Extensive listening: 3 ways to plan for the (very) long term

We increasingly make decisions based on short-term goals and gains — an approach that makes the future more uncertain and less safe. How can we learn to think about and plan for a better future in the long term ... like, grandchildren-scale long term?

Ari Wallach shares three tactics for thinking beyond the immediate.

Ari Wallach challenges the perception that "the future" is solely a technology-fueled project occurring at some far off point in time. By exploring the underpinnings of civilizational potential over the ages he shows the future is actually manifesting right now, and that it is very much human.

You can read the full transcript here.

In Gibraltar British citizens worry about effects of Brexit

British Prime Minister Theresa May has begun the formal process of the United Kingdom’s exit from the 28-nation European Union, nine months after British voters chose to leave the EU.

This has the British citizens of Gibraltar, a 3-square-mile sliver of land in southern Spain that’s more than 1,000 miles away from London, worried.

Self-study activity:
Watch the video and say whether the statements below are true or false.



1. The top of the Rock is 1,400m. above sea level.
2. 13,000 Gibraltareños live on The Rock.
3. George Bassadone converts ambulances into SUVs.
4. Gibraltareños massively voted to stay in the EU in the Brexit referundum.
5. Bassadone thinks that if the border is closed, that will put and end to his business.
6. One third of La Línea’s population works in Gibraltar.
7. Gibraltar residents spend 175m euros in La Línea every year.
8. The result of the Brexit referendum is already having negative effects in La Línea.
9. The border between Spain and Gibraltar remained closed for a full year, in 1969.
10. Many people of Gibraltar and La Linea are mixed.
11. Spain demands joint sovereignty over Gibraltar.
12. The Gibraltar government would to keep freedom of movement  for goods and people after the Brexit.
13. Gibraltar has traditionally attracted good-exporting companies to its territory because of its lower taxes.


