节目资讯
刊物:空中英语教室
日期:2013-12-07
难易度:Medium
关键字:suspend, evidence, naive, furthermore, keep an eye on, tattletale
Hello, and welcome to Studio Classroom.
My name is Gabe.
And I'm Carolyn.
And your English is going to improve today.
Now we're continuing our lesson To Tell or Not to Tell.
A very good question.
Of course in yesterday's lesson we learned through Angela and Nick's
conversation that someone cheated on their history test.
Nick wants to tell the teacher Mr. Brown, but Angela doesn't really feel the
same way.
Now I wonder about cheating... and of course nobody thinks cheating is a good
idea,
but who does cheating hurt more, the cheater or everybody else in the class?
What do you think about this, Carolyn?
Well, Nick made the point that it will hurt the class ranks, that it will
influence the other students in a negative way.
But I also think it really hurts the person who does the cheating because that
means that they didn't actually learn the information,
and it's not going to be helpful to them in the future.
They can't build upon the knowledge because they don't have it to begin with.
That's exactly right.
I also think it hurts the cheater because especially if they get away with it,
then they're also learning that you can get away with cheating and doing things
like that that are not helpful in life, actually things that are harmful to you.
All right.
Well, we have more to learn from today's conversation, so let's get started.
To Tell or Not to Tell.
But this is Mr. Brown.
Everyone knows what a strict teacher he is.
He might call the student's parents or even have him suspended!
Mr. Brown can't suspend the student yet.
He'd need more evidence than just my word.
He'll probably just give him a warning and keep an eye on him.
And what if our classmates find out you told on him?
Everyone in the class will call you a tattletale.
I don't care. I'm doing the right thing.
But I'll ask Mr. Brown not to mention my name.
OK, so Nick is trying to protect himself as well.
OK, let's go back to the beginning of our conversation here.
Angela has the first line.
If you remember, Nick was talking about talking to someone in authority about
this problem.
What does Angela say?
Well, she says: But this is Mr. Brown.
So Nick isn't just going to talk to someone in authority, he's going to talk to
their teacher Mr. Brown.
And everyone knows what a strict teacher he is.
He might call the student's parents or even have him suspended.
That's exactly right. OK, so this seems kind of scary to Angela.
She says everyone knows what a strict teacher he is.
Everyone knows what a something someone is.
This is a kind of phrase you... you use if you want to talk about someone's
reputation.
What is someone known for?
Well, everyone knows that this person is like this.
OK. Well, what else does Angela say here?
Mr. Brown might suspend this kid?
That's right.
And that is a key word from our Word Bank.
If you suspend or get suspended from something, that means that you're not
allowed to work at your job or attend classes for a certain period of time.
You could also be suspended from a sports team.
Maybe a player gets suspended because he was yelling or being too aggressive
toward the other team.
So he's not allowed to play in the next game.
OK, so suspension, that's the noun form, S-U-S-P-E-N-S-I-O-N.
Suspension is a very serious thing.
I can think of something a little more serious, and that is getting expelled.
That means you're kicked out of the school, you can't go to that school anymore.
You get expelled.
OK, I'm glad it's not that serious in this situation.
Maybe this guy might get suspended, though.
Well, we are very concerned about this.
Angela is very worried because Mr. Brown is a strict teacher.
But what does Nick say?
All right.
Mr. Brown can't suspend the student yet.
He'd need more evidence than just my word.
Ah, that is true.
He would need more evidence.
And that is from our Word Bank as well.
If you have evidence, that means that you have proof that something has
happened.
So many police officers, detectives, they will gather evidence at a crime scene
so that they can figure out what happened.
OK. So maybe you're in court, and someone is being tried.
They're not sure if he's guilty or innocent.
And so of course you need to find evidence to prove that he is guilty or
evidence to prove that she is innocent.
But what else might need evidence?
You know, sometimes we talk about how old the Earth is.
Some people think that there is evidence that it's billions of years old.
Actually there's quite a lot of evidence that it could just be 10,000 years old
or younger.
What kind of evidence do you know about?
Well, there is a lot of evidence.
And Nick says that he would need more evidence than just my word.
