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This page has the online practice materials for:
LearnEnglish Elementary Podcast Magazine No. 06
Section 4 -Our Person in...
You can listen online or download the podcast at Podcast 06 Home
You can also get print versions of the practice materials below in our Podcast 06 Support Pack (pdf file - 389 KB)
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This section begins when the counter on your audio player is on (approximately) 10mins.30secs
Section 4 is based on 'Our Person in...'. It helps you to listen to other people speaking for a little longer than they speak in a conversation, like a radio or television news report. When people prepare written reports, they are often a little more formal, and use more complex words and structures.
Suggestion: The notes here are to help you to think of things to say, and the best order to say them. Make notes and then join these together to make a paragraph. Why not send it to us?*
You listened to Rebecca talking about Kazakhstan. She talks about the geography of the country and its capital city. She also talks about a traditional occupation – the berkutchy.
Can you say something about the geography of your country? And its capital city? Is there a traditional occupation that you can talk about?
Think about these questions:
Where is your country? Which countries does it have borders with?
How big is it?
What’s the population?
Does it have mountains? Rivers? Lakes? Deserts? Where are they?
Does it produce oil? Valuable metals? Diamonds? Anything else?
What’s the capital city called? Where is it? How old is it?
Is there an occupation that is traditional in your country? What’s it called? What do the people do?
Now put your ideas together to write a paragraph about the place. Go to the bottom of the page to do this.
Transcript
Our Woman in Kazakhstan
Rebecca: On a cold winter’s morning, with thick snow on the ground around us, I watched the magnificent golden eagle fly high into the sky above us before returning to the arm of the berkutchy and sit on his thick leather glove.
I had travelled for over 6 hours on difficult roads to meet this man – the name berkutchy means ‘the eagle king’. The journey gave me an idea of just how big – and how empty – Kazakhstan is. It is the ninth biggest country in the world, bigger than all of western Europe, yet it has a population of only fifteen million so most of the country is almost empty. And this empty countryside has everything; a major mountain range on the border with China, great lakes and rivers, deserts and plains. Most importantly for Kazahstan, it also has oil – perhaps twenty per cent of the world’s supply – and many valuable metals can be found here.
Over ten years ago, Kazakhstan moved its capital city. The new capital, Astana, is full of new buildings designed by famous international architects – a thoroughly modern city. Yet it is out here on the empty plains watching the golden eagle fly that you get a true feeling of this little known country.
The oil and valuable metals will bring changes to Kazakhstan in the years to come but you feel – and hope – that the berkutchy will continue to fly his eagles in this wonderful, lonely space.
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