Unit 11: The bucket list
The present perfect with ‘ever’ and ‘never’
Select a unit
- 1 Nice to meet you!
- 2 What to wear
- 3 Like this, like that
- 4 The daily grind
- 5 Christmas every day
- 6 Great achievers
- 7 The Titanic
- 8 Travel
- 9 The big wedding
- 10 Sunny's job hunt
- 11 The bucket list
- 12 Moving and migration
- 13 Welcome to BBC Broadcasting House
- 14 New Year, New Project
- 15 From Handel to Hendrix
- 16 What's the weather like?
- 17 The Digital Revolution
- 18 A detective story
- 19 A place to live
- 20 The Cult of Celebrity
- 21 Welcome to your new job
- 22 Beyond the planets
- 23 Great expectations!
- 24 Eco-tourism
- 25 Moving house
- 26 It must be love
- 27 Job hunting success... and failure
- 28 Speeding into the future
- 29 Lost arts
- 30 Tales of survival
Session 4
Let's talk! This is your chance to practise using the present perfect tense to talk about your life – and to create your very own bucket list.
Activity 3
News Report
Swiss children used as slave labour
This week's News Report tells the story of the 'contract children' - children in Switzerland who were taken away from their families and sent to work on farms.
While you're listening, you'll hear lots of examples of the passive voice, especially the past simple passive. How many examples of the passive can you hear? Listen once or twice, then have a look at the transcript and check your answer.
You can also check the vocabulary list, to see the new words that appear in this week's News Report, and their definitions. Practise using these words to write your own sentences based on your experience or your imagination. This can be a very effective way to learn new vocabulary.
Listen to the audio
Starting in the 1850s, hundreds of thousands of Swiss children were taken from their parents and sent to farms to work. Now, thousands of people in Switzerland, who were forced into child labour, are demanding compensation for their stolen childhoods.
When children became orphans, when parents were unmarried, or when families were very poor, sometimes the children were taken from their families and placed in foster families. The children were often sent to farms, as agriculture in Switzerland was not mechanized, and so child labour was needed. They were called 'contract children'.
"They wanted to take these children out of the poor family and put them somewhere else where they could learn how to work," says historian Loretta Seglias. If the children's parents objected, they could be sent to prison too.
The use of contract children declined in the 1960s and 70s.
Last year an official apology was made to contract children – and now, campaigner Guido Fluri is trying to get them compensation.
He hopes for about 500 million Swiss Francs (£327m) for the 10,000 contract children estimated to be alive today. However, there could still be many more years of discussion in the Swiss parliament before this becomes a reality.
But Fluri says it is important to remember these "people who suffered for decades."
Download
You can download News Report on our Unit 11 downloads page.
Vocabulary
demand
to ask for something strongly
compensation
money which is paid to you because you have been hurt in some way
orphan
a child whose parents have died
foster family
a family which takes care of a child, although they are not the child's biological family
agriculture
the science or industry of farming
mechanized
using machines to do work
labour
work; particularly, physical work
object
(here) to oppose something; to say that something is not acceptable
decline
(here) to decrease; to become less
campaigner
a person who works, together with others, to try to change something in society
parliament
the group of elected people who make laws for the country
suffer
to experience something painful
decade
ten years
Related story
This story is based on an original BBC News story.
End of Session 4
That's it for Session 4. Now, do you know the real story of Frankenstein? Prepare for a scare in the next session where you can start to follow our new BBC Learning English drama, based on the famous classic by English writer Mary Shelley - and you can test your knowledge with our weekly quiz.
Session Vocabulary
demand
to ask for something stronglycompensation
money which is paid to you because you have been hurt in some wayorphan
a child whose parents have diedfoster family
a family which takes care of a child, although they are not the child’s biological familyagriculture
the science or industry of farmingmechanized
using machines to do worklabour
work; particularly, physical workobject
(here) to oppose something; to say that something is not acceptabledecline
(here) to decrease; to become lesscampaigner
a person who works, together with others, to try to change something in societyparliament
the group of elected people who make laws for the countrysuffer
to experience something painfuldecade
ten years