If you want to recycle buy a chicken... but don't eat it!

After my post on parks in the UK, I remembered from some years ago about this piece of news. First of all here is the original link, as a thank you for the journalist who wrote the article!

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/belgians-egged-on-to-keep-chickens-ndash--but-theyre-not-for-eating-1942124.html

Now let's go to the article. There are lots and lots of interesting things to comment on and learn about.

Belgians egged on to keep chickens – but they're not for eating

Hen-rearing craze takes hold after drive to reduce household waste

By Vanessa Mock in Limburg

Monday, 12 April 2010

1. to egg on: to motivate, to encourage
2. hen rearing: to keep hens alive in your house or farm to obtain eggs or to have more chickens. To rear can be applied to any animals kept in captivity and even to children.
3. to take hold: when a new activity doesn't disappear, but instead it consolidates as a habit.
4. drive: as a noun it is an impulse, the promotion of something. In this case the authorities are promoting recycling.
5. household waste: the waste produced by a family unit (a household) in contrast with waste produced by industry or a business such as a restaurant.

In a garden dotted with daffodils overlooking open fields, a trio of English Sussex hens strut their stuff. Two small boys stroke their resplendent white and black plumage while feeding them. The youngest child takes advantage of the diversion to dive into the birds' dark-red wooden coop to play hide-and-seek.

1. to dot: distribution of elements at regular intervals. To see an example, click here and look at the picture on the right.
2. to overlook: in this case, to look at something from a higher point. Other very common meaning means "not to notice something, voluntarily or by accident."
3. to strut: to walk like a bird does, e.g. a chicken.
4. plumage: same as in Spanish, but with "g" instead of "j".
5. To dive: usually to jump into the water or swim under it. Used as a metaphor here.
6. hide-and-seek: traditional children's game where one of the children has to count and the others find a place to hide. Once the count is finished, the first child tries to find the rest.

• note: difference between notice and news: notice is a piece of written information in a visible location or sent to you by post. News (uncountable) is information provided by journalists, in newspapers, on the TV... to speak about it individually you have to say "a piece of news" (=una noticia).

"We get two eggs every day, which go towards making pancakes," says Tibo Duijsters, a blond eight-year old, as he scatters grain around the ground.

Their father Michel Duijsters points proudly to his fast-disappearing compost heap. Most of the food scraps and vegetable peelings have been eaten by the hens.

The Duijsters and many of their neighbours in Dilsem-Stokkem, a small town of neat detached houses a few miles from Belgium's border with the Netherlands, have no agricultural background or training in poultry farming. But they have joined a chicken-rearing craze which has taken hold with tens of thousands of hens now living in coops in family gardens.

The boom is thanks to own-a-chicken schemes launched by the Belgian authorities in a bid to cut down on household waste. In the region of Limburg, near the Dutch border, more than 2,500 families adopted hens just last year, a 306 per cent rise on the previous year. There have been similar successes in other parts of the country.

1. to go towards: go in a specific direction. in this case, the eggs' direction is being eaten as pancakes.
2. to scatter: to spread over a big space elements that were together before. e.g. the plate fell from the table and the food was scattered all over the floor.
3. proudly: feeling proud. someone is proud of something or someone when they are happy about being connected with it (for example your children).
4. heap: a disorganized accumulation of something e.g. garbage bags on the street when there is no container!
5. scraps: in this case, remains from food that has been eaten. also vegetable and fruit peels, etc.
6. neat: nice, clean, organized.
7. detached: a detached house is a house which is separated from others around it. If it shares a wall with another house it is called "semidetached" and if they are part of a row of houses they are called "terraced houses".
8. background: work experience (in this context)
9. poultry: this word refers to any farm birds (so, domestic birds which aren't pets)
10. craze: collective craziness or intense fashion.
11. coop: the house where the hen lives. 
12. scheme: a system or organization.
13. bid: to place your money because you think something will happen and you will benefit from it.
14. cut down: reduce.
15. rise: to go up. note: raise means to "make something go up". e.g. I raised the curtain with my hand. Compare: The sun rises every morning.
16. success (plural: successes). obtaining the result that you wanted. Note: Success can also work as uncountable.

The Duijsters family were egged on by a marketing campaign by the authorities, which also subsidises the cost of buying the hens. One hen only costs around €4 (£3.50), but comes with expectations.

"We expect owners to look after them properly and provide a lot of reading material for them to go through," said Annick De Paepe, an official with the Limburg regional authority.

1. to subsidise: to pay with public funds, partly or completely something that private citizens or companies need to pay for.
2. properly: in the right way. If something is proper it is correct and adequate. Like Mr. Proper!

"It's been a huge success and it's proving ever more popular". She believes the boom has been fuelled by the recession. "There is very much a mood of getting back to nature right now and people love picking up their own eggs from the garden. But it's also a great way to cut down on household waste as the chickens will eat any leftovers and cut organic waste by half."

