How to write well in English ✍️ (with Fabio Cerpelloni) [975]

Summary

Luke’s English Podcast Episode 975

How to Write Well in English ✍️ (with Fabio Cerpelloni)

Date: February 9, 2026
Host: Luke Thompson
Guest: Fabio Cerpelloni (Italian writer, teacher, blogger, author of Any Language You Want and Tiny Book Author)

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Episode Overview

This episode dives into the art and craft of writing well in English, especially as a second language. Luke is joined by Fabio Cerpelloni, an Italian writer and English-language educator, to explore what makes writing in English effective, the biggest challenges learners face, the role of self-expression, using AI tools thoughtfully, and practical steps for improving writing. The conversation draws on Fabio’s journey from academic assignments in English exams to blogging and authoring books, offering practical, honest insights into developing both technical skills and authentic voice.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Fabio’s Background in Writing (05:54–07:53)

• Fabio shares that he wasn’t passionate about writing from a young age:

  “I've never been one of those kids who wrote stories… I basically started writing because I had to…” – Fabio (05:54)

• His writing journey began out of necessity for teaching qualifications, then continued through exams like C2 Proficiency and IELTS.
• In 2021, he began blogging, which shifted his writing focus to self-expression.

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2. Differences Between Speaking & Writing in English (08:25–10:07)

• Writing is permanent: Unlike speech, written words last and can affect reputation.
  • “Speaking is not permanent… writing is more. It's permanent. It's there maybe forever. And so this is kind of scary.” – Fabio (08:25)
• Most people’s writing is limited to practical tasks—like emails and texts—unless required by exams.

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3. Types of Writing Learners Might Encounter (10:08–12:11)

• Academic writing (summaries, essays, reports for exams) differs greatly from everyday communication.
• Fabio recalls exam topics (“I wrote about polar bears” – Fabio, 10:38), highlighting how formality and content expectations shift based on purpose and audience.

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4. What Makes a Good Piece of Writing? (12:14–16:53)

• Clarity and Effect: Writing should make sense and achieve its communicative goal.
• Emotional Connection:

  “The number one requirement… is that piece of writing should create an emotional connection.” – Fabio (13:12)

• Luke agrees, referencing the Cambridge exam criterion “effect on the reader.” If what you write confuses or bores the reader, you’ve missed the mark.
• Organization, coherence, and grammatical accuracy are important, but must serve the impact on the reader.

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5. The Unique Platform of Writing vs Speaking (16:53–17:58)

• Writing allows for uninterrupted self-expression—you control the structure from start to finish.
• Unlike conversation, you don’t have to manage turn-taking or spontaneity, making writing a powerful tool for developed, thoughtful communication.

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6. Challenges of Writing in English for Learners (18:01–23:54)

• Language doubts:
  • Is this word correct? Do I need a preposition here?

    “It was like I had a million questions in my head, like, is this correct? Do I need a preposition here? Am I messing this up?” – Fabio (18:08)

• Tendency to chase “advanced” vocabulary/idioms for the sake of sounding impressive.
• Teacher's Role: Many teachers focus only on grammar, neglecting guidance on self-expression or the bigger communicative goals.

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7. Flashy Language vs Effective Language (22:05–25:40)

• Learners often believe complexity equals proficiency. In reality, simple words can be just as powerful—and sometimes more so.
  • “You can use a simple word, which might do a better job… The text doesn’t require that expression.” – Fabio (21:12)
• Teachers and students alike are sometimes distracted by exam criteria at the expense of true communicative achievement.

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8. Using AI Tools for Writing (25:46–34:42)

• Fabio uses AI chatbots (like ChatGPT, Claude) as writing assistants to answer language questions—not to generate text or replace his voice.
  • “I don't want a chatbot to say things for me, no matter how great those things can be.” – Fabio (25:59)
• Key uses: Checking prepositions, finding synonyms, comparing word usage, translating conceptual words from Italian.
• Caution: Chatbots can be wrong. Always double-check with reliable dictionaries (Fabio recommends Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries).
• On AI as a tool:

  “You can use a hammer to build a hospital, or you can use a hammer to smash your neighbor’s head.” – Fabio (32:40)

  • It’s all about how thoughtfully you wield the tool.

