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14b In pairs, think of some tips on how to solve the following problems.

1 not being understood 2 being patronizing
3 explaining difficult concepts 4 sounding dull

14c Richard is giving some advice about the problems in Exercise 14a. Read and
summarize his ideas. Compare his tips with your suggestions.

Richard: It’s obviously best to use everyday language as far as possible. But I don’t think that
means avoiding jargon altogether. I find the best approach, so as not to sound patronizing, is to
use a certain amount of technical language, and then immediately afterwards give
straightforward explanations of what it means using everyday words. When it comes to
explaining tricky technical concepts, a good technique is to make comparisons between the
technical point you're trying to illustrate and things from everyday life that people are familiar
with, to help them paint a picture in their minds. And then to help lighten things up, and stop
things from sounding dull, I think it’s good to use a bit of humor as well, and maybe a few
amusing anecdotes.

15a Richard is giving a tour of a construction site. Listen and make notes of his
explanations of the following technical terms. Make your own ideas and then compare your
ideas with his.

Richard: As you can see, we’ve started work on the substructure, in other words the part of the
structure that’s below ground level. The foundations are concrete piles. Basically, a pile is a
column going down into the ground. And we’re using what we call bored in situ concrete, in
other words, we bore, or drill, a hole in the ground, and concrete's poured in in situ, which
means it’s actually poured on the construction site, in its final position. An alternative is to use
what we refer to as pre-cast driven piles. Precast refers to the fact that the piles are made at a
factory away from the site, before being delivered. They’re then driven into the ground. They're
hammered in with a pile driver which, put simply, is just like a giant hammer. And they don’t just
drive in piles, they drive everyone mad with the constant boom-boom-boom all day long. So,
thankfully for our ears, we're not using that technique. Instead, we’re boring the piles. The pile
auger over there is effectively just like a giant drill. As it drills into the ground, we pump a
special liquid called bentonite into the hole. Essentially, it's a kind of clay suspension, a sort of
mud. And that prevents the walls of the hole from collapsing inwards. So when the hole’s
finished, it's full of bentonite. It looks just like a big muddy puddle on the ground. Obviously, it's
not a good idea to step in one, like a colleague of mine once did, and then had to drive home in
his underpants for a change of clothes. So, once the hole’s been bored and filled with bentonite,
they lower in some steel reinforcement. And then concrete's pumped in. And because the
concrete is denser than the bentonite, it displaces it. So, in simple terms, if you picture a glass
full of water and imagine pouring concrete into the glass, the water would overflow, and you’d
end up with a glass full of concrete. So, that’s piling.

1 the substructure the part of structure below ground
2 a pile foundation
3 to bore (a pile)
4 in situ concrete
5 pre-cast piles
6 to drive in (a pile)
7 a pile driver
7 a pile auger

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