B2 COURSE

Unit 5 - People

5.1. - Types of people (examples)

What types of people exist? Let’s find out!

PEOPLE DEFINITION EXAMPLE

beggar someone who stands on the street asking for money Tourists who visit poor countries are often approached
by beggars asking for money or food.

Schools must do every thing they can to stop bullies. We can’t

bully someone who likes to hurt smaller and weaker people have bigger students frightening or hurting smaller, weaker ones.

A large amount of crime in big cities is committed by drug addicts  

drug addict someone who takes drugs and cannot stop
who need a large amount of money each day to buy their drugs.

My grandfather’s a real old miser. he would rather sit in a cold

miser someone who saves all his money and hates spending it
room in the winter than spend money on heating.

someone has no home or job and wanders from town You can sometimes see tramps on the streets of big cities
tramp to town begging for money or food.

someone who always wants to know what others are My aunt is a real old busybody. She’s always standing by the
busybody doing window watching people walking up and down the street.

Thousands of Albanian refugees left Kosovo to seek safety in

refugee someone who leaves their country because of war
neighbouring countries.

Jane’s always getting into trouble with teachers. She just cannot
chatterbox someone who cannot stop talking
keep quiet and listen. She’s such a chatterbox!

someone who is always asking for things without My friend’s a real scrounger. He never brings any money to
scrounger paying school so he’s constantly asking for money then.

someone who is boring, and never wants to do You’re such a wet blanket. You never want to go out. All you
wet blanket anything want to do is lie in front of the television every evening.

Yutaro’s the clown in ESL class. He’s always doing silly things to

clown someone who does stupid things to make others laugh
make the other students laugh.

After the terrible car crash my father was an invalid for the last
invalid someone who has to be taken care of by other people
seven years of his life.

teacher's the student who the teacher likes best In books the teacher’s pet always sits at the front of the class
pet and puts an apple on the teacher’s desk every day.

The police interviewed witnesses of the accident to find out

witness someone who sees a crime or accident
exactly how it had happened.

Exercise: Listening + Programme Script. Learn about... affluenza!

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Unit 5 - People

5.2. - Reading exercise

In December 2005,  Evo Morales became the new President of Bolivia. He was born into a farming
family in the Andes and spent much his life campaigning for the interests of the original inhabitants of
the country. He was one of the first leaders of an indigenous people to make it to the top.

There are perhaps 370 million indigenous peoples in 70 countries around the world. They live on 20% of
the world’s land, and they contribute 80% of the world’s biological and cultural diversity. For the last
few hundred years, however, European colonialism has marginalised them. Europeans gave
them diseases against which they had no defences, suppressed their culture and language, and tried
to assimilate them into western societies.

Sometimes they almost disappeared from history. Few people today have heard of the Herero of
Namibia.  Eighty per cent of their population died from starvation a century ago at the hands of
German colonisers.  In 1803, there were 10,000 people living in Tasmania, but after the British
declared war on them twenty years later, only 300 survived. The last Tasman died in 1905.

The main reason for the decimation of indigenous peoples has been to get their land and natural
resources. In Colombia, a hundred years of oil extraction has resulted in the pollution of rivers, soil and
drinking water. The story is repeated in Ecuador and Peru. In Brazil, the government plan to build five
large dams on the Xingu River. These will flood thousands of square kilometres of tribal reserves and
destroy much agricultural land.

Often governments have used forced relocation to get the local inhabitants out of the way. In
Botswana today it is happening because of diamond mining and tourism. In the islands of Diego Garcia,
in the Indian Ocean, the entire population were banished forever in order to build an airbase.

Land has a spiritual significance for indigenous people. In 1985 the Australian government finally
recognised this and returned ownership of Uluru (Ayers Rock) to the Pitjantjatjara Aborigines. In the
USA, however, the government is planning to store radioactive waste at Yucca Mountain in Nevada,
although it is a sacred site for the Shoshone nation.

Businesses often try to take possession of indigenous cultures. Multinational companies wanted to
become the owners of traditional knowledge in areas such as food, farming and health. They have tried
to create patents on plants and medicines that indigenous people have used for centuries.

Native languages are also disappearing. They were banned in schools for decades. Parents stopped
using them to communicate in the home, and so they were no longer passed from one generation to
another.

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Unit 5 - People
Sometimes families have been affected in more dramatic ways. In Australia, it was government policy
from 1900-1972 to forcibly remove aboriginal children from their parents and bring them up in
institutions.

So is the election of Mr Morales, in one of the world’s poorest countries, a sign that things are finally
getting better? Various people around the world now have their own representation. There is a Sámi
parliament in Sweden and an Assembly of First Nations in Canada.

Formal Apologies were passed in several Australian State Parliaments in 1998 for the
past mistreatment of the Aboriginal population. In Aotearoa/New Zealand, the Treaty of Waitangi Act
has made it possible for Maoris to claim back land, fisheries and forest in special courts where they
have equal representation with non-indigenous people. The Miskito Indians in Nicaragua have had
similar success.

Some Native American Tribes have recently become extremely wealthy because of a change in the law.
They can now start casinos on their own land. Some people worry about the morality of this, but some
of the profit has been used for improvements in education and health.
The meeting between western and indigenous cultures has not often been a happy one, but perhaps
there is hope yet for the continued diversity of humankind.