1. MONOLOGUE. Prepare a talk of AT LEAST 5 minutes on the subject.
You may use the pictures above and the contents below if you wish:
"To jaw-jaw is always better than to war-war"
-Winston Churchill-
Why is the refugee crisis all over the news? How is this related to the political situation in some countries? Do military interventions make any difference? Do you think that launching air campaigns make our countries safer places? Are you absolutely convinced that diplomatic campaigns are feasible and more convenient? Do you agree with Churchill's quote "To jaw-jaw is always better than to war-war"? Is it feasible to stem the haemorrhage of people being displaced by armed conflict? How can our governments deal with the increasing number of insurgents in the West?
You may make some notes for your talk to take into the exam. These should not exceed five lines.
2. INTERACTION
In this part of the test, the examiner will ask you some questions about topics related to the TOPIC. Remember that you are expected to have a conversation as natural as possible and give full answers. This part of the examination will last AT LEAST 5 minutes. You will not see the questions below.
2. INTERACTION
In this part of the test, the examiner will ask you some questions about topics related to the TOPIC. Remember that you are expected to have a conversation as natural as possible and give full answers. This part of the examination will last AT LEAST 5 minutes. You will not see the questions below.
________________________________________
1. How has climate change played a role in the displacement of people in certain parts of the world?
2. In what way does immigration positively contribute to the enhancement of a country?
3. Have any of your acquaintances moved to a foreign country? Why?
4. Do you know anyone who has come to live in Spain from another country? Why have they? Are they seeking asylum or are they economic migrants? Do these people have any problems about living away from home?
5. What would you sorely miss about Spain if you went to live abroad?
6. What would be your expectations about living in a different country? What do you think immigrants hope to find when they come here? Are their expectations over-optimistic or realistic? Does the reality of what they find fall short of their expectations?
7. What would be your worst fear or the greatest problem you might be faced with? Would you be concerned that you might be discriminated against? Why do you think discrimination exists? Have you experienced discrimination on a personal level? Do immigrants assimilate easily?
8. What are some things you could do to make your move easier?
9. Do you think that more measures to curb the number of migrants entering the EU should be put in place? When do you think immigrants should be deported? Do you feel sorry for those refugees who face deportation?
10. Should asylum seekers be granted a work permit?
11. Are detention centres necessary?
Useful language
1. MONOLOGUE: PICTURES
Picture
A
refugee: /ˌrefjuˈdʒiː/ a person who has been forced to leave their country or home, because there is a war or for political, religious or social reasons. E.g. a steady flow of refugees from the war zone. Political/ economic refugees.
A refugee camp.
Makeshift: /ˈmeɪkʃɪft/ used temporarily for a particular purpose because the real thing is not available. Provisional. A makeshift camp/ hospital.
Flock: to go or gather together somewhere in large numbers. E.g. + adv./prep. Thousands of people flocked to the beach this weekend. Hordes of refugees are flocking out of Syria everyday.
Horde: /hɔːd/ a large crowd of people. E.g. Hordes of tourists arrive in Italy every June. Millions of refugees are fleeing Syria in hordes.
Rubble: broken stones or bricks from a building or wall that has been destroyed or damaged. E.g. The bomb reduced the houses to rubble. In the aftermath of the air strikes there were piles of rubble everywhere.
The war pushes them to leave.
refugee: /ˌrefjuˈdʒiː/ a person who has been forced to leave their country or home, because there is a war or for political, religious or social reasons. E.g. a steady flow of refugees from the war zone. Political/ economic refugees.
A refugee camp.
Makeshift: /ˈmeɪkʃɪft/ used temporarily for a particular purpose because the real thing is not available. Provisional. A makeshift camp/ hospital.
Flock: to go or gather together somewhere in large numbers. E.g. + adv./prep. Thousands of people flocked to the beach this weekend. Hordes of refugees are flocking out of Syria everyday.
Horde: /hɔːd/ a large crowd of people. E.g. Hordes of tourists arrive in Italy every June. Millions of refugees are fleeing Syria in hordes.