AMY GUTTMAN: Gibraltar is where the Atlantic Ocean meets the Mediterranean Sea. Tourists flock here to stand at the top of The Rock, 14-hundred feet above sea level, with tunnels carved into it which housed Allied troops during World War Two. For centuries, this peninsula jutting out of Spain’s southern coast has been a strategic military and trading post.
AMY GUTTMAN: Today, it’s the only British territory on the European continent. The mild climate, relaxed lifestyle, and mix of languages make Gibraltar feel culturally a lot like neighboring Spain.
AMY GUTTMAN: While 30-thousand people live in Gibraltar, 13-thousand Spaniards and other European nationals commute to work here every day. Most park their cars on the Spanish side and walk across an area known as “The Frontier.”
AMY GUTTMAN: George Bassadone employs 70 Spanish workers converting SUV’S into ambulances used by the United Nations and aid organizations all over the world.
GEORGE BASSADONE: The work that we do is very specialized, involving a lot of electronics, mechanical work. So, we tend to find that expertise in Spain.
AMY GUTTMAN: His business is dependent on one of the cornerstones of the European Union, free movement of people and goods across open borders. Gibraltar imports almost everything from its food to timber over its one mile land border with Spain. Bassadone was among the 96 percent of Gibraltar residents who voted to remain in the EU in last year’s referendum, when the overall majority of voters in the United Kingdom voted to leave.
GEORGE BASSADONE: The biggest fear we have is a potential closure of the border. We would have to reevaluate our Spanish workforce and look at possibly getting rid of the majority of our Spanish workers and trying to train up locals, which would be very disruptive and take up a huge amount of time to do.
AMY GUTTMAN: Are there locals who want to do these jobs?
GEORGE BASSADONE: That would be one of the big challenges finding 70-plus technicians and engineers that are able to do this kind of work. One of our unique selling points is to react quickly to international demand and disasters in different parts of the world. Having that agility and flexibility is very much based on the existing workforce that we have.
AMY GUTTMAN: Just as Gibraltar depends on Spanish workers for 40 percent of its workforce, residents of the closest Spanish city, La Linea de Concepcion, depend on jobs in Gibraltar. Despite that, more than a-third of La Linea’s population is unemployed, like Marga Sanchez.
She’s worried that uncertainty about Brexit could make it even more difficult to find a job.
MARGA SANCHEZ: The people are trying to sell their houses, but they don’t find buyers, because nobody wants to invest right now. We are in limbo, basically.
AMY GUTTMAN: Would it be possible for you and your partner to support yourselves with jobs in La Linea?
MARGA SANCHEZ: There are no jobs in La Linea. We only have Gibraltar as our main factory. Either you work there or you have to find another way to survive.
AMY GUTTMAN: La Linea’s economy also gets a big boost from the 175 million dollars Gibraltar residents spend every year in Spain…
PERSON CHANGING MONEY: 150 pounds, please.
AMY GUTTMAN: …on shopping, restaurants, and services like this auto body repair shop, where 40 percent of the customers come from over the border. La Linea Mayor Juan Franco says his constituents and Gibraltar residents are already feeling one negative effect from Brexit, the decline in the value of the British pound, Gibraltar’s currency.
MAYOR JUAN FRANCO: Now the pound has a rate of about 15 percent lower than six or seven months ago. That affects the salaries of the Spanish workers and Europeans. It’s like a chain effect, because people spend less money in La Linea.
AMY GUTTMAN: Juan Jose Uceda, who represents a union for Spanish workers employed in Gibraltar, estimates 25 percent of La Linea’s economy comes from the neighboring peninsula.
JUAN JOSE UCEDA: We export a lot of stuff to Gibraltar. What is going to happen with all the groceries and the fruits and vegetables and shoes and other things we export from spain to UK?
AMY GUTTMAN: You can see those exports moving every day before dawn, as three hundred trucks line up on the Spanish side of the border waiting for customs checks before making deliveries to warehouses in Gibraltar.
IDAN GREENBERG: The frontier is very important. It needs to be open for Gibraltar to survive, I think.
IDAN GREENBERG: Idan Greenberg owns a cafe and bakery in Gibraltar. He says it would be impossible to run his business without those daily deliveries.
IDAN GREENBERG: You need chickpeas from Spain and tahini, which happens to be imported via London over road and coming over the border with Spain.
AMY GUTTMAN: A short airstrip and a border crossing are all that separate the peninsula of Gibraltar from mainland Spain. The relationship with its nearest neighbor has been tempestuous in the past, at times making Gibraltar practically an island. For decades, Spain has exerted pressure to regain sovereignty over Gibraltar, for example, intentionally slowing passport and vehicle checks at its border, leading to traffic jams of up to 12 hours.
AMY GUTTMAN: The worst confrontation came in 1969, when Spanish Dictator Francisco Franco closed the border entirely to assert Spain’s claim over the territory. The border remained shut for 15 years, causing massive job losses for La Linea residents who worked in Gibraltar and dividing families.
JUAN JOSE UCEDA: Almost a third of the population had to leave. It was really difficult for us to survive psychologically that situation. Many people of Gibraltar and La Linea are mixed. They are families. They are grandparents here that go there to Gibraltar to meet their grandchildren or vice versa.
AMY GUTTMAN: Ed Macquisten, who heads the Gibraltar Chamber of Commerce, says the hardening of the border would also hurt Gibraltar’s economy.
EDWARD MACQUISTEN: There are a number of people who live in this town who have experienced that before, when the Spanish Government shut the frontier in 1969. For the business owners that were running businesses in those days, they had two weeks notice and two weeks later they didn’t have their staff. How can you run a business like that?
AMY GUTTMAN: Macquisten says today he’s concerned about the position of the current Spanish government.
AMY GUTTMAN: Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has called for joint sovereignty over Gibraltar. If Gibraltar wants to remain in the EU after Brexit, saying last December:
“It’s impossible for Gibraltar to be in the European Union if the United Kingdom leaves the European Union and if there are no legal changes.”
AMY GUTTMAN: Chief Minister Fabian Picardo, the highest ranking government official in Gibraltar, says residents oppose Spanish rule of any kind.
FABIAN PICARDO: There’s only one option on the table as far as the people of Gibraltar are concerned. We’re going to stay entirely and exclusively British for exactly the same reason as the people of the United States would today not be prepared to countenance joint sovereignty with Canada or Mexico.
AMY GUTTMAN: The British Government has already said it won’t negotiate with Spain on sovereignty over Gibraltar or cede Gibraltar to Spain. Picardo advocates a special status for Gibraltar with the EU, to at least maintain freedom of movement for goods and people.
FABIAN PICARDO: Geographically, politically, and socio-economically, we have different realities. We have a land border with the European continent. That means that there are going to have to be slight differences between what is agreed for us and what might have to be agreed for the rest of the United Kingdom.
AMY GUTTMAN: Economically, Gibraltar has touted its EU access and relatively low corporate taxes to lure industries that don’t export physical products, like insurance, financial services and online betting companies. Now, some of those companies say they’re exploring relocating offices elsewhere in the EU. Amidst the uncertainty over its political future, Chamber of Commerce president Ed Macquisten sees economic opportunity.
ED MACQUISTEN: We’ve always sought to diversify our economy and get it to develop in various different ways so you’re not reliant on any single sector. If one market or two markets shut down, people in this town will get up and go out and find five new markets.
AMY GUTTMAN: Even with well thought out plans, George Bassadone fears a hardened border will hurt his bottom line.
GEORGE BASSADONE: These contingencies would come with additional costs to the business, and those costs we would not be able to pass on to the customer. We’re already playing in a market that’s very price sensitive. We would want the frontier to stay open to allow for the freedom of movement of goods and personnel for our business moving forward.

