Listening test: Untidy desks

Gerry, a Briton living in Switzerland, is talking about untidy desks. Listen and complete the gaps in the sentences below with up to three words. 0 is an example.

source: Gerry's News Digest

0 Example:
Gerry’s desk isn’t beautiful, it looks a mess.

1 When working in Zurich, Gerry always wondered how some colleagues could leave their desks __________________ every evening.

2 In the system called hot desking, workers sits at a desk that happens __________________ .

3 Gerry thinks that you can waste a lot of time sorting and __________________ when you could be doing some work instead.

4 A confirmation bias refers to news and reports that reflect what __________________ .

5 Benjamin Franklin lived a life of __________________, but he tried and failed to be tidy.

6 When Franklin wrote about “let all my things have their places” he was looking, in other words, for a __________________ .

7 The principle Tim Harford describes is called LRU, which means __________________ .

Photo: Gerry's desk on Gerry's news digest

Do you have a desk or work table at home or at work? What does it look like? I’ve put a picture of my desk on the website. I have a beautiful desk with a beautiful view of the sea and the mountains, but what’s on my desk isn’t very beautiful. It looks a mess– and it usually looks that way. When I worked in Zurich my desk there looked more or less the same as my home desk today, as my colleagues could tell you. I always wondered at those colleagues of mine who used to leave their desks every evening completely clear. I never understood how they did it.
In some modern offices you have to work with a system called hot desking where you don’t have your own desk. You just come in and sit at a desk that happens to be free. I can’t imagine how somebody like me would cope with that. My untidiness sometimes makes me feel rather inadequate, but I also think that you can waste a lot of time sorting and organising and tidying when you could actually be getting on with real work.
And I was pleased to read something the other day that sort of justified the messy way that I work. It was an extract from a new book by Tim Harford, the economist and journalist. I liked what I read, but there is something called confirmation bias. We all pay special attention to news and reports that reflect what we already think.
Anyway, one story that Tim Harford tells is that of Benjamin Franklin, Founding Father of the United States, a scientist, an inventor, a geographer, America’s first Postmaster General, their ambassador to France and so on. But all through this life of endless achievement, he tried and failed to be tidy. He felt he would be even more successful if he could bring more order into his affairs. In his journal, Franklin wrote that one of his aims should be: “let all my things have their places”. He was looking, in other words, for a perfect filing system. But would it have helped him?
Tim Harford argues that filing systems often don’t work because it’s impossible to categorise everything so that everything belongs in just one obvious category. So instead of trying to sort emails, for example, you might as well just keep them in date order. Delete as much as possible as it comes in, and then regularly delete stuff that you’ve never needed to look at again. The principle is called LRU – Least Recently Used.

KEY:
1 completely clear
2 to be free
3 organising and tidying
4 we already think
5 endless achievement
6 perfect filing system
7 Least Recently Used

How to protect yourself from wasps

Self-study activity:
What are the best weather conditions for wasps to proliferate? Do wasps have any useful purpose? How can we protect ourselves from wasps? Make a list of all the ideas that come to mind to answer the questions.

Then watch this short extract from a BBC programme and check whether any of your ideas come up. Note down any new information that you hear.

The activity is suitable for intermediate 2 students.

You can check your answers by reading the transcript below.



I’ve noticed sitting outside enjoying a nice cool drink there are wasps all over the place and I didn’t… with this didn’t happen last summer, I’m sure it didn’t, they didn’t bother me as much, why?
There are a few more wasps around this year than there were last year. The weather is warmer. Everyone’s noticed that and I think we’re gonna have a bit of a heatwave next week as well, which is great because I’m on holiday again, but we actually think this year will be an increase in wasps but not massive increase. If we have a really good summer this year and consistent temperatures next year, we’re gonna  get a massive year next year.
We talk about them as pests, but are they? I mean do they serve any useful purporse, wasps?
Well, yes, I suppose everything has its, has its place in the, you know, in life. They feed on aphids, they are prime predator, they do destroy some very, some garden insects, so they do have their own place. They’re perhaps not as beneficial as bees, though, perhaps.
How do we… last year then we had fewer, is that because it was a colder winter or how did that happen? Because I guess it’s all about stopping the queens before they start a new community.
We’ve had fewer and fewer wasps because of a succession of wet summers that has washed away a lot of the food source such as pollen and nectar. So less food equals less population.
That, vicious little creatures though aren’t they.