1. ever more popular: more and more popular, people like it more and more.
2. to fuel: to give something energy or impulse. Fuel: gasoline, kerosene, diesel oil...
3. mood: if you are happy you are in a good mood, if you are sad or depressed you are in a bad mood. If you change from one mood to another you are a moody person.
4. to pick up: to get something that is lower than you. For example on the floor.
5. to cut down on something: to reduce (usually expenses) on some specific area.
6. leftovers: usually it applies to food that still remains after people have finished eating.

"So far, we haven't had any bad experiences, but of course, we can't be sure that people aren't just throwing them into the oven. Not everyone wants to take on a chicken for life."

Mr Duijsters, a civil servant, leads the twice-daily feeding round and says the hens have become part of the family. "They look so lovely and they do all have their own personalities. They get very impatient if they don't get fed on time and come pecking at the windows to complain.

"But it's nothing unusual around here. Everyone seems to own hens, it's the thing to do"

In the Flemish regions of Belgium, authorities typically apply a stringent approach to ensuring the well-being of the chickens.

1. to take on: to adopt something or someone (except if it's a new son or daughter then it is adopt.
2. to lead: to make someone go in a specific direction, physical or metaphorical.
3. to peck: the way birds eat on the ground.
4. stringent: something that limits
5. ensuring. To ensure: to make sure that something is in a specific way. In this example, they want to know for sure that the chickens are alive and happy!

"We have proper training courses in rearing and feeding the hens and we watch out for anyone who might not be suitable," said Christophe Deneve, who recently launched a chicken scheme in Mouscron.

The town, a stone's throw from the Belgian-French border, is distributing 50 pairs of chickens for free to families with sufficient space to keep the birds in their gardens.

But anyone who takes part has to agree not to eat the chickens for at least two years, or give them away.

1. suitable: appropriate, right for a person, thing or situation.
2. to launch: to start. literally to send something into the air or space.
3. a stone's throw from: talking about distances, a very short distance (as far as you can throw a stone). The same expression exists in Spanish.

I hope you enjoyed this story about a very clever way to recycle the food. Your opinions and ideas are welcome in the comments section!

Phonetics, dialectology and computers and how they could help language learning if they join forces.

For the last few weeks I was reading Peter Roach's English Phonetics and Phonology. It was one of the course-books we used in the English language phonetics course in my first year in College and I remember vividly how dense and blurry it felt them. I am still a bit rusty in technicalities so at times it feels too much for me, but since I have decided to focus on teaching pronunciation, re-reading it is becoming an enlightening experience.

Just last night I was finally finishing reading it and I came up with an idea, based on his comments in the last part of the book.

Let me start with the germ of it which is my own personal experience as an ESL teacher. With a very specific student in mind but lots of other cases throughout my career, I have come to the conclusion that one of the handicaps that many learners face in the field of pronunciation is their native language phonetic environment. Pretty evident, right?

Usually the idea of learning a foreign language more or less from scratch involves speaking what is agreed to be the correct, educated variety of the language. That would mean having as a goal RP for British English or General American for American English. Or alternatively what has come to be known as international English.

In any case, whatever the language and its variety, the common assumption is that the barrier that hinders or prevents success altogether is the difference between the established systems. This is based on the false assumption that the student's starting point is the standard. In countries like Britain or the US people are rather conscious about their pronunciation and their connotations. However in countries like Spain, having a non-standard Castilian Spanish has not been so far a barrier for achieving high-office or business success. Least of all on television. That comes together with the subjective perception that their speech is not so far away from that standard anyway. The fact that communication between dialectal pronunciations is mostly possible kills any feeling that a change might be needed.

I would like to propose the development of a new approach which I believe is now technologically possible. I said a new approach because I don't know of anyone doing it! As a "work-in-progress" label,  I coined "phonetic DNA analysis". Not only is the difference between dialects relevant but also the personal idiolect of the student. IN fact, I think we should factor in the following elements: the student's idiolect, his local variety, the standard in his own language, the standard in the language the student wishes to learnt and finally, the variety that the teacher may use.

In my experience this last part creates a lot of interference. Usually the debate is between the necessity of a native speaker as a role-model, over a non-native speaker with enough language proficiency. But we are forgoing the obvious, which is that not all native-speakers have equal voices. And striving for a standard accent in English when the teacher has let's say, standard scottish pronunciation can be at least confusing for the student.

This would be again paramount in the case of students wishing to learn or improve their English to use it in environments where educated pronunciation which doesn't sound foreign is like wearing an expensive suit or italian shoes.

This is again a point that has not yet seeped down in many ESL environments. Most teachers' I have met and almost every student I have come across were either unaware of this or were so concentrated on more pressing problems that advanced students (yes, they do exist!) are neglected in an aspect which they could profit from (and their companies and businesses too).