KEY: 
1T 2F 3F 4T 5F 6F 7F 8T 9F 10T 11T 12T 13F
 

Extensive listening: Don't ask where I'm from, ask where I'm a local

When someone asks you where you're from … do you sometimes not know how to answer?

Writer Taiye Selasi speaks on behalf of "multi-local" people, who feel at home in the town where they grew up, the city they live now and maybe another place or two.

"How can I come from a country?" she asks. "How can a human being come from a concept?"

A writer and photographer of Nigerian and Ghanaian descent, born in London and raised in Boston, now living in Rome and Berlin, who has studied Latin and music, Taiye Selasi is herself a study in the modern meaning of identity.

In 2005 she published the much-discussed (and controversial) essay "Bye-Bye, Babar (Or: What Is an Afropolitan?)," offering an alternative vision of African identity for a transnational generation. Prompted by writer Toni Morrison, the following year she published the short story "The Sex Lives of African Girls" in the literary magazine Granta.

Her first novel Ghana Must Go, published in 2013, is a tale of family drama and reconciliation, following six characters and spanning generations, continents, genders and classes.

You can read a full transcript for the talk here.

Listening test: Identity

Listen to a BBC radio programme on ethnicity and choose the option A, B or C which best completes each of the sentences below.

Source: BBC's 6 Minute English

1 Neil is
A in his 30’s.
B thin.
C white skinned.

2 If a girl is described as a typical English rose she
A has a pale skin colour.
B is not very beautiful.
C was born in a rural area.

3 New York City actress and playwright, Sarah Jones
A has some European roots.
B is adopted.
C is white on her dad’s side.

4 Alice’s neighbours
A eat meat at Christmas.
B haven’t integrated into British culture.
C have lived in Britain all their lives.

5 In Julian Baggini’s opinion, who we are depends on
A both ourselves and the others.
B the people around us.
C ourselves.

