Listening Transcript Beth Hello. This is 6 Minute English fro | Dr Ahmadian

Listening Transcript

Beth
Hello. This is 6 Minute English from BBC Learning English. I’m Beth.
Neil
And I’m Neil. Phew! I've spent all day in meetings, then shopping, then collecting the kids from school - I'm exhausted, Beth! What have you been doing today?
Beth
Oh, not much, just sitting around doing nothing…relaxing and kicking back.
Neil
Lucky you! Don’t you have work to do?
Beth
It may not look like it, Neil, but I’m actually as busy as a bee! If you’ve seen nature documentaries about worker bees flying from flower to flower, you probably think animals are always on the move. But the surprising truth is, away from the cameras, most animals spend most of the time doing absolutely nothing at all.
Neil
In the natural world where finding food and shelter is hard work, why have some animals evolved to do nothing? And if it’s good enough for animals, would being lazy work for humans too? That’s what we will be discussing in this programme, and as usual, we’ll be learning some useful new vocabulary as well.
Beth
Of course, some animals have a reputation for lounging about – lions, for example, can sleep up to twenty hours a day! But what is the slowest moving animal on Earth? Is it:
a)    the giant tortoise
b)    the three-toed sloth or
c)    the koala? 
Neil
Well, I think it’s the three-toed sloth.
Beth
OK, Neil. I’ll reveal the correct answer at the end of the programme. Now it’s no surprise that lazy lions love relaxing, but even animals with reputations for being busy spend time doing nothing. Look carefully into an ant's nest and you’ll see around half of them just sitting there motionless.
Neil
We think ants are industrious, or hard-working. Groups of ants, called colonies, seem tiny, perfect societies where everyone works hard for the good of the group.
Beth
Then why are so many of them inactive? One possible answer is that they’re reserve ants, ready to step in if disease or disaster strike. But could it simply be that they don’t work because they don’t need to. Would you get out of bed on Monday morning if you didn’t have to?
Neil
Maybe the ants can teach us a thing or two about relaxing. But wouldn't it get boring just sitting around all day?
Instead of fearing boredom we can open up to its benefits by switching off - stopping worrying or thinking about something and relaxing. Slowing down helps too - something we can definitely learn from our animal cousins.
Beth
I think now’s a good time to reveal the answer to my question, since we have nothing else to do.
Neil
You asked me to name the world’s slowest animal and I guessed it was the three-toed sloth. Was I right?
Beth
That was the correct answer! OK, let's recap the vocabulary that we've learned from this programme starting with the phrase kicking back – stop doing things and relax completely.
Neil
The adjective industrious means hard-working. 
Beth
A colony is the name given to a group of certain animals including ants and some seabirds.
Neil
And finally, to switch off means to stop worrying or thinking about something and relax.