Unit 1
Part 1 Warming up A
Vocabulary
1. commitment: a responsibility or promise to follow certain beliefs or a certain course of action
2. undertake: to take up or accept
3. innovation: the introduction of new things; a new idea, method, or invention 4. excel: to be the best or better than
5. cosmopolitan: consisting of people from many different parts of the world 6. stimulating: that makes one feel active and healthy
7. enrollment: the number of persons made officially a member of a group
8. motivate: be the reason for ; cause (somebody) to act in a particular way ; inspire 9. urban: of, situated in r living in a city or town
10. comprise: have as parts or members ; be made up of 11. progress: to improve ; develop favorably Notes: Present Name Original Name Founding Year Location Harvard Harvard College 1636 Massachusetts University Columbia King?s College 1754 New York City University
Key to the Exercise
A 1. Oxford; commitment ; academic record
2. oldest ; largest ; reputation ; research ; science
3. first ; Australia ; 150 years ; excels 4. excellence ; 17,000 ; location 5. largest ; 1883 ; situated ; 26,000 6. 1636 ; enrollment ; 18,500 ; schools 7. awards ; degrees ; 20,000 8. located ; 135 ; third
Part 1-B
1. 2,700 languages / 7,000 dialects / regional / pronunciation 2. official language 3. One billion / 20%
4. 400 million / first / 600 million / second / foreign 5. 500,000 words / 80% / other 6. 80% / computers 7. African country / same
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8. 1,000 / Africa
9. spaceship / 1977 / 55 / message / the United Nations
C Vocabulary
1. disc: a small circular piece of hard plastic on which high-quality recorded sound or large quantities of information can be stored 2. visual: of or gained by seeing
3. tactile: of or able to be felt by the sense of touch 4. identify: to discover or recognize
5. analytical: using, or skilled in using, methods of careful examination, esp. in order to separate things into their parts
6. oriented: adjusted or located in relation to surroundings or circumstances; sometimes used in combination
7. concrete: particular as opposed to general; clear ; existing in material form; that can be touched, felt, etc
exclusive: not including ; not counting a c d b Tapescript:
All right, class. Today we?re going to be looking at different language learning styles. You may be surprised to find that there are different ways of going about learning languages, none of which is necessarily better than the others. Researchers have identified four basic learner types---the communicative learner, the analytical learner, the authority-oriented learner and the concrete learner. Communicative learners like to learn by watching and listening to native speakers. At home, they like to learn by watching TV and videos. They like to learn new words by hearing them. In class, they like to learn by having conversations. Now, concrete learners like to learn by playing games, by looking at pictures and videos in class, by talking in pairs, by listening to
cassettes at home and school. Now, authority-oriented learners, on the other hand, like the teacher to explain everything. They like to write everything down in their notebook, and they like to have a textbook. They like to learn new words by seeing them. And finally, we have analytical learners. These learners like to learn by studying grammar. At home, they like to learn by studying English books, and they like to study by themselves. They like to find their own mistakes. Now, of course, it?s unusual for a person to be exclusively one type rather than another. Most of us are mixtures of styles. What type of learner do you think you are?
Part 2 Educational Systems
A
Vocabulary
1. comprehensive school: a large state secondary school in Britain for children of all abilities from a single district, providing a wide range of education
2. GCSE examination: a school-leaving examination introduced in 1988 in Britain.
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GCSE stands for the General Certificate of Secondary Education.
3. A level: a higher-level examination of the GCE(General Certificate of Education), normally taken at the age of 17 or 18, two years after the ?O? level examination(Children in the U.K. take a number of subjects at the ordinary level of the General Certificate of Education, which is often referred to as the ?O? level). It is the standard for entrance to university and other higher education, and to many forms of professional training. 4. provincial: of a province or the provinces
5. school board: an official body that has responsibility for the particular school
6. diploma: an official paper showing that a person has successfully finished a course of study or passed an examination
7. certificate: a document giving a statement made by an official person that a fact or facts are true
8. sophomore: student in the second year at high school or college 9. entrée: right or privilege of admission or entry Key to the Exercise A3
1. GCSE examination
2. students / higher education
3. student / second year / high school / college 4. general exam / School Certificate
5. sitting University / Entrance Examination 6. bachelor?s degree: 3-4 years
master?s degree: another year or two doctorate: a further 3-7 years
Tapescript: Well, in Britain, from the age of five to about eleven you start off at a primary school, and then from eleven to sixteen you go on to a secondary school or a comprehensive school and at sixteen you take GCSE examinations. After this, some children take vocational courses or even start work. Others stay on at school for another two years to take A levels. And at the age of eighteen, after A levels, they might finish their education or go on to a course of higher education at a college or university, and that?s usually for three years.
