​Speak English Courses And Evil UK Developers

​Some times you read about something that makes you angry, and you need to shout about it. So why not shout about it in English while we learn to speak English.

Before I jump into how angry I am, remember that we design this podcast lesson to help you listen to native English speakers using everyday English vocabulary. I pack it full of excellent English listening practice, it also just happens to cover a topic that made me angry!

They say all laws have unintended consequences but a UK law, designed to protect nesting birds, is one reason property developers in the UK are covering trees and bushes in plastic to stop birds from living in them.

The property developers say they need to clear old woods, hedges and trees to build and they promise to plant new trees. Sounds ok? NO! A tree might take 20 years to be useful for nesting birds, meanwhile all the wildlife that needed that tree suffer. They are cheating the law and actively destroying the UK bird population. In a recent report the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), said “UK wildlife is in serious trouble”

​Hi there, and welcome to this latest podcast from Adept English. Just reminding you that we have a speak English course for those of you who find the podcasts difficult. If you find it difficult to understand the podcasts and it’s a struggle each week, then we have a speak English course based around the 500 most common words in English. The course is the same as the podcasts – all your learning is done through listening – you don’t pick up a book or a pen at any stage. You just listen! But our speak English course, 

The Most Common 500 Words in English – will build your confidence and your ability to understand the most common 500 words in English. And this is really useful to you, because the most common 500 words in English make up most conversations! If you do this speak English course, then you come back to podcasts, you’re sure to find them much easier – and your English will have improved along the way. Have a look at our course page at adeptenglish.com. And the price of the course is kept low, so that as many people as possible who’re learning English have access to this course.

​OK, so choosing a topic today. I’m trying to stay away from Brexit as a news story at the moment. It’s so chaotic that whatever I record, it will be out of date by the time you hear it! And the other stories in the news – the shootings in New Zealand and the Cyclone in Africa are very sad stories. So how about something which is not quite so serious, but which gives you a flavour of what living in the UK is like?

If you look at a population density map – so a map of the world, which is coloured according to the number of people per square mile or square kilometre, then you’ll see that the South East of England, is one of the most densely populated areas in the world - so many people living in such a small area. Only parts of India and areas around the other big cities of the world are probably as densely populated as we are here. Dense, D-E-N-S-E is the adjective, density D-E-N-S-I-T-Y is the noun, densely, D-E-N-S-E-L-Y is the ADVERB – so densely populated means lots of people live there. You might talk about a ‘dense forest’ – it means there are a lot of trees in a small area.

​Anyway, on the subject of trees, if you live in a densely populated area, then things like trees become really important to you. Housing in the South East of England is so expensive, lots of people live in flats and apartments. They don’t have houses with gardens. So because greenery and nature is important to health and well-being (there’s a piece in the speak English course – the Most Common 500 Words Course about this!), having trees and parks is really important. It breaks up the landscape and it makes life pleasanter. And if you’ve ever been to the UK in the spring – it’s really beautiful. I think the UK looks at its prettiest in spring.

Anyhow, needless to say, there is often a battle going on between developers – companies whose business it is to build new buildings – and conservationists – those people who want to protect nature, protect the landscape, keep the trees, keep the grass, keep the rivers, protect the wildlife. So actually in the UK, there are quite a lot of laws which are there to protect wildlife and the natural environment. Great you might say. However, developers are getting cleverer and more devious at getting around these laws.

​If you’re developing a new site, you’re planning to put up a new building, there are laws about removing trees. Sometimes you can’t remove trees at all, and sometimes there are conditions. For example, if there are birds nesting in the trees on your site, you’re not allowed to remove these trees. It’s illegal to remove birds’ nests. We’ve all got to live together in a small space – and nature deserves its place too. So what do developers do? Well, they’ve taken up the practice of ‘netting’ trees. This means that they get a huge piece of plastic netting and they cover the whole tree in it. And this stops birds from getting into the tree and building their nests – so that when the developer asks permission to remove a tree, and they’re asked ‘Surely there are birds nesting in this tree?’ they’re able to reply ‘No. No birds. No nests’. And then they can legally take down the tree. Well, the only reason there are no birds nesting, is that the developer has stopped that from happening! This is not what was intended when the law was made.

​Why does this matter? Well, compared to 50 years ago, the UK has 40 million fewer birds, largely down to development and changes in farming. In typical UK fashion, a petition has been started. A petition, P-E-T-I-T-I-O-N is a list of peoples’ names, usually online – people who’ve signed up to say that they are against this practice of netting and they feel angry about it. The petition currently has 36,000 names and they would like the law to be changed. The house builders, the developers say that they do plant new trees, in fact 9 million new trees last year. But surely the big old trees that are being taken down are there immediately for birds to nest in, whereas a newly planted tree, well that might take 10 or 20 years to be of a suitable size!

​If you live in an area of the world, which has lots of land and few people, it may be difficult to appreciate why something like this is important. But if you live in a highly populated area, where everyone is on top of one another, then being able to see trees and grass and flowers, makes life a lot more pleasant and less stressful. And having nature and wild animals around, being able to hear the birds singing as you lie in bed in the morning is important. And there won’t be birds singing in the morning, if we’ve build on every piece of land and removed all the trees. There’s a saying we have ‘Concrete Jungle’. Mmm don’t fancy living there. Let’s hope someone sees sense before that happens.

​Anyway. don’t forget to have a look at our website for that speak English course and please email us with feedback, suggestions for podcast topics and any other feedback. We love feedback! Our email address is: support @ adeptenglish.com.

Enough for now. Have a lovely day. Speak to you again soon. Goodbye.

​We started Adept English because over the many (many!) years of learning to speak new languages we discovered a huge gap in traditional English teaching. Traditional English learning is “laser” focused on reading and writing and is slightly better at speaking, but hardly spends any time on listening.

And yet we know that when you learn your first language, the one your parents or carers taught you, was nearly all you, listening to them speaking slowly and carefully, explaining and repeating until your brain stored away the words.

You would speak, they would correct, you would listen and improve, repeat the words, over and over many times. No translation, no thinking about it, automatic recall of words when you need them.

We want to fill in the missing listening English content we know you need to learn to speak English. We want you to learn just like you did with your first language, and our courses can really help you do this. So why not try an Adept English course right now?