Tapescript
Section I
Woman: Good morning! University Language Centre. How can I help
you?
Man: I’m interested in doing a language course. I did Mandarin
last year and now I’d like to do Japanese. Can you give me some information
about what courses are available at your center and when they start. That sort
of thing?
Woman: Yes, certainly. Well, we actually offer a number of courses in Japanese at different levels. Are you looking for full time or part time?
Man: Oh! I couldn’t manage full time as I work every day but
evenings would be fine and certainly preferable to weekends.
Woman: Well, we don’t offer courses at the weekend anyway, but
let me run through your options. We have a 12-week intensive course
three hours three nights a week- that’s our crash course! Or an eight month
course two nights a week.
Man: I think the crash course would suit me best as I’ll be leaving for Japan in six months time.
Woman: Are you a beginner?
Man: Not a complete beginner, no!
Woman: Well… we offer the courses at three levels, beginners,
lower intermediate and upper intermediate, through we don’t always run them
all. It depends very much on demand.
Man: I’d probably be at the lower intermediate level – as I did some Japanese at school but that was ages ago.
Woman: Right, well the next Level Two course begins on Monday
12th September – there are still some places on that one –
otherwise you’d have to wait until January or March.
Man: No – I’d prefer the next course.
Woman: Right! Can I get some details from you then so I can send
you some information?
Man: Sure!
Woman: What’s your name? Family name first.
Man: Hagerty, Richard.
Woman: H A G A R T Y?
Man: No, H A G E R T Y.
Woman: Oh, OK! And your address, Richard?
Man: Well perhaps you could email it to me.
Woman: Right. What’s your email address?
Man: It’s ricky45 – that’s one word R I C K Y 4 5, at
hotmail dot com.
Woman: And I just need some other information for our statistics.
This helps us offer the best possible courses and draw up a profile of our
students.
Man: Fine!
Woman: What’s your date of birth?
Man: I was born on 29th February 1980.
Woman: … 1980! So you’re a leap year baby! That’s unusual.
Man: Yes – it is!
Woman: … and just one or two other questions for our market research, if you don’t mind.
Man: No, that’s fine.
Woman: What are your main reasons for studying Japanese? Business, travel or general interest.
Man: My company’s sending me to Japan for two years.
Woman: Alright – I’ll put down ‘Business’. And do you
have any specific needs? Will there be an emphasis on written language? For
instance, will you need to know how to write business letters, that sort of
thing?
Man: No. But I will need to be able to communicate with
people on a day-to-day basis.
Woman: OK so I’ll put down ‘conversation’.
Man: Yes, because I already know something about the writing system at an elementary level and I don’t anticipate having to read too much.
Woman: You said you’d studied some Japanese. Where did you
study?
Man: Three years at school. Then I gave it up so I’ve forgotten a fair bit. You know how it is with languages if you don’t have the chance to use them.
Woman: Yes, but I’m sure it will all come back to you once you get
going again. Now once we receive your enrolment form we’ll…
Announcer: Welcome to this week’s edition of Country Wide. And today we’re taking a look at a number of different breeds of working dogs. And here to report on the dogs with jobs is Kevil Thornhill.
Kevin: Thanks, Joanne. Well yes, dogs with jobs is the subject of today’s programme. Dogs have earned themselves a reputation over the centuries for being extremely loyal. And here‘s a little story which illustrates just how loyal they are. Just outside the country town of Gundagai, is a statue built to commemorate a dog – a dog which sat waiting for his owner to return to the spot where he’d left him. Well … the story, which was immortalised in a song, has it that the poor dog died waiting for his master ‘five miles from Gundegai!, which is where they built the statue. Now that’s what I call loyalty!
Well, because of their loyalty and also their ability to
learn practical skills dogs can be trained to do a number of very valuable
jobs. Perhaps the most well known of working dogs is the border collie sheep
dog. Sheep dogs which work in unison with their masters need to be smart and
obedient with a natural ability to herd sheep. Some farmers say that their dogs
are so smart that they not only herd sheep, they can count them, too!