Rubble: broken stones or bricks from a building or wall that has been destroyed or damaged. E.g. The bomb reduced the houses to rubble. In the aftermath of the air strikes there were piles of rubble everywhere.
The war pushes them to leave.
Picture B
Banner:
Placard: /ˈplækɑːd/ a large written or printed notice that is put in a public place or carried on a stick in a march. E.g. The protesters gathered together in front of the embassy with placards that denounced the president's crimes. They were carrying placards and banners demanding that he resign.
It's always easier to stereotype and judge than it is to look beneath the surface and "see" the forest, not just the trees... Who would not walk through a dessert, cross an ocean or do whatever it took to feed their children? I'd crawl over glass if that's what it took. The laws of a nation need to be enforced (Sp. hacer cumplir), but we do not need to lose our compassion and empathy for people in a desperate situation in order to do so.
not see the forest/wood for the trees: to not see or understand the main point about something, because you are paying too much attention to small details.
Banner:
Placard: /ˈplækɑːd/ a large written or printed notice that is put in a public place or carried on a stick in a march. E.g. The protesters gathered together in front of the embassy with placards that denounced the president's crimes. They were carrying placards and banners demanding that he resign.
It's always easier to stereotype and judge than it is to look beneath the surface and "see" the forest, not just the trees... Who would not walk through a dessert, cross an ocean or do whatever it took to feed their children? I'd crawl over glass if that's what it took. The laws of a nation need to be enforced (Sp. hacer cumplir), but we do not need to lose our compassion and empathy for people in a desperate situation in order to do so.
not see the forest/wood for the trees: to not see or understand the main point about something, because you are paying too much attention to small details.
Picture C
small boat. Sp. patera. The small rubber boat is packed.
dinghy: a small open boat. They bundle up (Sp. abrigar) their children and take the smugglers' rubber dinghies to Europe.
Life jacket/ Life vest
Lifebelt: a large ring made of material that floats well, that is used to rescue somebody who has fallen into water, to prevent them from drowning.
Lifeboat Jet-ski: Sp. moto acuática. They are doing jet-skiing.
Capsize (something): /kæpˈsaɪz/ if a boat capsizes or something capsizes it, it turns over in the water. E.g. The boat capsized and sank.
Shipwreck: the loss or destruction of a ship at sea because of a storm or because it hits rocks, etc. E.g. They narrowly escaped shipwreck in a storm in the North Sea. The shipwreck of the tanker has caused one of the worst oil spills in recent years.
be shipwrecked: to be left somewhere after the ship that you have been sailing in has been lost or destroyed at sea. E.g. They were shipwrecked off the coast of Africa. A shipwrecked sailor.
castaway: a person whose ship has sunk (= who has been shipwrecked) and who has had to swim to a lonely place, usually an island.
The refugees/ illegal immigrants have been rescued by the coast guards.
The boat might have been adrift for some days (Sp. a la deriva)
The coast guard ship took the boat in tow and brought it into the harbour.
Desperate times call for desperate measures. Just think about how bad their life must have been. They are desperate. I do feel sorry for them.
Ellis Island in the New York Harbour was the gateway for millions of immigrants to the United States. The Greek islands seem to be the gateway for Syrian refugees.
Immigrants typically face a difficult journey. Most of them have been ripped off by smugglers. They travel in cramped (Sp. apretado) rubber boats. They often experience overcrowding (Sp. masificación) and seasickness.
stowaway: /ˈstəʊəweɪ/ a person who hides in a ship or plane before it leaves, in order to travel without paying or being seen. Someone who stows away in a vehicle, ship, or plane. E.g. If someone is to survive as a stowaway then they have to get into an area of the plane that is pressurised and warm. He travelled as a stowaway on a freight ship at the age of fourteen
stow away to hide in a ship, plane, etc. in order to travel secretly. E.g. At the age of 13 he had stowed away on a ship bound for Rio.
MONOLOGUE: QUESTIONS
air strike: an attack made by aircraft.
