I have lost count of the times that international students have told me that they can’t understand what the British students are saying! They speak too quickly and they just can’t follow them. Here’s a bit of listening practice with a student talking about volunteering at the University of Plymouth. Volunteering is a great way to meet home students and you can add it to your CV! Listen first without reading the script underneath, then look at the script to help you with the bits you didn’t get. Then go and volunteer!
Hi, my name’s Charlie, I’m 25 I’m studying Environmental Science at Plymouth University. I’m in my 3rd year, I’ve been part of the VIP Moor Trees group for 3 years.
I am student project coordinator for VIP Moor Trees, VIP is Volunteering in Plymouth. We’re here in the Hive where we run all our projects from.
We’ve got Monkey Sanctuary, conservation work and beechling, we’ve got so many projects, which is why we’re one of the biggest societies in Plymouth.
I’m in charge of logistics for this project so I organise the minibus and make sure we have a driver, and overall it’s quite a large project, we have about 120 volunteers total.
Moor Trees is a local charity dedicated to restoring ancient woodlands to Dartmoor and the surrounding area. So what that means is we go out to the forests and harvest seeds and we bring them back here to our nurseries. Two years later we take out the little saplings and plant them out in Dartmoor.
I first started coming along to this because I wanted to do something for myself, I wanted to enhance my CV. But then I saw the great work these guys were doing and I just kept coming back because I really bought into the mission statement, I thought what they do is absolutely amazing.
Just across here Andy is providing some much needed water for the one year olds.Tabby is weeding an oak bed. Just across that side the compost team keep the compost nice and damp so that when we do recompost the beds the trees have lots of good nourishment
We have all sorts of volunteers here at Moor Trees it’s not just the Environmental Science students, I think every course and faculty is represented.
One of the really great things is that it gives you so many great transferable skills for your CV.
Volunteering is not just about hard work we also like to have fun and chill out it’s a great way to meet new people and make friends.
We’re here at Dene Vern which is right in the shadow of Dartmoor. This is a site where Moor Trees are planted it’s just so great to be back here seeing these trees doing so well.
I’m really pleased I came to Plymouth and that I became a volunteer because it’s given me an opportunity to come out to such beautiful locations and I’ve been part of something that’s bigger than me, that’s going to keep on growing after I’ve gone.