The latest episode is about the Mauna Loa volcano eruption in Hawaii. Mauna Loa means "long mountain" in English.

Before I listened to this episode, I didn't know much about the volcano and what "Pele’s hair" is. However, the host explained that Pele is the goddess of volcanoes in Hawaii, and when the volcanoes erupt, the lava comes out and rapidly cools down because of the fresh air, thus creating fiberglass. (thin and soft, like hair)

Moreover, the host also mentioned the local people’s attitude toward this issue: when some experts from around the world told them to take some precautions to prevent the lava from going to the main roads, the local people claimed that it was Pele’s creation, humans should not change the natural phenomenon. 

For further information, please see this channel's website: https://open.spotify.com/show/1SrXSePLtCr70poP7uyZOO?si=Y9bie_1aTwan6Og-zYu1jw

 

The episode I’m going to introduce is about the new technology that gets the world’s attention named “chatGPT”. It is a type of language model developed by OpenAI. It is a machine learning model that is trained on a large dataset of text and can generate text that is similar to the training data.  ChatGPT is a variant of GPT that is specifically designed for generating text in the context of a chat or conversation. It is trained on a dataset of conversations and can generate responses that are appropriate for a given conversation context. The chat isn’t like any other AI assistance (like Siri or Cortana), it can answer some questions that were set with limitations on answering, and it can even do your school report or have a conversation just like real people. In short, this new technology is a big breakthrough in AI.

In short, the news and knowledge provided by the podcast “The Daily” can always keep you track of what’s happening worldwide now, I believe everyone must give it a try. 

By the way, here’s a link to chatGPT, and you can use Mandarin or English to talk to it.

https://openai.com/blog/chatgpt/

The program I listened to is about letting others know why you are asking them to do the task in particular. Since most people may feel annoyed when they are demanded to do extra work, telling them what makes you see them as a quick to do the job well may increase their motivation, make them feel honored, valued, and confident about the job they do, and become more likely to take on the job willingly.

The link of the program⬇️

In this podcast, the host will tell you some vocabularies, phrases, and native English used in their real life through some fun, relevant and dynamic English conventions with other experienced fluency coaches.

The episode I picked this time is called “Can you Understand These Jokes in English”, which offers several funny dad jokes. For example, one of the jokes is “Someone complimented my parking today! They left a little note that said "parking fine".”In this joke, the parking fine has two meanings, which not only created funny effects, but let me learn the different meanings of the word “fine”.

Another joke is ”Q: What does a baby computer call his father? A: Data!”. This joke helped me know the different accents between the word data.

All in all, listening to this channel will not feel bored but happy. If one wants to improve their English in a more relaxed way, this channel will be highly recommended.

I have barely listened to the podcast in my life; however, this time I feel the podcast is a great resource for people to know more  different things. This time I chose an episode “Are you bored or are you boring?” to listen. In the whole sharing from the host, I learn a grammar with a different method. In the past, teachers always taught us grammar rules from the book tediously. It is really boring and I have no interest in it. However, the host taught us grammar rules through some easy example. I can learn it without any stress. I think it is a good way for people to improve their English ability. 

https://podcasts.apple.com/tw/podcast/are-you-bored-or-are-you-boring/id1582306999?i=1000533280644