Be opposed to/ in favour of air strikes. jingoist: /ˈdʒɪŋɡəʊɪst/ (disapproving) someone who believes that their own country is always best. E.g. He was a confirmed jingoist and would frequently speak about the dangers of Britain forming closer ties with the rest of Europe.
jingoism: /ˈdʒɪŋɡəʊɪzəm/ (disapproving) a strong belief that your own country is best, especially when this is expressed in support of war with another country. E.g. Patriotism can turn into jingoism and intolerance very quickly.
jingoistic: /ˌdʒɪŋɡəʊˈɪstɪk/ (disapproving) adj. showing a strong belief that your own country is best, especially when this is expressed in support of war with another country. E.g. Can patriotism in the USA be too jingoistic?
Chauvinist: /ˈʃəʊvɪnɪst/ a person who has an aggressive and unreasonable belief that their own country is better than all others.
chauvinism: an aggressive and unreasonable belief that your own country is better than all others. E.g. It was a typical case of British chauvinism and insularity. National/cultural chauvinism. chauvinistic: showing an aggressive and unreasonable belief that your own country is better than all others. E.g. chauvinistic nationalism.
Military action/intervention/ operations will/ won't make any difference
insurgent: a person fighting against the government or armed forces of their own country. rebel. E.g. an attack by armed insurgents.
radicalise: to make a person, group, or system more radical
the West: Europe, N America and Canada, contrasted with Eastern countries. E.g. I was born in Japan, but I've lived in the West for some years now.
Good intelligence
In the short/ long term, launching an air campaign will make our country a more dangerous place. Bombing alone won't do it. It is no guarantee of success.
If we draw an analogy with what happened in Iraq /with Al-Qaeda ...
ethnic cleansing: (used especially in news reports) the policy of forcing the people of a particular race or religion to leave an area or a country. E.g. All the speakers at the conference condemned the so-called ‘ethnic cleansing’.
Civilian casualties Collateral damage: the government denied that there had been any
collateral damage (= injury to ordinary people or buildings) during the bombing raid. If bombs go stray and a hospital/school is hit they call it collateral damage.
small boat. Sp. patera. The small rubber boat is packed.
dinghy: a small open boat. They bundle up (Sp. abrigar) their children and take the smugglers' rubber dinghies to Europe.
Life jacket/ Life vest
Lifebelt: a large ring made of material that floats well, that is used to rescue somebody who has fallen into water, to prevent them from drowning.
Lifeboat Jet-ski: Sp. moto acuática. They are doing jet-skiing.
Capsize (something): /kæpˈsaɪz/ if a boat capsizes or something capsizes it, it turns over in the water. E.g. The boat capsized and sank.
Shipwreck: the loss or destruction of a ship at sea because of a storm or because it hits rocks, etc. E.g. They narrowly escaped shipwreck in a storm in the North Sea. The shipwreck of the tanker has caused one of the worst oil spills in recent years.
be shipwrecked: to be left somewhere after the ship that you have been sailing in has been lost or destroyed at sea. E.g. They were shipwrecked off the coast of Africa. A shipwrecked sailor.
castaway: a person whose ship has sunk (= who has been shipwrecked) and who has had to swim to a lonely place, usually an island.
The refugees/ illegal immigrants have been rescued by the coast guards.
The boat might have been adrift for some days (Sp. a la deriva)
The coast guard ship took the boat in tow and brought it into the harbour.
Desperate times call for desperate measures. Just think about how bad their life must have been. They are desperate. I do feel sorry for them.
Ellis Island in the New York Harbour was the gateway for millions of immigrants to the United States. The Greek islands seem to be the gateway for Syrian refugees.
Immigrants typically face a difficult journey. Most of them have been ripped off by smugglers. They travel in cramped (Sp. apretado) rubber boats. They often experience overcrowding (Sp. masificación) and seasickness.
stowaway: /ˈstəʊəweɪ/ a person who hides in a ship or plane before it leaves, in order to travel without paying or being seen. Someone who stows away in a vehicle, ship, or plane. E.g. If someone is to survive as a stowaway then they have to get into an area of the plane that is pressurised and warm. He travelled as a stowaway on a freight ship at the age of fourteen
stow away to hide in a ship, plane, etc. in order to travel secretly. E.g. At the age of 13 he had stowed away on a ship bound for Rio.