Now "word" is an interesting word here in this sentence.
And Liz wants to tell us more about it in the Grammar Gym.
Hello, friends. Thanks for joining me here at the Grammar Gym.
My name is Liz.
Now in today's article we see this statement:
He'd need more evidence than just my word.
That's our Grammar Tip sentence.
Notice the word at the end of the sentence: word.
Normally we use "word" to mean a letter or a group of letters that are just put
together and mean something.
But in today's sentence, "word" means a comment or statement from someone.
So in today's sentence, it just means he'd need more evidence than just my
statement.
This use of "word" to mean statement or comment is often used in spoken
situations.
For example: What Henry said sounded very strange; it's hard to believe his
word.
Or: The manager had trouble settling the dispute; there were no witnesses and it
was simply one employee's word against another.
If you'd like to see some more example sentences, they're available in today's
Grammar Tip section in your magazine.
And that's all the time we have for today.
This is Liz from the Grammar Gym.
See you next time.
Thank you, Liz.
OK. Well, Nick continues here.
He says: He'll probably just give him a warning and keep an eye on him.
So of course Mr. Brown can't suspend him yet.
He doesn't have enough evidence.
But Mr. Brown will keep an eye on that guy in their history class.
And that is probably a good thing.
It will help prevent cheating in the future.
If you keep an eye on something, that means that you are watching it very
closely to see if there are any changes or odd behaviors.
OK. So what else could you keep an eye on?
Well, maybe someone wants you to take care of their dog for a few minutes.
Could you please keep an eye on my dog while I go into the store?
Or what else?
Keep an eye on that TV.
Keep an eye on the news.
I want to see what happens.
Tell me what happens.
Ah, very good things to keep your eye on.
And let's see, Angela has the next line.
And what if our classmates find out you told on him?
And there is a great phrase in there: told on, to tell on.
What does that mean, Gabe?
That's right.
You can tell about something.
But to tell on?
That phrase put together, that means you are talking about something bad someone
did to somebody else, especially someone in authority.
You tell your teacher on your classmate who cheated.
That's right.
Or brothers and sisters will often tell on each other to their parents.
So they will say that "Oh, but Tommy took my toy, Mommy. That's why I hit him."
So telling on the other person to justify their own actions.
That's right.
There was a funny story.
I knew of a friend who told her little brother to dump a bucket of water on her
head.
And he refused.
He said, "No, I don't want to do that." And she said, "No, please, please do
that." And so finally he dumped a bucket of water on her head.
And she said, "Mommy, he dumped a bucket of water on my head." And she told on
him.
It was her idea.
That was not a very nice thing for her to do.
But we learn what to call someone like that in the next sentence.
Everyone in the class will call you a tattletale.
That means that you tell on people.
OK, that's right.
If you're a tattletale, you're telling on somebody.
Well, Nick says, "I don't care. I'm doing the right thing. But I'll ask Mr.
Brown not to mention my name." OK.
So that way, he can protect his reputation.
Other people won't think he is a tattletale.
Well, that is a good idea.
And right now it is time for us to learn something more with Steve and Ken in
the Information Cloud.
And then we'll join Michelle in the Language Lab.
Hi, friends.
So what do you think of Nick in our lesson today?
Do you think telling the teacher about the cheater is the right thing to do?
There's always a Nick in every classroom, and we've all known him growing up.
He may not be the most popular kid.
More likely, he's the teacher's pet.
A teacher's pet is someone greatly favored by a teacher.
He or she is usually nicely dressed, asks a lot of questions in class, always
comes prepared with homework done,
helps the teacher out with classroom chores, always says hello and goodbye to
the teacher and sometimes brings a gift to the teacher.
Wow, Ken, it sounds like you really know how to become a teacher's pet.
Were you a teacher's pet?
Who, me?
Uh... no, of course not! I, uh... I just read a book about a teacher's pet.
Well, one thing you left out is that a teacher's pet is also a tattletale, which
is someone who tattles or tells on somebody.
So in the lesson, Nick is planning on tattling or telling on the cheater to the
teacher.
Not the most popular thing to do in school.
(Chinese).
Hi, everyone. I'm Michelle.
(Chinese).