92 – Simple English News Daily TRANSCRIPT

Full Transcript

Stephen: My intention from SEND 7  is really that people maybe who don’t have enough time or they don’t really want to sit down and study English. They still have seven minutes of connection to English in their daily life. So, you know, they wake up, they are making a coffee and they have a really, really busy day where they have to do loads of work, but they still have seven minutes where they can listen to real messages in English.

That’s the main idea behind the 

Daniel: I would like  to focus on your News Podcast, Simple English News Daily, because. I find it really interesting to listen to a news podcast in order to improve our English skills,  but don’t get me wrong.

Of course. I find it also interesting to know about your other topics. Of course, we want to talk about your language journey as well, and yeah, you also taught other  people, right. English when you were living abroad yeah. I’m really curious to know more about you and your podcast 

Stephen: Great. Where shall I start

Daniel: well, maybe you could, you could start by introducing yourself because yeah, I know you a little bit, but so that my listeners also know you better.

Stephen: Sure. So my name is Stephen Devincenzi and I am from the UK from England. and I have been teaching English in different parts of the world for a few years. Well, I’m 30 now. So ever since I left university, when I was 21, 22 I’ve been traveling the world and teaching English.

I spent a year in Spain teaching English in a primary school. I went to Australia after that and, and worked in normal schools and I went to India and taught English there and I worked in Thailand as well for a year, teaching English. And then I went to Argentina. Where I spent two years.

Yeah. I spent one year in Buenos Aires where your dad is from and a one year in the north , in a place called Resistencia. Yeah. Sometimes I was teaching in schools. Sometimes I was teaching in private language Academies. Sometimes I was just teaching,  private classes, myself.

Sometimes I was teaching. Five-year-olds and sometimes I was teaching 85 year olds, so big difference in abilities and ages and everything. And, just, I think,  I’d say a year and a half ago, I came back to England and I started working in a primary school. So now  I’m a primary school teacher.

I teach everything in the primary school. as well as trying to , teach as much Spanish as I can. Which is probably the language I speak the best other than English, of course.  and I think about it, I think it was April last year. During the first lockdown, the first pandemic lockdown here in the UK, I decided to start this idea, which I’d had for ages.

I’d been thinking about making Simple English News Daily. podcasts for a long time since before, you know, I was in Argentina. and I finally had the opportunity because the schools were closed and I thought I had this for a long time. I didn’t know how long this lockdown was going to last. And I thought, okay, now is the time.

And so I started, uh, SEND 7 Simple English News Daily.

Daniel: Okay. Really, really nice.  hang on a second, because we want to know more about your motivation, why you started out with this podcast. So Did  you have any idols in mind or did you have a specific podcast in mind and why took it so long to start out?

Stephen: Okay. Oh, great questions, Daniel. Okay.  I think probably the main reason that I wanted to start, Simple English News Daily. Was because I knew how important it was for me to learn through the news and through listening to just like real messages every day. I’m more of a learner who wants to be communicating with real information.

Rather than,  you know, sit down now I’m going to learn French for an hour and do some exercises or something. I prefer to just really engage with real  contents. Yeah. I think one of the first podcasts that I started listening to was one which is in French. called. Francais Facile it’s by, , the, media company, RFI RFE, and, they do something kind of similar to simple English news daily in French.  but of course they’ve got a whole news team behind them, so it’s probably easier for them. Um, and yeah, I thought it was brilliant. It was a really nice way to start the day. yeah, I thought. yeah, I’ve also, in my own spare time, I listened to Spanish radio, French radio, uh, to kind of maintain my level of, of, uh, French and Spanish.

And, yeah, I thought that this should exist in English and I tried to look for something similar and there was nothing similar to that in English. And I thought, okay, I should do it myself.

Daniel: okay. I see. Yeah, that is cool. And now maybe what is your podcast all about? I mean, you mentioned it is a news podcast, but maybe you could dive deeper into it and give us more information. What is it exactly what makes it unique?

Stephen: Okay.  Yeah. So the idea of simple English news daily is that it is really the most important thing that is happening in the world every day. so we just go through, by continents, we go through what’s happening and safe. We say Europe, what’s happening. The most important things that are happening in Europe, Americas.

