Rebecca. Now a bit of a scary question to start the programme with today –

how do you feel about ….spiders….?

Rebecca: Eurrgh…..

Kate: I can't say I'm delighted to find them lurking around the house either but I

do think that the poor old spider does get some bad press. People think

they're much worse than they really are when most of them in the UK

anyway, are not dangerous and are completely harmless.

Rebecca: Well they might be harmless but they seem to strike more fear in people

than any other creature. In fact the fear of spiders even has a name –

arachnophobia. We'll hear more about that later in the programme.

Kate: There has recently been some bad news for anyone who has a phobia of

spiders because experts have told us that we could be facing an invasion of

them in the next few weeks. Autumn is typically the season when spiders

turn up in houses and gardens but this year, we could be finding far more

than usual…..urghh!!! 

6 Minute English © bbclearningenglish.com 2008

Page 2 of 4

Rebecca: Yes, a combination of environmental factors has led experts to predict a

mass influx of spiders this autumn. Mass influx means the arrival of

something in large numbers. Researchers say that last year's wet autumn and

this year's temperate summer (which means it's been neither too hot, nor

too cold) have been excellent insect breeding conditions and there is a good

chance to see lots of fantastic spiders in homes and gardens.

Kate Well, 'fantastic' a matter of opinion! But, on to my question for today. Are

you ready? How many known spider species are there in the world today? Is

it:

a) 2000

b) 20 000

c) 40 000

Rebecca: answers

Kate: OK – we'll check your answer at the end of the programme. Now, we heard

earlier that the word is to describe the phobia or fear of spiders is

arachnophobia.

Rebecca: That's right and we call people who have this condition arachnophobes.

Kate: Well, we're going to hear from a former arachnophobe, Dave Clark who

works at London Zoo. He's not afraid of spiders anymore and in fact works

with them every day. We're going to hear how he got over his

arachnophobia. Listen to the following extract – what rather strange

expression does he use?

 

Extract 1

What I had to do was go cold turkey and I did something called 'flooding' when I put a big

spider on my hand and that sudden exposure managed to get me over my fear. 

6 Minute English © bbclearningenglish.com 2008

Page 3 of 4

Rebecca: He said he went cold turkey. This is an expression we use when talking

about doing something we don’t really want to do. It is often used when

giving up something we know is bad for us, drinking alcohol or smoking for

example. Instead of gradually stopping, we stop completely and suddenly –

we go 'cold turkey'. In this context, going cold turkey means that instead of

gradually trying to overcome our phobia, we face our fear head on and in

this case Dave held a big spider in his hand and confronted his fear. He also

called this technique 'flooding'.

Kate: Well, this technique certainly seemed to work because now Nick runs

special workshops to help people get over their fear of spiders. Listen to the

next extract – how long does it take to rid someone of their fear and what

type of therapy does he use?

Extract 2

We do it a lot more gently now. The course we run at London Zoo is for people to come along

in one afternoon and within 3 hours, we can get rid of their fear. Hypnosis - just half an hour's

hypnosis and we can get rid of a fear forever.

Rebecca: Dave said he uses hypnosis. Hypnosis is a mental state like sleep, in which a

person's thoughts can be easily influenced by someone else. Using this method

he can cure someone of their arachnophobia within 3 hours. That's quite

impressive!

Kate: Yes, it is. Let's listen to the final extract and listen out for what the success rate

of his courses are. How many people are cured of their phobia?

Extract 3

We have over 80% success rate – it's been pretty much 100% this year and we've had such big

demand at the moment because there's a lot of spiders around, that's we've added an extra date.

 

6 Minute English © bbclearningenglish.com 2008

Page 4 of 4

Rebecca: Wow – over 80% success rate. I suppose the last 20% are just people whose

fear of spiders is a little deeper than average!

Kate: Do you think you need to go on a course to prepare you for this autumn's influx

of house spiders? You know who to call now…

Rebecca: answers

Kate: Now on the question I asked you earlier. I asked you how many species of

spiders do you think there are.

Rebecca: And I said….

Kate: There are in fact about 40,000 known spider species, and potentially thousands

more we haven't even discovered yet.

Rebecca: Wow – I had no idea there were so many.

Kate: Would you mind giving us a quick re-cap of the vocabulary we've heard today?

Rebecca: Of course. First we had mass influx, temperate, arachnophobia,

arachnophobes, cold turkey and hypnosis.

Kate: Thanks Rebecca – that's all we've got time for. Bye!