Well, it depends on what state you?re in but most kids in the United States start school at about six when they go to elementary school and that goes from the first grade up to the sixth grade. Some kids go to a kindergarten the year before that. Then they go on to junior high school, that?s about eleven, and that?s the seventh, eighth and ninth grades. And then they go on to senior high school around age fourteen starting in the tenth grade and finishing in the twelfth grade usually. Some students will leave at sixteen and they?ll start work, but most of them stay on to graduate from high school at eighteen. In the first year at high school or college students are called freshmen, in the second they?re called sophomores, in the third year we call them juniors and in the fourth year they?re called seniors. Now a lot of high school graduates then go to college or university and they do a four-year first degree course. Some of them might
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go to a junior college which is a two-year course.
Well, in Australia, well in most states anyway, children start their primary education at five after perhaps a brief time in kindergarten. They will stay at primary school until they?re about eleven, then they?ll either stay there or go to an intermediate school for a couple of years. Then they start high school usually twelve or thirteen, which you start in the third form. Now, after three years at high school, you sit a general exam, some states call it Scholl Certificate and that is a sort of general qualification. After that you can leave school at sixteen or you can go on and sit your University Entrance Examination, which then gives you entrée into a university or it?s another useful qualification, and from then on you go to various sorts of higher education.
Education in Canada is a provincial responsibility, but schools are administered by local school boards.
Kindergarten is for children who are four or five years old. Children begin formal full-day Schooling in Grade 1, when they are about six years old. They must stay in school at least until they are sixteen. However, most students continue to finish high school. Some go on to college or university.
Each year of schooling represents on grade. (The school year extends form the beginning of September to the end of June.) Elementary school includes kindergarten to about Grade 8. Secondary school(or high school) may start in Grade 8,9, or 10 and it usually continues until Grade 12.
In Canada, students may go to university or to a community college. If they want to learn skills for a specific job, they attend college for one to four years to get a diploma or certificate. For example, lab technicians, child-care workers, and hotel managers go to college. Universities offer degree programs as well as training in certain professions, such as law, medicine, and teaching.
Universities offer three main levels of degrees. Students earn a bachelor?s degree after three or four years of study. A master?s degree can take another year or two. A doctorate may take a further three to seven years to complete. B
1. linguistics: scientific study of language
2. spring up: to appear or come into being or action quickly 3. aviation: the science or practice of flying in aircraft 4. hodgepodge: mixture
5. stem from: to exist or happen as a result of; have as an origin or cause
6. baffle: to cause to have difficulty in understanding and confuse so much that effective action is impossible
7. prestige: general respect or admiration felt for something because it has high quality social influence, success, etc.
8. evolve: to develop gradually by a long continuous process
9. pose: to be the cause of (something difficult to deal with); sit or stand in a particular position in order to be painted, drawn or photographed
10. slang: language not suitable for formal use; words and expressions often
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short-lived or particular to a certain group
11. idiom: phrase or sentence whose meaning is not clear from the meaning of its individual words and which must be learnt as a whole unit
12. colloquial: belonging to or suitable for normal conversation but not formal speech or writing
13. variety: quality of not being the same, or not being the same at all times Words and Expressions
interview / Professor J.T. Lingo / linguistics/ Chimo University/teaching English/morning/ big business/ language schools/ spring up/ move / global economy/most widely/business, aviation, science and international affairs/ compete/ easy to learn?/ hodgepodge of different languages/ essentially Germanic / lot/ from French/ technical words from Latin and Greek/adaptable/ good for a world language/ irregularity in spelling and pronunciation/largest vocabulary/Anglo-Saxon Old English/ French more prestige/ the Norman Conquest in 1066/French to Britain/evolve today/idioms in informal English/varieties: slang, colloquial, formal, written, dialects/Canadian English different from American and British?/closer to American in pronunciation and idiom/some spelling/ reflect British usage
KEY French irregularity in spelling and pronunciation largest vocabulary idioms in informal English Tapescript:
I------interviewer P---Professor
I: And now we have an interview with Professor J.T. Lingo, Professor of Linguistics at Chimo University, who is here to talk to us about the growing business of teaching English. Good morning, Professor, Lingo. P: Good morning.
I: Professor, I understand that teaching English is becoming big business all around the world.
P: It seems that language schools are springing up everywhere. I: Why is that?
P: With the move toward a global economy, English has become the most widely used language in the world. It is the language of business, aviation, science and international affairs and people find that they must learn English to compete in those fields.
I: And do people find English an easy language to learn?
P: Well, every language has something about it that other people find difficult to learn. English is such a hodgepodge of different languages---it?s essentially Germanic but a lot of its vocabulary comes from French, and technical words stem from Latin and Greek. This feature makes English fairly adaptable---which is a good thing for a world language---but it causes irregularity in spelling and pronunciation. I: English spelling baffles me, too.
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