IELTS, ESP, EAP and CALL

A recent study from BBC Earth and UC-Berkeley has shown that watching nature documentaries can inspire 'significant increases in feelings of awe, contentedness, joy, amusement and curiosity' and conversely 'reduce feelings of tiredness, anger and stress.' In short, they can engender what the authors of the study call ‘real happiness’ – a kind of happiness that leads to actual improvement in individuals’ health and wellbeing,

With that in mind, the BBC has just released 50 hours of HD 'visual soundscapes' on YouTube, using leftover footage from their Planet Earth II TV series. Ten hours of mountains; ten hours of jungle; ten hours of islands; ten hours of desert; and ten hours of grasslands--they're all featured in the long, soothing soundscape playlist featured above.

Picture source. Documentaries hold a power unique to any other type of film. They have the remarkable capacity to shift our understanding of the vast and complex world in which we live, most of the time presenting us with powerfully relevant information, a previously unknown perspective, and hopefully, a new choice to make a difference. The following list of documentaries […]