Experiencing English

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Experiencing English

• Book Three

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(No Transcript)
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Procedure

• Lead-in
• Watch a video clip and summarize it
• Group Discussion
• Passage A
• Warm-up Activities
• Culture Notes
• Text Understanding
• Language Points
• Difficult Sentences
• Summary
• Follow-up Activity
• Assignment

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Lead-in
Watch a video clip about a certain strange way of
learning English created by some Japanese girls
and then summarize what you have seen and heard.

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Look at the following picture and read the
following words to have a group discussion.
This is a famous etching (???) by Goya, a Spanish
painter and etcher. The title of the etching is
Im still learning.
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• Intellectual growth should commence at birth
  and cease only at death.
• ---Albert Einstein

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Group discussion

• What message do you think the etching conveys?
• How do you understand this remark of Einsteins?
• Whats the significance of lifelong education?

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Passage A Tongue-tied
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Warm-up Activities

• 1. In what way do you usually learn English
  words?
• 2. How do you understand the German proverb
  Whoever cares to learn will always find a
  teacher?

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Culture Notes

• The English Language English is the chief medium
  of communication in the United Kingdom, the
  United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand,
  South Africa, and some other countries. It is
  spoken in more parts of the world than any other
  language and by more people than any other tongue
  except Chinese. For quite a long time, the
  English language has become the linga franca for
  international communication.

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Culture Notes

• Idiom/Idiomatic Expression A phrase which
  means something different from the meanings of
  the separate words from which it is formed.
• white elephant
• kick the bucket
• lions share
• follow (ones) nose
• (out) on a limb

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Culture Notes

• Proverb A short well-known (wise) saying,
  usu. in simple language.
• All is not gold that glitters.
• Dont put all your eggs in one basket.
• A friend to all is a friend to none.
• A closed mouth catches no flies.

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Text Understanding

• Read the passage and answer the following
  questions
• 1. What was the authors immediate response
  when the driver passed her a slip of paper?
• 2. What did the author mean by saying clever
  is not clever if it doesn't communicate?
• 3. Why did the author hope that the driver
  owned a dictionary?

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Language Points

• 1. rear a. of, at or located in the back
• Is the puncture in the front or rear wheel?
• She doesnt like sitting in the rear seat.

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Language Points

• 2. version n. a particular form of sth. which
  varies slightly from other forms of the same
  thing
• The two witnesses gave contradictory versions of
  what had happened that night.
• The latest version of the film is more like the
  book.

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Language Points

• 3. escape v. to elude the memory or
  comprehension of
• I'm afraid your name escapes me/ has escaped me
  ( I have forgotten your name).
• Nothing important escapes her notice /attention.
• The book's significance escaped him.

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Language Points

• 4. resort to to use (something) for help,
  because you cannot find any other way of acting
• The electric lamps went out so we had to resort
  to candles to light the room.
• The mother resorted to punishment to make the
  child obey.

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Language Points

• 5. jot down to write down quickly, to make a
  quick short note of (something)
• I always carry a pen and a notebook with me for
  jotting down my ideas.

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Language Points

• 6. add up to to combine to produce a particular
  result or effect
• Your long answer just adds up to a refusal.
• Their actions added up to a deliberate flouting
  of the rules.
• These new measures do not add up to genuine
  reform.

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Language Points

• 7. hang on to depend on (something)
• His whole career hangs on his passing the exam.
• The survival of the government hangs on tonights
  crucial vote.
• The safety of air travel hangs partly on the
  thoroughness of baggage checking.

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Language Points

• 8. indulge v. to allow (yourself or someone
  else) to have esp. a lot of something enjoyable
• The rich father indulged his son with plenty of
  pocket money.
• I indulged my interest in flowers by planting a
  large flower garden.
• indulge in to allow oneself the pleasure of He
  occasionally indulges in the luxury of a good
  cigar.

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Difficult Sentences

• 1. He looked confused, reminder that clevers
  not clever if it doesnt communicate.
• He looked confused, and his puzzled look reminded
  me that my answer was not clever at all because
  it couldnt be understood.

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Difficult Sentences

• 2. so enthralled by the chance to indulge my
  curiosity about words with another curious soul,
  that I didnt fully grasp the potential for
  linguistic fraud committed in this mans cab.
• (Id been) so absorbed in the chance to satisfy
  the mans curiosity with my (poor) knowledge of
  English that I didnt fully realize how
  misleading and confusing my and other native
  speakers interpretation might be.

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Difficult Sentences

• 3. And that he figures out that, no matter what
  his passengers may say, haste doesnt always make
  waste at the gapers block.
• And that he finds out that, no matter what his
  passengers may say, things may not mean as they
  say.

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Summary

• This is an amusing short story that illustrates
  how little people sometimes know about their
  mother tongue. The narrator is a woman, the
  passenger in a taxi whose driver is a Pakistani
  man _____ to learn English by ___________________.
  ______ to explain the meanings of a proverb and
  an idiom, she realizes how little she really
  knows about the vocabulary of her ___________ and
  also ____ what kind of answers other,

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Summary

• probably equally ignorant, native passengers
  might give. In the end she is left hoping the
  driver has a dictionary and that he will use it
  to teach himself rather than _______ the native
  speakers for explanations.

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Key

• eager
• asking his passengers about new words
• Struggling
• native language
• wonders
• depend on

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Follow-up Activity
Work in pairs and complete the following task.
Role B
Role A
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Work in pairs and complete the following task.
Role A
Role B
You are a sophomore at college and not very
successful in the study of English, especially in
building up your vocabulary. No matter how hard
you try, some peculiar English words just wont
stay in your mind. So you come to your teachers
office for help.
As an experienced teacher of English, you know
the trouble your students have and are ready to
help.
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Assignment

• Write a short essay about how to be a good
  learner of English language in your opinion.