6 The percentage of the UK population who describe themselves as ethnically mixed is
A 0.9%.
B 5.9%.
C 9%.

7 The real percentage of ethnically mixed population is
A around 2%.
B around 3%.
C around 12%.

 Photo: BBC Learning English

Hello and welcome. I'm Alice…
And I'm Neil. So, Alice, what do you see when you look at me?
Well, male, Caucasian, early 40s, short auburn hair, bushy eyebrows, thin lips...
OK. So that's how you see me? It sounds like a police report, and I'm not sure I like your observation about thin lips. Caucasian means white skinned and European, by the way.
And today the show is about identity – who or what a person is. And the way people see us forms part of our sense of identity, while another part comes from our ethnic – or racial – identity. Now, Neil, you are, of course, many more things than my physical description of you!
I'm glad to hear that. And it's true, that until you actually hear somebody speak, there are lots of things you can't know about them. For example, which country they're from, what language they speak…
Yes. So looking at me, what would you say, Neil?
I would say Alice that you're a typical English rose.
Thanks, Neil – and English rose describes an attractive girl with a pale delicate complexion – or skin colour – but you can't actually tell where a person is from by the way they look.
Yes, I suppose you're right.
Well, let's hear from New York City actress and playwright, Sarah Jones, talking about her complicated ethnicity.

My family on my dad's side, my grandparents, are from the South. There's some Caribbean in there, black Americans from the South and the Caribbean, and then on my mother's side there are people from the Caribbean, from Ireland but you know Irish American, German American. People would ask me if I was adopted when they saw my mother's white skin – she's actually mixed but she's white from a distance, and I'm black from a distance.

Sarah Jones there. Well, Sarah has family from all over the world! And people think Sarah is adopted because she looks so different to her mum.
But I expect Sarah sees herself as American. New York is where she was born and raised.
That's right. But her grandparents weren't. Do you think you change when you go and live in another country with people different to you?
Yes, I do. My neighbours are Turkish but they've lived in England for 45 years so they've integrated into our culture. They enjoy English things like… our TV soap operas, cooking turkey at Christmas, and drinking tea with milk. So Neil, to what extent does the way other people see us, actually change us? Let's listen to Julian Baggini, a writer and philosopher here in the UK and find out what he thinks.

It seems very evident that our sense of self isn't something that comes entirely from within. And of course we're affected by the way other people see us. And that's one of the most formative things in creating our sense of identity. I mean, I think it's kind of a two-way process that's ongoing. Our sense of who we are is always a response in part to how other people see us.

So Julian Baggini believes the way other people see us is formative in creating our sense of identity – or who we are.
So if enough people see you as an English rose, you might start to see yourself as an English rose, even if you aren't ethnically English.
I'm not so sure. The friend I talked about earlier, she comes across as much more Brazilian than English in the way she behaves. She doesn't have the famous English reserve – but you'd never know it by looking at her. OK, I think it's time for the answer to today's quiz question.
Okey-dokey, fair enough. I asked you: What percentage of the UK population described themselves as ethnically mixed? Is it … a) 0.9%, b) 5.9% or c) 9%?
I said a) 0.9%.
Yes. And you were on the money today, Neil! Well done! According to a survey conducted by the BBC in 2011, when asked about their own ethnic origins, 0.9% of the UK population said they were mixed race, although it's thought that the real figure is 2% more.
And that's the end of today's 6 Minute English.
Bye!

KEY: 1C 2A 3A 4A 5A 6A 7B

Extensive listening -Why I keep speaking up even when people mock my accent

Artist Safwat Saleem grew up with a stutter — but as an independent animator, he decided to do his own voiceovers to give life to his characters.

When YouTube commenters started mocking his Pakistani accent, it crushed him, and his voice began to leave his work. Hear how this TED Fellow reclaimed his voice and confidence in this charming, thoughtful talk.

You can read the full transcript here.

Extensive listening: The beauty of being a misfit

To those who feel like they don't belong: there is beauty in being a misfit. In her TED talk early this year, The beauty of being misfit, author Lidia Yuknavitch shares her own wayward journey in an intimate recollection of patchwork stories about loss, shame and the slow process of self-acceptance.

"Even at the moment of your failure, you are beautiful," she says. "You don't know it yet, but you have the ability to reinvent yourself endlessly. That's your beauty."

You can read the transcript here.

Latinos learning Spanish in the US

With almost 40 million speakers, Spanish is the second most spoken language in the US, just after English.

Watch this Guardian video clip which shows how a growing number of latinos are trying to come to grips with the language and culture of their parents.



