Random act of kindness

Schoolchildren took part in an experiment to see what effects being kind would have in the classroom

How do you feel when someone does something nice for you, like sharing their food or giving you a cuddle? Does it feel better if you're the person performing the kind act?

In this week's 6 Minute English, Jen and Callum talk about an experiment in America which asked children to carry out three random acts of kindness every week to see what effect it would have on their lives.

This week's question:

What is the most commonly broken New Year's resolution?

a) stopping smoking

b) losing weight and getting fit

c) travelling

Listen out for the answer at the end of the programme.

Listen

Random acts of kindness

End of Section

Vocabulary

SHOW ALL | HIDE ALL

resolution

decision to change habits

random

unplanned and unpredictable

stressed

worried and under pressure

hug

cuddle

boosted

improved

dynamics

the way a group of people feel and act

popular

liked by many people

altruistic

something done for no personal gain

source here

Etiquette for boys

Is this the correct way to set a table?

Learning how to behave in polite society: a new course for boys at an English school is proving popular.

Callum and Jennifer learn more about it in this week's programme.

This week's question:

According to the rules of etiquette, at a formal meal where there are three sets of cutlery which should you use first? The knife and fork furthest from your plate, the set closest to your plate or the set in the middle?

Listen out for the answer at the end of the programme.

Listen

Etiquette for boys

End of Section

Vocabulary

SHOW ALL | HIDE ALL

a finishing school

a place where young women are taught how to behave in high society

etiquette

the accepted rules for behaviour in particular situations

to come about

to happen, to begin

a ball

a formal party often held to celebrate a special event

to want a piece of something

to want to be involved with or take part in something

to go down well

to be successful and popular

to hold your head up high

to be confident and proud

transcript:

Callum: Hello  and welcome to 6 Minute English. I’m Callum and with me today is 

Jennifer. Hello Jennifer.

Jennifer: Hello Callum.

Callum: Jennifer, did you go to a finishing school?

Jennifer: You mean one of those schools where young ladies learn how to behave in high society?

Callum: Yes, did you go to one?

Jennifer: What do you think?

Callum: Well, your manners and behaviour are so impeccable that I would not be surprised if you had.

Jennifer: Well,  I don’t know about finishing school, but it sounds like you’ve graduated from charm school!

Callum: In days gone by, social etiquette, or the way to behave in polite society, was something that well-to-do young ladies were tutored in. Today’s programme is all about a course being run now for teenage boys in an English school. Before we learn more about this, here’s today’s question. A question about etiquette. In a fancy restaurant, either side of your place setting there are different knives and forks for the different courses of your meal. Maybe there are three different forks on the left and three knives on the right. The question is, which should you use first? The knife and fork furthest from your plate, the set closest to your plate or the set in the middle? Jennifer, what do you think?

Jennifer: Well, I think I know the answer to this one. I think it’s outside-in. So I think the set furthest from your plate is the one you use first.

Callum: OK. We’ll find out if you’re right at the end of the programme. Fowey School in England has begun offering etiquette lessons to teenage boys. So whose idea was this? Here’s their Headmaster, John Parry, talking to our colleagues from BBC Radio.

Headmaster of Fowey School,  John Parry:

The way it came about was that a group of girls actually wanted a course to prepare them for the Year 11 Leavers’ Ball which is, which is something which most schools do these days. 

They’re pretty sophisticated events, and the boys said, actually you know what, we want a piece of that as well.

Callum: Jennifer, whose idea was it?

Jennifer: It was the boys’ idea. John Parry said it ‘came about’ because, after the girls had asked for a course to prepare them for a special social event, the boys wanted one too. Or as he put it, the boys said, “We want a piece of that as well”. Which simply means, they wanted to be included as well.

Callum: And what special event are they all preparing for?

Jennifer: The Year 11 Leavers’ Ball.  A ‘ball’ is big formal party and a leavers’ ball is held at the end of the school year, when students are leaving the school. John describes them as being ‘sophisticated events’.

Callum: Have you ever been to one of these?

Jennifer: Yes actually. When I left school we were one of the first years to have a leavers’ ball and it was a very glamorous event and quite sophisticated too.

Callum: Let’s listen to John Parry again.

Headmaster of Fowey School,  John Parry:

The way it came about was that a group of girls actually wanted a course to prepare them for the Year 11 Leavers’ Ball which is, which is something which most schools do these days.

They’re pretty sophisticated events, and the boys said, actually you know what, we want a piece of that as well.

Callum: Who is helping with the etiquette lessons? What are the kinds of things they are learning, and how do the boys feel about it?  Here’s John Parry again.