What’s the most important things happening in the Americas? Africa. What’s the most important things happening in Africa and Asia. yeah, we really try to pick out. what is really the most important things that are happening in the world and say it in the most simple way possible. So the idea is that I do the hard work of trying to kind of take this really massive story, which is in the international news and putting it into the most kind of basic three or four sentences that it’s possible to understand. And then yeah, putting that into the podcast. So most, I think most episodes cause the it’s seven minutes long, which is why it’s called SEND 7 Simple English News Daily in seven minutes, SEND seven  and. Yeah, I think we probably average about 10 stories, something like that.

yeah, so it’s me on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and have, my excellent co host Namitha who is doing Tuesdays and Thursdays at the moment. and yeah, so yeah, that’s it.

Daniel: Okay. And how did you team up with these guys? I mean, how could you find them? It’s a brilliant way. Yes.  To share  the workload,

Stephen: Ah, God, I, yeah, absolutely. I,kind of,  I needed it because I,you know, I’m still working full-time in a primary school, so it was a crazy life to be planning and teaching these lessons every day. And I’m working on the podcast because it takes a few hours to, to make, you know, each episode. so yeah, I just put an advert out on somewhere and just say that I’m looking for somebody who would be interested in sharing this with me and Namitha got back to me and yeah.

Spoke to her for a while and yeah, she’s brilliant. So yeah, really, really lucky to find her,

Daniel: Okay. And you wrote to me that SEND 7 is 100% independent and is dedicated to unbiased reporting of world events. So  please tell us what do you mean by unbiased reporting?

Stephen: Yeah.  It’s really difficult in this world, especially with  everything, uproar on social media and all of the different, different channels of media that we have to try to just stay the most in the middle. that we can, but we try as hard as we can to just tell the news what is just,  what people are saying, what has happened and try not to have any kind of spin. So just try to make it the most basic, this is what’s happening and try not to give any kind of opinion in there at all.  So that people can, kind of listen, of course, improve their English and, not have any kind of idea that we have any particular alliance or anything like that.

And it’s difficult, you know, I’ve still had a few messages from people saying. Oh, you haven’t. , I dont’ know , you’re not being fair to, I don’t know the president of Turkey or I don’t know something, I’ve had a few different messages saying, things like that, but generally is most of the feedback is really, really positive.

So yeah. That’s what I mean by unbiased. Does that make sense?

Daniel: that makes complete sense. Yes. Thank you. And yes, it is produced in English, but as you mentioned, it is a lot of work to do. So why doesn’t it exist in another language? I mean, you could. Easily translate it into let’s say French and then produce it in another language. I mean, this would be really great information for French learners as well.

Stephen: Yeah. Yeah, totally. I absolutely agree. I would loveto get it running in French and Spanish as well. Definitely. I’d love to, right now, Daniel, to be honest, I just don’t have the time, but one day, one day, that would be a dream. Yeah,

Daniel: As I could read on the website we are all free to use the podcast, as long as we give credit to it. So. I could translate it and make a German podcast out of it and just give credits to you. And then we would have we,

Stephen: You could actually, yeah.

Daniel: Then we would have  an English and a German version.

Stephen: Yeah, yeah. Definitely. No, you, you really could. I think you’ll see. how much time it takes though, if you try to do that every day.

Daniel: That is the problem. I see.

Stephen: Yeah. Yeah. Great idea though.

Daniel: yeah.

Stephen: If you want to, you are welcome to.

Daniel: So listeners,  I need your support because I can’t do it alone.

Stephen: Yeah. Okay. I’ll find the news and I’ll put it into English and you can just do the translation parts and you can put it into German. How about that?

Daniel: Yes, that is perfect. So, it would be really interesting to hear some explanations, how the process of producing this podcast works. I mean, what does a typical episode production look like? You already gave some pieces and bits but maybe you could start from the beginning.

Just so that we can have some kind of an idea of 

Stephen: Okay. So, generally  I will try to go to whatever I genuinely think is the biggest story in the world that day. I mean, sometimes it’s very obvious, you know, for example when Joe Biden just became president. It’s very clear that the bigger, the thing that I’m going to choose as the first story then is that otherwise I might look at lots of different news websites and see what they have chosen as their top story.

And so I will go into the story. I’ll read. I read loads of articles, loads of news, myself. It helps that I’m genuinely very passionate about current affairs. I really love reading about world news anyway, so I will read loads of different stories and then I will just kind of really think, and then I stop looking at them and I think what did, what just happened?

