The Environment: Extreme Weather 2

The Environment: Extreme Weather 2

Jack: Hello my name’s Jack 

Rowan: My name’s Rowan

Rich: and I’m Rich and welcome to this week’s Premier Skills English podcast.

Jack: In the Premier Skills English podcast, we talk about football and help you with your English. 

Rowan: Don’t forget you can find the transcript for all our podcasts on the Premier Skills English website.

Rich: In this week’s podcast, Jack’s football match is cancelled because of bad weather.

Jack: We’ll look at some language connected to rain and extreme weather.

Rowan: And we’ll also talk about why we’re seeing more extreme weather events around the world and some words and phrases connected to this.

Rich: This week’s podcast comes in two parts: extreme weather one and two. In each part, we have a task for you to do which will give you a chance to talk about what we have discussed and the language which we will introduce.

Jack: On the Premier Skills English website, you’ll be able to find all these podcasts and the transcripts and extra activities that go with them. 

Rowan: So if you are listening to us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or any other podcast platform,  check out our website!

Rich: And don’t forget to listen to the end of the podcast because we have a new football phrase for you to guess!

SOCIAL

Jack: Before we start this week’s roleplay we’d just like to thank everyone for all their comments on the Premier Skills English website. It’s great to know that you’re enjoying the podcasts and all of the free learning materials we have on the site.

Rich: We’d like to give a shout-out to some of our listeners and tell everyone what they’ve been saying.

Rowan: The first person we have to mention is HSN from Turkey. HSN is a long time listener and he’s been going back and listening to all of our podcasts and doing all the tasks we have for you after each podcast. Thanks for all your comments HSN and well done!

Jack: I’d like to say hi to Richard J from Ecuador who is another listener we have had on the website for a while. Richard told us how one of our Premier Vocabulary podcasts reminded him of how he used to use sticks and stones and backpacks to create goals. I’m delighted our podcast brought back some happy memories.

Rich: Finally I’d like to say thanks to Emmanuel Kwarteng from Ghana, Tiago Delazari from Brazil, HSN and MoBeckham from Turkey, and Ahmed Alariby from Libya. I’d like to say thanks for your sets of instructions on how to do something connected to technology.

Rowan: Ah, yes. This was last week’s task in our podcast about digital literacy. That advice about connecting my phone to my TV was very useful!

Jack: OK, I think it’s time to reveal last week’s football phrase and see who got the right answer.

Last Week’s football Phrase

Rich: OK, our football phrase. If you’ve not listened to the podcast before, every week we set our listeners a challenge. We explain a football phrase or word and you have to guess what it is.

Rowan: When you know the answer, go to the podcast page on the Premier Skills English website and write the word or phrase in the comments. If you’re correct we’ll announce your name on next week’s podcast.

Jack: Thanks for all your answers and guesses last week. The first listener with the correct answer was Gerardo94 from Cuba. Well done Gerardo!

Rowan: Congratulations also go to HSN and MoBeckham from Turkey, Gitaandari from Indonesia, Emmanuel from France, Marco Zapien and Vic from Mexico, Emmanuel Kwarteng from Ghana, Robert Tavares from Brazil, Liubomyr from Ukraine and Tasher Koshen from Somalia.

Rich: Later on, at the end of the podcast, we’ll have this week’s football phrase for you but for now here’s the answer to last week’s challenge.

Jack: Last week’s football phrase was record signing. This phrase is used when a club pays more money for a player transfer than they ever have before. Jack Grealish is Manchester City’s record signing and Romelu Lukaku is Chelsea’s record signing.

Rowan: Who is your team’s record signing?

Introduction to Roleplay

Jack: As we said earlier, in this week’s roleplay we’re talking about extreme weather and the environment.

Rich: Jack’s football match was cancelled because of the rain and we went to pick him up - Jack is soaking wet so we drive him home.

Rowan: After the roleplay, we’ll look at some language connected to climate change. While you listen we want you to answer a question.

Rich: The question is: Who knows most about climate change?

Roleplay

Jack: But you took so long? I’m absolutely drenched.

Rowan: It wasn’t our fault. The river burst its banks and we had to make a detour. 

Rich: It was just a bit of rain. It’ll do you good. You’re home now.

Jack: Yeah, I’ll put the kettle on. Have a seat, I’ll be back in a tic. I just need to get out of these wet things.

…

Rich: All this rain and the floods. They’re much more common than they used to be, you know. They are happening every year. 

Rowan: I wouldn’t want to live down near the river that’s for sure. But it’s everywhere at the moment, isn’t it? Extreme weather.

Jack: Hey guys … climate change is it? Do you not just think this extreme weather is just being reported more in the media? I mean, I remember it flooding around here when I was a kid.

Rowan: But it’s happening much more often, Jack. I can remember maybe the river flooding twice as a kid. It happens every year now - maybe more than once a year.

Rich: The climate is changing and I think we’re seeing it happen right before our eyes. Everything is more extreme and it’s not just flooding. What about heatwaves! They’re getting longer and hotter. Did you know that Northern Ireland broke its temperature record three times in the same week this summer?

Jack: I did read something about that, yes but couldn’t this just be natural? The world gets hotter and colder all the time.

Rowan: You are joking, aren’t you? Actually, if we’re talking about carbon dioxide, before the industrial revolution the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was only 278 parts per million and now it’s 417.

Jack: Yeah, OK, but … is that us?

Rich: Of course it is. It’s our carbon emissions. Industry, cars, international travel, transporting products and food all around the world … all kinds of things.

Rowan: I really thought you’d know about all this stuff, Jack. What about temperatures? They’ve gone up in the Arctic faster than anywhere on the planet. Sea levels are rising because the ice caps are melting at their fastest rate in 200 years and that's going to cause flooding all over the world.

