to show that you can use good language, language correctly, and you can – it was writing to – for the criteria, for the exam criteria, to tick boxes.
Yeah.
Whereas there's more to it.
There's more to writing than ticking boxes.
This is what I feel strong about.
Yeah, absolutely.
Language.
In terms of accuracy, as I've mentioned, correctness and range that's just a variety of grammar and vocab is down the list.
And further up to the top, you've got communicative achievement. um, including effect on the reader.
So how appropriate is the writing for the task?
Does it fit the normal conventions of that kind of writing, which you know, in a sense means if you're writing a business letter, you should make it sort of formal in style, and all this, all the rest of it, but effects on the readers.
Basically does the piece of writing do the job and everything else has to be in service of that objective.
So if you're just filling up your email with unnecessary but flashy language and it's all correct, sometimes it might end up being too long.
It might be distracting.
And you can be efficient with your use of language because that increases the impact that it has.
Like the idea of keeping it short and simple sometimes is a better idea than making it complex and flashy.
Those decisions.
When the reader notices that you've made those decisions, that's going to be impressive.
From the point of view of an examiner.
I keep mentioning examiners but from their point of view, if I was examining someone's writing, I would recognize those decisions.
To keep it simple and to focus on the impact
That's organisational structure hooking someone's interest from the beginning and delivering at another part of the email, things like that.
You mentioned using AI.
It's interesting that you use it to help you answer questions that you have about language as you're writing.
Do you have to be careful how much you use chatbots.
What's your relationship with AI as someone who writes and someone who teaches people to write?
I want every word to have my name on it.
On my blog, when I write for self-expression, I don't want a chatbot to say things for me.
No matter how great those things can be.
So I use it to ask questions.
I think non-native English writers, but writers in general.
They're very lucky today because they can ask a million questions and get answers immediately about the grammar, the vocabulary, the punctuation.
They can ask anything they want.
I use it in this way to learn more, like to learn, to clarify what I need to clarify.
So if I have a question about a word that I've never used, for example, but I learned it somewhere and I want to use it, I might say does this fit in this context?
Is it appropriate?
Can you give me synonyms?
What is a very useful question that I often ask is this.
I have a word in Italian.
I might have a word in Italian.
And I say, I need a word that means this in Italian.
Is there one?
Is there a similar one or something that get close to that meaning in English?
Because maybe I don't know.
And then the chatbot gives me a couple of words, maybe three, ten.
And then I use the dictionary.
The dictionary is the ultimate.
You know, it's the resource that I always like.
It's the final check.
It's what I use to check if the chatbot is telling me the truth or not.
Yeah.
Because sometimes they don't tell you the truth.
Sometimes they just make up some nonsense, don't they?
Just because they just really want to help.
And so, yeah, sure, here are the answers you're looking for.
Actually, no, that's not true.
Okay, so for you, the dictionary still is the ultimate authority on whatever it is you're looking at.
Okay, which dictionary can I ask?
Oxford.
I've always used the Oxford.
Oxford, I've got it here.
Oxford Learners Dictionary.
Oxford learners dictionaries.
Yeah.
Oxford learners dictionary or dictionaries.
I can remember, never remember the URL.
Uh, I've got it here.
Oxford learners dictionaries.com.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I've got an app.
I spent 40 pounds on this app.
Uh, When was it?
In 2016.
And now they're saying that, you know, it's your subscription expired.
But I thought this was for a lifelong subscription.
Well, it was, but now we've changed it.
Thank you.
Oh, that sounds a bit of a, that's a bit of a rip off, isn't it?
That's a pity.
Is the app any better than the online dictionary?
Uh, no, it's essentially, it's the same, so you don't need to buy the app.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
Just use the website.
Okay.
Um, all right.
Um, what do you think about AI and, and writing?
Do you think it's generally going to help um, improve people's writing or is it going to uh, be bad for people's writing generally speaking?
Generally speaking, I always say that it depends.
It depends on what question you ask.
If you ask okay, please write me an email and you need to sound like this, this and that, and blah blah blah okay, you send that email great, you saved maybe 20 minutes.
And The other person, the receiver well, if they are against AI, maybe if it's a recruiter or I don't know, they might say okay, this guy just writes with ChargePT.
Where is the authenticity?
We wanted to get to know him a little bit more.
We wanted the candidate for this job to show some personality.
He did everything with ChargePT.
It depends.
Now recruiters, they say that in some job ads.
They say please don't submit your application using ChargePT, like your cover letter written by ChargePT, because we want to get to know you.
We want you to show up imperfectly because this is what we are all about.
So it depends.
Generally speaking, I would say many people...
Many people now use it to generate text, and it's clear that it was written by an AI chatbot.
