Script 1
LYNDA: Sara, I’ve heard that you want to move into a homestay family. Is that correct?
SARA: Yes, that’s right. I’ve been staying with my aunt and now my cousin is arriving from
Singapore and my aunt needs the room for him.
LYNDA: Oh, that’s bad luck. Well, I’ll need to get some particulars first. Sara, what’s your full
name?
SARA: Sara Lim. and that’s Sara without the ‘h’ at the end. LYNDA: Mmm. How old are you, Sara?
SARA: Twenty-three, only just. It was my birthday on the twenty-first of August. LYNDA: Happy birthday for yesterday. How long have you been in Australia?
SARA: A year in Adelaide and six months in Sydney. I prefer Sydney, I’ve got more friends here. LYNDA: What’s your address at your aunt’s house?
SARA: Flat one, five three nine Forest Road, Canterbury. And the post code is two, o, three, six. LYNDA: OK. What are you studying now?
SARA: I was studying General English in Adelaide and now I'm doing Academic English, because
I’m trying to get into Medicine next year.
LYNDA: That sounds good, but it’ll take you a long time. When would you like to move out from
your aunt’s?
SARA: My cousin arrives on Friday morning, so I’d better be out on Thursday. LYNDA: What, the seventh of September? SARA: Yes, that’s right.
LYNDA: That doesn’t leave us much time. Right, OK. I need to know what kind of accommodation
you’d like, so I can get you something suitable.
SARA: Can I share a room with someone else? I’ve been alone in my room at my aunt's and I’ve
always shared with my sister and I like that.
LYNDA: Yes, fine. That’ll save you money too. Would you like to live with a family or do you think
that a single person would be better for you? I have lots of very nice single people on my books.
SARA: Do you have any women living alone, retired women?
LYNDA: Yes, I have quite a few whose children have grown up and left home. In fact, I have some
really lovely retired ladies, living by themselves, who just love the company of students. Most of them live in flats, but that’s not a problem for you, is it?
SARA: Not. at all. I’m used to that. My aunt lives in a flat too, remember. I’m not used to a big
house with a garden, swimming pool, pets and all that.
LYNDA: OK, fine. I know quite a bit about what you want now. I should let you know that your rent
will be a hundred and sixty dollars per week. You’ll have to pay me three hundred and twenty dollars as a deposit before you move in. The deposit is as insurance, in case you break something. You’ll need to pay monthly to me, by cash or cheque, I don’t mind. You don’t need to pay for gas, electricity or water, but you will need to pay your proportion of
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the phone bill Most families do that on an honour system, but you'll have to wait and see.
SARA: Mmm.
LYNDA: Have you got any more questions for me? SARA: When will you know where I can go?
LYNDA: I’ll work on it now, so come and see me tomorrow and I should have some news for you
then.
SARA: Thanks a lot.
LYNDA: Goodbye. See you tomorrow – after lunch would be better for me. SARA: OK, see you then. Bye.
Script 2
STUDENT: Well, my group has been doing a project on how household waste is recycled in Britain.
We were quite shocked to discover that only 9% of people here in the UK make an effort to recycle their household waste. This is a lower figure than in most other European countries, and needs to increase dramatically in the next few years if the government is going to meet its recycling targets.
The agreed targets for the UK mean that by 2008 we must reduce our carbon dioxide emissions by 12.5%, compared with 1990. And recycling can help to achieve that goal, in two main ways: the production of recycled glass and paper uses much less energy than producing them from virgin materials, and also recycling reduces greenhouse gas emissions from landfill sites and incineration plants.
As part of our project, we carried out a survey of people in the street, and the thing that came up over and over again is that people don’t think it’s easy enough to recycle their waste. One problem is that there aren’t enough ‘drop-off’ sites, that is, the places where the public are supposed to take their waste.
