Speak for Yourself

This Watch and Listen section of Speak for Yourself #5 presents three videos - a short film, a news report and a song. These three authentic audio materials all explore various aspects of travel and the "road", both in a concrete and metaphorical sense. Watch and listen and then look at the Language Info and Comprehension sections presented below.

1.  "Open Road" - a short film (Time: 12.51 - Indian English accent)

This short independent film by Indian film maker and director Sathish Saakar tells the story of the relationship between man and nature.

The film makes no secret of taking inspiration from the books, both later made into very successful films, of The Way of a Peaceful Warrior by Dan Millman and Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer which both explore how the pace of modern society makes us reflect on our own lives and habits and our relationship (or lack of relationship) with the natural world around us.

This film has beautiful photography and it is great practice to listen to the Indian English accent of the main character as he narrates his feelings regarding his new-found freedom. 

LANGUAGE INFO: 

Global English presents a wide variety of sounds, accents and vocabulary. One of the most most important and influential English variants is Indian English which is spoken by millions of people as a second and, sometimes, third language. Indian English has particular characteristics from a phonetic point of view. For example, consonants are generally quite sharp and pronounced and some vowel sounds and individual sounds are very different. Listen to the way the main character in the film pronounces "delicate" as ˈdɛlɪkeɪt (0.44), "think" as "ˈtɪŋk" (5.06) or "wind" as "vɪnd " (5.36).

2.  "Can Plastic Roads Help Save the Planet?" (Time: 3.48 - Standard British English)

This short video from BBC News presents Engineer Toby Maccartney and his start-up business MacRebur which has developed a new material to make roads from waste plastic.

Watch the video and see how MacRebur have developed the waste plastic into a useful product which may solve some of the biggest problems facing the environment today. When you have watched the video, try to answer to comprehension question below.

COMPREHENSION: 

When you have watched the video once or twice, try to answer the following comprehension questions:

1. What does Toby think are two world problems?

2. Who gave Toby the inspiration for his business?

3. What does he mean by “pothole free”?

4. How did he see people fixing holes in roads in India?

5. Where did Toby first test the material?

6. What are roads normally made of?

7. What happens to 70% of waste plastic today?

8. What has recently happened in Cumbria, England?

3.  "I've Been Everywhere" (Time: 3.17)

 Finally, Watch and Listen presents the Johnny Cash classic I've Been Everywhere. This song, originally written by Australian country singer Geoff Mack in 1959, is a briliantly vibrant song and lists places where the singer has been in his long life experience. This song also provides a great example of the Present Perfect tense used to describe life experiences.

In the American version by Johnny Cash, he lists all of the places he has been to around the United States and not only! Listen to the song at this link and try to see how many of them you recognise!