What is really the most important thing? That has come from that story. And then I will write it in my own three or four sentences and then normally I try to find some kind of other audio, somebody talking, I don’t know Prime Minister Boris Johnson said this, and then I can put that in as well.

Sometimes I have a few people who send yeah little recordings of their own to me some listeners sometimes send things in, which is really, really nice. That’s something I just started with about six weeks ago. I said, People can send their own audio messages and we can put them in the podcast and I’ve had quite a few people try that already.

And so that’s really nice.  Then I, yeah, , once I’ve got everything written out, then I go to my recording software Audacity , which you use as well? I believe.

Daniel: yes.

Stephen: Yeah. And,  and then, yeah, I start recording and sometimes I can record the whole thing in one. Sometimes I have to I dunno, sometimes I sneeze and I have to go back and do it again.

I don’t know. But,  yeah, that’s pretty much it.

Daniel: What about the listeners statistics the news are relevant for one day and then maybe after a week it’s not relevant anymore more. Isn’t it? Isn’t it a bit depressing or um, how shall I put it? I don’t know if the listeners are going back to listen to older episodes, maybe to learn English, of course, but I don’t know.

Stephen:  Yeah. I think about two-thirds of the listeners that we have every day are of the episode, which came out that day and then one third of old episodes, something like that.

Daniel: Yeah. Okay. 

Stephen: But I, I know what you mean. If I were learning English from this, I probably wouldn’t listen to old episodes.

Cause it says, yeah, it’s not so relevant, but some people do. Some people like it, some reason. And Oh, and one thing which is quite popular is the transcripts, which are on the website. So every day when we publish a new episode, we also put the transcripts on the websites and a lot of people, I think maybe one in five people listens to the podcast while reading the transcripts at the same time.

Daniel: I also wanted to mention that I love the idea of the transcript. So for me, it would be wise to go back yes and work with older versions or older episodes as well, because you have to transcript and you can, yes, you can work with that and improve your English.

Another thing which I really love is that the speakers pronounce  really clearly and slowly and you also integrate small audio bits, for example, an excerpt from Boris Johnson speaking. And I find that really entertaining. So you have really the news  in it compressed, but it’s also entertaining at the same time.

And I just love listening to these different voices.

Stephen: Yeah. Yeah. That’s it. Thank you, Daniel. Yeah. I mean, my intention from SEND 7   is really that people maybe who don’t have enough time or they don’t really want to sit down and study English. They still have some seven minutes of connection to English in their daily life. So, you know, they wake up, they are making a coffee and, you know, they have a really, really, really busy day where they have to do loads of work, but they still have seven minutes where they can listen to real messages in English.

That’s the main idea behind the 

Daniel: So the next question, don’t take the question too seriously. Right?

Stephen: Okay. All right. I won’t I’m 

Daniel: Your podcast is aimed for English learners, right? And the news comes in a very simplistic way. I mean, with more or less simple vocabulary so that the listeners understand. 

Stephen: More or less. sometimes it’s not possible though. There are some things which you just do not have a simple way of saying them. So sometimes it is more difficult. Maximum 

Daniel: Sorry 

Stephen: go 

Daniel: see. And will there be a version for advanced or proficient English learners in the future?

Stephen: The truth is Daniel. I think that even though this is called simple English news daily to real level, that it is. Intermediate beginners probably can’t understand this very well. You should listen to it because they should improve by listening to real English. But the real standard of this is kind of intermediates and probably even upper intermediates anyway.

So I don’t think it’s necessary to make an advanced version because I think an advanced version would just be listening to. Normal BBC news or something, you know,

Daniel: Yes. You’re right. yes, there is another question. I mean, why didn’t you become a journalist 

Stephen: Well, it’s not too late. Maybe I still can. Yeah.

Daniel: because you seem to really like it. This kind of work well, it’s not work, it’s a hobby, but you know what I mean?

Stephen: Yeah, I do. I do. I do know what you mean. Yeah, you’re not the first person who asked me that Daniel. Sometimes I think the same thing. I really, I think I’ve always loved. I’ve always been really interested in everything which is happening in the world, so yeah. I do like the idea of being a journalist, but at the same time, I’ve always really enjoyed being a teacher.