My dad has a story he loves to tell about how I came home on the first day of kindergarten and he was speaking to me in Spanish and I said: "Don't speak to me in Spanish any more". There was a time in my early teens when I didn't want to be identified as Hispanic. The only person that I spoke Spanish with was my mother, and when she passed away that was it, I didn't speak.
When I was in college, I had all these classmates and because my last name is Moreno they all assumed that I spoke perfect Spanish so they were like: "What are you doing here? Why are you learning Spanish? Don't you know Spanish?"
I was born in San Antonio, Texas and I'm Mexican-American but I didn't grow up speaking Spanish. My grandparents spoke predominantly Spanish but when it came to us, my parents actually decided to speak to us in English. They didn't want us to have accents. They wanted us to be acculturated. They wanted us to fit in. They wanted us to be successful, and to them being successful meant English.
You just talk to any latino who went to elementary school or high school in their 30s or 40s or 50s, and one thing that you'll encounter is that many will tell you that when they spoke Spanish in school, they were punished for speaking Spanish. Often we're getting messages like "Speak English because it's important", and "be American". Of course, the 1960s changes all of that and we're in a much different period today.
I never considered what my identity was as a Mexican-American but then when I went to university they had all these amazing classes like Chicano literature classes and Spanish classes and that's when I decided that I really wanted to really discover my heritage and really reclaim it for myself and that's when I started studying in Spanish.
Robyn had this urge to communicate. She has a full command of the language in English and she wanted to do that in Spanish but she couldn't. Teaching latinos is a little bit more challenging because we have to deal with the feeling that they should have known the language and they don't know it. There is a lot of emotional stuff going on when they learn the language and that could be a little bit detrimental to
their learning.
I was raised speaking Spanish until I started kindergarten. I saw the other kids speaking English, there were no other kids speaking Spanish and I didn't want to be a different person.
Even among English-speaking latinos, more than 90 per cent say that it's important that future generations of latinos speak Spanish. I think that this emphasis on pride and heritage, and Spanish is an important part of that heritage, is something that's going to keep Spanish alive in a way that maybe for previous immigrant groups just wasn't possible.
It's really important to me that my kids speak Spanish because I want them to know their latina culture.
Oso (bear)! He's cute! Hi oso!
I feel like as you get more and more Americanised you start to want some of that nostalgia. I even miss my mum's weird accent or the fact that she loves cheesy novellas. I want them to know that they are proudly latina, they're proudly Mexican-American, and know who their grandparents were, who their great-grandparents were, who their family is. And so Spanish is a part of that.

Talking point: Personal identity

This week's talking point is personal identity. Before getting together with the members of your conversation group, go over the questions below so that ideas flow more easily when you meet up with your friends and you can work out vocabulary problems beforehand.

Classmates, friends, teammates, workmates. Think about the groups you belong to and how important that group is to your identity. Choose the group you think has the biggest influence on you an explain your reasons.
The following factors can all influence our personal identity. Number them in order of importance to your identity (1 the most important, 8 the least):

clothes - studies - friends - interests - values - family - languages - job

Is family background important to your sense of identity?
What's the difference between family background and social status?
How might they be related to each other?
Do you and the people in your social group share the same life goals?
Is that important?
Do you think it is important 'to be yourself' at all times, even if sometimes it may upset people?
Have you ever felt out of place or that you didn't fit in?
Is your sense of identity connected to your language and culture?
Is your identity in your language the same as your identity when you speak English?

To illustrate the point you can watch the Speakout family history, where passers-by answer the questions:
Do you spend much time with your family?
Do you think you have inherited any family characteristics?
Do you know much about your family history?
Does your family history play a part in your sense of who you are?