MONOLOGUE: QUESTIONS
air strike: an attack made by aircraft.
Be opposed to/ in favour of air strikes. jingoist: /ˈdʒɪŋɡəʊɪst/ (disapproving) someone who believes that their own country is always best. E.g. He was a confirmed jingoist and would frequently speak about the dangers of Britain forming closer ties with the rest of Europe.
jingoism: /ˈdʒɪŋɡəʊɪzəm/ (disapproving) a strong belief that your own country is best, especially when this is expressed in support of war with another country. E.g. Patriotism can turn into jingoism and intolerance very quickly.
jingoistic: /ˌdʒɪŋɡəʊˈɪstɪk/ (disapproving) adj. showing a strong belief that your own country is best, especially when this is expressed in support of war with another country. E.g. Can patriotism in the USA be too jingoistic?
Chauvinist: /ˈʃəʊvɪnɪst/ a person who has an aggressive and unreasonable belief that their own country is better than all others.
chauvinism: an aggressive and unreasonable belief that your own country is better than all others. E.g. It was a typical case of British chauvinism and insularity. National/cultural chauvinism. chauvinistic: showing an aggressive and unreasonable belief that your own country is better than all others. E.g. chauvinistic nationalism.
Military action/intervention/ operations will/ won't make any difference
insurgent: a person fighting against the government or armed forces of their own country. rebel. E.g. an attack by armed insurgents.
radicalise: to make a person, group, or system more radical
the West: Europe, N America and Canada, contrasted with Eastern countries. E.g. I was born in Japan, but I've lived in the West for some years now.
Good intelligence
In the short/ long term, launching an air campaign will make our country a more dangerous place. Bombing alone won't do it. It is no guarantee of success.
If we draw an analogy with what happened in Iraq /with Al-Qaeda ...
ethnic cleansing: (used especially in news reports) the policy of forcing the people of a particular race or religion to leave an area or a country. E.g. All the speakers at the conference condemned the so-called ‘ethnic cleansing’.
Civilian casualties Collateral damage: the government denied that there had been any
collateral damage (= injury to ordinary people or buildings) during the bombing raid. If bombs go stray and a hospital/school is hit they call it collateral damage.
stem something to stop something that is flowing from spreading or increasing. E.g. The cut was bandaged to stem the bleeding. They discussed ways of stemming the flow of smuggled drugs.
haemorrhage:
/ˈhemərɪdʒ/ haemorrhage (of somebody/something) a serious loss of people, money,
etc. from a country, a group or an organization. E.g. Poor
working conditions have led to a steady haemorrhage of qualified teachers from
our schools.
displace somebody to force people to move away from their home to another place. E.g. Around 10,000 people have been displaced by the fighting. If the dam is built it will displace 100 000 people.
displace somebody to force people to move away from their home to another place. E.g. Around 10,000 people have been displaced by the fighting. If the dam is built it will displace 100 000 people.
Sample answer:
Sample answer:
In the summer of 2015, Europe experienced the highest influx of refugees since the Second World War. The main reason is that Syria has become the world’s top source of refugees.
Syria is located in the Middle East, an ancient fertile land settled for at least 10,000 years. Since the 1960s, it’s been led by the al-Assad family, who have ruled it as quasi-dictators until the Arab Spring happened in 2011, a revolutionary wave of protests and conflicts in the Arab world that toppled many authoritarian regimes. But the Assads refused to step down and started a brutal civil war. Different ethnicities and religious groups fought each other in changing coalitions. ISIS, a militaristic jihadist group, used the opportunity and entered the chaos with the goal to build a totalitarian Islamic caliphate.
Very quickly, it became one of the most violent and successful extremist organizations on Earth. All sides committed horrible war crimes, using chemical weapons, mass executions, torture on a large scale, and repeated deadly attacks on civilians. The Syrian population was trapped between the regime, rebel groups, and the religious extremists. A third of the Syrian people have been displaced within Syria, while over four million have fled the country. The vast majority of them reside now in camps in the neighbouring countries, who are taking care of 95% of the refugees, while the Arab states of the Persian Gulf together have accepted zero Syrian refugees, which has been called especially shameful by Amnesty International. The UN and the World Food Program were not prepared for a refugee crisis on this scale. As a result, many refugee camps are crowded and under-supplied, subjecting people to cold, hunger, and disease.