Notable Quotes on AI

• “If you just copy-paste what [AI] does, most people reading your writing will know that you've used AI…and they’ll think badly of you…” – Luke (35:49)
• “Teachers should train the students… There’s a lot you can do in the classroom, there’s a lot you can do by yourself… Great tool. It depends on how you use it.” – Fabio (32:49)

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9. Solutions for Writing Challenges: Context, Simplicity, and Reading (44:26–48:13)

• Context matters: Don’t use advanced-sounding language just to impress.

  “To sound advanced you need to sound effective… It depends on what you're writing.” – Fabio (45:20)

• Read a lot, write a lot:
  • “Stephen King said it… 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.” – Fabio (46:44)
• Read the kinds of writing you want to produce (emails, blogs, stories) to absorb their structure and feeling.

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10. Writing a Book: From Intimidation to Achievable Projects (49:44–54:51)

• Fabio’s second book, Tiny Book Author, is about making authorship accessible.
  • “You don't have to write 300 pages… That’s very intimidating. But my first book was 80 pages, I thought, wow, so I can write books.” – Fabio (49:44)
• The key: Write to help and connect with a specific group, not to achieve literary perfection or length.

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11. Editing and Content: The Importance of Clarity and Cutting Fluff (54:53–56:34)

• Writing clarifies what you think—if you struggle, the idea isn’t clear yet.
• Fluff: Vague or unnecessary content needs trimming.
  • “Recognizing unnecessary words and sentences, that's also a great skill… Less is more, often with writing.” – Fabio (55:57, 56:18)
• Good writing = saying what you need to say, as clearly and concisely as possible.

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12. Final Thoughts & Pointers for Learners (67:06–74:13)

• Writing is permanent and this permanence brings both pressure and power.
• Good writing is about impact and connection, not just grammatical perfection.
• Read often. Write often. Exposure leads to natural improvement.
• Embrace small writing victories—emails, blog posts, short pieces—all build confidence.
• Use AI with discernment. Support your questions, but don’t let it replace your authentic voice.
• Journaling counts as real writing, and so does any effort to communicate—don’t wait for “big” projects to start.
• Writing is always challenging—even for pros. That’s part of the process.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Writing is about connection and self expression… if you find that piece of writing connects with that person, with your reader, then it's a good piece of writing.” – Fabio (13:12)
• “It’s rare that you get to just say what you want to say… That’s kind of unique in writing.” – Luke (16:57)
• “Write a lot and read a lot. There's no way around it.” – Fabio (46:44)
• “You don’t have to write 300 pages to become an author—because that’s intimidating… There’s a tiny book in you waiting to be written.” – Fabio (49:44)
• “A writer is simply someone who writes. So get started by writing something today.” – Luke (74:13)

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Timestamps of Important Segments

• 05:54 – Fabio’s personal writing journey
• 08:25 – Spoken vs. written English
• 10:38 – Examples of writing for exams
• 13:12 – Essentials of good writing
• 16:53 – Unique platform writing gives for self-expression
• 18:08 – Major language challenges for non-native writers
• 22:05 – Flashy vs. effective language
• 25:59 – Using (and not overusing) AI in writing
• 32:40 – The “hammer” analogy for AI use
• 45:20 – Dangers of chasing “advanced” language
• 46:44 – The value of reading (“Write a lot and read a lot”)
• 49:44 – Making book-writing accessible
• 54:53 – Writing clarifies thinking and need to cut fluff
• 67:06 – Luke summarizes key insights (66:43—74:13 for summary section)

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Further Resources

• Fabio’s Website and Blog
• Books: Any Language You Want, Tiny Book Author (both on Amazon)
• Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries: oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com
• AI Writing Prompts: Available via Fabio’s blog (link in episode description)
• Book recommendation for email writing: Email English by Paul Emmerson

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Closing Encouragement

• Luke: “If you want to write well, write regularly.”
• Fabio: “There's a tiny book in you waiting to be written.”