      In this episode, the speakers tell us that health care fraud might involve a large amount of money, and it might have a wider impact than we think. After the COVID 19 pandemic took place, some dishonest people committed telemedicine fraud by giving prescription for expensive and unnecessary medication. The speakers noted that drug diversion, which is the illegal use of prescription medication, is the most serious type among all kinds of health care fraud in that it can cause real-life impacts. A case of this happened in Utah in 2014 was mentioned. Officials discovered a group of patients infected with a rare strain of Hepatitis C. This disease is transmitted by sharing needles, however, the 7 patients had no known connections with each other. The investigation indicates that they were treated in the same emergency room by the same nurse, Elet Neilsen, who has that same strain of virus. She diverted the patients' drugs for her own use by injecting the drug into herself first, then injecting the remainder into her patients. Since this disease is chronic, the victims might have to live with the symptoms for the rest of their lives. The criminal was sentenced 5 years in prison in 2020. Thompson, who is one of the workers that worked this case, said that the FBI used the pay and chase model to solve cases like this. At the very end of this episode, the speakers suggested we watch our cards regarding health insurance and medical care lest our identity be stolen. It is also advised that we check our explanation of benefits. There would be a red flag if you notice a procedure or prescription you don't recognize.
       After listening to this episode, actually I felt quite sad because we may have to be aware of a fraud even when we're in need of urgent medical care. In my opinion, health care fraud should be sentenced and criticized more seriously since it can not only be a peril, but also cause financial burdens to the public if money is involved.

In this episode, the conversation contains some topics that people might not want to talk about. For example, love life, and losing weight. After listening to this funny conversation, I have self-reflection and think about whether I often talk about some topics that should be avoid. Meanwhile, I can indulge myself in an all-English environment for about 20 minutes.

The episode I listened to was mainly about how to present what you learned. The host talked about the technique of changing what you learned. It is useful to think beyond the conference. For example, when you are reading a book, think about how you describe the main point to a friend, and then do it. You will retain more information from the book. I think it’s a good way to try.

This is the first time I listen to a podcast in English, it’s more interesting than I thought before. And I think listening to English podcasts is a good way to improve our listening skill and concentration, so I would like to listen to English podcasts every week in the future.
https://podcasts.apple.com/tw/podcast/ted-ed-lessons-worth-sharing/id1039991663?i=1000487218549

Explanation:    

          In the first place, When taking notes, instead of writing down the full sentences, I prefer to write phrases. This can not only help me to better retain information from mass notes, but reduce the time of taking notes. Secondly, I’ll take notes in my own words, which helps myself to understand and remember what I hear. 

      2) Content visualization

Explanation:  As for me, the most frequently used way of content visualization is screenshot and take note of it.  Therefore, you can look at the picture directly and retain both image, text and diagram. This can boost the absorption of knowledge.

 

      3)  Highlight keyword  / sentence

Explanation: I will use symbols and color to mark sentence structure and emphasize the keypoint. How do I use symbols to highlight keywords? I use underline, circle, star, etc. to sort key information  examples, definitions. Besides, I also Use color to highlight major sections, main points and diagrams. These can help find your note more quickly.

 

4)  practice in topic content (Example)

I use the above mentioned skills when listening to this podcast, and summarize the notes below.The topic of this episode is about:

1. Occam’s Raz, a professor who embraces simplicity. His notion is when there’s a complicated explanation and a simple explanation,  the simple explanation is right. 

2. One example of Matt Sagalnik at Princeton,  he shows that simplicity is better. On the other hand , Occam’s Razor was not right, because he stated that given a simple explanation and a complex one, that you should choose the complex one.

1. Before listening: Read the introduction of the episode 

* Explanation : Before listening to the podcast, I will always read the brief introduction to get some basic information first. In this manner, not only can I clarify the purpose of the episode content, but I can predict what the host may talk during the podcast. Both of the benefits can help me understand the podcast clearly.

2. During listening : Note taking 

* Explanation : If one wants to record what they learned on something, note taking must be a smart way. During the process of listening to the podcast, I will write down some key words, which can be vocabularies, phrases, or even some interesting facts. The biggest advantage of this strategy is that  I can review what I learned once I finished listening.

3.After listening : replay the episode 

* Explanation : After finishing your listening, it is also important to figure out whether there still are some knowledges that make you confused. To solve this problems,  I will replay or reverse the episode more than one time until I realize all the knowledges. Therefore, I can not only listen more clearly, but learn the native pronunciation and how native speakers reduce, cut and connect the sounds.

Example

Strategy 1: In the introduction of the episode, I know that the topic of the conversation will be jokes. Moreover, it also mentioned some jokes may contain more than one meaning, which let me notice that I should pay more attention and think more when I listen to those jokes in the episode.