And that's fine.
I mean, this is not what I like doing.
But I can understand that businesses they want to make money and so they delegate their social media copywriting to a chatbot.
And it's...
To me, okay, I'm against that, but it depends on your goals.
In terms of language learning, it's a wonderful tool.
As I said, you can ask a million questions.
And I actually wrote a full master dissertation on this, on how ChatGPT can help non-native English writers.
And I discovered that some of them didn't know how to use it, so they just assumed that the words or the text that chargept gave them was was fine, so they didn't actually uh, think critically about what they, what they got from the chatbot.
Others were more um cautious so, but they had A high level of English.
So this is also key.
Because if you don't know, if you don't have a high enough level of English, how can you decide if what the chatbot is giving you good, appropriate good for the context.
So teachers should train, should train the students.
So they should support and there's a lot that you can do in the classroom.
There's a lot you can do by yourself also.
So generally I would say great tool.
It depends on how you use it.
This is the general opinion nowadays.
Like it's just a tool.
You can use a hammer to smash your neighbor's head.
Or you can use a hammer to build a hospital.
Interesting analogy, yeah.
This is a very effective analogy.
You can use a hammer to build a hospital or alternatively, if you really need to, you can use it to smash your neighbor's head.
Yeah, so there's good and bad ways to use the tool.
Is a hammer a good tool?
It depends.
Yeah.
Yeah, it can be incredibly brilliant to help you build a hospital.
Or deadly.
Or completely deadly, yeah.
Yes.
Okay, so let's think of it that way.
Okay.
Okay, so that's interesting.
You did a master's degree about using AI.
What was it exactly?
The what?
Sorry.
The master's thesis, dissertation, the master's dissertation.
Yeah, it had a title that was like... three sentences long.
It was an investigation into the effectiveness of how Chajupati can help non-native English writers, but it was longer than this more fluffy.
Okay, okay.
All right, I don't know if you've given us your conclusions.
Well, the conclusion was, it depends.
Yes.
That was the conclusion.
So more research needs to be done.
Teachers should train the writers to recognize patterns, to think critically.
Students shouldn't be left alone.
What's the word, the expression you left?
Unsupervised on their own devices.
Left to their own devices.
That one.
Or left unsupervised also.
Yeah.
Hello.
Sorry to interrupt.
I hope you're enjoying this episode with Fabio here.
I just wanted to pause here for a moment just to summarize this point about AI and writing before we move on to talk about other things, and also I just wanted to explain a couple of nice expressions that you just heard.
So Fabio just mentioned that he did a master's dissertation about evaluating the way that learners of English can use AI to improve their writing.
And the conclusion, as is usually the case, was it depends, right?
Now, so we know that there are good and bad ways to of using AI to improve your writing.
It sort of depends on the way that you use the tool.
And AI is a tool.
It can be used in both good and bad ways, just like a hammer, right?
The bad way is basically to let ChatGPT do all of your writing for you, which means that you don't develop your own writing skills.
If you use AI to do all your writing for you, And you just copy paste what it does.
Most people reading your writing will know that you've used AI to do it.
And then they'll think badly of you and your writing will be correct, admittedly.
But it might lack any sort of unique individual personality.
Fabio also mentioned that.
Another conclusion is that English teachers like us have some responsibility in training learners, maybe like you, how to use AI effectively to improve your English and your writing, and that learners should not be left to their own devices or should not be left unsupervised.
So there are two expressions I just wanted to highlight to leave someone to their own devices and to leave someone unsupervised.
So if you leave someone to their own devices now, this has nothing to do with phones, iPads or computers, right?
It doesn't mean let someone sit there and use their iPhone.
It's not that kind of device.
To leave someone to their own devices.
This expression just means to leave someone alone and let them do whatever they want without any supervision.
Just leave them alone and let them do what they want.
Leave them to their own devices.
The device is part of that expression means alone.
Someone's own resources, someone's own personal resources, their skills, their decision-making process, their sense of intuition.
So that's what the devices means in that expression leave someone to their own devices just means.
Leave someone alone and let them do it themselves, right?
And also to leave someone unsupervised is the other one.
This means leaving someone alone without observing them, without supervising them, without observing them checking what they're doing.
For example, it's not a very good idea for me to leave my two-year-old son unsupervised in the middle of our apartment.
It's not a very good idea for me to just go out to the shops and leave him alone unsupervised, of course, because of all sorts of things that could happen.
He's likely to throw his sister's toys out of the window or paint all over the walls, or climb up onto the kitchen table and start trying to cook dinner, or something which is obviously not very safe.
I mean, I admire his intentions to help out with the dinner preparations, but he's two.
