Podcast 45

Example

The man wants to visit the centre with

A a friends

B relative

C colleagues

A 18 people

B 20 people

C 38 people.

A unavailable

B flooded

C booked

A use the centre’s kitchen.

B have meals cooked for them.

C eat at restaurants outside.

A get information about organic farming

B help to feed the animals

C watch a tractor demonstration

A learn to use map

B find their own food.

C run through woodland

A Exmoor National Park.

B the beach

C a cycling rout

A cinema

B theatre

C museum

A part of the cost in advance.

B all of the cost in advance.

C all of the cost on arrival.

Complete the notes below.

Address: Winsham Farm

9 …………………… Rd

Near Sherborne

10 ……………………

1.C

2.A

3.B

4.B

5.B

6.C

7.C

8.A

9.COTEHELE

10.SH12 1LQ

Receptionist: Hello, Winsham Farm Centre.

Caller: Oh, hello. I want to arrange a weekend away for myself and some people from work, and we heard about your center. I wonder if you could give me some details.

Receptionist: Yes, certainly. We are a residential centre attached to a working farm and we organise educational activities for those guests who want them. What else would you like to know?

Caller: Well, firstly, what kind of accommodation have you got?

Receptionist: We’ve got eight rooms altogether and we can sleep 38 at any one time. Three of the rooms have got six bunks and five of them have got four bunks.

Caller: Right, and what other facilities are there?

Receptionist: We have separate toilets and showers for each of the rooms. There’s a large dining room and a large meeting room which can be booked by groups in advance, but I’m afraid we had a flood in there last month and the floor was slightly damaged, so unfortunately it’s out of use just now. We’ve got workmen coming in next week.

Receptionist: When were you thinking of staying?

Caller: In three weeks’ time, the 28th of September.

Receptionist: Oh, it should be okay by then.

Caller: Oh, well, that’s okay then. Uh, and what about food? Do you provide meals or is it self-catering?

Receptionist: We’re very flexible. As long as you give us enough notice we can cater for you, or if you prefer, you can just bring your own food and use the kitchen facilities. Some people prefer to eat out, which is also fine.

Caller: Fine. And I heard that your farm is organic. Does that mean that you only have crops and no animals?

Receptionist: It doesn’t actually. A lot of people seem to think that, but we do rear livestock as well. And so we have a wide range of food. Organic means it’s all produced without the use of artificial fertilisers or pesticides.

Caller: I see. That sounds good. Um, could you tell me what sort of recreational activities are available, either at the center or in the area?

Receptionist: Yes. Here at the centre, we offer farm tours. They’re very popular. One of the farm managers shows people around and explains some of the principles of organic farming. And for any visitors who are really keen, you let them drive a tractor, or feed the animals, and so on, with supervision, of course.

Caller: I think a lot of our group would be interested in that. It’d make a change from factory work.

Receptionist: Well, if they fancy it, tell them to come prepared. Plenty of old clothing, especially footwear. It can be very messy and wet.

Caller: Okay, I’ll warn them.

Receptionist: And another type of activity we do is survival courses, but that’s only for groups of five or more, and they’ve got to be acquaintances; they have to co-operate closely. These courses are very popular, especially with school groups, but adults seem to enjoy them too.

Caller: What do they involve? Things like map reading?

Receptionist: Well, not exactly. We’ve got a large area of woodland on the farm and we run this course there. It’s mainly about collecting food and water, lighting a fire without any equipment, that kind of thing.

Caller: Hmm, this weekend could be hard work. What about the area around the center? What is there to do?

Receptionist: If you look at a map you’ll see that we’re very well situated here. Our centre’s about midway between the Exmoor National Park, which is very popular for hill walking, and the South Coast, which has very good beaches.

Caller: Are they both within walking distance?

Receptionist: Well, they’re both a bit far, unless you’re very fit, but they’re only about 30 minutes by road. There’s also a cycle path which starts quite near here, about 10 minutes walk away. You can hire bikes at the starting point.

Caller: What is there to do if the weather’s bad?