So I am proposing tailoring pronunciation teaching to the student's needs carrying a scientific, technical analysis of their "phonetic ecosystem". This would include also "pathological" aspects such as stammering, lisps and the like. But the most important aspect would be the analysis of the way they pronounce and which sounds and combinations of sounds they are able and unable to produce in their native language. In this way, frustration and progress blocks would be avoided.

And maybe many spaniards would stop saying that they can't learn to speak like a native.

THE HISTORY OF PARKS

This is the first of a series of posts dedicated to my students in an ongoing teaching project. I decided to start with this topic because one of my students is an expert in park design!

The text I will be using is taken from this website:

http://www.royalparks.org.uk/parks/hyde_park/history.cfm

After each paragraph I will comment on some aspects and vocabulary that I think will be of interest to my students. Comments are in blue. Although occasionally I link to some online dictionaries like wordreference, most of the definitions are based on my own knowledge. You are more than welcome to correct, discuss, challenge and generally improve them.

For my students: after reading the text, select those words which are useful for you (probably not all of them) and create your own examples. You can share them as comments here on the blog so all of you can benefit from them.

History of parks

Throughout the United Kingdom we have inherited a legacy of first class public parks and landscapes. Today, every town has a park that they can be proud of and many of these are also historically important. 

1. Throughout: over the entire extension of a place. All over.
2. Legacy: what has been left for the future. Inheritance: what has been formally inherited, valid because of a document. (That document is the Last Will and Testament).
3. Landscape: the particular shape and layout of a place, like a park or a similar unbuilt area. To landscape: to create a specific shape or layout for an unbuilt area.

The Victorians invented and shaped the concept of public parks and in turn influenced the creation of parks in North America and Europe. Recognising the need for places to relax, unwind, and to exercise, the top landscape designers of the day, like Joseph Paxton and John Claudius Loudon, were commissioned to lay out these new parks. During the mid to late nineteenth century, public park and landscape design was a hot topic and dominated professional journals and sections of newspapers just like gardening and interior design pages in today’s consumer magazines. 

1. Public parks: Parks are no necessarily public. Actually a park used to be a massive (very big) version of a garden. For example in Madrid, places like La Granja and Aranjuez, where you have a palace, and around it, what would have been called a "park" or "gardens" (in plural).
2. Unwind: relax after some stressful or tiring activity.
3. To lay out: to design the general structure of something. The structure is called layout. 
4. Hot topic: something that people debate about very frequently and often showing strong opinions.

The promoters and champions of the first public parks also saw them as a means to boost the local economy and civic pride by making towns and cities attractive places to work and live. These parks were conceived as special places where all sections of society could enter free of charge and mix freely. 

Many of the Victorian public parks were philanthropic gifts to the people of the local community by wealthy industrialists and landowners whilst others were created by public subscription. The best and most innovative park designs have proven to be remarkably robust, and throughout their history have continually adapted to meet new needs and are still cherished today by the people who use them. 

1. Wealthy: rich
2. Industrialist: owner of some industry
3. Landowner: someone who owns land (with or without buildings).
4. whilst: while, at the same time.
5. public suscription: ordinary people donated money until it was enough to buy the land and create the park.
6. remarkably: if something is remarkable, people will remark (comment) on it. 
7. to cherish: to love and value very positively.

One of the earliest public parks is the wonderful Derby Arboretum, which was a gift to the people of Derby by the textile manufacturer, Joseph Strutt. Derby was growing fast in the 1830s and Strutt set about creating an open space for the community and commissioned John Claudius Loudon, who was already a designer of repute, to create the new park. Loudon sculpted the ground to create sinuous shapes which were planted with an extensive collection of trees and on the 17th of September 1840, when Derby Arboretum was opened to the public, the whole town took the afternoon off work, all eager to enter the park for the first time. 

1. Commisioned: give an important job to do.
2. Designer of repute: a designer who has a good reputation. Can you guess what a house of ill-repute is?
3. Ground: the natural layer of the earth that we walk on. In a building we speak about floor (artificial, man-made). Ground is connected to grind, which is a process which we use with cereals, coffee and (in US English) with meat. The texture of the ground explains the word. What is ground coffee then? 

Another of the earliest public parks, Joseph Paxton’s Birkenhead Park, was part of a residential development scheme to create an attractive setting for new homes and to recoup the costs through the property sales. Flanked on all sides by handsome houses and wide tree-lined boulevards, Birkenhead Park was the inspiration for New York’s Central Park. Other public open spaces were shaped from former private landscaped gardens and many of today’s country parks are developed from such historic estates. 