Headmaster of Fowey School,  John Parry:

We work very closely with a, with a local hotel who are teaching the boys, you know, all about etiquette, all about how to dress, how to act with confidence and so on.  It’s gone downextremely well with the boys.

Callum: Jennifer, who is helping the lessons and what are they learning?

Jennifer: A local hotel is helping them out and teaching them things like how to dress and how to act with confidence.

Callum: Has it been popular?

Jennifer: Yes, John said that it’s ‘gone down extremely well’ with the boys. If something ‘goes down well’ it means  that it’s been liked.

Callum: So what do you think of this Jennifer, do you think these are useful things for 

school boys to learn or does it seem maybe a bit old-fashioned?

Jennifer: I don’t think it’s old-fashioned. I think it’s useful for school boys and perhaps 

school girls to learn these manners and etiquette. It’s really nice when people 

hold doors open for you. It’s a very polite thing to do so I think everybody could do with a bit of education.

Callum: Yes, I completely agree. I’m just being  polite there, you know. In the case of this school though, it’s not all about impressing girls at parties. Headmaster John 

Parry also believes there is a strong practical reason for learning etiquette. He thinks it can help overcome some of the problems that universities and 

employers have with young people. He explains more:

Headmaster of Fowey School,  John Parry:

One of the criticisms they make of students is that they know a lot of knowledge, they’re very good in their exams but sometimes their social skills  let them down. And we wanted our

students to, you know, walk with confidence, you know, hold their head up high in any 

given social situation; whether that’s, you know a ball, as we’re doing, or whether that’s going for a university interview, a job interview. 

Callum: So Jennifer, how can these classes help, apart from helping them with girls?

Jennifer: Well, by helping to build their confidence it can give them a better chance when applying for jobs or university places. He mentioned that even though students may be good at exams, they also need to have good social skills, they need to be confident. That could make the difference between their getting a job or not.

Callum: Yes, as he put it, he wants the students to be able to ‘hold their heads up high.’

An expression which means to be proud and confident. Let’s listen again.

Headmaster of Fowey School,  John Parry:

One of the criticisms they make of students is that they know a lot of knowledge, they’re very good in their exams but sometimes their social skills  let them down. And we wanted ourstudents to, you know, walk with confidence, you know, hold their head up high in any given social situation; whether that’s, you know a ball, as we’re doing, or whether that’s going for a university interview, a job interview.

Callum: Well that’s just about all we have time for today. Before we finish, the answer to today’s question. When faced with a number of different knives and forks at a formal meal, which ones do you start with? Jennifer, you said?

Jennifer: Outside-in, the ones furthest from your plate.

Callum: That’s exactly right, yes. 

Jennifer: Hooray!

Callum: Well done, well done. So thank you very much Jennifer and goodbye.

Jennifer: Goodbye.

source: here

El Dorado

El Dorado: The truth behind the myth

By Dr Jago CooperCurator of the Americas, the British Museum

Continue reading the main story

In today's Magazine

• What Muscovites get up to in traffic jams
• Can walking while working make you live longer?
• Why one suburb produced five boxing stars
• Does the BMI need correcting?

The dream of El Dorado, a lost city of gold, led many a conquistador on a fruitless trek into the rainforests and mountains of South America. But it was all wishful thinking. The "golden one" was actually not a place but a person - as recent archaeological research confirms.

Columbus's arrival in the Americas in AD1492 was the first chapter in a world-changing clash of cultures. It was a brutal confrontation of completely opposing ways of living and systems of beliefs.

The European myth that arose of El Dorado, as a lost city of gold waiting for discovery by an adventurous conqueror, encapsulates the Europeans' endless thirst for gold and their unerring drive to exploit these new lands for their monetary value.

The South American myth of El Dorado, on the other hand, reveals the true nature of the territory and the people who lived there. For them, El Dorado was never a place, but a ruler so rich that he allegedly covered himself in gold from head to toe each morning and washed it off in a sacred lake each evening.

Jago Cooper (r) found ancient traditions were kept alive at Lake Guatavita by Enrique Gonzalez (l)

The real story behind the myth has slowly been pieced together over recent years using a combination of early historical texts and new archaeological research.

At its heart is a true story of a rite of passage ceremony carried out by the Muisca peoples who have lived in Central Colombia from AD800 to the modern day.

Different Spanish chroniclers arriving in this alien continent in the early 16th Century began to write about this ceremony of El Dorado, and one of the best accounts comes from Juan Rodriguez Freyle.