Receptionist: I hope it won’t be, but you never know. Well, on most Saturday evenings we show films here, and then once a month a group of local musicians performs in our meeting room. And then Sherbourne is only 14 miles away. It’s only a small town but it’s got a very good museum and an old Abbey which is well worth a visit.

Caller: Well, it sounds perfect for our purposes. One last thing, what about prices?

Receptionist: I’m not sure yet, but there’ll probably be about 15 of you. We charge a standard £14 a head for accommodation, whether there are 10 or 20 of you or whatever, and about £7 for cooked meals, depending on the menu you want. Use of the kitchen facilities is extra, as is the hire of the meeting room. It depends really what exactly you want and for how many people.

Caller: Right. Well, I’ve made a note of all that, and I’ll discuss it with the rest of the group. Then I’ll get back to you with a firm booking. Can I do that by phone?

Receptionist: Yes, you can. But once you’ve made a booking, we would need a deposit within five days to secure it. Then

Caller: Oh yes, of course. Uh, could you give me the address, please?

Receptionist: Yes, it’s Winsham Farm, Catill Road, that’s C-O-T-E-H-E-L-E near Sherbourne, and the postcode is SH12 1LQ.

Caller: Thank you.

Complete the table below

A from a college friend

B on the computer

C from a student job centre

A easy

B challenging

C unusual

A learning about the environment

B working with children

C caring for the animals

A won’t take a job

B will work at the zoo.

C will work elsewhere

11.travelling

12.get good shoes

13.wearing formal clothes

14.large office

15.good pay

16.live nearby

17.B

18.C

19.B

20.A

Section 2 – Student Radio Programme on Vacation Jobs

Presenter (Sarah): Welcome to Student Life. It’s spring, and many of you may be thinking about arranging work for the long vacation. So on today’s programme, Roger Anwell reports on a survey we conducted into the pleasures and problems of vacation jobs.

Reporter (Roger): Thank you, Sarah. Well, the first thing to say is that by far the majority of students we surveyed did just three types of jobs. All of these obviously had their advantages and disadvantages.

Roger: Starting with stock taking in supermarkets. The thing that students said they enjoyed most about this job was the travelling. They were often required to go to branches to do their stock takes, and this was regarded as an interesting plus. The main negative, however, was that they tended to find the job tiring, with long hours spent on their feet and climbing high shelves.

Roger: Now, one thing we did ask the students in our survey was whether they had any recommendations for other people taking on their job, and they said, perhaps not surprisingly, get good shoes. That’s the only way you can keep going.

Roger: Another job which lots of students did was office work, and the positive feature of this actually rather surprised me—until I remembered what a hot summer it was last year. Lots of students named air conditioning as the best thing about office work. The downside, which many talked about, was wearing formal clothes. Obviously this didn’t go down too well with students. The advice most people gave was to select a large office. That way you have more variety of social contacts. Otherwise the work can get very boring.

Roger: The third job which had attracted large numbers of students was as a theme park attendant, and again I got a surprise here because the big plus people talked about was good pay. It must have improved since my day, I must say. Anyway, the downside I did recognise was having to deal with difficult customers, especially in the heat when tempers get frayed. Not easy. People said that it was a good idea to live nearby because there’s a lot of shift work, and you don’t have to worry about transport at difficult times of the day.

Roger: So those were the findings from the survey on the most common student jobs, but not all student jobs have to be mundane and boring. One of the students who responded in our survey spoke at length about his amazing job as a zoo attendant.

Roger: Peter Marshall had read about work opportunities on the zoo website and just went along with a friend to talk to someone in personnel. He was offered a job there and then, as easy as that. In previous years he’d done singularly unexciting shop work, so he was very pleased to be doing such original work.

Roger: He ended up working for just under three months, which was actually slightly more than he’d anticipated, and meant that he had to miss part of university term time, but he said it was well worth it. Because he thinks he’s found his future career path as a result of this experience. He loved working on the educational side, in particular helping young kids understand about the animals in their natural environment. He said it was the most intriguing thing he’d ever done.

Roger: He tells us, though, that with final exams coming up he won’t be able to do any paid work this coming vacation, so why don’t you apply if you’re interested in getting further information about the findings of the survey.

Complete the notes below.