1. Residential development scheme: a scheme is a system or plan for something. As a verb it has a negative meaning, it means "to plan something negative, usually against someone". Talking about buildings, a development is a compound of buildings or individual houses over a big piece of land, instead of just one house or just one building. It includes also work on infrastructure. 
2. Setting; in this context, situation, surrounding area.
3. to recoup: to recover.
4. flanked: surrounded on the flanks (sides).
5. Estate: an estate is a piece of land usually with some buildings in it. A person's or a family's estate is all that they possess (land, buildings, furniture, jewels, animals...). That is why nowadays the expression real estate is used to refer to buildings and land.

Since the nineteenth century public parks have been created by every subsequent generation with different influences and designs. The new Mile End Park, a £25million Millennium Funded project, is very much in this tradition. This exciting project united existing green spaces in London’s East End to create a magnificent large-scale park. However, due to demands on urban space - especially for commercial and residential development - the opportunities to create big new parks on the scale of previous developments are few and the Victorian parks will always be exceptional for their size. 

1. Subsequent: one after another.
2. Exciting: extremely interesting (no sexual meaning)
3. London's east end: area of London traditionally known for poverty, high density, pollution and lack of open spaces like parks.

Throughout the history of our public parks, local authorities have played an important role and have strived to provide high quality parks services. But, in the last 30 years, many parks have become neglected and suffered a worrying loss of original features, such as bandstands, fountains and boating lakes. Rather than being seen as places of pride, they increasingly became eyesores as problems such as maintenance and funding led to a gradual decline. Throughout this period many historic parks became endangered as they were perceived as being old-fashioned and not relevant to today’s society. As a result, they became targets for redevelopment and unsympathetic re-design. 

1. to strive: to make an effort 
2. to provide: to give something (e.g. a service)
3. to neglect: not to take care of something when necessary (e.g. maintenance services)
4. features: characteristics or functions

• note: "e.g."= example given (="for example"); "i.e."= "id est" (latin for "that is", introduces an explanation or clarification for something).

Through initiatives such as Heritage Lottery Funding and listing on English Heritage’s register parks and gardens of historic interest, historic designs are increasingly being re-evaluated and appreciated. The Heritage Lottery Fund has helped many local authorities restore their historic parks. This restoration has been the catalyst for the original Victorian designs to be dusted off, re-considered and brought back to their former glory. The genius of these designs enables each park to continue to evolve and adapt and to include new features for today’s park users. 

1. funding: to provide funds, i.e. money.
2. listing: to list, to add to a list. very common when talking about property, like buildings or pieces of land. In this case it refers to the list of protected monuments and landmarks. In other contexts it refers to including a house in a list of houses for sale (do you ever watch "love it or list it?")
3. increasingly: more and more each time
4. to dust off: to take off the dust, for example from furniture or other places where it has accumulated.
5. to bring back: to make something or someone return. 
6. to enable: to provide someone or something with the ability or capacity to do something. (note: check provide in previous paragraph)

Campaigns such as Britain in Bloom which is run by the Royal Horticultural Society encourages the best practice in public amenity horticulture and supports local authorities in showcasing their parks and gardens, and the skills of their parks staff. The National Flowerbed Competition at the RHS Flower Show at Tatton Park also highlights the ways in which bedding schemes can inspire and delight park visitors. 

1. In bloom: flowers are in bloom when they are about to open, usually in spring.
2. to run: usually it refers to the activity which is much faster than walking. Another very common meaning is "to manage an activity, a business or an organization". The person who does it is a manager (not a runner!).
3. amenity: amenity horticulture means growing vegetables just as a hobby, not professionally.
4. to showcase: to show something, usually a product at a public place, like a trade fair (e.g. IFEMA).
5. to highlight: to make something more visible than the rest of elements. 
6. bedding: arrangement of plants, usually flowers, in an limited area known as bed. 
7. to delight: to make people (or animals) extremely happy. e.g. the children were delighted when they saw the birthday cake.

Public parks sought to create playgrounds for the masses and to provide clean fresh air to those who were living in increasingly built-up environments. Today, the need for parks has come full circle and the value of these places for sport, recreation, art, culture, ecology and biodiversity is as just as important now in the twenty-first century as it was in the nineteenth. When building new parks and green spaces, we should be aspiring to continue this design heritage by creating parks which will stand the test of time and be equally loved by future generations. 

1. to seek: (seek, sought, sought; irregular verb) if you seek something you are looking for something or have the intention of finding it or reaching a goal or objective. 
2. playground: in schools, the free space where children play. Also to be found in parks. In this text it is used as a metaphor for public spaces where everyone (the masses) can have a good time.
3. built up: to build up means to completely cover an area with buildings, without leaving space for open spaces such as parks.
4. (to come) full circle: when a situation evolves in a way that it finishes at the same point where it started.
5. to stand the test of time: this expression means that something has the same importance, value or good reputation a long time after it was built, created or invented. If something doesn't stand the test of time it becomes obsolete.

Jenifer White, English Heritage

Martin Duffy, GreenSpace