You can download a free evaluation copy of the e-book “Working in Harvesting Teams” from http://mieab.se/en/tfs-2016/.
For copyright purposes, the pictures in the e-book have been partly masked by a "watermark".
To order a fully functional hardcopy of the book with the watermark removed, please visit http://mieab.se/en/order/.

After completing this lesson, learners will:

• Have a brief knowledge about the main aspects concerning their everyday work environment, and
• Know how to improve it on your own by following simple rules and advice

• Did you know that to maximize customer turnover, and thus profits, the leading fast-food chain has specifically designed hard seats, so that customers have to get up and leave after seating for only 15 minutes? In contrast, luxury restaurants adopt an opposite strategy: they try to maximize their profits by providing comfortable seats so that customers seat longer, order one or two drinks more, and perhaps an overpriced dessert?
• Did you know that to maximize profits, airlines have restricted leg space and passenger mobility in airplanes to the bare minimum, even though prolonged sitting in cramped positions without getting up to stretch out or move around has been known to cause vein thrombosis?
• Did you know that recent medical research has found that forgetting to regularly get up from the chair and move around is the cause of poor health and causes many modern day illnesses, such as respiratory failure, diabetes, chronic fatigue syndrome, depression, heart palpitations, decreased work performance, sexual drive, etc?
• Who is generally (not only legally) responsible for your work environment?
• In your opinion, which small changes in your daily routine at work may improve your work conditions?

Read pages 2:1 - 2:8 of the book "Working in Harvesting Teams", Part 1, and

1. Prepare a list with the unknown and/or interesting terms, look them up in the dictionary, and discuss them in class
2. Write a short summary and read it loud before the class audience
3. Develop your own mnemonics for the hard-to-remember terms, and
4. Have fun by organizing a brainstorming session/mnemonics party in class to improve and share them 

If you need to practice on your own when no human help is around and you don't mind the robotic voice(s) of a computer, here is what you can do:

On Windows computers

Webpages

Use any of the many free "text-to-speech" extensions for your web browser. For the Chrome web browser, for example, some of the most popular text-to-speech extensions include Select and speak, Text to speech, Read Aloud: a Text to Speech Voice Reader, Speak and text, etc.

To download and install, for example, the Select and speak extension on your Chrome bookmarks bar:

1. Click on the Apps icon to go to the Chrome App Store or go directly to the address: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/category/extensions
2. Search for Select and speak, download it and install the extension on your Chrome browser. You may wish to download and install more than one extensions and select the one to your liking.

To listen to some text on a webpage converted to speech:

• If you want to listen to text directly from a webpage, the only available option is the Select and Speak - Text to Speech extension for the Chrome browser, with US English only. To use it:
1. Select the text you are interested in on the respective Forest Workers Online Training Tool (FWOTT) webpage, and
2. Click on the Select and Speak - Text to Speech icon on your Google extensions bar to listen to the text.

• If you want to listen to the text in UK English:
1. Select and copy (Ctrl+C) the text you are interested in on the FWOTT webpage
2. Click on the Text To Speech icon on your Chrome extensions bar
3. In the opening tab, Paste (Ctrl+V) the selected text in the Copy & Paste Text To Synthesize (or enter URL) box
4. In the Click to Choose a Voice dropdown menu, select the appropriate voice (e.g. Google UK English Male)
5. Make other necessary adjustments, such as Rate and Pitch, and
6. Click on the Speak! button on the page

text

If you would like to have some text in a text file converted to speech watch the tutorial at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U25vhhE50kI. Alternatively, search the Web for tutorials on how to convert text to speech.

.pdf files

To listen to text in .pdf files, use the Read Out Loud facility of the Adobe Acrobat Reader.

If you do not have the Adobe Acrobat Reader installed, you may download it for free from: https://get.adobe.com/reader/otherversions/ and install it on your computer.

Once installed:

1. Open your .pdf file with Adobe Acrobat Reader
2. Go to Edit > Preferences > Reading
3. In the section Read Out Loud, make any necessary changes; for example, uncheck the button Use default voice to select a voice suitable to your taste, or uncheck the button Use default speech attributes to select the Pitch and/or the Words Per Minute attribute to increase or decrease the reading speed
4. Click OK to save your selection
5. Go back to the .pdf document in Acrobat Reader, click View > Read Out Loud > Activate Read Out Loud
6. Click again on View > Read Out Loud > Read This Page Only or Read to End of Document

On Mac computers

The text-to-speech facility is installed by default on your Mac computer.
To customize it, press System Preferences > Accessibility > Speech and make your selections including System Voice, Speaking Rate, etc.

Webpages

To listen to text on webpages:

1. Open the FWOTT page containing the text you are interested in
2. Select the text that you want to listen to
3. Right click on the page (Control+Enter), press Speech > Start speaking

.pdf files

To listen to .pdf files:

1. Open the .pdf file in macOS Preview
2. Click Edit > Speech > Start Speaking

On smartphones

iPhone

To select a UK English voice:

1. Go to Settings > General > Accessibility > Speech > Voices > English > ENGLISH (UK) > Daniel (or download any of the voices available in iCloud)
2. Go back to Settings > General > Language & Region > iPhone Language and select the English of your liking (e.g. English U.K.)
3. Click on Done to save your choice

To have each word highlighted on screen while it is pronounced:

1. Go to Settings > General > Accessibility and select Speech
2. Turn on Speak Selection and Speak Screen
3. Turn on Highlight Content
4. Select Words or Sentences or Words and Sentences
5. In the HIGHLIGHT COLORS section, select your choice of Word Color highlight
6. Return to the Speech screen, and adjust the SPEAKING RATE to your liking
7. Click on the Pronunciations link at the bottom of the Speech page, and then click on '+'
8. On the Replacement screen, you may optionally type in a sentence you want to listen to and press Play for testing
9. Make adjustments to the Languages and Voices sections according to your taste
10. Close Settings

To listen to text on a webpage:

1. Open your browser
2. Go to the FWOTT webpage you are interested in
3. Select the text you want to listen to
4. Press Speak on the emerging menu, and
5. Listen to each pronounced word while it is highlighted on screen

Android

1. Go to Settings > Accessibility > Text-to-speech
2. Select Google Text-to-speech Engine
3. Adjust the Speech rate and Pitch rate to your liking
4. Verify by clicking on the Listen to an example link
5. Open your browser, go to the FWOTT webpage of your interest, select the text of your interest, and listen to each pronounced word as it is highlighted

Enjoy!

And keep in mind:

You learn best by playing!