We also discovered that waste that’s collected from householders is taken to places called ‘bring banks’, for sorting and baling into loads. One problem here is taking out everything that shouldn’t have been placed in the recycling containers: people put all sorts of things into bottle banks, like plastic bags and even broken umbrellas. All this has to be removed by hand. Another difficulty is that toughened glass used for cooking doesn’t fully melt at the temperature required for other glass, and so that also has to be picked out by hand.
Glass is easy to recycle because it can be reused over and over again without becoming weaker. Two million tons of glass is thrown away each year, that is, seven billion bottles and jars; but only 500,000 tons of that is collected and recycled.
Oddly enough, half the glass that’s collected is green, and a lot of that is imported, so more green glass is recycled than the UK needs. As a result, new uses are being developed for recycled glass, particularly green glass, for example in fibreglass manufacture and water filtration. A company called CLF Aggregates makes a product for roads, and 30% of the material is crushed glass.
For recycling paper, Britain comes second in Europe with 40%, behind Germany’s amazing 70%.
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When recycling started, there were quality problems, so it was difficult to use recycled paper in office printers. But these problems have now been solved, and Martin’s, based in South London, produces a range of office stationery which is 100% recycled, costs the same as normal paper and is of equally high quality.
But this high quality comes at a cost in terms of the waste produced during the process. Over a third of the waste paper that comes in can’t be used in the recycled paper, leaving the question of what to do with it. One firm, Papersave, currently sells this to farmers as a soil conditioner, though this practice will soon be banned because of transport costs and the smell, and the company is looking into the possibility of alternative uses.
Plastic causes problems, because there are so many different types of plastic in use today, and each one has to be dealt with differently. Pacrite recycles all sorts of things, from bottles to car bumpers, and one of its most successful activities is recycling plastic bottles to make containers which are used all over the country to collect waste.
The Save-a-Cup scheme was set up by the vending and plastics industries to recycle as many as possible of the three-and-a-half billion polystyrene cups used each year. At the moment 500 million polycups are collected, processed and sold on to other businesses, such as Waterford, which turns the cups into pencils, and Johnson & Jones, a Welsh-based firm, which has developed a wide variety of items, including business cards.
Well, to sum up, there seems to be plenty of research going on into how to re-use materials, but the biggest problem is getting people to think about recycling instead of throwing things away. At least doing the research made us much more careful.
Script 3
In the last few weeks, we’ve been looking at various aspects of the social history of London, and this morning we’re continuing with a look at life in the area called the East End. I’ll start with a brief history of the district, and then focus on life in the first half of the twentieth century.
Back in the first to the fourth centuries ad, when the Romans controlled England, London grew into a town of 45,000 people, and what’s now the East End – the area by the river Thames, and along the road heading north-east from London to the coast – consisted of farmland with crops and livestock which helped to feed that population.
The Romans left in 410, at the beginning of the fifth century, and from then onwards the country suffered a series of invasions by tribes from present-day Germany and Denmark, the Angles, Saxons and Jutes, many of whom settled in the East End. The technology they introduced meant that metal and leather goods were produced there for the first time. And as the East End was by the river, ships could transport goods between there and foreign markets.
In the eleventh century, in 1066 to be precise, the Normans conquered England, and during the next few centuries London became one of the most powerful and prosperous cities in Europe. The East End benefited from this, and because there were fewer restrictions there than in the city itself, plenty of newcomers settled there from abroad, bringing their skills as workers, merchants or money-lenders
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during the next few hundred years.
In the sixteenth century the first dock was dug where ships were constructed, eventually making the East End the focus of massive international trade. And in the late sixteenth century, when much of the rest of England was suffering economically, a lot of agricultural workers came to the East End to look for alternative work.
In the seventeenth century, the East End was still a series of separate, semi-rural settlements. There was a shortage of accommodation, so marshland was drained and built on to house the large numbers of people now living there.
By the nineteenth century London was the busiest port in the world, and this became the main source of employment in the East End. Those who could afford to live in more pleasant surroundings moved out, and the area became one where the vast majority of people lived in extreme poverty, and suffered from appalling sanitary conditions.