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This episode is rich with practical, honest advice for anyone looking to write more confidently and authentically in English—whether you're crafting emails, prepping for exams, or dreaming of your own tiny book.

For more on this topic, read Fabio’s blog, check out his books, and, of course, keep listening to Luke’s English Podcast!

Transcript

[Luke]

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[Luke]

You're listening to Luke's English podcast. For more information, visit TeacherLuke.co.uk. 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. What makes a good piece of writing? What are the challenges faced by learners of English who want to write well? What. 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 Cierpelloni, who you might remember from his previous appearance on this podcast, he was in episode number 850, which was called Any Language youe Want with Fabio Cierpelloni. Let me just give you some background info about Fabio. So Fabio Ciapolloni is an Italian writer, writing teacher, ghost writer. 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 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's 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 storylearning.com, 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 end of this conversation, I will summarize the key points that we make throughout this interview. So if you feel that you've missed something or, 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 summarized 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 summarized 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.

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

Here we go.

[Fabio Cierpelloni]

I've never been one of those kids who wrote stories when I was five. Like, 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. Like, 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 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 really talk about language learning anymore. And, yeah, this is. I guess this is what attracted me to the written word. Did I answer your question?

[Luke]

Absolutely, you did. Okay, so what is different about writing

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

compared to other 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. I mean, 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?

[Fabio Cierpelloni]

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. And so this is kind of scary. It's what? At the beginning, it scared me a little bit because, you know, if you. If you submit something and it's full of nonsense or even mistakes, your reputation is on the line. As always.

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Fabio Cierpelloni]

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. To write, apart from emails and other type of text that we write, like text messages. Emails. Like most people. Most people that I know, they might write emails and text messages and that's it.

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

Yeah, yeah.

[Fabio Cierpelloni]

Maybe emails for work. Email for work, yeah.

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

Yes.

[Luke]

If we talk about the different types

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

of things people write. Yeah, exactly. Most people just write emails for work. Probably some personal emails and text messages.

[Luke]

But if you do, like, you did

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

the C2 proficiency exam, and the writing part of that requires you to write various things, and that's one of the

[Luke]

key skills of a writer.

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

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?

[Fabio Cierpelloni]

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, like, into one. I had to write a summary of two texts.

[Luke]

Okay.

[Fabio Cierpelloni]

And another one was an article for a magazine, probably. I don't know why, but I remember that I wrote about polar bears.

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

Polar bears, yeah. Yeah. Sounds like a very typical Cambridge exam subject.

[Fabio Cierpelloni]

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.

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

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.

[Fabio Cierpelloni]

On topic.

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

Yeah, yeah.

[Fabio Cierpelloni]

So those two. And for ielts. What did I do for ielts? Ie.

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

You must have done. I was going to say, you must

[Luke]

have done an essay. Did you do the essay? Was it the academic ielts?

[Fabio Cierpelloni]

Yeah, academic essay and. Oh, that boring report with graphs and I didn't get a good score, I remember.

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

Oh, that's awful, isn't it? Nobody likes that. You've got like, what is it, 150,

[Luke]

180 words, something like that, and you've

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

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.

[Luke]

Okay. So the reason I brought that up

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

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.

[Luke]

Yeah. Okay.

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

What makes a good piece of writing, in your opinion?

[Fabio Cierpelloni]

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 in any genre, in any writing style is, well, it's writing that makes sense, that you can understand. 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.

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

Yeah. Seems obvious, but it's worth making that point. Yeah.

