Creativity is Great - Part 1

http://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/britain-great/creativity-great-part-1
Transcript

Britain is a creative nation ... Art, music, gaming and film-making – you’ll find it all here.

But why is it that Great Britain has more creative people, per head of population, than anywhere else in the world?

Let’s find out …

This is the London Film Museum. Here you’ll find original costumes and props from some of the world’s greatest films.

This museum has it all. Iconic monsters, robots, fantasy and so much more...

Ahhh - one of my boyhood heroes, Batman.

Jonathan Sands founded and created the museum, and over half of the collection is from his own private archive.

.....

Richard: Jonathan, I'm a huge fan of movies so I'm very excited to be here. What's the idea behind the London Film Museum?

Jonathan: The Film Museum primarily promotes the British film industry through a number of mediums, including original artefacts and costumes and sets. A lot of our friends, who we've accumulated over the years, have donated material to the museum and it is the only film museum like it in the UK.

Richard: And how did it come about?

Jonathan: Well, it came about because originally we ourselves are from the film industry. We owned a prop company, a prop being an artefact or an item that is used on the film, many of which you'll see here.

Richard: Why do you think it is that Britain leads the world when it comes to film-making?

Jonathan: I think primarily for two reasons. One, we have fantastic facilities, like the Pinewoods, Sheppertons and soon to be the Leavesdens, and we also have the best and the most creative talent, whether it's in front of camera or behind the camera, really.

.....

From creativity on the small screen to creativity on the big stage … the UK has a thriving theatrical tradition. London’s West End is the largest theatrical district in the world.

And it’s not only happening in London. Great Britain hosts one of the world’s largest cultural events – this is the Edinburgh Festival. The Festival takes place each year in August and attracts acts and visitors from around the world.

http://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/britain-great-episodes/creativity-great

English is Great - Part 2

http://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/britain-great/english-great-part-2

Transcript

I’ve come here to the British Council who work hard to build cultural relations between Britain and the rest of the world, and the English language is a big part of that. Let’s find out more.

The British Council provides resources for people learning English, and also teachers of English. Martin Peacock is the Director of Global English Product Development.

Richard: Martin, tell me about English as a global language.

Martin: OK, well many people talk about English as being a global language. And the reasons for that are the widespread use of English. It’s used in education, it’s used in science and technology and, importantly, English is also used in business.

Richard: Are there many global languages?

Martin: Well, no, not really. I mean there’s ‘the’ global language which is English in the sense that English is used in these many different contexts; there’s only one. There are other languages which are used very widely and spoken by many people in many different places: Cantonese, for example, a variant of Chinese, is spoken in many different places so it’s global in a geographic sense and it can be global in the numbers, but in terms of the use in different areas of education, science, research, English is the only global language.

Richard: Are there different types of English?

Martin: Well, yes, there are lots of different types. There's different accents of English. I come from the north of England, where I have a particular accent. So within England itself, within the UK, there are many variations in English pronunciation and that extends globally, so you see English in America and used in Australia, which is different in accent and also in usage as well.

Richard: And what about the impact of technology on a language?

Martin: In the past, new words were coined by people - it might have been in a speech or a newspaper article or in a book - they were written down and then other people adapted them and used them, and that could be quite a slow process and new words might come into a language over a long period: 10, 20 years. So technology allows languages to evolve much more quickly.

Richard: So technology can change the language, but in what way does it help people to learn the language?

Martin: Well, it helps in many ways. In the past, students in locations in other countries didn’t have access to much genuine English; they may have a book or an odd newspaper, but what the Internet allows them is to read and often to read and translate languages like English on a massive scale.

.....

People learn English for different reasons and knowledge of the language is often important in fields like medicine, business and computing. English is becoming more and more important in order to communicate in the international world.

English opens doors to employment, education and mobility. And it helps teachers and learners engage across the globe. One of the best ways to learn English is to study in Britain. But what is it actually like to learn English here?

Clare: My name is Clare, I am 26 and I come from Italy. My course at the North West Academy was very good. I studied grammar, conversation and also words linked with my work placement. The teacher was very good. She has always been available for problems during the lessons and outside the lessons.

.....

Over 600,000 learners a year come to Britain to help achieve their ambition, to experience modern UK life.

Maximiliano: My name is Maximiliano. I’m 23 years old and I’m from Venezuela. Everyone here is very friendly. When you tell them that you’re a foreigner, everyone is very welcoming, like everyone tries to speak with you, everyone, like, tries to just stay close to you and ask you about your experience, how your life is in your own country. And that actually helps you a lot, like, when you’re not a native speaker.