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Passage B Returning to College
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Procedure

• Warm-up Activities
• Culture Notes
• Text Understanding
• Language Points
• Difficult Sentences
• Summary
• Follow-up Activity
• Assignment

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Warm-up Activities

• 1. For what purposes would an adult return to
  college?
• 2. Do you think most of the college students
  appreciate their college life?

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Culture Notes

• Plato (428 -- 347? B.C.) Greek philosopher. A
  follower of Socrates, he founded the Academy (386
  B.C.), where he taught and wrote for much of the
  rest of his life. Plato presented his ideas in
  the form of dramatic dialogues, as in The
  Republic.

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Culture Notes

• Aristotle (384 -- 322 B.C.) Greek philosopher.
  As a pupil of Plato, the tutor of Alexander the
  Great, and the author of works on logic,
  metaphysics, ethics, natural sciences, politics,
  and poetics, he profoundly influenced Western
  thought.

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Culture Notes

• David Hume (1711 1776) British philosopher
  and historian who argued that human knowledge
  arises only from sense experience. His works
  include A Treatise of Human Nature (1739- 1740)
  and Political Discourses (1752).

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Culture Notes

• Baruch Spinoza (1632 1677) Dutch philosopher
  and theologian whose controversial pantheistic
  doctrine advocated an
  intellectual love of God. His best-known work is
  Ethics (1677).

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Culture Notes

• John Locke (1632 1704) English philosopher.
  In An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690)
  he set out the principles of empiricism, and his
  Two Treatises on Government (1690) influenced the
  Declaration of Independence.

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Culture Notes

• John Dewey (1859 1952)
• American philosopher and educator who was a
  leading exponent of philosophical pragmatism and
  rejected traditional methods of teaching by rote
  in favor of
  broad-based system of practical experience.

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Culture Notes

• George Gordon Byron (1788 1824)
• English poet, who was one of the most
  important and versatile writers of the romantic
  movement. His works include Childe Harold, The
  Prisoner of Chillon, and Don Juan.

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Text Understanding

• Read the passage and answer the following
  questions.
• 1. Why didnt the author go back to college after
  his military service in the Army?
• 2. Why does the author want to go back to college
  now?
• 3. What does the author think of young students
  on campus?
• 4. What courses does the author want to take and
  why?

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Language Points

• 1. draft v. to select from a group for some
  usually compulsory service
• Every Christmas thousands of people are drafted
  in to help with the post.
• Forrest Gump was drafted into the army after his
  college graduation.

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Language Points

• 2. inclination n. a preference or tendency a
  feeling that makes a person want to do something
• Prices have an inclination to go up.
• I've no inclination to follow my mother into
  accountancy.

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Language Points

• 3. turn out take place in the specified way in
  the end prove to be
• The newcomer turned out to be one of my old
  acquaintances.
• The job turned out to be harder than we had
  thought.

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Language Points

• 4. pick up
• 1) to start again after an interruption
• The author picks up the theme again on page ten.
• After lunch shall we pick up where we left off
  yesterday?

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Language Points

• 2) learn or acquire easily without making much
  effort
• He picked up a few Japanese phrases when he was
  on a business trip to Tokyo.

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Language Points

• 5. appeal to to interest or attract someone
• I've never been skiing --- it doesn't really
  appeal to me.
• It's a program designed to appeal mainly to 16 to
  25 year olds.
• I think what appeals to me about his painting is
  the colors he uses.

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Language Points

• 6. stink v. (informal disapproving) to be
  extremely bad or unpleasant
• I think her whole attitude stinks.
• His acting stinks, but he looks good, so he's
  offered lots of movie roles.

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Language Points

• 7. refresh v. to give new energy and strength
  to (someone)
• A rest and a cool drink will refresh you.
• Having had a good sleep and a substantial meal,
  he felt thoroughly refreshed.
• I looked the word up in the dictionary to refresh
  my memory of ( help me to remember) its exact
  meaning.

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Difficult Sentences

• 1. I wouldnt want to pick up where I left off.
• I didnt mean to resume my education by taking
  the subjects I had once missed at college.

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Difficult Sentences

• 2. Too much of what I know of the great
  philosophers comes secondhand or from
  condensations.
• My knowledge of the great philosophers came
  indirectly or from some simplified works.

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Difficult Sentences

• 3. This is just a little conversational conceit,
  but thats life.
• This is like a trick employed in conversation to
  show off, but I think we all naturally do so.

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Summary

• In this passage, the writer, a newspaper
  columnist and TV commentator, praises the idea of
  education for educations sake and regrets the
  fact that most college students, motivated only
  by the idea of future professional success, do
  not realize what a wonderful opportunity they are
  missing.

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Summary

• While at college and not burdened by the
  responsibilities that come later in life, they
  focus their attention only on those courses that
  they think will help make them rich. The author
  himself would go right back to being a freshman
  and study philosophy, calculus, literature,
  history and grammar. He does recognize that if he
  were studying for the knowledge and not for
  earning grades, education would probably become
  less stressful and more fun.

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Listen to a short passage about a continuing
education program and answer some questions.
Follow-up Activities

• Continuing Education Program

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Follow-up Activities

• Questions
• 1. When did the continuing education program
  begin?
• 2. How many courses does the program offer?
• 3. Who are the study group leaders?
• 4. Are the teachers in the program paid? Why do
  they teach?
• 5. What do members in this program enjoy?

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Assignment

• Further discussion
• What are the different ways people continue
  their learning after graduation from school?