1. Do you live in a quiet neighbourhood? In what way is your neighbourhood different from others?
2. How much has it changed over the years? What things have changed for the better and what for the worse?
3. Do you get on with your neighbours? If you had a problem with them, who could you approach? If you report an incident of noisy behaviour, do your local police react to it?
4. Which of the following facilities would you object to being built in your neighbourhood? Order them from most to least acceptable. Why would you object to the ones you dislike most?
a new motorway
a casino
an airport
a landfill (rubbish dump, garbage dump)
a prison
a primary school
a homeless shelter
student accommodation
a centre for the treatment of drug addiction
a mosque, a synagogue or a church
a centre for teenage youths with problems
5. Are you a NIMBY? (NIMBY is the acronym for Not In My Back Yard). It describes someone who is against any kind of development in their neighbourhood. Do you have such groups in your country?
Read article here: Noisy Neighbours Reading
6. What is your reaction?
7. If you lived in that area of Bristol, what would you do? Tell me about soundproofing, moving to a different area, appealing to the university authorities, starting a campaign on social media etc.
8. Are you surprised that Bristol universities are paying the police to patrol areas where students live?
9. Do you see a connection between bad student behaviour and private accommodation? Do you see a connection between the students' social class and their behaviour?
10. Do cities in your country have districts that are mainly for students? Who offers them accommodation - is it universities, or do private landlords provide it?
11. Do students in your country party like their UK counterparts, or are they more serious about their studies? Is this a generational problem - are the young less respectful of social norms?
12. Did your university provide a 'Guide to Community Living'? Did you read it? What guidelines were included? Did it include advice on 'hiring DJs, sound equipment and door staff'?
13. What do you understand about 'pre-loading' (paragraph 9) for party-goers? Does this play a role in bad behaviour? What measures could counter this?
.............
Situation
You have been appointed head of student services at Bristol University. You've called a press conference to announce new measures against late-night noise, and you're updating the 'Guide to Community Living'. Answer any questions from the awaiting journalists (your teacher).
..........
Discuss quotes
“No man should live where he can hear his neighbour's dog bark.”
― Nathaniel Macon
“In my Paris apartment, when a neighbour drives nails into the wall at an undue hour, I "naturalise" the noise by imagining that I am in my house in Dijon, where I have a garden. And finding everything I hear quite natural, I say to myself: "That's my woodpecker at work in the acacia tree." This is my method for obtaining calm when things disturb me.”
― Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space
“People don't want to listen to their thoughts, so they fill the world with noise.”
― Erin Entrada Kelly, Hello, Universe
“Every song may be someone else's personal implement of torture.”
― Francine Prose, Goldengrove
Student Handout PDF: Noisy Neighbours
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