Poles and English, thinly dispersed (6)
I believe the answer is:
sparse
'thinly dispersed' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'poles and english' is the wordplay.
'poles' becomes 'spars' (spar is a kind of pole).
'and' says to put letters next to each other.
'english' becomes 'e' (abbreviation).
'spars'+'e'='SPARSE'
(Other definitions for sparse that I've seen before include "Infrequent" , "Thinly distributed" , "Thinly dotted about" , "One's not at all thick" , "Meagre, thin on the ground" .)