Another much - loved working dog is the guide dog, trained to work with the blind. Guide dogs, usually Labarsdors, need to be confident enough to lead their owner through traffic and crowds but they must also be of a gentle nature. It costs a great deal of money to train a dog for this very valuable work but the Guide Dog.
Associations in the UK, America and Australia receive no government assistance so all the money comes from donations.
Another common breed of work dog is the German shepherd. German shepherds make excellent guard dogs and are also very appropriate as search and rescue dogs working in disaster zones after earthquakes and avalanches. These dogs must be tough and courageous to cope with the arduous conditions of their work. And so that they can be sent anywhere in the world to assist in disaster relief operations, effective dogs and their trainers are now listed on an international database.
When you arrive at an airport here in Australia, you may be greeted in the baggage hall by a detector dog, wearing a little red coat beating the word ‘Quarantine’. These dogs are trained to sniff out fresh fruit as well as meat and even live animals hidden in people’s bags. In order to be effective, a good detector dog must have an enormous food drive – in other words they must really love their food. At Sydney airport where these are ten detector dogs working full time, they stop about 80 people a month trying to bring illegal goods into the country. And according to their trainers, they very rarely get is wrong! Another famous working dog is the husky. Huskies, which originally came from Siberia, have been used for decades as a means of transport on snow, particularly in Antarctica where they have played an important role. Huskies are well adapted to harsh conditions and they enjoy working in a team. But the huskies have all left Antarctica now because the International Treaty prohibits their use in the territory as they are not native animals. Many people were sad to see the dogs leave Antarctica as they had been vital to the early expeditions and earned their place in history along with the explorers.
Chairman: We’re very pleased to welcome to ours special interest group today, Dr. Linda Graycar who is from the City Institute for the Blind. Linda is going to talk to us about the system of writing for the blind known as Braille Linda, welcome.
Dr. Graycar: Thank you.
Chairman: Now we’d like to keep this session pretty informal, and I know Linda won’t mind if members of the group want to ask questions as we go along. Let’s start with an obvious one. What is Braille and where does it get its name from?
Dr. Graycar: Well, as you said, Braille is a system of writing used by and for people who cannot see. It gets its name form the man who invented it, the Frenchman Louis Braille who lived in the early 19th century.
Chairman: Was Louis Braille actually blind himself?
Dr. Graycar: Well … he wasn’t born blind, but he lost his sight at the age of three as the result of an accident in his father’s workshop. Louis Braille then went to Paris to the National Institute for Blind Children and that‘s where he invented his writing system at the age of only15 in 1824 while he was at the Institute.
Chairman: But he wasn’t the first person to invent a system of touch reading for the blind, was he?
Dr. Graycar: No – another Frenchman had already come up with the idea of printing embossed letters that stood out from the paper but this was very cumbersome and inefficient.
Chairman: Did Louis Braille base his system on this first one?
Dr. Graycar: No, not really. When he first went to Paris he heard about a military system of writing using twelve dots. This was a system invented by an enterprising French army officer and it was known as ‘night writing’ It wasn’t meant for the blind, but rather … for battle communication at night.
Chairman: That must’ve been fun!
Dr. Graycar: Anyway, Braille took this system as a starting point but instead of using the twelve dots which ‘night writing’ used, he cut the number of dots in half and developed a six – dot system.
Chairman: Can you give us a little more information about how it works?
Dr. Graycar: Well,
it’s a system of touch reading which uses an arrangement of raised dots called
a cell. Braille numbered the dot positions 1-2-3 downward on the left and
4 – 5 - 6 downward on the right. The letters of the alphabets are formed by using different combinations of these dots.
Student: So is the writing system based on the alphabet with each word being individually spelt out?
Dr. Graycar: Well… it’s not quite that simple, I’m afraid! For instance, the first 10 letter of the alphabet are formed using dot 1, 2, 4 and 5. But Braille also has its own short forms for common words. For example ‘b’ for the word ‘but’ and ‘h’ for ‘have’- there are many other contractions like this.
Chairman: So you spell out most words letter by letter, but you use short forms for common words.
