IELTS Vocabulary: Mental Health Awareness
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In this tutorial, we are going to look at one of those weird little topics you've probably never ever thought about before in your life and this is just perfect. You know, if you get a task 2 question related to this topic that we're going to cover right now then you're going to have ideally some ideas to pull on

some vocabulary, some collocations and if we're lucky you'll even use the grammar point that we are going to very briefly covered. So today's topic is all about mental health awareness.

How bizarre. How weird. You're totally right there. Totally agree with you. But, you know, you've got two options here. You want to boost your vocabulary. You know it's an issue. You can, you know, go to the BBC, as I said, every day, read articles, or you can just cover, consume articles.

a ton of these IELTS vocabulary tutorials and just get sort of like a top level view get the vocabulary you needed

and it is kind of a shortcut and I'm not a massive fan of shortcuts but I know what it's like to be I know what most of my students the situation they're in is like I've got IELTS in two weeks and you know so and the good thing is here you can do this passively while you're driving while you're commuting

Spend 20 minutes with me right here, right now, and you can get a rough idea about the topic of mental health, the awareness, campaigns related to mental health awareness, and most importantly, some vocabulary. So let's get started. By the way,

If this is your first time listening to IELTS podcast with me, Ben Worthington, then I'll just very briefly tell you who I am. My name is Ben. I'm from the UK. I

lived outside of the UK I sorted out my accent so people could understand me and so I could become a teacher because when I left I was yeah it was a very northern accent just because where I grew up quickly realized it's not very fair to teach students my accent so it got smoothed out a bit now most students understand me and

Yeah, I lived outside of the UK for around 20 years. I'm back in the UK now and back with my family. But during those 20 years, most of them were

were spent preparing students for the IELTS exam and I'm still doing it there's still every now and again there's a space for a private class I don't take on that many I just want to keep my skills sharp and I do enjoy it and I get inspiration for future tutorials and in fact I had a student who always suffered with my mind goes blank and she was the inspiration for doing these IELTS vocabulary tutorials so let's get started mental health

So mental health is pretty much a critical aspect of your overall well-being and it often remains overshadowed by physical health concerns, you know, such as cancer, diabetes and all the rest of it. So what we're going to do is just look at the role of public awareness campaigns and

Just looking at sort of like, you know, the pros and cons of these and basically the attitudes towards mental health issues. So the grammar point we're going to cover is conjunctions. We're going to look at adverbial clauses.

which i guess it could be called conjunctions actually so these clauses often begin with conjunctions such as although while whereas and are crucial for adding some complexity and depth to an argument by discussing opposing viewpoints or unexpected outcomes let me share a few

model sentences using these clauses so we could start off with although many people are aware of mental health education comma public stigma reduction is still a significant challenge great vocabulary there mental health education public stigma reduction so in that sentence we've got one

we've got two sort of like views there and we're acknowledging people are aware of it there's people are aware of mental health education there is still basically it's still a challenge there's still a challenge attached to the stigma of mental health stigma is sort of like the opinion or the connotations associated around it so I mean traditionally if you were driving a Skoda

there's a lot of stigma attached to it because a Skoda had this reputation of being a cheap man's car or a Lada. Nowadays, that stigma, those connotations are no more because Skoda's pretty decent cars. Anyway, let's move on. Whereas mental health advocacy has grown,

treatment accessibility has not improved at the same rate so again very similar to the last one we've got two clauses there two contrasting views and this sets us up we probably wouldn't set start off our body paragraph with this but we could definitely include something like this in the second sentence and then start developing the argument next sentence while early

while we start off with while while early intervention strategies are effective they are often underfunded and undervalued by public health policies intervention strategies how good is that next sentence even though community support networks are stronger than ever isolation and loneliness continue to impact mental health significantly

So, there are commas in these. I'm trying to remember to say it but it's not very natural to speak and then say comma. So, forgive me if I'm forgetting one or two. Whereas awareness campaign effectiveness is increasing, comma, actual changes in healthcare policy reform are lagging behind.

lagging behind great little phrase there healthcare policy reform great collocation awareness campaign effectiveness so this goes back to a tutorial I did a while back of you know expanding your vocabulary by using different versions of the word so we've got effective effectively effectiveness

"uneffective", "uneffectively", "uneffectiveness" and so on and so forth just by knowing the root and just by knowing the rules, the formulas and how to expand our vocabulary. Next sentence: "Although there are numerous social inclusion initiatives, emotional well-being is often not prioritized in schools and workplaces."