In Freyle's book, The Conquest and Discovery of the New Kingdom of Granada, published in 1636, he tells us that when a leader died within Muisca society the process of succession for the chosen "golden one" would unfold. The selected new leader of the community, commonly the nephew of the previous chief, would go through a long initiation process culminating in the final act of paddling out on a raft onto a sacred lake, such as Lake Guatavita in Central Colombia.

Continue reading the main story

“Start Quote

The heir was stripped naked and covered with mud and powdered gold”

The Conquest and Discovery of the New Kingdom of Granada, Juan Rodriguez Freyle

Surrounded by the four highest priests adorned with feathers, gold crowns and body ornaments, the leader, naked but for a covering of gold dust, would set out to make an offering of gold objects, emeralds and other precious objects to the gods by throwing them into the lake.

The shores of the circular lake were filled with richly adorned spectators playing musical instruments and burning fires that almost blocked out the daylight from this crucible-like lake basin. The raft itself had four burning fires on it throwing up plumes of incense into the sky. When at the very centre of the lake, the priest would raise a flag to draw silence from the crowd. This moment would mark the point at which the crowds would commit allegiance to their new leader by shouting their approval from the lakeshore.

Fascinatingly, many aspects of this interpretation of events have been validated by painstaking archaeological research - research that also reveals the exceptional skill and scale of gold production in Colombia at the time of European arrival in 1537.

Tunjos or offerings to the gods were left in sacred places like lakes and caves

Within Muisca society gold, or the more specifically an alloy of gold, silver and copper called tumbaga, was highly sought after, not for its material value but for its spiritual power, its connection to the deities and its ability to bring balance and harmony within Muisca society. As Muisca descendant Enrique Gonzalez explains, gold does not symbolise prosperity to his people.

"For the Muisca of today, just as for our ancestors, gold is nothing more than an offering... gold does not represent wealth to us."

Recent research by Maria Alicia Uribe Villegas from the Museo Del Oro in Bogota and Marcos Martinon-Torres from UCL Institute of Archaeology has shown that within Muisca society these "gold" objects were made specifically for immediate use as offerings to the gods to encourage them to balance the equilibrium of the cosmos and ensure a stable relationship with their environment.

Continue reading the main story

Find out more

• Dr Jago Cooper presents the series Lost Kingdoms of South America which starts on Monday 14 January at 21:00 GMT on BBC Four
• Catch up later (in the UK) on iPlayer

• Slideshow: Searching for lost kingdoms

According to archaeologist Roberto Lleras Perez, an expert on Muisca gold working and belief systems, the creation and use for Muisca metalwork was distinct in South America.

"No other society, as far as I know, dedicated over 50% of their production for votive offerings. I think it is quite unique," he says

The gold objects, like the collection of tunjos (votive offerings, most commonly flat, anthropomorphic figures) on digital display at the British Museum, were made by using the "lost wax" process - creating clay moulds around delicate wax models before melting them and casting them in gold.

Since all the gold objects in each offering have the same chemical signature as well as unique manufacture traits, it is clear these objects were being specifically made for this offering and may only have been in existence for a matter of hours or days before being deposited.

Incredibly, a gold raft depicting a scene exactly like that described by Juan Rodriguez Freyle was found in 1969 by three villagers in a small cave in the hills just to the south of Bogota. This scene of a man covered in gold going out into a sacred lake, such as Lake Guatavita, is the real story of El Dorado.

The Muisca Raft is on display at the Gold Museum in Bogota

The way this story grew into the myth of a legendary city of gold reveals the distinct way in which gold was a source of material wealth for European conquerors. They had little understanding of its true value within Muisca society. European minds were simply dazzled by just how much gold must have been thrown down into the deep waters of the lake and buried at other sacred sites around Colombia.

Continue reading the main story

Chasing the dream of a land of gold

• AD800 Muisca culture begins to flourish in modern-day central Colombia, one of many cultures to develop exceptional gold working traditions in South America
• 1532 Francisco Pizarro arrives in Peru to start the first of three attempts to conquer the Inca and colonise South America recovering large quantities of gold as he does
• 1537 Jimenez de Quesada explores Muisca territory for the first time
• 1541 Francisco de Orellana is the first European to travel down the length of the Amazon river, allegedly inspired by a search for El Dorado
• 1594 Sir Walter Raleigh makes the first of two expeditions in search of El Dorado, the second accompanied by his son Watt who was killed during the adventure in AD1617
• 1772 Scientist Alexander von Humboldt and botanist Aimé Bonpland travel to South America to once and for all prove or dispel the myth of El Dorado. They return to Europe and spread widely their believed conclusion that El Dorado had been nothing but a dream of the early conquistadors

Leonora Duncan, the British Museum

In AD1537 it was these stories of El Dorado that drew the Spanish conquistador Jimenez de Quesada and his army of 800 men away from their mission to find an overland route to Peru and up into the Andean homeland of the Muisca for the first time.