So, you know, I think you understand.
He needs to be supervised and not left unsupervised.
So two expressions.
Learners, in terms of using ai to improve their english, should not be left to their own devices, meaning they should be guided, they should be helped, they should be shown the right ways to do it.
They shouldn't be left unsupervised, which means that just we just need to work with them and guide them.
So yes, as english teachers, we should supervise our learners use of ai as a writing tool um, to ensure that you're doing things in constructive ways and not in ways that would hinder your development of English writing skills.
This means giving you guidance, helping you develop critical thinking skills to evaluate the responses that you get from AI, and also not letting you climb onto the kitchen table or throw toys out of the window.
Oh no, that's my two-year-old son.
I was getting you confused with a tiny child.
Anyway, Fabio did write a blog post about this, about how he uses AI to help his writing.
Let me read from it a little bit before returning to the conversation.
And again, sorry for the interruption, but I think it's worth spending a bit of time on this subject because it's such a big one, right?
So this is Fabio's blog post, which he wrote in April 2024, a couple of years ago, but it definitely still applies today, of course.
So the title is non-native English writers use AI to improve your writing.
Why would you not want to?
If you're a non-native English writer whose English isn't fully developed yet, you may struggle with grammar, word choice, punctuation and other technical aspects of the language.
I've been there too, as English is my second language.
The difference between me and you though, is that I started learning English over 10 years ago and had to hire a teacher to get feedback on my writing, but you don't need to do it.
Fabio continues in his blog post.
You live in the era of large language models like chat GPT, AI tools that have been trained on trillions of data and can check your sentences in 02 milliseconds.
If you know how to use them, these tools can be effective writing assistants.
There's plenty of evidence confirming this.
I know because I'm reading dozens of research papers as part of my master's dissertation in language education.
So I hope you're using ChatGPT, Gemini, DeepL, Grammarly and other free writing software.
Not doing it feels like a waste of time to me, just like it would be a waste not to use a good dictionary.
I use ChatGPT all the time, not to replace my own writing style, no.
All my writing is I-generated.
Trimming sentences is fun.
Reorganising paragraphs is fun.
Transforming the invisible content of my mind into words that people can read is fun.
Why would I want a robot to do all that for me?
But I do ask ChatGPT to compare different versions of a sentence...
And I would also add, who do you want to support financially?
But...
As Fabio writes, he says, That to me would make no sense.
At the end of the article Fabio wrote I compiled a list of chat GPT prompts you can use to self-edit and improve your writing.
You can read it here for free.
So that is an article, a blog post on Fabio's website.
I'll put a link for this in the description so you can read what I've just read to you.
And check out the list of chat GPTP prompts that Fabio uses to help him develop his writing skills with chat GPT.
So that's enough of that then.
Sorry for the long interruption.
Did you all have a glass of water?
Maybe you did.
It feels like the right time in an episode of Luke's English Podcast to have a glass of water.
So I'm going to drink an invisible glass of water right now.
So refreshing.
OK, let's get back into the conversation then.
And we're returning to the subject of challenges faced by learners of English when attempting to write things.
Here we go.
Shall we go back to talking about what learners struggle with when they write?
We said before that they always focus on getting the grammar right and getting the right words, using the right words, and assume that that's the most important thing and assume that throwing in lots of apparently impressive words and idioms and things is what's going to score points.
But...
What's the solution to that issue?
That they struggle with accuracy and assume that it is the most important thing?
Yeah, what do we need to tell them?
Watch fewer social media reels.
Yes.
Because, as you might know, social media like Instagram and TikTok...
It's full of those videos like, don't say this because you want to sound advanced.
So say this, like, don't say I'm fine.
Say I'm this.
Basic English, advanced English.
What does that mean?
So a lot of students might think, okay, so if I use this word, I will sound advanced.
But advanced, what does it mean to sound advanced?
You need to sound effective.
Like it depends on what you're writing.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
It's the context and it depends on what you're trying to achieve, because language is not there to impress.
Language is there to communicate an idea and to make an emotional probably an emotional, ultimately an emotional connection with the person you're talking to, or some sort of connection.
That's what it's so...
Like you said before, sometimes using the simple language gets the job done more effectively than using the complex language.
You need to know when to use one and not use the other.
Bear in mind those other things about the way you've organized your writing and whether or not the piece of writing is doing the job that it should be doing.
Yeah, and you asked about the solutions.
Read a lot.
Read a lot because it's the best way.
Stephen King said it.
It's not me.
He said if you want to become a great writer, there are only two ways to do it.
Write a lot and read a lot.
There's no way around it, and that's why I love reading.
Like if you're a reader – you're also a writer.