Beautiful. Next sentence. "While public stigma reduction initiatives are widespread." It's quite a mouthful that sentence. "While public stigma reduction initiatives are widespread, personal biases and misunderstandings still prevail." That's pretty much a benign sentence there in my own opinion. Prevail. That's higher level vocabulary right there. Next sentence.

Even though the importance of mental health education is recognized, many individuals lack access to quality information.

So, again, we've got those two contrasting clauses in that sentence. It's a higher level sentence and all we have to do is just put two sides of our opinion, either side of the comma, and just start the sentence with that adverbial clause. Whereas community support networks can provide significant help, many people with mental health issues go without adequate support.

That's so true, actually. Just looking back over my life, there's a lot of people I know, mental problems, and they never really got the support they needed. So maybe if you want to take this a step further, you could just put like mental health campaigns, Bhutan, mental health campaigns, Germany, or whichever country you're from, and just get an overview. You've probably never, ever thought about it.

I'm guessing or you might not ever be aware of campaigns and I strongly recommend just doing this it'll take like five or ten minutes you could get the you know you could get even more vocabulary you could get some terms you could find out a little bit more final sentence although awareness campaign effectiveness is evident

There is still a long way to go in achieving widespread healthcare policy reform. Healthcare policy reform. Great little collocation. Let's just review some of these collocations again. Mental health advocacy. Public stigma reduction.

early intervention strategies nipping it in the bud as we could also say in spoken English but obviously for our IELTS writing test to essay we're going to do we're going to say early intervention strategies mental health education community support networks treatment accessibility awareness campaign effectiveness

Super. I mean, we can stick that into an essay about climate change. You know, solutions for climate change. A public awareness campaign. However, public awareness campaign effectiveness has to be paramount in order to achieve success and so on and so forth. Healthcare policy reform. Again, very versatile. We can say climate change policy reform. We could say crime rehabilitation policy reform.

We talk about higher education, policy, reform, very versatile, emotional well-being, and finally social inclusion initiatives. Let's just have a look at some of the pros and cons regarding mental health public awareness campaigns.

try to expand on these you know there's going to be a lot of pros and a lot of cons that we could adapt to other arguments such as as i just mentioned climate change higher education transport social media mobile phone addiction and so on and so forth so let's go the pros of a mental health public awareness campaign would be it increases public knowledge of mental health issues

reduces stigma associated with mental illness, encourages individuals to seek help early, promotes more inclusive workplaces, strengthens community support networks, supports the development of better treatment options, encourages empathy and understanding among the population, helps integrate mental health into primary health care.

so on and so forth. Some of the cons: it might oversimplify complex mental health conditions. It could lead to misinformation if not well managed. Misinformation is a great little verb there. We can definitely use this when we're talking about social media, for example. Potential to focus too much on common disorders, neglecting rare or severe conditions.

Public campaigns may not reach all demographics effectively. So perhaps pause the tutorial here and just think about that one. Why? This is what I've been working on with one of my students now. Just asking why. Once we've set our position, why, why, why? Develop it. Why wouldn't a public campaign not reach all demographics effectively? Well, teens probably have a bias for social media.

Adults, especially older adults, probably have a bias for traditional forms such as newspapers and evening television. So therefore, the campaign would have to cover all different types of media in order to be effective. Okay, so just a brief little argument there. May increase public fears if negative aspects of mental illness are overemphasized.

Resources for campaigns might detract from direct service funding. I'm just going to add one of the cons which isn't on the list if you're reading the tutorial while you're listening. And we can also talk about the cost of the public awareness campaign.

you know governments usually have never have any money of course they've always got money for bombing and killing people that's just a side note but governments usually never are usually very tight on their money so we can talk about the cost of a public awareness campaign and would that money be better spent elsewhere in other programs such as education sports and health facilities so on and so forth final argument

A public awareness campaign might not translate into long-term change. And that's true of mental health awareness campaign, a climate change public awareness campaign, any campaign. It just might not translate into long-term change. So there we go. Let's have a look now at some model speaking questions and answers, sample speaking questions. Why is public awareness about mental health important?

