Lesson 2: Are We Too Many?

A Read the text and do the following project work.

The next day when the teacher came to the class and was about to start the lesson, Shanti Barua stood up and said, "Teacher, can I ask you a question, please?" "Go ahead, Shanti," said the teacher. "In our last class, we heard Jamil's story of how too many people made the ferry boat sink. I have also seen crowds of people at bus stand, railway station, launch and steamer ghats. It is not uncommon to see people travelling on top of a bus or train and meeting with tragic accidents. My question is: Are there really too many people in our country?" "Thank you, Shanti. Please sit down." The teacher then looked round the class and asked, "How many of you have the same question in mind?" Almost all the hands went up. "Okay," the teacher continued. "Finding the right answer to this question is very important for us- for our national development. So we will look at this issue with some facts so that we can find out if we are really too many or not."

Project work: Discuss in groups and carry out a survey on the topic: "Too many people! You can do the following things:

• Select only one small area such as your village or locality in the town/city where you live.
• Find out its area. (You can do it by walking around it. At normal speed you can cover about one kilometer in ten minutes.)
• Find out the number of people living in it.
• Find out about the people's occupations, unemployment and poverty.

B Listen to the Audio. Listen how the teacher talks about the population of Bangladesh and answer the following questions.

Listening text 3

Questions

Tick the best answer.

1. Bangladesh is a small country, because a. its land area is small. b. it has about 150 million people. c. it is the 8th most populous country in the world. d. it has limited resources.
2. Density of population in any country means a. all the people in a country. b. number of people living in one square kilometer. c. 1000 people living in one square kilometer. d. too many people living in one square kilometer.
3. Our yearly population growth rate is a. 1.9% b. 1.40% c. 2.1% d. 1.1%
4. Our birth rate is per thousand. a. 6.1 b. 1.40 c. 20.1 d. 14
5. What will be the size of our population in 2050? a. 150 m b. 197 m c. 217 m d. 250 m

C Listen again and answer these questions.

1. How do you get the population growth rate of a country?
2. Why will the population of Bangladesh be so large in 2050?

D

Read the chart and fill in the gaps with information from the table. Use comparatives and superlatives where necessary. The table shows facts about some countries including Bangladesh.

| | Bangladesh | Sri Lanka | India | China | |-----------------|-----------------------|------------------|-------------------|--------------------| | Land area sq km | 148,460 sq km (approx) | 62,710 sq km | 3,287,263 sq km | 9,600,000 sq km | | Population | 165 m | 21.4 m | 1380 m | 1420 m | | Density of population per sq km | 1116 | 341 | 464 | 153 | | Birth rate (per 1000) | 18.18 | 15.5 | 18.2 | 10.48 | | Death rate (per 1000) | 5.5 | 4.2 | 7.3 | 7.4 | | Growth rate | 1.04% | 0.42% | 1.1% | 0.6% |

In terms of land area Bangladesh is (1) larger than Sri Lanka, but (2) smaller than India. China is, of course, (3) the largest. Sri Lanka has the (4) lowest density of all the four countries. However, China has the (5) highest population among the four countries. In fact, China has the (6) largest population shown in the chart. India has the (7) second highest population in the world and India has the highest population in the world. On the other hand, China has the (8) lowest growth rate among the 4 countries. Bangladesh has (9) higher growth rate than (10) Sri Lanka and (11) China.

E Write a paragraph about the population situation of any of the countries above. Use the facts given in the chart in D above.