Jack: But how about the river in town flooding? That’s not caused by polar ice caps melting, is it?

Rich: No, but scientists are telling us that warm air holds more moisture which means that much more rain can fall in shorter amounts of time causing floods. In the future, there will be more extreme rainfall - more floods unless we do something about it.

Rowan: And in other parts of the world the opposite is happening. There are droughts and very little rainfall and most studies on drought show it’s due, in some part, to human influence.

Rich: Here we’ve had floods but whenever you look at the news there’s something going on. Tornados and tropical storms or heatwaves and droughts. This is not a coincidence. 

Jack: But can we really do anything about it? Maybe if I was chief executive of an oil company but …

Rowan: We can all do something, Jack. I’m sure of it.

Language Focus

Rich: Before the roleplay, we asked you a question. The question was: Who knows most about climate change?

Jack: Well, I’d say it is Rich or Rowan. In the roleplay, they were both knowledgeable and aware of the damage that we are doing to our environment.

Rowan: Jack seemed to know less but by the end of the roleplay I think we started to convince him that we all need to take some kind of action.

Rich: We now want to focus on some of the language we used in the roleplay connected to climate change and the environment.

Jack: We spoke a lot about extreme weather. Let’s start with some weather words we used in the podcast. Let’s do a very quick quiz. See if you can say the weather word before Rowan does.

Rich: A long period of time with no rain:

Rowan: … Drought.

Jack: A large amount of water covering land that is normally dry:

Rowan: … Flood.

Rich: A period of unusually hot weather:

Rowan: … Heatwave.

Jack: A violent storm with high winds that sounds a bit like a Tottenham striker.

Rowan … Harry Kane … I mean hurricane.

Rich: Good work. Did you get the answers before Rowan?

Jack: I did.

Rich: I wasn’t talking to you. Let’s look at some more language. We’re going to look at four longer phrases and break them down a little.

Rowan: The first sentence is: Northern Ireland broke its temperature record.

Jack: Here we were talking about the recent heatwave in Northern Ireland. Temperature is the word we use to measure how hot or cold something is. The temperature reached 31.4C. The hottest it’s ever been.

Rich: It broke the record. To break a record means to be better or faster or higher than ever before. In Northern Ireland it had never been this temperature before. Northern Ireland broke its temperature record.

Rowan: The second sentence is: The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was only 278 parts per million and now it’s 417.

Jack: Carbon dioxide is the gas that we breathe out. We breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide.

Rich: Carbon dioxide is also produced when we burn materials like coal, oil and gas. We were talking about how there is too much of it in our atmosphere. 

Rowan: Our atmosphere is the mixture of gases that surround our planet.

Jack: We were saying that there is a greater concentration of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere now than in the past.

Rich: Concentration is a word that needs explaining here. Concentration describes the amount of something in a liquid or gas.

Rowan: We might say there is a high concentration of pollution in our cities for example.

Jack: Here’s the sentence again. Is it easier to understand now? 

Rich: The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was only 278 parts per million and now it’s 417.

Rowan: The third sentence is: the ice caps are melting.

Jack: We were talking about how sea levels are rising and this will cause flooding in many parts of the world.

Rich: One of the main causes of this is that the ice caps are melting. Ice caps are the areas of ice that permanently cover the earth. They are found at the North and South poles.

Jack: The ice caps are melting. To melt means to become liquid because of an increase in temperature. Ice melts when it gets hotter. The ice caps are melting.

Rowan: The last sentence I want to look at is: warm air holds more moisture.

Rich:  We used this sentence in the roleplay when we were explaining why hotter temperatures can mean more rain.

Jack: There are two words I want to look at here: moisture and hold.

Rowan: Moisture is very small drops of water in the air. Usually, you can’t see it until it forms together in clouds for example.

Rich: To hold something can mean to contain. A bottle might hold five litres of water. Warm air holds more moisture than cold air.

Jack: OK, I think that is enough language for now. You can look at this vocabulary and more in more detail on the Premier Skills English website. You’ll also find free activities,  m the transcript and a quiz to help you understand.

Task

Rowan: OK, it’s time for your task. In the roleplay you just heard, we spoke about how extreme weather is becoming more frequent and how it is changing our climate.

Jack: Your task is to tell us how you think the climate is changing where you live.

Rich: Is extreme weather becoming more common where you live? Are there more floods, droughts or hurricanes than in the past?

Rowan: Why do you think it is happening? What should we do about it?

Rich: Write all your answers in the comments section on the Premier Skills English website and try to use some of the vocabulary we introduced in this podcast.

Football Phrase

Rich: OK, it’s time for our football phrase. If you’ve not listened to the podcast before, every week we set our listeners a challenge. We explain a football phrase or word and you have to guess what it is.

Rowan: You will hear this football phrase in every podcast we release this week.

Jack: When you know the answer, go to the podcast page on the Premier Skills English website or the review section on Apple Podcasts and write the word or phrase in the comments. If you’re correct we’ll announce your name on next week’s podcast.

Rich: So what is this week’s football phrase, Rowan?

Rowan: This week’s football phrase is ******* ****. This phrase is not exactly a football phrase but it is one that you will see a lot this week if you read about Cristiano Ronaldo and his return to Manchester United. This phrase is used as a greeting to tell someone that you are happy that they have returned. I saw lots of fan-made signs saying ******* **** Cristiano at their match last weekend.

Jack: If you have a football phrase that you would like us to use in the podcast, just get in touch and let us know.

Rich: Right, that’s all we have time for but we will be back soon with the next part of this Premier Skills English podcast.

Rowan: Before we finish we just wanted to say that we hope you found this lesson useful and we hope all of you stay fit and healthy.

Jack: Bye for now and enjoy your football.