[Fabio Cierpelloni]

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, yeah, I've never thought about this, or I see myself in this text or this now motivates me to do, you know, to go and reach my goals or whatever. So there is a, an emotional connection. I don't know how else I can

[Luke]

describe this, I guess like effect on

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

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. And the way that they assess your writing is that they have different criteria that you're judged on. And one of those criteria.

[Luke]

Well, one of the terms that's used

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

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 impact on the reader, how the reader feels when they are reading a piece of writing. And 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 because it's not clearly structured, it's not coherent, or if the writing isn't well organized, that

[Luke]

makes it difficult for the reader.

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

You know, these are basic things.

[Luke]

Also, if just the level of grammatical accuracy is so low that it affects

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

the person's ability to understand what's being written, obviously that's another barrier.

[Luke]

So in order to get that effect

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

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

[Luke]

to achieve that task.

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

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.

[Fabio Cierpelloni]

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.

[Luke]

Maybe it's something to do with context as well, because it's rare that you

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

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.

[Fabio Cierpelloni]

Yeah, I agree.

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

Yeah, totally. Yes.

[Luke]

Okay. What do you think are the challenges

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

for a lot of learners of English when they write?

[Fabio Cierpelloni]

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 like 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. 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.

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

That was probably to prepare for your exams. Right?

[Fabio Cierpelloni]

Is that right?

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

In practicing 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. And then ultimately when you did your master's degree and stuff like that.

[Luke]

Right, okay.

[Fabio Cierpelloni]

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 use. 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, even Stephen King, I would say I've never thought. I've never talked with Stephen King, but I guess that he gets those language doubts. So what I was going to say. So when I have those type of question. We have a wonderful tool today which is called ChatGPT or Claude or whatever, AI chatbots. And I find them very effective not to generate text 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 and tell and 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. So your initial question was. Sorry, I'm kind of rambling. Okay.

[Luke]

The challenges that learners of English have. Yeah, you're free to ramble.

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

This is. That's definitely welcome on this podcast.

[Fabio Cierpelloni]

Okay. So the challenges, they were about language. This is what I find also in language learners. They. 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. And so. But the text doesn't require that. Maybe it doesn't require that expression. And so it sounds kind of sounds weird. Sounds off.

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

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 like flashy words and phrases. But there's a lot more to it than that, as we discussed earlier. Right?

[Fabio Cierpelloni]

Yeah. And I wanted. 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? 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 bad your grammar is, if we still can understand it. 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.

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Fabio Cierpelloni]

Whereas there's more to it, there's more to writing than ticking boxes. This is what I, what I feel strong about.

[Luke]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

Language in terms of accuracy, as I've mentioned, correctness and range, that's just a variety of grammar and vocab is like down the list and further up to the top. You've got communicative achievement, 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 reader 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. You know, like the idea of keeping it short and simple sometimes is A better idea than making it complex and flashy. And those decisions, when the reader notices that you've made those decisions, that's going to be, that's going to be impressive. I mean, from the point of view of an examiner. I keep mentioning examiners, but from their point of view, they might, if I was examining someone's writing, I would recognize those decisions to keep it simple and to focus on the impact. And that's, you know, organizational structure, hooking someone's interest from the beginning and delivering at another part of the email, things like that. Right. You mentioned using AI, so it's interesting

[Luke]

that you use it to help you

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

answer questions that you have about language as you're writing.

[Luke]

Are you ever kind of. Do you have to be careful how

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

much you use chatbots? What's your sort of relationship with AI as someone who writes and someone who teaches people to write?

[Fabio Cierpelloni]

Yeah. Okay, so I don't use, I want every word to have my name on it. So I don't. 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 have like, 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 like, 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, 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 3, 10. And then I use the dictionary. The dictionary is the ultimate, you know, it's the resource that I always like. It's, it's the final check. It's what I use to, to check if, if the chatbot is telling me the truth or, or not.