That brief outline takes us to the beginning of the twentieth century, and now we’ll turn to housing. At the beginning of the century, living conditions for the majority of working people in East London were very basic indeed. Houses were crowded closely together and usually very badly built, because there was no regulation. But the poor and needy were attracted by the possibility of work, and they had to be housed. It was the availability, rather than the condition, of the housing that was the major concern for tenants and landlords alike.
Few houses had electricity at this time, so other sources of power were used, like coal for the fires which heated perhaps just one room. Of course, the smoke from these contributed a great deal to the air pollution for which London used to be famous.
A tiny, damp, unhealthy house like this might well be occupied by two full families, possibly including several children, grandparents, aunts and uncles.
Now, before I go on to health implications of this way of life, I’ll say something about food and nutrition.
Script 4
TUTOR: SANDY: TUTOR: SANDY: TUTOR: SANDY: TUTOR: SANDY: TUTOR: SANDY: TUTOR:
Hello, Sandy. How have you been getting on with your dissertation?
Fine, and I’ve been working hard on the various action points we agreed on our last tutorial. Do you want to talk me through what you’ve done?
Yeah, sure. Well, we agreed on three main targets for me to aim for. The first one was to find out about suitable data analysis software. Yes.
And what I decided to do was to look through catalogues specialising in IT. That’s a good idea. What did you come up with? I found the names of two promising ones. Right.
But I also thought it’d be worthwhile talking to a lecturer. Oh right. Who did you see?
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SANDY: TUTOR: SANDY: TUTOR: SANDY: TUTOR: SANDY: TUTOR: SANDY: TUTOR:
SANDY: TUTOR: SANDY: TUTOR: SANDY:
TUTOR:
SANDY: TUTOR: TUTOR:
SANDY: TUTOR: SANDY: TUTOR: SANDY: TUTOR: SANDY: TUTOR:
Jane Prince. Do you know her? She’s in the Computer Centre. Yes, of course, she’s the new Head. Yes. Well, she was very helpful.
Oh, that’s good. Did she suggest anything in particular?
Yeah. She recommended software called Vivat and said I should book up for a couple of practice sessions using Vivat.
Great. I’m sure you’ll find them useful.
And, of course, the second target was to draw up a survey checklist which I… Yes, you emailed me it last week. Have you had a chance to look...?
Of course, um I think it’s good. Very much on the right lines. I’d say your first two sections are spot on. I wouldn’t suggest that you change anything there, but in section three you really do need to have questions on teaching experience. Yeah. I was thinking that section looked a bit short. Right.
And my third target was, do further reading on discipline. Oh yes. I mentioned a couple of writers, didn’t I?
Yes, well I got hold of the Banerjee and I thought that was excellent. But I’m afraid I didn’t manage to get hold of the essays about classroom management – you know, the ones by Simon Ericsson. The bookshop said it was out of print and the library doesn’t have a copy. Oh right, and I’m afraid I’ve lent my copy to another student. What I suggest you do is try the library again – this time apply for it through the service called special loans. Have you done that before? You’re entitled to six books a year. Yes. No problem. That’s what I’ll do. SO, lots of useful work done.
So, let’s look at some new targets. We’ll start by having a chat about your Chapter One. I very much enjoyed reading it. Your written style is very clear and you’ve included lots of interesting descriptions of education in your target area. I’ve just got a couple of suggestions for some additional work.
Of course. Could I just ask – what do you think I should call it?
Well, I’d go for something like Context Review. What do you think? < Well, short and to the point.
Exactly. Now, as regards specific areas to work on, I’d be quite interested to have a few more statistics about the schools in the different zones.
Oh, that wouldn’t be a problem. I can get them from the Internet.
Great, and although you did make a reference to quite a few different writers, I think you should aim to cite more works written later than 2000.
OK. That’s more difficult, but I can try. When do you want that done by?
Oh. It’s not urgent. Um I should aim for the end of term. But in the meantime, I think you should also be thinking about Chapter Two.
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