Secretly, you're also a writer because there's a lot that you can learn.
You already know a lot about what a good story is, because it's a story that maybe touched you somehow or you enjoyed, you particularly enjoyed.
So asking yourself questions like, why do I like this story?
Why do I like this sentence so much?
Why do I like these words?
And also it's a great tool, reading, it's a great tool to improve your writing as well.
It's all about, as always, exposing yourself to the things that you want to.
If you want to write, for example, short stories, read a lot of short stories.
If you want to learn how to cook pasta, you need to try different pasta dishes.
Right.
Yeah.
I mean, do you agree?
Oh, of course.
100% agree.
Yeah.
100% agree.
I'm just thinking of the different things that people have to write.
So people out there, as we said before, most likely will have to write emails a lot and they need to get their writing up to scratch for writing emails.
Read a lot of emails.
Read a lot of emails.
Yeah, there are actually – I think there are books you can get that contain email examples.
For example, Email English, Paul Emerson is quite a good book.
It's a good guide for writing emails.
But otherwise, again, if you're doing a Cambridge exam, you need to find the –
You need to find the teacher's resource pack, which contains lots of sample answers, lots of sample emails, including the ones that got good marks and the ones that didn't get good marks, and read the feedback as to why they got good marks and why they didn't.
That's a good way of understanding what makes a good email.
Also, I think whenever you receive emails in English, you can judge them on whether or not they...
They were good emails or not.
And it's not just about whether they were using correct English.
There are other factors involved as well.
Yeah, yeah, I agree completely.
So you're into, as we said before, writing for self-expression.
You've written two books.
The first book we talked about last time, but more recently you've written another book.
Tell us about your second book.
Yeah, the second book is...
It's called Tiny Book Author.
The subtitle is there's a tiny book in you waiting to be written.
I strongly believe in the subtitle more than the title.
So there's a tiny book in you waiting to be written, because I feel like we all want to express ourselves, whether in writing or in speaking.
Like, try not to express yourself for 24 hours.
See what happens.
Like, you cannot.
But I believe that we all have this tiny book, a short book that we can write to help another person, a small group of people.
My first book was Any Language You Want, and I wrote it to help language learners.
This book is basically all I did to publish that first book.
My sister-in-law.
When she heard about this, she said so you're writing.
Your second book is about how you wrote your first book.
And your third book, will that be about how you wrote your second book?
Is this Inception?
Okay, no, it's not Inception.
But it was my way to help aspiring authors.
So you can do this.
You can write a short book.
You don't have to write 300 pages to become an author because that's intimidating.
That's very intimidating.
But when I wrote my first book, which was 80 pages, I thought, wow, so I can write books.
I can write this one.
I wrote this one and I can write another one.
And it was a nice little, like a creative project that I did, the first one and the second one.
And I believe that people who you know, who write a lot already.
Maybe they're writing their journal, maybe they have a blog, maybe they are content creators, like you, for example, because you've been writing a lot of content
Yes. blogs and scripts and stories.
Yeah.
And so you can package all that into a tiny book to serve a specific group of people.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
This is what my second book is all about.
And yeah, as you said, like writing a...
One of the things that people always say about writing a book is that it's really, really hard and that it requires so much discipline.
And it's very intimidating.
And, as you said, one of the reasons for that is because people assume they have to write this fairly long book 300 pages or something like that.
But we can take these things step by step and writing a shorter book is certainly more achievable.
And, as we know, when we achieve something, we get this big boost of confidence, that which makes you realize that you can do it, and that's that really helps you to then continue and do more.
It is hard to write a book like it's not just okay, i'll just write whatever, and then just hit publish and the book is done.
You, you need always to think about your audience, for whatever thing you write, unless you're writing in your journal or in your diary, You're writing for yourself, which counts as writing to me.
It counts as writing.
Because to me, a writer is just someone who writes.
They write to think.
They write because they enjoy it.
It doesn't matter if you publish your writing or not.
You don't need to be Stephen King to call yourself a writer.
Even though it's short, even though the book that you can write is short, it will still be hard, because writing is hard.
It's hard in many ways.
Sometimes I can't get, you know, I'm writing something and I'm like, this doesn't make sense.
How can I, like I spent, like I spent one day, probably two, to write a chapter in this book that was 200 words.
But it was so difficult to make it work.
Is that because you weren't completely sure exactly what you were trying to get across?
Yeah, exactly.
And this is what writing does as well.
It clarifies what you think.
It clarifies what you want to say.
And if you're not 100 clear on what you want to say, you might end up writing nonsense or things that even yourself, like you, don't agree with.
That's really important.
That's like, perhaps one of the most important things you've got to have in your mind is what exactly specifically, is the idea that I'm trying to communicate here?