The Syrians lost hope that their situation will be getting better any time soon, so many decided to seek asylum in Europe. Between 2007 and 2014, the European Union had invested about €2 billion in defences, high-tech security technology, and border patrols,but not a lot in preparation for an influx of refugees. So it was badly prepared for the storm of asylum seekers. In the EU, a refugee has to stay in the state they arrived in first, which put enormous pressure on the border states that were already in trouble. Greece, in the midst of an economic crisis on the scale of the Great Depression, was not able to take care of so many people at once, leading to terrible scenes of desperate, hungry people on islands usually reserved for tourists.
The world needed to come together and act as a united front, but, instead, it has become more divided. Many states downright refused to take in any refugees, leaving the border states alone in their struggle.
In 2014, the UK lobbied to stop a huge search-and-rescue operation called Mare Nostrum that was designed to stop asylum seekers from drowning in the Mediterranean. The idea seems to have been that a higher death toll on the sea would mean fewer asylum seekers trying to make the journey. But, of course, in reality, that’s not what happened.
The perception of the crisis around the world suddenly changed when photos circulated of a dead boy from Syria found lying face down on a beach in Turkey. Germany announced that it will, without exception, accept all Syrian refugees, and is now preparing to take in 800,000 people in 2015, more than the entire EU took in 2014, only to impose temporary border controls a few days later and demand an EU-wide solution.
All over the West, more and more people are beginning to take action, although support for asylum seekers has mostly come from citizens, not from politicians. But there are fears in the Western world: Islam, high birth rates, crime, and the collapse of the social systems. Let’s acknowledge this and look at the facts.
Even if the EU alone were to accept all four million Syrian refugees and 100% of them were Muslims, the percentage of Muslims in the European Union would only rise from about 4% to about 5%. This is not a drastic change and will certainly not make it a Muslim continent. A Muslim minority is neither new nor reason to be afraid. Birth rates in many parts of the Western world are low, so some fear asylum seekers might overtake the native population in a few decades.
Studies have shown that even though birth rates are higher among Muslims in Europe, they drop and adjust as the standard of living and level of education rises. Most Syrian refugees already are educated, the birth rate in Syria before the civil war was not very high, and the population was actually shrinking, not growing.
The fear that refugees lead to higher crime rates also turns out to be wrong. Refugees who become immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than the native population. When allowed to work, they tend to start businesses and integrate themselves into the workforce as fast as possible, paying more into the social systems than they extract from them. Syrians coming to the West are potential professional workers, desperately needed to sustain Europe’s ageing population.
Refugees’ travelling with smart phones has led to the misconception that they’re not really in need of help. Social media and the internet have become a vital part of being a refugee. GPS is used to navigate the long routes to Europe; Facebook groups give tips and information about obstacles in real time. This only proves that these people are like us: if you had to make a dangerous journey, would you leave your phone behind?
The European Union is the wealthiest bunch of economies on Earth, well-organized states with functioning social systems, infrastructure, democracy, and huge industries. It can handle the challenge of the refugee crisis if it wants to. The same can be said for the whole Western world. But while tiny Jordan has taken in over 600,000 Syrian refugees, the UK, which has 78 times the GDP of Jordan, has only said it will allow 20,000 Syrians across its borders over the next five years. The US has agreed to accept 10,000, Australia 12,000 people.
Overall, things are slowly getting better, but not fast enough.
We are writing history right now. How do we want to be remembered? As xenophobic rich cowards behind fences?
We have to realize that these people fleeing death and destruction are no different from us. By accepting them into our countries and integrating them into our societies, we have much to gain. There is only something to be lost if we ignore this crisis. More dead children are sure to wash ashore if we don’t act with humanity and reason.
Let’s do this right and try to be the best we possibly can be.