Dr. Graycar: Yes, Though, I think that makes it sound a little easier than it actually is!
Chairman: And was it immediately accepted? I mean, did it catch on straight away?
Dr. Graycar: Well, yes and no! It was immediately accepted and used by Braille’s fellow students at the school but the system was not officially adopted until 1895, two years after Braille’s death. So, official acceptance was slow in coming!
Student: I suppose it works for all languages which use the Roman alphabet?
Dr. Graycar: Yes, it does, with adaptations, of course.
Student: Can it be written by hand or do you need a machine to produce Braille?
Dr. Graycar: Well, you can write it by hand on to paper with a device called a slate and stylus but the trick is that you have to write backwards…e.g. from right to left so that then when you turn your sheet over, the dots face upwards and can be read like English from left to right.
Student: Oh, I see.
Dr. Graycar: But these days you’d probably use a Braille writing machine, which is a lot easier!
Chairman: And, tell us, Linda. Is Braille used in other ways? Other than for reading text?
Dr. Graycar: Yes,
indeed. In addition to the literary Braille code, as its known, which of course
includes English and French, there are other codes. For instance, in1965 they
created a form of Braille for Mathematics.
Student: I can’t, imagine trying to do maths in Braille!
Dr. Graycar: Yes, that does sound difficult, I agree. And there’s also a version for scientific notation. Oh and yes, I almost forgot, there is now a version for music notation as well.
Chairman: Well, thanks, Linda.
Good morning , my name is Dr
Mervin Forest and I specialize in management techniques and training, I’ve been
invited here today to talk to you about the cost to the economy of the bad management
… and what I would like to dwell on first is an area that has recently been exercising
everyone and that is coercion in the workplace, or to put it more simply,
bullying.
It has been estimated that
bullying at work costs the British economy up to four billion pounds a year in
lost working time and in legal fees. And with the problem apparently on the
increase, it is time that managers took on board what is happening, I would
like to think that what is perceived as bullying is nothing more than lack of
experience, insecurity or lack of awareness on the part of managers, and not a conscious
effort to attack someone, but that is perhaps a case of, of …my being naïve, or over-hopeful.
Before we break up into groups to
look at the first task on the handout you’ve
got, I’d like to give you a start with some of the main bullying methods
that has been identified so far. Basically, what I’m going to do here is to give
you examples of one or two points. Can you all read the OHP clearly? Yes?
Right. Off we go.
Section V
The first item on the list is
giving people tasks which managers themselves cannot do and which are,
therefore, impossible to achieve. This is, in fact, a very common strategy used
by managers to ‘manage’ their subordinates. It gives certain people a false
sense of security as they watch others failing while they try to achieve the
goals set. Another simply bullying technique is constantly moving the goalposts,
especially when one’s employees are in the middle of a tasks! This is not bad
management; it is just plain stupid. All targets and goals set should be easily
achieved within a realistic time-scale.
Sending memos to someone else
criticizing performance of a task, where the individual has no way of replying
is another common technique; especially when the manager concerned does not
reply or make it impossible for subordinates to contact him or her by not
answering the telephone or not replying to e-mail. This is not the style of a
sound manager, but rather the antics someone with emotion problems. If you
behave like that don’t expect your staff to respect you.
And now the technological bully.
It is interesting how all tolls designed to help can be turned into dangerous
weapons. The ‘urgent e-mail’ bully is fast becoming a problem in the office. Employees
turn on their computers to be faced with a string of badly worded e-mail,
making instant and often unrealistic demands, which reveal the hysteria mode of
management. Have you ever felt a sense of dread before looking at your e-mail,
even your personal messages? All companies should develop a company strategy
whereby there is an e-mail code of practice, with offensive messages being forwarded
to a designed person for appropriate action.
I would now like you to break up
into groups and brainstorm other bullying
techniques which you think you may have experienced and, perhaps, if you are honest,
which you have been party to. I can think of at least nice more bullying
strategies. I would like you to consider ways in which you think that each of
the techniques on your list can be countered.
Is everyone clear as to what the
task is? Yes? Okay. You have got twenty minutes to do this.