And if you can really get that clear, then everything else sort of sort of falls into place, doesn't it?
So you've got to remember the purpose of the content that you're writing.
Um, and that will, that will help you with everything.
But yeah, often that, that emerges as you're doing it, you know, it's a process.
Yeah, also we talked about language, like using good grammar, good vocabulary.
But what about content, like fluff?
Fluff is basically meaningless unnecessary sentences, unnecessary information that you're including just because
I've never had a teacher really, that helped me understand what to cut.
So no, this is you don't need this, this is not needed.
This is like it's too vague.
So recognizing unnecessary words and sentences, that's also a great skill, skill for a, for a writer.
Yes okay, grammar and vocabulary okay, all the technical, all the mechanics of writing, but what about content?
Yeah, that was a point that I wanted to make.
Sorry.
Something that I have to deal with, that's something I struggle with in my writing, is that there's probably a bit too much.
I always add far too much.
And so when I write an email, often I will go back through the email and cut out as much as I can.
You know, just delete as much stuff as I can, because I realize that I've repeated myself here.
I've added like a few little words here and there that just don't help the message and ultimately might even make the core message less clear.
So less is more often with writing.
Yeah, it's very interesting stuff.
How do people get your book or both of your books?
Just go on Amazon or you can visit my website.
Fabio, I don't know how to pronounce this.
The English way is FabioCerpelloni.com.
The Italian way is FabioCerpelloni.com.
Anyway, it's C-E-R-P-E-L-L-O-N-I.
Yes.
I'll put the link in the description everyone so you can find Fabio's website where you can find both his books, and I recommend them both.
We talked about the first one before, which I think is brilliant.
The comments about learning languages and the fact that there's no single way of doing it.
I think it's a great idea that each chapter sort of contradicts the previous one.
It's like lots of stories and anecdotes of your own experience of learning English.
And each chapter, each anecdote ends with a conclusion about learning English.
And then the next chapter directly contradicts the conclusion that you made in the first chapter and the overall message being that there is no single one way, that each way to learn English, the ultimate way to learn English, is contradictory to the other.
So it's a very interesting approach to the subject.
There's no one right way.
Yeah.
There's no one right way to learn a language.
Despite what they say online, you know best method to learn English in three months.
Ultimately, it's about trying to do lots of different things and approaching language from every different angle.
And there's a lot of trial and error.
And just doing as much as possible and putting yourself into it personally, personal involvement in what you're doing and remembering that language is about making connections.
Yes, this is good.
Fabio, thank you very much for talking to us about writing.
Thank you, Luke.
It's always great to see you and I really admire you for what you do.
Oh, you too.
You too.
Yeah, it's a pleasure to talk to you again.
Have a good day.
You too.
So that is that.
Thank you very much again to Fabio for joining me on the podcast once again for the second time to talk about this subject.
I just want to give you a reminder of Fabio's website, where you can learn more about him and read his his blog, and also you can find details about his books.
So FabioCherpiloni.com.
I will leave a link for that in the episode description, along with the download link for the episode PDF transcript.
And also get yourself a copy of Fabio's books.
They're great.
OK.
And as he said, they're tiny books.
I mean, tiny.
They're not minuscule.
They're just smaller than most books, which I think is an advantage for you because it means that.
They're nice and easy to read, right?
It's achievable.
You can read from start to finish and feel good about yourself because there's nothing worse.
Well, there are lots of things worse than this, but still.
Picking up a book, starting it, and then not finishing it is very unsatisfying.
You feel like you've failed.
You feel like you're a bad reader.
And you don't get that satisfying sense that you're very brilliant and clever because you've finished a book.
But with Fabio's books, they don't go on forever.
They're short and sweet, to the point, and filled with interesting insights.
I recommend them.
The first one is called Any Language You Want.
Let me just read about that because it's interesting.
This is what Fabio has written about his first book on his website, and it goes like this.
There are people online who sell the secret, the fastest way, or the best method to learn languages.
This bothers me.
How can they sell something that doesn't exist?
How can they sell the best method without knowing anything about the people they're selling it to?
I decided to rebel against these false promises by writing Any Language You Want 18 Conflicting Lessons for a New Kind of Language Learner.
Here is how Any Language You Want can help you.
In this book, I answer this question, what is the best way to learn another language?
And I answer it 18 times.
But I don't do that by discussing teaching or learning methodologies.
This isn't an academic book.
No famous linguists are cited.
No second language acquisition research is mentioned.
Any language you want is a collection of my own personal stories on how I learned English, my second language.
In each chapter, I share the problems, beliefs, thoughts and frustrations I had as a learner.