• teaching one another is a good way to learn

• it gives the opportunity to 21 ……………………

• shared reading means fuller notes

• You can do 22 ……………………

Complete the notes below.

Presentations should last for 26 ……………………..

(plus time for 27 …………………….. and ……………………..)

Sources of information

bibliography

library books

28 ……………………..

29 ……………………..

For the presentations, use:

overhead projector

whiteboard

30 ……………………..

21.share ideas

22.(much) deeper research

23.Mountain building

24.17th May

25.29th May

26.30-40 minutes

27.question(s); discussion

28.articles (from journal)

29.internet

30.photocopy

Andy: Right then, are we ready? Bob? Helen?

Helen: Uh, yeah.

Andy: And is someone taking notes for John? He’s at a tutorial, isn’t he?

Bob: Yeah, I’ll let him know what we agree.

Andy: Good. OK, well, first thing is, has anyone apart from me actually been in a study syndicate before?

Bob: No.

Helen: What does it actually involve, Andy?

Andy: Well, the idea is that it’s a way for us students to study together without a teacher. When I did it last time, I found it helpful because, as I said, there’s no teacher, so it means we’re teaching one another. I found I really learned a lot through having to teach it myself. It seemed a very good way to learn.

Bob: And presumably it gives us the chance to share ideas as well, and you get fuller notes if you’re all doing the reading.

Andy: That’s right. And as well as that, because of that, you can do much deeper research. So I thought we could try to revise what we’ve done on the geology course because I know this is the one that most of us are worried about, the geology exam.

Helen: Oh, yes.

Andy: So the idea is we all look at a different topic from the geology course, and then give a presentation and talk about it.

Bob: That’s right.

Andy: I’ve drawn up the framework of a table, which might be useful. Here, I’ve made a copy.

Helen: Oh, thanks.

Andy: For the first topic, I thought we could maybe do mountain building. Is that alright?

Bob: Yeah, sure. Actually, would you mind if I did that? I’m quite interested in it.

Andy: Right. So is May 9th okay for that?

Bob: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Andy: I’ll just write that down—it’s Bob for mountain building. The following week… It can’t be May 16th because of our tutorial, but what about the 17th?

Helen: Okay.

Andy: And what about the next topic? What would be the next priority?

Bob: Well, there’s glaciated areas, but I don’t want to do that.

Helen: Fair enough. Actually, I don’t mind having a bash. I did an assignment on them.

Andy: Glaciated areas, Andy?

Bob: Then we need someone to do rock formation. Helen?

Helen: Yeah, okay.

Andy: And John said he’d like to too, so you can put us both down for that. When?

Helen: May 23rd would be best.

Andy: Rock Formation, Helen and John, right. That really only leaves one week before the exams. Shall we make it on the 30th?

Bob: Uh, I can’t make it, I’m afraid.

Helen: 29th of May? The exams on June 3rd?

Andy: Have to be, okay. Any ideas for topic?

Bob: Uh, John said he wouldn’t mind doing something on volcanoes.

Helen: Great, that’s everyone then.

Andy: And how long should these presentations be?

Bob: Well, it’s obviously up to us. In my experience, 30 minutes is about enough.

Helen: Mmm, maybe a bit short. I’d have thought 40 minutes would be more like it.

Andy: Well, should we say 30 to 40 minutes? OK, and presumably time for questions.

Bob: And discussion.

Helen: Yes, together they usually take about 20 minutes.

Andy: Where should we get the information from? Is it mainly lecture notes?

Bob: Well, actually, I suggest we avoid those because we already have all that information. I think it’s better to go more deeply. We could use the bibliography and anything else we find in the library, any other books.

Helen: Hmm, and articles, you know, from the journals.

Bob: And then, of course, there’s lots of stuff on the internet.

Helen: Yes, that’s the sort of thing.

Andy: And what about the presentations? Will we just be talking? Presumably we can’t use slides.

Bob: It’d be a bit difficult, but we can use the OHP and the whiteboard, of course. And we can make photocopies of our notes so everyone can have a copy.

Helen: Yes, great.

Andy: So, we… Or is there anything else?

Complete the notes below.