[Luke]

Because sometimes they don't tell you the truth.

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

Sometimes they just make up some nonsense, don't they? Just. Because they just really want to help

[Luke]

and say, yeah, sure. Here are the answers you're looking for.

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

Actually, no, that's not true. Okay, so that, for you, the dictionary still is the ultimate authority on whatever it is you're looking at.

[Luke]

Okay.

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

Which dictionary can I ask?

[Fabio Cierpelloni]

Oxford. I've always used the Oxford. Oxford. I've got it here. Oxford Learners Dictionaries.

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

Oxford Learners dictionaries, yeah.

[Luke]

Oxford Learners Dictionary or dictionaries? I can never remember the URL. I've got it here. Oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com.

[Fabio Cierpelloni]

yeah, yeah, I've got an app. I spent 40 pounds on this app. When was it? In 2016. And now they're saying that your subscription expired. But I thought this was for a lifelong subscription. Well, it was, but now we've changed it. Thank you.

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

That sounds a bit of a. That's a bit of a ripoff, isn't it? That's a pity.

[Luke]

Is the app any better than the online dictionary?

[Fabio Cierpelloni]

No, it's essentially the. It's the same. So you don't need to buy the app?

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Just use the website.

[Luke]

Okay.

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

All right. What do you think about AI and writing? Do you think it's generally going to help improve people's writing or is it

[Luke]

going to

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

be bad for people's writing? Generally speaking?

[Fabio Cierpelloni]

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 ChatGPT. Where is the authenticity? We wanted to know. 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 ChatGPT. It depends. Now, recruiters, they say that in some job ads, they say, please don't submit your application using ChatGPT, like your cover letter written by ChatGPT, 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 texts. And they. 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 do. 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 ChatGPT gave them was fine. So they didn't actually think critically about what they got from the chatbot. Others were more cautious, 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 in this, so they should support. And there's a lot 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, 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.

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

Interesting analogy. Yeah, this is a very effective analogy.

[Luke]

You can use a hammer to build a hospital.

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

Or alternative, 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 to use the tool.

[Fabio Cierpelloni]

Is a hammer a good tool? It depends. Yeah.

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

It can be incredibly brilliant to help

[Fabio Cierpelloni]

you build a hospital or deadly.

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

Or completely deadly.

[Luke]

Yeah. Yes.

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

And okay, so let's think of it that way.

[Luke]

Okay. Okay.

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

So that's interesting.

[Luke]

You did a master's degree about using AI. What was it exactly?

[Fabio Cierpelloni]

The what, sorry?

[Luke]

The master's thesis dissertation.

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

The master's dissertation, yeah.

[Fabio Cierpelloni]

It had a title that was like three sentence long. It was an investigation into the effectiveness of how Chajibati can help non native English writers. But it was longer than this. More fluffy.

[Luke]

Okay, okay. All right.

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

I don't know if you've given us your conclusions.

[Fabio Cierpelloni]

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 here? Left unsupervised on their own devices.

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

Left to their own devices.

[Fabio Cierpelloni]

That one.

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

Or left unsupervised also.

[Fabio Cierpelloni]

Yeah.

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

Hello.

[Luke]

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 of using AI to improve your writing. It sort of depends on the way

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

that you use the tool.

[Luke]

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 chat GPT do all of your writing for you, which means that you don't

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

develop your own writing skills.

[Luke]

Most people reading your 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. 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 devices part of that expression means 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 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 2 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

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

right ways to do it.

[Luke]

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 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 sort of 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 stayed. 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 ChatGPT, AI tools that have been trained on trillions of data and can check your sentences in 0.2 milliseconds. If you know how to use them, these tools can be effective writing assistance. 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 Chat GPT, 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

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

not to use a good dictionary.