Um, so I, you know, I’m quite sociable. I like being in front of the class. I like doing different things and I really love seeing people learn. And seeing my students learn things over time, so it’s just a mixture, but honestly I really like making a simple English news daily. And yeah, I do like the journalistic side of life.

So maybe I’ll move in that direction. Maybe I’ll continue to do both. I don’t know.

Daniel:  Thank you very much. Do you listen to your own podcast episodes?

Stephen: Okay. I listened to the ones that Namitha makes so on Tuesdays and Thursdays. 

Daniel: Okay. 

Stephen: I listened to it, but I don’t listen to my own because I don’t know. It’s too strange. But do you, Daniel, do you listen to your podcasts?

Daniel: Yeah, because I am kind of forced to because I mean not forced. I mean, I enjoy listening to my guests again because I edit , I relisten  to it automatically, 

Stephen: Yeah. Okay. 

Daniel: but  I don’t like it too, to hear myself, you know?

Stephen: Yeah. Yeah, no, it’s the same thing for me then. I mean, I listened to it when I’m when I’m recording to make sure that it all came out. Okay. That’s enough for me. I don’t have to listen to it again.

Daniel: Stephen, would you please give us your podcast recommendation?

Stephen: Yeah. Okay. What, what things that I, what podcasts, I think good to listen to.

Daniel: yes. This could be an, a learning podcast or not. 

Stephen: Okay. Well,  I hate to be really cheesy to start with but. My Fluent Podcast, I’ve only listened to two episodes, but they were both excellent.

Daniel: Thank you, Stephen .

Stephen: Yeah. I can highly recommend that. There’s Harris English podcast that’s good as well. 

The 

evil physiotherapist method hurts, but the next day, my back feels better. Language learning methods are like massages and there are comfortable learning methods. They don’t actually fix our weaknesses. Then there are painful methods, but afterwards they fix our weaknesses. Do you use a comfortable method or painful method?

Stephen:  

But if you like the style of Simple English News Daily, if you find my podcast reasonably easy to follow, then you could go for some of the more news podcasts that I love, like there’s Vox’s today explained, which they explain just important stories which is great. 

John McCain, who for years had been one of the primary champions of climate action in Congress. And I am convinced, but there’s not a doubt in my mind that climate change is real and we have neglected our obligation again.

And in fact, climate change didn’t come up much on the campaign trail between he and Barack Obama, because they basically agreed 

Stephen: is one called Axios daily. That’s a nice way to start the day as well.

Good morning. Welcome to Axios today. It’s Friday, February 26th. I’m  Niala Boodhoo. Here’s how we’re making you smarter today. How your Fitbit might be the fastest way to detect COVID. Plus a new look at the civil rights activism of Billie Holiday, but first the house voted on the next stimulus. Bill is today’s one big thing.

Stephen: Which is, again, it’s a bit news-based maybe too much United States news, unfortunately, but 

Daniel: And what about French or Spanish podcasts?

Stephen: for French, definitely for French. R F I F F E  it’s called . JOURNAL EN FRANÇAIS FACILE I think , Spanish probably Espanol Con Juan podcast

Daniel: Oh, it is excellent.

Stephen: yeah, it is. Yeah. Yeah. It’s great.

 Hello guys What’s up? Welcome to a new episode of 

Juan: Spanish with Juan This is not a video this is a podcast. Right 

Stephen: The thing is, that a lot of people mix up a podcast with a video. For example, they comment on my YouTube videos and write “I really like your podcast a lot”. .  

Did you, did you, have you, did you have him on here?

Daniel: Yes. Yes, indeed. I had an interview with him (episode 70)

 Has podcasting  changed your life somehow yes!. People tell me, for example, I like what you do is very natural . It’s,  you have a lot of sense of humor. So my self esteem is very high now compared to before, because when I was teaching Spanish, yeah. Nobody says to me all the time, Oh, I love your teaching.

Sometimes some students congratulate you know, but it’s not that common here. Online everybody is telling me, Oh, You are a fantastic teacher. I know I’m fantastic, but people keep telling me that. So eventually it becomes something that you, you get used to my brain. I don’t know.

Daniel:  

Yes, it was really amazing because I really enjoy the way he makes his podcast in a very, very informal way, you know? And, I just love him.  to me, it’s like, I am listening to a friend, you know,

or 

so, that is, it is really cool.