Quesada and his men were lured ever deeper into alien and inhospitable territories where many lost their lives. But what Quesada and his men found astounded them, as the goldworking of the Muisca was like nothing they had ever seen before. The exquisitely crafted gold objects used techniques beyond anything ever seen by European eyes.

Tragically, the desperate hunt for gold is still very much alive. Archaeologists, working at fantastic research institutions like the Museo del Oro in Bogota, are fighting against a rising tide of looting. So just like the European conquistadors of the 16th Century their modern counterparts continue to ravage South America's past and rob us of the fascinating stories behind it.

The quantities of gold uncovered by these looters is still astounding. In the 1970s when new sites were discovered by looters in northern Colombia it caused the world gold market to crash.

This El Dorado-inspired looting of gold has meant that the vast majority of precious pre-Columbian gold objects have been melted down and the real value of these artefacts as clues to the workings of an ancient culture have been lost forever.

Fortunately, surviving collections of objects curated at the Museo del Oro in Bogota and British Museum in London can provide an insight into these different perspectives on material value and human perception and most importantly tell the true story behind the myths of El Dorado.

The story of El Dorado is explored further in the Lost Kingdoms of South America, a series for BBC Four starting on Monday 14January at 21:00 GMT and the British Museum Digital Exhibition.

source here

You can also watch an hour programme with dr. Jaggo Cooper here 

Vocabulary:  El Dorado

Encapsulate - 1.to enclose in or as if in a capsule, wrap up -  pilot encapsulated in the cockpit

                              2. epitomize, summarize <encapsulate an era in an aphorism>

Example: Can you encapsulate the president's speech in about a paragraph?

Unerring – without an error: faultless, unfailing 

Ex: He has an unerring sense of good taste.

Exploit – 1. to make productive use of : utilize , e.g. exploiting your talents

              2. to make use of meanly or unfairly for one's own , abuse            advantage<exploiting migrant farm workers>

Ex.: He has never fully exploited his talents.

Top athletes are able to exploit their opponents' weaknesses.

Rite - a ceremonial act or action

Ex. Incense is often burned in their religious rites.

Alien – strange, foreign, exotic

Ex. It‘s completely alien to her nature to wish evil of anyone.

Unfold - to open the folds of : spread or straighten out : expand <unfold a map>,

Unwrap, develop

Ex. The couch unfolds to form a bed. We'll have more news as events unfold.

Try to replace the underlined words with the words explained above. 

1.    We watched the drama develop on live television. 2.  The were new immigrants with customs foreign to the community where they have settled. 3. She said the tragedy had been abused by the media. 4. The contaminated material should be wrapped up and removed. 5.  I hate the annual summer ritual of loading up the car for the big family vacation. 6. He has an unfailing sense of good taste.

And here are more words from the article. 

Adorn – decorate, ornament, dress (the Sultan's tent was richly adorned with thick tapestries and gleaming gold candlesticks)

Crucible – trial, fire, ordeal (He's ready to face the crucible of the Olympics.)

Plume – feather, column of smoke or gas

Votive – offered in gratitute (vděčnost) or devotion (oddanost) -a votive candle

Cast - to give a shape to (a substance) by pouring in into a mold and letting harden without pressure

Trait – feature, quality, character (This dog breed has a number of desirable traits.)

Dazzle – to shine brilliantly (dazzled us with her wit)

Lure – attract, draw

Astound – surprise, shock

Exquisitely –vehemently, beautifully,

Ravage – destroy, ruin, devastate

Insight - perception

The European myth that arose of El Dorado encapsulates the Europeans’ endless thirst for gold and their unerring drive to exploit these new lands.

At the heart is a true story of a rite carried out by the Muisca peoples.

When a leader died , the process of succession for the chosen golden one would unfold.

The four highest priests were adorned with feathers, gold crowns and body ornaments.

This spectacle almost blocked out the daylight from this crucible-like lake basin.

The raft had four fires throwing up plumes of incense into the sky.

This society devoted over 50% of their production for votive offerings.

These gold objects were made by the lost wax process – creating clay moulds around wax models before melting them and casting them in gold.

These objects have the same unique manufacture traits.

European minds were simply dazzled by just how much gold must be in the deep waters of the lake.

Quesada and his men were lured deep into alien territories.

You tube - Lost Kingdoms of South America Lands of Gold BBC Full documentary 2013   by Mrbikiwiki2012

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ync3lNs6SKU