2. INTERACTION
Question 2
enhancement: /ɪnˈhɑːnsmənt/ the act of increasing or further improving the good quality, value or status of somebody/something. E.g. equipment for the enhancement of sound quality. Software enhancements. The devotion of the foreign workers to the enhancement of our country's economy is a fact that cannot be neglected.
enhance something : /ɪnˈhɑːns/ to increase or further improve the good quality, value or status of somebody/something. E.g. This is an opportunity to enhance the reputation of the company. Many of the immigrants bring new cultural practices with them, which also enhance our culture.
Question 4
economic migrant: a person who moves from their own country to a new country in order to find work or have a better standard of living. E.g. They claimed they were political refugees and not economic migrants.
asylum (also political asylum) [uncountable] protection that a government gives to people who have left their own country, usually because they were in danger for political reasons. E.g. to seek/apply for/be granted asylum. There was a nationwide debate on whether the asylum laws should be changed.
All of these immigrants are looking for free land, freedom of worship, or adventure, or running away from oppressive governments.
Question 6
Despite the hardships, immigrants hold on to their hopes.
They hope to find work and other people from their homelands. Life in Europe is often very different from life in their own country. Therefore, many immigrants move into neighbourhoods with other people of the same nationality. In these neighbourhoods they can hear their own language, eat familiar foods, and keep their customs.
Even with neighbourhood support, immigrants often find city life difficult. Many immigrants live in tenements (poorly built, overcrowded apartments). They often have to work under exhausting conditions.
Most of these immigrants have little money and know little Spanish. These factors force most of them to take low-paid unskilled industrial jobs. Many of these jobs are in the construction industry. Longer hours are also common.
Although wages are relatively low, they are often higher than those that most immigrants can earn in their home countries.
Some immigrants work long hours for little pay in small shops or factories located in or near working-class neighbourhoods. These workplaces are called sweatshops because of the long hours and often unhealthy working conditions.
Question 7
migrate, migration, migrant
immigrate, immigration, immigrant
emigrate, emigration, emigrant
assimilate, assimilation assimilate: to become, or allow somebody to become, a part of a country or community rather than remaining in a separate group. E.g. assimilate (into/to something) New arrivals find it hard to assimilate. Many new immigrants have not yet assimilated fully into the new culture. Assimilate somebody (into/to something) Immigrants have been successfully assimilated into the community.
integrate, integration
segregate, segregation
ostracise, ostracism
ostracise: ostracise somebody (formal) to refuse to let somebody be a member of a social group; to refuse to meet or talk to somebody. E.g. He was ostracised by his colleagues for refusing to support the strike. The regime risks being ostracised by the international community. Some Muslim communities are becoming increasingly ostracised.
ostracism: the act of deliberately not including somebody in a group or activity; the state of not being included. E.g. With U.S. Ebola fear running high, African immigrants face ostracism. Anti-immigrant feelings have grown along with the rise in immigration. Some people fear that too many new immigrants are being allowed into the country. Some also hold racial and religious prejudices against immigrants.
Question 9
curb: /kɜːb/ curb something to control or limit something, especially something bad. E.g. Measures to curb the number of migrants entering the UK from Calais have been put in place this week by the UK.
put something in place: set up, establish E.g. the rules which we shall put in place in the months ahead meet these criteria.
deport somebody to force somebody to leave a country, usually because they have broken the law or because they have no legal right to be there. E.g. He was convicted of drug offences and deported. Many refugees were forcibly( /ˈfɔːsəbli/ using physical force) deported back to the countries they had come from.
deportation: the act of forcing somebody to leave a country, usually because they have broken the law or because they have no legal right to be there. E.g. Several of the asylum seekers now face deportation.
Question 10
asylum seeker: a person who has been forced to leave their own country because they are in danger and who arrives in another country asking to be allowed to stay there
work permit: an official document that somebody needs in order to work in a particular foreign country.
Many immigrants seek work and new lives in Europe.
Question 11
detention centre: a place where people are kept in detention, especially people who have entered a country illegally. E.g. They are confined in a detention centre for asylum seekers, and forced to prove their refugee status.
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