Public awareness is crucial because it helps break down the stigma associated with mental health issues. If more people understood the challenges and realities of mental health, public stigma reduction could be more effectively achieved. A great little sentence there. We're using the conditional structure now.

and once you get a hang of these structures they're quite easy to use especially for the speaking and later we need to use you know refine it a little bit for the speaking for the writing sorry to make sure that we're including it the right points usually it's probably halfway through our body paragraph and we're just developing in our argument in a hypothetical manner in order to pick up points for using different grammatical structures

next sentence should schools play a role in mental health education absolutely schools should be at the forefront of mental health education providing students with knowledge about mental health could lead to early identification of issues and promote a healthier future generation now when you get a question in the speaking

which starts with "should" and you're probably more likely to get it in the middle of a part 3 speaking exam sorry in the part 3 section

It's not a bad idea to start with absolutely. It shows some conviction. You can add some intonation there, pick up points, and you can jump in with both feet, especially if you agree with it. Absolutely, definitely, without a shadow of a doubt, schools should be at the forefront of mental health education. And I've got a whole tutorial about this, about speaking with emphatic structures.

What are the most effective public awareness strategies for mental health? Wow, this is a typical one for like, my mind goes blank. What are the most effective public awareness strategies? Let me just try and answer this without my notes. Let me put myself in your situation, in your shoes for two minutes. What are the most... I've even had the luxury of thinking about it. So,

I'm going to just go back on my own IELTS education here. I'm going to say, I guess the most effective public awareness strategies for mental health could be a TV campaign, which covers a broad audience. And I guess different media channels such as social media, billboard advertising, etc.

But I guess the real question would be the question of effectiveness. And for that, I guess we just need measurement and control. There we go. I've used a little technique there that I've shared in previous tutorials, which buys yourself a few more seconds. You start off with the question. You rephrase the question from a question form to affirmative and you say, well, I guess the most effective public awareness strategies for mental health would be

okay and if you need even more time you can use it more fillers like well to be honest never really thought about this before it's a difficult question I guess and then give yourself a few more seconds and hopefully by that time your subconscious is kicked in and you're going to give an amazing answer and again when you're working with me privately we just drill this we get this automatic and then eventually as I've said in numerous other tutorials

At first, it will be robotic. At first, you're going to sound like an irritating parrot with no brain of your own. But doing this enough times, it starts becoming natural. You don't sound robotic. You start to learn how to modify parts of the answers with like, I guess, or I guess. In this case, the most effective public awareness strategy is for mental health. We could say, I guess the most...

productive or effective public awareness campaigns or strategies. You know, just add some more vocabulary in there so you sound like a human being. All right, final question. How have perceptions of mental health changed in recent years?

I guess perceptions and opinions of mental health have changed over the years in the way that when I was younger, it was never really anything that was spoken about or even mentioned. However, as I've gotten older, I start seeing more campaigns and I think attitudes are slowly changing and possibly even becoming more accepting of

mental health and the challenges associated with it so again there we just rephrase the question it gets us off to a good start gives us time to just think about the question digest it and come up with a coherent answer the other advantage of listening intently to the question is that

you're going to answer the question that has been asked you're going to start off on the right track and you're not going to answer the question what you thought was asked you are far more likely to answer the exact question that has been asked and there we go i'm going to wrap it up now um i'm wishing you all the best with your ielts exam these tutorials are free

I'm not charging you for them. If you find them useful, all I ask for in return is that you share it with a friend, email it on, share it on social media, even tag me if you want to.

And this way we can just help more students. So that's it. All the best. Oh, I forgot. Go to ieltspodcast.com, sign up to the newsletter, and you'll get even more tutorials and you'll get updates and you'll get a little brief mini course on how to use the AI Essay Checker for free. So have a beautiful day. Thanks for listening to ieltspodcast.com.