Alexander: My name is Alexander. My surname Igurov. I’m 24 years old. I’m come to the UK from Russia, from Moscow. I’m studying here business English. Sometimes we have general lessons about social English. I’m engineer in the building company. I will use English in my job. I think it will help me to improve my career.

Anthony: My name’s Anthony, and I just turned 24 last February and I’m from Malaysia. The people here are very nice. The place is amazing and learning here is a really different experience, so just come over and check it out.

Well, they seem to be enjoying learning English. And what I’ve learned is, is that the English language is more exciting than I’d first realised. And maybe, just maybe, in the future, I won’t have to worry quite as much about my grammar and spelling.

English is Great - Part 1

http://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/britain-great/english-great-part-1

Transcript

The English language. It’s the official language of 54 different countries and is spoken by over a billion and a half people worldwide. Adding together native speakers, people who speak English as a second language or an additional language and people who are learning English, and it’s the most commonly spoken language across the globe. So what makes English so great? And why do people want to learn English?

This is the British Library in London. It’s the national library of Great Britain and there are over a hundred and fifty million items here from every age of the written word. Let’s go inside.

.....

The Library’s collection has developed over two hundred and fifty years and it keeps on growing. There are books, magazines and manuscripts, maps, music and so much more. Every year, 3 million new items are added, so an extra 12 kilometres of shelves have to be put up.

Roger Walshe is the Head of Learning.

Richard: Roger, why is the British Library a good place to come to find out about the English language?

Roger: Well, there’s lots of reasons. We’ve a hundred and fifty million items from all over the world, so we capture a snapshot of what the language is like. But I think perhaps more importantly, we have documents here that go right back a thousand years to the beginning of the language. And so what you can see is how this changed and evolved over time. And when you see it changing like that you get a feel for where it might be going in the future.

Richard: So how has English changed over time?

Roger: Oh, it’s changed hugely. If you look back to old English - like a thousand years, it’s almost like German. Very, very difficult to read, only a few people can do so. Then you look up to, say, Shakespeare's period: early modern English. Printing has come in and that begins to standardise the language.

Richard: So what impact has technology had on the English language?

Roger: Well, it has two big impacts: one is that lots of new technical words come into the language. We see this in the Industrial Revolution over a hundred years ago. But the other, bigger, influence is that it enables people all over the world speaking English to communicate with each other, underneath YouTube clips or in chat rooms, and they’re influencing each other's English.

Richard: That’s great, Roger. Is there something you can show me?

Roger: Absolutely. We’ve got some great stuff. If you’d just like to follow me...

Richard: So, Roger, what’s this?

Roger: Well, this is one of the treasures in the British Library’s collections. English goes back about a thousand years to Old English. This is Middle English, about five hundred years ago, and it’s the first book ever printed in the English language.

Richard: So who actually printed this?

Roger: This was printed by William Caxton. Very famous. He went on to print Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, the first bestseller in the English language. And one of the difficulties you have as an early printer is that there’s no standard language. There’s no dictionary, there’s no grammars, there’s no guides to usage really, so he often had to make up how to spell words himself.

Richard: And is the spelling consistent throughout the book?

Roger: Well, no, it’s not, even on this page here. This is a kind of a foreword - an introduction to the work. He says he translates it from the French. He has here ‘to French‘: f - r - e - n - s - s - h - e.

Richard: Right.

Roger: That’s how he spells French. But if you go down to the centre of the page
here, you’ve got ‘French’ again, and it’s got one ‘s’ in it: f - r - e - n - s - h - e.

Richard: Incredible... And this looks a lot more modern here, what’s this over here?

Roger: This is a very different work. It’s something we chose. It’s from 1867, so a hundred and thirty years ago and we’re all familiar with how people use mobile phones now to text each other - SMS. And they shorten words and they use letters to get their message across. This is a poem written in the nineteenth century in which somebody has done exactly that; he says 'I wrote to you before' - he uses a number 2, letter ‘B’, the number 4.

Richard: That’s amazing. So what does this tell us about the English language?

Roger: Well, it tells us it’s very versatile. It tells us that people play with it and sometimes the changes they make stay. Some of those changes were made 500 years ago, some of them were made 100 years ago. But some of the changes we make now in internet chatrooms and the way we talk to each other and the way people around the world use English will become the future of English as well.

I’d never really thought about English changing, but of course new words are being added all the time and not all types of English are the same.

http://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/britain-great-episodes/english-great

Knowledge is Great - Part 2

http://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/britain-great/knowledge-great-part-2 

Transcript

This is the Science Museum in London. It has millions of visitors every year and that's because there are some pretty special things here. Let’s go and explore.

The Science Museum is home to over 230,000 objects, although only a fraction can be on display at any one time.