And I tell you about the strategies I adopted to improve my language skills.
Each story ends with the same sentence.
This is how to learn a language.
But each story disagrees with the next.
One chapter tells you to hire teachers and take classes, just like I did while learning English in London.
The next one argues you should do everything on your own.
Take no courses, hire no teachers, do what I did when I was living in Australia.
One story says you should never touch a dictionary.
The next one persuades you to look up every unknown word you encounter.
Should you aim at sounding like a native?
Yes.
Well, wait.
No, you shouldn't.
Which story tells the truth?
Which chapter is right?
The answer is all and none.
It's up to you to decide.
It's up to you to try things out, explore and find your own best way to learn.
The description goes on.
You can see he's a very good writer.
And there are lots of accolades and reviews of the book by notable people including, for example, Scott Thornberry.
Anyone who out there is an English teacher, you might be aware of him, sort of a legendary figure in English language teaching.
Scott Thornberry gave the book a glowing review.
So that's any language you want.
You'll find a link for that on Fabio's website.
And the links for both books are included in the description, by the way.
And then Fabio's second book, called tiny book author, is described by him like this.
This is how he describes it on his website many, many aspiring authors tell themselves they'll write a book one day, but they never do.
Some might feel overwhelmed or insecure.
Others think they need to write hundreds of pages, have extraordinary life stories or be naturally talented.
Tiny book author shows another way.
Fabio Cerpolone, a tiny author from Italy.
I don't actually know how tall Fabio is, but nevertheless, tiny author obviously means an author of tiny books.
Anyway, Fabio Cipollone, a tiny author from Italy, learned this when he published Any Language.
You Want an 80-page book about how he learned English, his second language.
In Tiny Book Author, he shares the lessons, stories and insights from that first publishing journey.
He offers words of encouragement and answers questions that many first-time authors have.
This is his second tiny book and it's here to help you write your own.
Okay, so there you go.
If that sounds interesting, go ahead and get yourself a copy.
That would be good.
I'm sure there's lots of interesting things to read about in both of those books.
And, well, Fabio is good enough to send me a copy of the second book.
He's sending it to me, which is very nice of him.
And I look forward to reading it.
And who knows, maybe it will inspire me to finally write my book, which I've been thinking about writing for a long, long time.
I always thought that I would write a book... to accompany my podcast.
Obviously there's the podcast, right?
And I always thought, well, one day I will write Luke's English book.
I don't know quite what form it would take.
I kind of vaguely thought it would be something like this podcast, really.
It would be anecdotes, stories and insights into learning English, combined with little grammar or vocabulary lessons, something like that.
I've always thought about doing that.
I guess the reason why I've never done it is because well, like most people, the reason that most people don't write books that they think about writing is because it just becomes overwhelming.
It seems like it's too much to do.
But I like Fabio's spirit.
I like the message, which is that there's no need to bite off more than you can chew, right?
You don't need to feel you've got to write a 300-page epic or something like that.
You can just keep it simple and write something short and it is achievable.
So maybe Fabio's book is going to inspire me to finally put pen to paper or at least start typing.
I did actually start.
I've written some pages of my book, but I never got beyond the introduction.
And you're thinking, Luke, how long is that introduction?
300 pages?
Yeah, something like that.
Yeah.
Anyway.
Tiny book author, Fabio Cerpiloni, and Any Language You Want, Fabio Cerpiloni.
You'll find links for them in the description.
Now, as promised at the beginning of the episode, I'm now going to give a summary of the interview.
This is just to make sure that the main points in this conversation are crystal clear for you.
Okay?
Just to make sure.
Now, you'll find all of these insights.
Where will I put them?
I think I'll put the insights at the top of the PDF.
And then you'll find the transcripts of the conversation.
In fact, you'll find a transcript of the whole episode.
But I'll put these insights in a list at the beginning of the PDF.
Okay?
So if you want to read what I'm saying, you can just check the PDF and it's all written there.
So here are some key insights about writing for learners of English from the conversation I just had with Fabio.
So the first thing is that writing is different to speaking, because writing is permanent, whereas speaking is impermanent.
You say the words and the other person hears them and that's it, they're gone.
But writing is permanent and that's why it feels scary, possibly.
Unlike speaking, writing doesn't disappear.
Once it's written, it's there.
And that can make learners nervous, but it's also what makes writing powerful.
You have time to shape, revise and improve your message.
Secondly, good writing is about impact, not about perfection.
Obviously, perfection is important.
I don't want to give the impression that correct grammar, the right choice of words, is not important.
Obviously, that is important.
But I will say, from my experience of working with assessment for Cambridge exams...
It's only one part of one category of assessment.
