Listening

Marrying sounds and words

Connecting sounds with their corresponding words takes time and patience.

Individually words frequently differ in pronunciation when spoken; the way sounds and words connect contributes to fluency.

Use the subtitles or transcript to understand how words are spoken: pronunciation, stress and emphasis.

Retired hens revitalize Cyprus olive groves

While hens are usually sent to slaughter after their egg-laying years, these have been saved by organic farmers in Cyprus who need them to fertilise their olive groves.

Source

Length

00.02.11

Subtitles

20 February 2025

Date produced

Yes

L009

Reference

Task

Listen to the video, then answer the questions.

  • Watch the video (without the transcript or subtitles).

  • Observe how speakers stress words and fit them together to form sentences.

  • Note timestamp for unclear speech, confusing words or phrases or perhaps where the speaker is a little too fast.

  • Watch again (with transcript or subtitles) and check against your noted timestamp: is it any clearer? What is unclear: a word, phrase or the structure?

  • Answer the questions before expanding and viewing answers.

  • Any doubts, contact your mentor.

  • The organic farmers ‘need them to fertilise their olive groves’.

  • They provide them with an old-hen’s home.

  • Boost - help or encourage (something) to increase or improve.

  • Yield - produce or provide (a natural, agricultural, or industrial product).

  • Droppings - the excrement of certain animals, such as rodents, sheep, birds, and insects.

  • Enrich - verb - improve or enhance the quality or value of | rich - adj. existing in plentiful quantities; abundant.

  • Pests - a destructive insect or other animal that attacks crops, food, livestock, etc.

    Pest - an annoying person or thing; a nuisance.

    • She’s such a pest. Why was she invited?

  • By not sending the food waste to landfill means ‘it stops being waste and enters the system again’.

  • It’s free!

  • By not sending the food waste to landfill means ‘it stops being waste and enters the system again’.

  • ‘The hens can enjoy a long retirement among the olive trees and live up to 10 years’.

  • A ‘drought’ is ‘a prolonged period of abnormally low rainfall, leading to a shortage of water’.

  • ‘Pooping‘ is a more polite way of talking about ‘defecating’:

    • ‘Poop’ [more US English]

    • ‘Poo’ [more British English]

  • We use ‘speed up something’ to mean ‘cause someone or something to move or happen more quickly’.