Strategy 2: I did take some notes when listening to the podcast, which can be seen on the picture above.

Strategy 3: Actually, I didn’t understand some jokes when they said really fast the first time. Therefore, I reversed the audio to the time points where I lost.

First, I would guess what kind of information it was going to convey by the information in its title and description. Through this action, I can be well prepared for what I will listen to later and suggest some possible relevant information that I have learned before. As the result, new knowledge and information can be absorbed nicely while reciting old relevant memory again.

Next, I will take some notes as I listen. Most of the time, I just write down some of the main topics and important words or concepts, but if I know I'm dealing with information that will take time to organize and understand, I'll also draw something like a mindmap.

Lastly, I will recite the stuff that I just heard in my own words and check if there’s anything wrong. This step can help me to know if I understand every word and sentence in this podcast while checking my note is there anything I missed or understood in a wrong way. I count myself as fully understanding once I can get everything right with my own words.

Take the podcast “Did the Artificial Intelligence Just Get Too Far?” from The Daily as an example. I first guessed about what I'm going to listen to is maybe related to AI, generated pre-train transformers, and databases. Then, I’ve done some notes while listening, it helps me construct a basic understanding of nowadays AI models and the specific AI named “chatGPT”. In the end, I recited every piece of stuff I just heard after finishing the podcast.

Example: 1.family day 2.gathering 3.festivals

So you can sum those three words into one sentence.

Don’t hold family gathering days on the festivals.

Predict content: Before listening to a podcast, you can predict what contents will appear from the title.

Example: The episode I listen to this time is How to split the holidays, so I think there will be holidays, family and time planning in the content.

Listening more times: When there is something you don't understand, you can listen to that paragraph several times, or slow down the speed.

Example: There were parts of the second half that I couldn't understand, so I listened to that passage several times and realized it was explaining why family gathering day are not appropriate for holidays.

Example: The podcast I chose is called “How do our brains process speech”, so I will guess that the episode will talk about how many different words our brain receives each day.

2.Note taking: record the important part of the episode.

Example: I will write down some keywords that I heard, so I can quickly understand what the episode is talking about.

3.Replay: replay the episode again and again.

Example:I will replay the audio many times until I find out all the details and know what the whole episode is talking about.

1.Note taking

Record the highly repetitive words and sentences or interrogative sentences I hear, so that I won't forget what I just heard and speed up my understanding of the article.

2.Listen a few more times

If I usually listen to some short talks or articles, I may listen to them once and don't understand them. If I listen to them a few more times, I can confirm whether the content I heard for the first time is correct and I can also be more impressed.

3. Pay attention to the antecedent feed 

I will pay more attention to the antecedent feed. Whether it is an overview or a problem, it can allow me to think about what I may hear first, and then integrate it with note talking to accelerate understanding.

In this episode, the hosts, Lindsay and Michelle, talk about “Why asking for help shows confidence in English”. First of all, they mention that children are often taught to be independent. Therefore, they may be afraid to show lack of confidence and pretend to understand. In addition, the hosts discuss some consequences when one is not clear but do not express doubts, such as miss something important or get the direction wrong. Last but not least, the hosts suggest some appropriate questions and possible solutions. In short, this subject is very appealing to me and easy for beginners to get started.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/1igVUT1uPkxqhtBp2QSZ5d?si=1EQ_W2vGQZGTAkHzXDjYRQ&context=spotify%3Ashow%3A6qXldSz1Ulq1Nvj2JK5kSR

The second strategy is taking a little note. From this, one can remember what the podcaster said before and the listener can review it more clearly in their way. For example, we can write down the topic and the similar or opposite contents the podcaster mentioned.

The final strategy is listen to more English podcasts and try to get more experience in listening in English. For me, I listened to “Learning English while commuting in 15 mins” for learning, “I Can’t Sleep Podcast” before falling sleepy to learn trivia or getting tired faster.