Accuracy, I mean correctness in your grammar or vocabulary.
That's only one part of one category.
Good writing is actually about impact, not perfection.
A good piece of writing makes sense, does the job it's meant to do, and connects with the reader.
Grammar and vocabulary matter, but effect on the reader matters more than sounding or looking impressive or presenting advanced vocabulary just to impress someone.
Third point, simpler language is often more effective than flashy language.
Using complex vocabulary, idioms or advanced expressions just to sound like a native can feel unnatural.
It can distract the reader.
It can reduce clarity.
So clear, simple language often has more impact than complicated language.
But again, you know, sometimes complicated language or finding specifically the right word or phrase or right structure is what's necessary in order to do a certain job.
But sometimes keep it clear and simple is the best advice.
Number four, writing is about connection and self-expression.
Beyond exams and emails, writing is a powerful tool for expressing ideas, sharing experiences, motivating or moving your reader.
Even imperfect English can work well if the message connects emotionally.
And that's about the way that you are connected, focusing on your idea, and the way that you're organising your points.
Number five, structure and organisation.
Structure and organisation help the reader.
Good writing has a clear beginning, middle and end.
It's easy to follow and it makes its purpose obvious.
Organisation, coherence and clarity all serve the reader and improve impact.
Number six, writing helps you clarify your thinking.
Writing isn't just about communicating ideas, it creates ideas through the process of doing it.
If something feels hard to write, it often means that the idea isn't clear yet.
The struggle is part of the thinking process, and simply attempting to put things into words can actually force you to rethink exactly what it is you're trying to say, so that you can say it as effectively as possible.
Number seven, cutting fluff is a key writing skill.
And by fluff, we mean unnecessary stuff.
OK, unnecessary stuff.
The literal meaning of fluff is fluff is kind of like, I don't know, soft material.
Let me give you an example of fluff.
Where do we find fluff?
OK, so you've got a new pair of socks.
You've got a new pair of socks.
You've been wearing a nice thick new pair of socks.
You've been wearing them all day.
These two socks, two normally.
I don't know your life, but I mean, most people it's two.
You've been wearing them all day and then you take off the socks at the end of the day.
And what's that stuff between your toes?
Bits of the cotton or wool from the sock are stuck between your toes.
This is fluff.
OK.
Also, if you have a drying machine, a tumble dryer, at home, you know it's like a washing machine for your clothes, but it dries the clothes.
If you have one of them, you need to clean out.
You need to clean out the fluff from inside the machine.
Right.
Because as the fabric dries, bits of the fabric come off and they connect.
They gather together in little clumps and you have to clean out the fluff from your tumble dryer machine.
That's the literal meaning of fluff.
But in terms of writing, when we talk about fluff, we mean unnecessary words, basically.
So strong writing often comes from removing, not adding more and more.
So removing repeated ideas, removing vague sentences, removing unnecessary words.
Less is more, especially in emails.
And practical writing where time is so important the time of the reader.
You know you need to respect the time of the reader and the attention of the reader.
Number eight, reading is essential if you want to write better.
As Stephen King famously said, if you want to be a good writer, you must read a lot and write a lot.
I don't know if that's a direct quote, but that's basically what he said.
So reading helps you to absorb natural structures, notice effective style and understand what works and why.
In the same way that listening can inform your speaking, reading a lot informs your writing.
So if you want to write emails, read emails.
Where you would find emails is another question.
I mentioned Email English by Paul Emerson, which is actually a book on how to improve your email writing at a sort of sentence level.
Mainly a lot of language, vocabulary and structures that we use in emails.
It's a good book.
Email English, Paul Emerson.
But also, I mean, what else?
You could even use AI to help you generate some emails that you can then read, if that's how you like to spend your time.
It's hard to find emails to read, except obviously all the emails that you do read.
But anyway, also, if you want to write stories, read stories.
But generally speaking, reading helps you to become a better writer.
And so it's always a good idea to do plenty of reading in English, of course.
Number nine, writing a diary counts as real writing.
Now, you don't need to publish or be famous to be a writer.
Writing for yourself builds fluency, develops clarity, strengthens your connection with the reader, even if that reader is you.
I think writing a diary, I do recommend it because I think it's something that's easy to do, right?
And something that's a safe space where you can practice putting your ideas down in words.
And I think it's good for many reasons.
So a writer is simply someone who writes, okay?
So get started by writing something today.
Number 10, exams focus on communication, not just accuracy.
In exams like Cambridge, all the ones from Cambridge English.
In those exams, accuracy is only one criterion and higher priorities include communicative achievement, task completion and effect on the reader.
Everything in your writing should serve the purpose of the task.