[Luke]

I use Chat GPT all the time. Not to replace my own writing style. No, all my writing is I generated. Trimming sentences is fun. Reorganizing 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 Chat GPT to compare different versions of a sentence, check for stylistic features I'm not sure about, suggest words based on Italian equivalence, and check my text for readability. I shamelessly do this and encourage you to do it too. Does it still make sense in 2024 to hire someone to check your writing? It depends. How do you like learning? Who do you trust? What feedback are you seeking? And I would also add, who do you want to support financially? But as Fabio writes, he says, I'll leave those questions to you. But if you're a non native English writer looking to improve, why would you not want a free writing assistant that is available to you 24? 7? That to me would make no sense. And at the end of the article Fabio wrote, I compiled a list of ChatGPT 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 ChatGPT GPTP prompts that Fabio uses to help him develop his writing skills with ChatGPT. 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

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

glass of water right now.

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[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

So refreshing.

[Luke]

Okay, 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.

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

Here we go.

[Luke]

Should we go back to talking about

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

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 it's about 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?

[Fabio Cierpelloni]

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, what does it mean? To sound advanced you need to sound effective. Like it depends on what you're writing.

[Luke]

Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

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. And you just know. You need to know when to use one and not use the other. And yeah, 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.

[Fabio Cierpelloni]

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 eat a lot of pasta. You need to try different pasta dishes, right?

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Fabio Cierpelloni]

I mean, do you agree or am I?

[Luke]

Oh, of course, 100 agree.

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

Yeah, 100 agree.

[Luke]

I'm just thinking of the different things

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

that people have to write. So people out there, as we said before, most likely will have to write emails a lot. And, you know, they need to get their writing up to. Up to scratch for writing emails. Read a lot of emails.

[Luke]

Yeah, yeah, There are actually, I think

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

there are books you can get that contain email examples. There's what? There's, 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. And that's a good way of understanding, you know, what makes a good email. And also I think, you know, whenever you receive emails in English, you can judge them on whether or not 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.

[Fabio Cierpelloni]

Yeah, the second book is 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. Try not to express yourself for 24 hours, see what happens. 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 or. Okay, 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 write in their journal, maybe they have a blog, maybe they are content creators like you, for example, because you've been written, you've been writing a lot of content.

[Luke]

Yes.

[Fabio Cierpelloni]

Blogs and scripts and stories.

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Fabio Cierpelloni]

And so you can package all that into a tiny book to serve a specific, a specific group of people.

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

Yeah, yeah.

[Fabio Cierpelloni]

This is what, this is what my second book is all about.

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

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.

[Luke]

And as we know, when we achieve

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

something, we get this big boost of confidence, which makes you realize that you can do it, and that's. That really helps you to then continue and do more.

[Fabio Cierpelloni]

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 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, 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.

[Luke]

Is that because you didn't. You weren't completely sure exactly what you

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

were trying to get across?

[Fabio Cierpelloni]

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. You don't agree with.

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

That's really important. That's like, perhaps one of the most important things you've got to have in

[Luke]

your mind is what exactly, specifically is

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

the idea that I'm trying to communicate here? And if you can really get that clear, then everything else sort of falls into place, doesn't it? So you've got to remember the purpose of the content that you're writing, and that will help you with everything.

[Fabio Cierpelloni]

But why not?

[Luke]

Yeah, often that.

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

That emerges as you're doing it. You know, it's a process.

[Fabio Cierpelloni]

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 are including. Just because I've never had a teacher, really, that help me understand what to cut. So. No, this is. You don't need this. This is not needed. This is like too vague. So recognizing unnecessary words and sentences, that's also a great skill for a. For a writer.

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

Yes.

[Fabio Cierpelloni]

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.

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

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. Just delete as much stuff as I can because I realized that I've repeated myself here.

[Luke]

I've added a few little words here

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

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.

[Luke]

How do people get your book or

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

both of your books?

[Fabio Cierpelloni]

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 double L-O N I.

