wattsworkshop.docVIP

BBC Learning English 6 Minute English Watt’s workshop NB: This is not a word for word transcript  Alice: Stephen: Alice: Stephen: Alice: Stephen: Alice: Stephen: Alice: Stephen: 6 Minute English  Hello, Im Alice. And Im Stephen. And this is 6 Minute English! This week we’re talking about an inventor’s workshop which has been reassembled after almost 200 years. Reassembled – reconstructed or rebuilt. This is the workshop of James Watt, an inventor born in Scotland in 1736. He’s often credited with inventing the steam engine – though in actual fact, he improved on one which had already been developed. He’s seen as a key figure in the Industrial Revolution. But anyway Stephen, before we find out more I’ve got a question for you. Ok – I’m feeling clever today! Oh, well, in that case here’s a difficult one. Can you put these four inventions in chronological order - that’s the oldest one first? Ready? Ok. The hot air balloon, Morse code, the vacuum cleaner and the typewriter. That’s hard. I’m going to have to think about that and get back to you! © 2011 Page 1 of 6 Alice:  Ok, good. So, let’s talk about today’s topic. Curators at the Science Museum in  London have reassembled the workshop of 18th century inventor James Watt, so people can see what it was like. Here’s the BBC’s science correspondent, Tom Fielden: Insert 1: Tom Fielden When Watt died in 1819, this workshop was locked up and its contents left pretty much undisturbed until the 1920s when it was more or less picked up lock, stock and barrel by the Science Museum and put into storage. It’s been a long wait, but the contents, a regular cornucopia of gadgets, tools, contraptions, you name it, have all been painstakingly reassembled here in the main hall of the Science Museum. I think, really, it’s its spiritual home if nowhere else.  Alice: Stephen: Alice: Stephen: 6 Minute English  Watt’s workshop was locked up after his death in 1819 but curators from the Science Museum in London collected all the thin