Now that’s what I call an engine.

The museum is dedicated to learning and knowledge. For over a hundred years, it's been engaging people with science. The exhibitions here range from technology to space… The only issue is where to start; this place is huge…

Roger Highfield is a spokesperson for the Science Museum.

Richard: Roger, tell me about the Science Museum.

Roger: Well, this is the science museum. In fact, if you're going anywhere in the UK and you want to find out about science or technology, this is the place to come. Overall, we've got the biggest selection of iconic scientific and technological objects on the planet. We get something like 3 million visitors every year, just enjoying the kind of amazing insights we give them into, you know, the objects and the ideas that are still changing our world.

Richard: And this exhibition is incredible. Tell me more.

Roger: This is Making the Modern World and, if you like, this is the greatest hits of science and technology. We've got a V2 rocket over there, we've got Watson and Crick's model of DNA, we've got the engine that powered the spitfire, Model T Fords, Stephenson's Rocket, you know these are – if you want to go to one place on the planet and figure out what made the modern world, this is where you've got to come.

Richard: What makes Britain so great in the search for knowledge?

Roger: Well, we've got some of the great scientific pioneers, an amazing history. Sir Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Paul Dirac, who gave the world antimatter, and we've also got amazing scientists still at work today. We've got the world's best-known scientist, Stephen Hawking, and just a few hundred yards away from where we are, we've got Sir John Pendry, who gave the world invisibility cloaks. Now, how cool is that?

Richard: And he's stood here right now, listening to us. Shall we keep looking?

…..

Well, that was fun! What a great way to learn about science!

This is the Wellcome Collection in London. All the items here are to do with medicine, health and the search to discover more. It’s the place to go for those who are hungry for knowledge.

This is the medicine man gallery. Some of it is really horrible.

Many of these medical objects were collected by Sir Henry Wellcome, a Victorian collector and businessman.

That’s Napoleon’s toothbrush.

Sir Mark Walport is the chief executive of the Wellcome Trust.

Richard: Sir Mark… Tell us about the Collection.

Mark: Henry Wellcome was an avid collector of objects that linked together human health and well-being and history and then the Wellcome Trust brought his collection up to date in the Medicine Now gallery, which looks at medicine, art and science in a contemporary setting.

Richard: And there's plenty of art here as well.

Mark: Absolutely. Well, here's an example. This is quite an amusing piece of art. This is a take on a skeleton where the pelvis has been swapped with the skull, and it looks slightly like a character from Star Wars.

Richard: He wants to see a doctor about that, doesn't he?

Mark: Absolutely.

Richard: So why do you think the search for knowledge is so important in Great Britain?

Mark: Knowledge is the foundation for human development, for economic development. If you look around the world, if you look around, you see the impact of science everywhere you look and the Wellcome Trust is about funding medical research and of course that advances human health throughout the world, so there's nothing really more important than knowledge.

Knowledge is Great - Part 1

http://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/britain-great/knowledge-great-part-1

Transcript

The search for knowledge is central to British life. In fact, four of the world’s top ten universities can be found here. Every year, huge amounts are invested in science and research in this country… so why is knowledge so important to Great Britain?

Oxford has been a place of learning for hundreds of years and more world leaders have been educated here than any other university. This is the Old Schools Quad, which is part of the famous Bodleian Library, at the heart of this historic establishment.

A quad or quadrangle is a courtyard with buildings on all sides. Oxford University is made up of thirty-eight different colleges. There are twenty thousand students studying here, from nearly a hundred and fifty countries.

Dr Sally Mapstone is Pro-Vice-Chancellor of Education.

Richard: Sally. Tell me about Oxford University.

Sally: Oxford University is one of the world's leading universities. It's highly international, it's very modern and it has a great sense of history.

Richard: And how old is it?

Sally: The university has been here for nine hundred years. Many of the colleges are almost as old as that too, though some of them were established in the twentieth century.

Richard: You've had a lot of famous names here over the years.

Sally: Yes, we've had a lot of famous people at Oxford, from prime ministers, such as Margaret Thatcher, Harold Wilson, David Cameron, US presidents, such as Bill Clinton, writers, such as Oscar Wilde, and even film stars, such as Hugh Grant.

Richard: So why is it, do you think, that the search for knowledge and education is so important to Great Britain?

Sally: Great Britain and universities like Oxford have always had a rich interest in critical enquiry. By that I mean the search for knowledge, the investigation of truth, the asking of questions. Whether it's to do with drama, to do with development, or even to do with disease, we're always asking the big questions to try and change things for the better.

There are universities all across the UK but they're not the only places where you can gain knowledge.

http://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/britain-great-episodes/knowledge-great