So, for example, if it is to report something to your boss, you need to make sure that you are reporting all the information that's being required of you by that task.
Nothing more, nothing less.
Point 11.
AI can help if you use it wisely, of course.
AI tools, like the usual chatbots, are useful for checking grammar doubts, exploring word choices, finding synonyms, clarifying meaning, and they're particularly useful because you can be quite specific in your questions and you can ask follow-up questions until you feel like your question has been answered.
If you've got a doubt while you're writing, you can kind of refer to your chatbot of choice and get some help.
But obviously, AI should not replace your thinking or your voice.
Beware of letting AI do your writing for you, because if you just get ChatGPT to write everything for you, your own skills won't develop and you might come across as unoriginal, indistinct and probably even lazy to the reader.
Because it is quite common.
Most people can identify when something is written by a chatbot.
It's pretty obvious in a lot of cases.
And that won't give a good impression of you.
Often your reader wants to get the sense that there is a person on the other side.
So don't be seduced by the dark side of the force.
I mean, don't be seduced by the fact that ChatGPT will write flawlessly for you with no errors, because people can usually tell when something has been written by AI and it doesn't give a good impression of you.
Also, you need to question and evaluate what AI produces.
In the case of Fabio, he uses dictionaries as his final authority on what is correct.
Dictionaries are still very useful.
AI can make mistakes, as we've seen many times.
But a reliable dictionary like, for example, the Oxford Learners Dictionaries OxfordLearnersDictionariescom remains the final authority for things like the meanings of words, examples of real usage, collocations and other information like the register of a certain word or phrase.
13, and we're nearly at the end, writing improves confidence through small wins.
Writing doesn't have to mean a 300-page book.
Small, achievable projects like emails, blog posts, short texts, or indeed Fabio's tiny books...
Achieving smaller writing objectives builds confidence, momentum and motivation.
Success encourages more writing.
So if you want to write well, write regularly.
Number 14, writing is hard even for experienced writers.
Struggling with a paragraph doesn't mean you're bad at writing.
It usually just means that the idea needs refining.
The purpose isn't clear yet.
So it's quite normal to kind of write, erase, write again.
Eventually, a poppy will bloom, right?
Like in the haiku episode, difficulty is normal.
And, in fact, difficulty or, you know, hard work is quite productive because it's all part of a process of refining, improving learning.
That struggle is an important thing to go through.
So don't escape.
Don't run away from it.
And 15, ultimately, writing is about purpose.
So before writing anything, you should ask yourself, who is this for?
What do I want the reader to feel, know or do?
And what is the core idea here?
When purpose is clear, language choices become much easier and everything serves that one objective, which is the purpose of the content.
Yes.
I just wanted to add something else here at the end, which was about writing haiku.
My last episode was about writing haiku.
Episode number 974, is it, and I asked listeners to write some of their own haiku, and I was really pleasantly surprised with the results.
A lot of people have been sharing little poems and I've enjoyed reading them in the comments section on my website YouTube, Spotify.
Lots of people have been sharing their haiku, and it's brilliant.
I'm really impressed by everybody.
It just shows that I have a lot of great writers in my audience.
And haiku is a great example of how writing is about making an emotional connection with the reader through efficient use of language and communicating a very specific idea.
You know, you get that specific idea and then trying to find the right combination of words in the right order to get that impact.
It's a very good discipline, a very good exercise.
So I will share...
Some of those haiku written by listeners, I'll share some of those probably in the next episode.
If everything goes according to plan, the next episode will be a rambling episode about various things.
And I'll also include a lot of the haiku that I've received as comments from Lepsters.
So that's that's an idea of what the next episode will be.
A rambling episode with various stuff in it and also some responses to recent episodes, including loads of haiku from listeners.
And also need to finish the whole haiku episode with haiku part two, which will arrive at some point when I feel the time is right.
OK then, in terms of upcoming episodes, I've got a couple of family interviews which will arrive at some point.
I recorded several interviews with family members recently and I'm going to be editing them together.
And so you'll get that.
I'm not going to tell you anymore, but I think that I think they're going to.
I think they'll be nice episodes.
Okay, no need for me to give you any other information about what's coming.
I'd rather kind of keep it a surprise, really.
But there will be the usual mix of rambling, stories, conversations, and more.
Thank you very much for listening.
Thank you for... watching, indeed, if you've been watching the video version of this.
And thank you again to Fabio.
Don't forget, everyone, be excellent to each other, please, if that is at all possible.
Have a lovely morning, afternoon, evening or night.
I look forward to reading your comments if you have some.
Check out Fabio's books.
Link's in the description.
But for now, it's just time for me to say goodbye.
Bye.
Bye.
Bye.
Bye.
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