A: Hi. My name is Andrea. I live and work in London though most of my family live in Brazil. I get on well with my sister when I see her but that’s only once a year. Do you spend much time with your family?
N: Spend quite a bit of time with my family. Obviously, er, less now since I left home and left university. Uh, but I go back every, kind of, every other weekend or every, say, three weekends. So yeah, I see them quite a bit.
D: Probably not as much as I could because the kids are busy and, er, I don’t have any parents any more and my husband’s family live a fair way away, so probably not as much as we’d like to.
To: I try to, yeah. I try and spend as much as possible. Erm … My ... I’ve got two sisters. My eldest sister lives in London (she lives on a houseboat actually, on the Thames – which is very nice). And my little sister lives in Tenerife with my parents.
Ti: I don’t, no. We’re geographically quite spread out.
R: Yeah, I do. I go to school in Toronto and they live there and I see them on weekends and whenever I can really.
A: Do you think you have inherited any family characteristics?
N: Well, er, often people say that I sound and look a lot like my dad, which I don’t see but, but everybody else does, so I guess, er, I guess I have done.
M: Yes, I do. A lot of people sometimes say I look like my aunt, erm, or my mother. But then there are a couple of my aunts and my cousins that when people see us they’re like, ‘Are you guys sisters?’
D: Unfortunately I think I have, but they’re probably not all bad. My family seems to all have fairly good personalities and it’s usually fun being around them, so, um, I think I might have inherited some of that.
R: Oh, absolutely. I get stressed very easily. I, er, I guess take things too seriously sometimes, but I really value spending time with my family and that’s probably a big thing that I’ve inherited.
Ti: Er, physically, yeah, definitely. Erm, yeah, I think I’m quite slender and quite tall which is like my mum. Er, but in terms of personality, probably not, no I don’t think so. No, no.
To: Yeah, definitely. I think, from my mum I’ve got the kind of bubbliness and chattiness – she’s very much like that. And, er, most of the time I’m like that, but then when I’m in a bad mood I get the dad side. And that’s er, he’s kind of, my mum used to call him ‘a volcano’ because he kind of just ‘erupts’. He’s really peaceful most of the time but then when you really make him angry he’ll erupt and that’s kind of how it is with me.
An: There’s this moment I think ... probably happens to all of us, where there was something our mum or our dad did which we hated and then we find that we’re doing it.
A: Do you know much about your family history?
An: Yes, I know quite a lot – um, group of eccentrics really. Um … my family was essentially, er, lived in Scotland and Argentina, different bits of Latin America. So I know, I know quite a lot about it.
M: We’re like, we’re great writers and historians so we do a lot of work with, you know, collecting that, we did a lot of work collecting that data of our family’s history coming from Barbados, um, and going to Liberia which is where I’m from originally.
D: A little bit. One of my aunties did a family tree and it appears that I’m about, I think, a third generation Australian. Originally, we came from County Clare in Ireland. So, that’s as much as I know.
To: Yeah, it’s quite interesting actually because my father and my mother were both Catholic missionaries from Spain and they met in Zimbabwe while they, while my father was a priest and my mother was a nun and they fell in love and they kind of left the church and decided to settle down in Zimbabwe and, um, have kids.
R: Yeah, I mean Canada is a country of immigrants, so my family’s from Scotland and France.
N: I remember conversations with my grandparents – them explaining but I wish I’d written more down because it’s amazing how much you forget. You think, ‘I’m sure it’s so vivid. I’m sure I’d remember more,’ but, er, I wish I did.
A: Does your family history play a part in your sense of who you are?
An: Yes, very much so. And part of that is that I was brought up in Latin America, speaking Spanish to my friends and English to my parents. So, in a sense, I was brought up ‘between two cultures’ and that, at the end, is part of who I am.
M: Definitely because family is a big part of me um, and, we just try to keep those connections going.
N: I guess it’s a difficult balance in my head to see what’s, how much is me and how much is my family. And knowing about my family history and knowing what I have inherited, which I’m sure there’s lots and lots of habits that I must have inherited, but I feel a lot of it’s ‘me’ but it probably isn’t.
Ti: Er, no, not really at all. Erm, I left home when I was about sixteen or seventeen so I think my sense of identity has been very much formed by my own belief systems and my own lifestyle rather than being particularly keyed into anything to do with my parents or my grandparents.

Extensive listening: The Welsh Italians

Merthyr-born Michela Chiappa explores the modern Welsh Italian community, visiting the cafes and fish and chip shops that still serve up a feast. She discovers that whilst some traditions are the same, others have really changed.

Michela finds that it's food and family that unites the two cultures - but when it comes to sport, do they support Wales or Italy?