Background:

• 31 ………………………. in number of night workers because of 24-hour shopping/services

• Need to examine effects of changing work and sleep habits

• US and British research found these lead to health problems

Main Causes:

         A) 32 ……………………….

• regulates daily life

• connected to behavioural patterns and cycles of 33. ………………………. and ……………………….

• programmes us to be awake and asleep at certain times

B) Sleep Debt

• impossible to get enough sleep during daytir

C) 34 ……………………….

• different working/sleeping times ‘dislocation’

Effects:

         A) Physical

• higher incidence of 35. ………………………. problems and ………………………. problems

• more minor illnesses, suggesting that immunity of shift workers is affected

 B) Psychological

• most common: 36. ……………………….

• 37. ………………………. affected, e.g. decision-making, planning, which

 regulate our 38. ……………………….

C) Social

       Night shift work can lead to:

• destruction of 39. ………………………. and other

 relationships, e.g. 40. ……………………….

• eventually, for individuals: social isolation

31.a huge increase

32.internal clock

33.light; dark

34.unsocial hours

35.stomach

36.depression

37.mental ability

38.performance

39.family life

40.peer group/friends

Speaker: Good afternoon everybody. In this session I want to continue looking at health issues relating to the workplace, and I’d like to focus today on night shift workers and the health problems that are associated with their working hours.

I’m sure you’re all aware that there has been a huge increase in the number of workers doing regular night shifts in recent years, mainly because of the number of shops and services now open 24 hours, seven days a week. And we need to look more closely at the consequences of changing work and sleep patterns like this. So that’s what I’d like us to do today.

Now, research that has been carried out in both the US and Britain on night working suggests that it leads to a lot of health problems for the workers, and they point to three main reasons for this.

The first one is what they call the internal clock, and this is a basic sort of program in our brains. This tells us that at certain times we should feel hungry, at other times we should be awake, at other times we should be asleep, and so on. And it seems to be generally accepted by all the experts in the field that this clock is linked not just to our behavioral habits, but to cycles of light and dark, and that means that we’re programmed to be awake when it’s light, i.e., during the day, and asleep when it’s dark.

The second thing is that night workers are continually fighting against what is termed a sleep debt. By this, the researchers mean that it’s practically impossible for them to get a sufficient amount of sleep in daylight hours. In fact, studies suggest that on average night workers only get between five and six hours of sleep rather than the eight they need, and the effects of not getting enough sleep can also lead to all sorts of problems.

The third cause of these problems is the unsocial hours that night workers have to keep. The fact that they are working when their families and friends are sleeping, and vice versa, and that kind of dislocation from their social group can be very damaging.

Okay, so let’s take a closer look at some of these effects. If we look at the physical effects first, we can see that studies on long-term shift workers found that they were much more likely to get heart problems than day workers. In addition, there seems to be a very high incidence of stomach problems, for example, ulcers among night shift workers, and although this may be partly due to the wrong sort of diet, such as snacking on fast food, it can’t be just explained by eating habits.

Finally, there is evidence to suggest that night shift workers also get ill more frequently with minor problems like colds and infections. The frequency of these illnesses is much higher than among day workers, which indicates that night working can damage immunity to illness, and of course this leads to a lot of absence from work too.

However, although the physical impact of working nights can be severe, perhaps the real problems are psychological ones, and the most common problem is depression. This seems to be the inevitable result of the constant feeling of tiredness and a lack of energy that night workers universally complain of.

Secondly, there is a lot of evidence from accident statistics to suggest that mental abilities are badly affected, and that means, for example, decision-making ability and planning ability—these are what control our performance. For example, the highest number of errors on the roads occur between 3 a.m and 5 a.m, the point in our internal clock when we feel most sleepy.

Finally, there are the social problems where night working impacts the family and social life of employees. The first is obviously the breakup of family life, as seen from divorce statistics, which occurs more frequently in the case of night workers. But there’s also the breakdown of other relationships—not just within the family but among peers. Night workers tend to lose touch with friends, and these relationships, especially for long-term night workers, are very difficult to rebuild.

This eventually leads to social isolation for the individual, and of course that has consequences for the whole community too. So we can begin to see the real cost of night working. What we need to do now is to look at how we’re going to do it.