Yes!
I mean when you hear of people being, having multiple stings by wasps and wasp nests. I mean, look at this one! This is horrendous. I’d be petrified if I saw that. I had one in a wall, that’s a wasp nest. I had one in my roof at one point. What should people do… and here’s one in a boiler. What should people do? Where should they be conscious of looking or, you know, avoiding something like this?
If wasps are coming into your house, you’ll normally see them going in and out, in and out…
… if it’s a tiny little hole…
…through a tiny little hole either on (the), a tile on the roof or through an air brick or something along those sort of lines. That means there’s a nest, nest activity inside, and that means that depending on the time of year it’s either going to be a small nest, and again it depends on the temperatures because insects are temperature-dependent, then, or it’s going to be a large nest. And that’s the one that you can see in the photo, the whopper.
Can you prevent yourself from having one or is it just pure luck?
I think, we really think it’s luck of the draw.
And should you get rid of a wasp nest if you’ve got one and if so, briefly, how do you do that?
Ok. If it is in a place where it isn’t causing you any problems at all then you could leave it alone. I would tend to, I would tend to get rid of it because of the dangers that they can bring.
Who do you ring, you ring the council, you ring pest control, where do you go to?
Councils are doing less and less pest control nowadays with, with cutbacks. The British Pest Control Association has accredited members who professionally know how to do these things.

Speakout starter: Routines

In a new episode of our Speakout series for beginners, Pearson Longman, passers-by answer the two questions below about their weekend routine:

What time do you get up at the weekend?
What do you usually do at the weekend?

Watch the video clip and note down the answers pedestrians give. Then answer the questions about yourself. Try to use some of the expressions you heard on the video.



You can read the transcript here.

Speakout starter: Things

In another episode of our Speakout series, from Pearson Longman, people in the street are asked these two questions:

What’s in your bag?
What are your favourite clothes?

The video is an excellent opportunity for Básico 1 and Básico 2 students (elementary) to get familiar with the name of everyday objects and clothes.

After you have watched the video several times, try to answer the two questions above about yourself.



You can read the transcript here.

Kindness Boomerang

I came across Kindness Boomerang through Larry Ferlazzo in late December. Larry already warned us of the oversentimentality of the video, but he considered it was full of learning opportunities for the English student. He suggested two: Describing the everyday actions the clip portraits, something which language students of all levels find really demanding, and discussing the message in the video.



I think Kindness Boomerang gives us the chance of revising/learning conditional sentences of all kinds.

I would suggest the following steps in the lesson:

• Students watch the video and make a note of the chain of actions in it: the builder helps the skateboarder to get up > the skateboarder helps the old woman cross the street > the old woman gives the girl change for the parking meter > The girl picks up the envelope the man in the suit has inadvertently dropped > The man in the suit helps a man unload the luggage from the car boot > The car man buys a hot dog for the beggar > The vendor gives the beggar water > The beggar gives the girl the mobile she had forgotten > The mobile phone girl buys some flowers for the woman sitting at the cafe > The woman at the flower stall gives a flower to the mobile phone girl > The woman sitting at the cafe leaves a generous tip > The waitress gives a drink of water to the builder.

From here, students repeat the chain of events

• First conditional: If the builder helps the skateboarder to get up, the skateboarder will help the old woman cross the street > If the skateboarder helps the old woman, she will give the girl change for the parking meter > ...

• Second conditional: If the parking meter girl picked up the envelope, the man in a suit would help the man unload the car > If the man in a suit helped the man unload, the car man would buy a hotdog for the beggar > ...

• Third conditional: If the beggar had given the mobile to the girl, she would have bought flowers for the woman > If the mobile phone girl had bought flowers for the woman at the cafe, the woman would have left a generous tip > ...

Wonderopolis

Wonderopolis Wonders is a wonderful site for both teachers and students. You can learn really interesting things everyday and get a link to a lessonplan on the topic.

The site explains the way everyday things come about, such as Who created frozen pizza?, Why are there dimples on a golf ball?, How does a species become endangered?, Who invented dental floss?, and on and on up to 154 lesson to date. You can view a list of all the lessons by clicking on the tag 'Wonders'.

At the bottom of each explanation there's usually a link to an online lesson where the topic can be studied more in detail.

The wonders are also accompanied by a short video in which we usually watch a domestic family scene where the wonder is somehow touched on.

H/T to A Journey in TEFL