Stephen: I know. I totally agree. Yeah. Yeah. It’s brilliant. I actually had a w the last school I was working at when I was teaching Spanish then actually in a secondary school and we had one of his books. In my classroom. So that was cool. And then and then I was, so I knew him first as an author rather than a podcast maker.

Yeah. But he’s yeah. He’s podcast is, yeah. It’s great. Just so relaxed and talking. It really does feel like some, sometimes you could be listening to him walking down the streets and you want to just ask him questions and things you saying you think like, yeah, I’m just having a conversation.

Daniel: You can literally feel his energy or,yes.

When he is speaking. 

Stephen: Um, do you have any more recommendations for Spanish?

Daniel: For Spanish?

Stephen: Yeah, I can’t think of 

Daniel: actually he was the only podcast I was listening to, but there was one but I think they don’t produce anymore. It was called BA podcast  the BUENOS AIRES podcast. And this was a bi-lingual podcast. Made by an American guy and a guy from Argentina, Buenos Aires. So they have always switched three minutes.

They were talking in English and then they were talking in Spanish. So for me, this was really the perfect fit because I could learn both languages at the same time. This was something which was quite unique and in a very informal way. Yeah.

Stephen: Yeah. Yeah. You’ve been making the podcast for a long time now. Haven’t you? Daniel? Was it four or five years or so?

Daniel: Yes. I started out back in 2016, but I had a huge gap in between. for about one and a half years, I didn’t produce anything. 

Stephen: Yeah. Brilliant. Yeah. Yeah. Great. And did you use that time to relax?

Daniel: No. The reason was because I was in a formation in an internal formation at work. So, so I felt a little bit overloaded/overwhelmed

Stephen: Yeah, for  sure Yeah. Good, good. More relaxed now. 

Daniel: yes, exactly. Now I’m more relaxed and it’s good because it was really hard to start out again, you know, to continue

because before this huge gap, I really produced every week.

This was my goal to produce one episode so that I could improve my English speaking.

Stephen: Brilliant. Yeah. Yeah ? 

Daniel: Do you have any other project or plan in mind for the future? This could be a podcast related or language learning related.

Stephen: So it’s difficult at the moment because I, you know, I’m still. Full-time in a primary school. So it’s difficult for me to make extra plans on science. But if I could,  I would probably just want to improve simple English news daily. Rather than do something new. So I, you know, one thing I was possibly thinking was that the truth is I want to make the news in the podcast real, really what is the most important story in the world?

And one problem with that is that sometimes, well, a lot of the time, the most important things that are happening. I sat, you know, they’re quite depressing, , and talking about all another bomb in Afghanistan and you know, there’s a kidnapping in Nigeria,  it’s quite depressing.

And I try to kind of put something good next to something bad next to something good next to something like that, so that it’s not too depressing. But I was thinking one possibility of having an extra episode a week, maybe on a Saturday. Where I only talk about good news. So it’s just like seven minutes, the same format as normal, but seven minutes of just the good news of the week.

Like the best things that have happened. That’s one possibility.

Daniel: Yes. This seems to be really a great idea. I mean, I like format. Yes. Just positive news. And by the way, I didn’t know that you were actually producing live, right? Because on the website, it is written that you go live . 8:00 AM.

Stephen: no, no. Uh, no. That’s  I No, that, that means the episode goes live,

so it’s put onto the internet. Yeah. Yeah. Do you know what? I should change the wording there cause that is quite confusing. Isn’t it? I’m going to change that wording. 

Daniel: Yeah, 

Stephen: right now. Change those words.

Daniel: it’s because these days there are a lot of live sessions going on Facebook, Instagram. That’s why I made the connection when I  saw this.

Stephen: I’ve yeah I’ve never done that. Actually I think about six months ago, I had a kind of interview which was live with someone in Mexico. But other than that I’ve never done it. I, one thing that I would like to do maybe in the summer would be to start some type of actual live session, just to be able to have a conversation with people who are listening about either English learning or the world news, anything, maybe that’s another possibility. 

Daniel: Yeah. I really liked that idea because I think it would be wise to, as a language learner to actually speak about the news. That’s the perfect practice method, right? Then you’re not only, you are listening to it and reading the transcript. No, you can then after that, discuss the topics with other learners and yeah, it’s just a way to make it stick better and to get your practice

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