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

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 sort of 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, apparently

[Luke]

each sort of way to learn

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

English, ultimate way to learn English, is contradictory to the other.

[Luke]

So it's.

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

Yes, very interesting way. Interesting approach to the subject.

[Fabio Cierpelloni]

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.

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

No, 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, you know, 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.

[Fabio Cierpelloni]

Thank you, Luke. It's always great to see you, and I really admire you for what you do.

[Luke]

Oh, you too. You too.

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

Yeah. It's a pleasure to talk to you again. Have a good day.

[Fabio Cierpelloni]

You too.

[Luke]

So that is that.

[Fabio Cierpelloni]

That.

[Luke]

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 blog, and also you can find details about his books. So, Fabio cherpalone.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. Okay? 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.

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

Right?

[Luke]

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 failed.

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

You feel like you're a bad reader,

[Luke]

and you don't get that satisfying sense that you're very brilliant and clever because you finished a book. But with Fabio's books, they are. 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 youe 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, 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. It's very nice. 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 Thornbury. Anyone who out there is an English teacher, you might be aware of him. Sort of a legendary figure in English language teaching. Scott Thornbury gave the book a 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. If we want to publish a book, what we need is already within us a desire to serve a small group of people, a passion for writing, and the courage to share a message we care about. Fabio Cierpolloni, 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.

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

Ha ha, ha ha ha.

[Luke]

Anyway, Fabio Cierpolloni, 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 I. Well, Fabio is good enough to. He's good enough to send me a copy of the second book. He's sending it to me, which is

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

very nice of him and I look

[Luke]

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? There's no need to. 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.

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Luke]

Anyway, Tiny book author, Fabio Ciarpoloni and any language you want, Fabio Cierpelloni. 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.

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

Where will I put them?

[Luke]

I think I'll put the insights at the top of the PDF and then you will find the transcript 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 then 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 just there's no. 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 about 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 focusing on your idea and the way that you're organizing your points. Number five, structure and organisation. Structure and organization 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

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

as effectively as possible.

[Luke]

Number seven. Cutting fluff is a key writing skill. And by fluff we mean unnecessary stuff.

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

Okay?

[Luke]

Unnecessary stuff. The literal meaning of fluff is

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

fluff

[Luke]

is kind of like, I don't know, soft material. Let me give you an example of fluff. Fluff. Where do we find fluff? Okay, 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. This pair, 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, okay? 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.

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

They.

[Luke]

They gather together in little clumps and you have to clean out the fluff from your tumble dryer. 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. 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.

[Luke's Co-host or Interviewer]

In English, of course.

[Luke]

Number nine, writing a diary counts as real writing. Now, you don't need to publish or be a famous. 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 useful. 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 it's a safe space where you can practise 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 writer, everything in your writing should serve the purpose of the task, right? So, for example, if it's a. If it is to report something to your boss, you need to make sure that you are reporting all the information that's been 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. You know, 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 Chat GPT will write flawlessly for you with no errors, because people can usually tell when something is being 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 sort of authority on what is correct. And 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, OxfordLearnersDictionaries.com 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 this is we're nearly at the end point. 13. Writing improves confidence through small wins. Writing doesn't have to mean a 300 page book, small achievable projects like emails, blog posts, short text, 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 2, which will arrive at some point when I feel the time is right. Okay, 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 any more, 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 links in the description. But for now it's just time for me to say goodbye. Bye bye bye bye. Thanks for listening to Luke's English Podcast. For more information, visit teacherluke.co.uk.

[Fabio Cierpelloni]

Foreign.

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[Luke]

if you enjoyed this episode of Luke's English Podcast, consider signing up for Luke's English Podcast Premium. You'll get regular Premium episodes with stories, vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation, teaching from me and the usual moments of humor and fun. Plus, with your subscription you will be directly supporting my work and making this whole podcast project possible. For more information about Luke's English Podcast Premium, go to teacherluke.co UK premiuminfo.