节目资讯
刊物:空中英语教室
日期:2013-12-27
难易度:High
关键字:affection, spark, choir, chemistry, contest, alto
Hello, and welcome to Studio Classroom.
My name is Gabe.
And I'm Carolyn.
And your English will improve today.
We're going to continue learning about O-Kai, this group of singers that has a
very incredible, unique blend in their style of music.
And of course, something we learned in yesterday's lesson is that it is a
cappella music,
but it is definitely very unique and influenced by jazz and gospel and R&B.
Well, are you interested in music?
And if so, when did you first get interested in music?
Why are you interested in music?
Carolyn?
Well, I am interested in music.
I can play an instrument.
I play the flute.
And I love to sing.
And I think it was my mother who really got me interested because she sings at
church in the choir, and I wanted to sing in the choir, too.
So I did!
So you did.
Well, I've been singing in choirs since I was a kid as well.
I've always loved music.
And we're going to learn a little bit about the history of O-Kai and why they
got started.
So let's get started with today's lesson.
(Music).
O-Kai.
Looking back.
The spirit of aboriginal Taiwan is quite personal to O-Kai.
In 1995, JC Lai felt that spirit at just the right time in Hsinchu's Jianshi
Village.
Feeling no purpose, JC's own spirit was fading away in hopelessness until he
found this simple place.
He had loved music since childhood, and he found others with an equal affection
for it there.
Many villagers sang in the local church as he played piano at their request
every night.
A fire of purpose, sparked by God, took flame in JC's heart at those
get-togethers.
All right. And we're going to learn how that flame became even brighter later in
today's lesson.
But first, let's look back to the beginning of our lesson.
The title of this section is Looking back.
And the idea when you're looking back is you're thinking about the history.
You're going to talk about the history of something.
That's right.
And here we are talking about the history of O-Kai and how they got started.
We read: The spirit of aboriginal Taiwan is quite personal to O-Kai.
And in 1995, JC Lai felt the spirit at just the right time in Hsinchu's Jianshi
Village.
OK. So JC, or (Chinese), he felt this spirit when he went to this village at
just the right time.
And it's quite personal to O-Kai.
OK, that means it means a lot to him.
And he is the leader, this guy who goes by JC.
OK, we read here: Feeling no purpose, JC's own spirit was fading away in
hopelessness until he found this simple place.
So his own spirit was fading away.
I get the idea that maybe he was kind of losing sense of his purpose in life.
Yes. It could be that he was becoming depressed or he just didn't know what he
was supposed to be doing.
He didn't have a lot of direction or hope, and his spirit was fading.
But he found hope in this simple place in this village. And we read:
He had loved music since childhood, and he found others with an equal affection
for it there.
So he was able to find people who had that same affection for music.
And I think we should talk about that word: affection.
It's from our Word Bank.
If you have affection for something or somebody, that means you have feelings
for it, that means you have a connection with it. OK.
You like it.
What do you have affection for?
Well, it means that you care about something, so.
Maybe you have affection for your pet.
You love your pet.
You want to take care of it.
And you worry about it if you aren't home and it's by itself.
Or you might have affection toward other people.
You can feel affection for your best friend.
You really enjoy spending time with that person.
Or maybe you want to win the affection of somebody.
You want someone to like you more than they do, so you want to win their
affection.
Sometimes when I go to visit people's homes, and I notice they have pets like
dogs or cats.
I love cats!
And I like to win the affection of their cats.
Ah. Well, it is not always easy to do that, especially if you only meet them the
one time.
But here we're talking about JC going to this village and finding people with
the same affection for music that he had.
That gave him a sense of hope.
And we read: Many villagers sang in the local church as he played piano at their
request every night.
So he did this at their request every night.
So he was generous with his time.
And of course he would go to this church, and people would request for him to
play songs.
Let's take a look at this phrase: to do something at someone's request.
So you know that request is a verb.
You can request someone to do something.
How do you use this phrase: at someone's request?
Well, it means that someone has asked you to do something for them - at their
request.
So you might say:
I made dinner for my mother at her request.
She asked me to do it, so I did.
Or I did a project at my boss's request.
Of course my boss asked me to do something, and so I did it at her request.
All right. So use that phrase sometime today.
Well, right now it's time for us to learn something new with Steve and Ken in
the Information Cloud.
(Music).
In English, when we talk about playing instruments, we can use one simple word,
the verb play.
That's right.
We play the guitar, play the flute and play the drums.
Regardless of the action we use to produce sound from each instrument, it's the
same word: play.
Which makes it really easy to ask others: Do you play the piano? Or can you play
the violin?
Friends, notice we don't need any prepositions in these sentences.
That's good point, Ken.
If I said I play on the piano, that would mean I'm literally on top of the piano
doing something like playing cards or playing basketball with my friends.
And we don't want that.
Of course if we dig deeper, we'll find that English does have some
instrument-specific playing words.
For example, instead of "play the guitar," you might hear people say strum or
pick the guitar.
And one fun way to describe playing the piano is tickling the ivory.
Right. This phrase originated many years ago when piano keys were made of real
ivory.
When a skillful pianist tickles the ivory, he's making a beautiful sound on the
piano.
A beautiful sound like laughter.
(Chinese).
Thank you, guys.
Those are all helpful terms to know when talking about instruments.
And here we have JC who is tickling the ivories at church every night.
We continue reading:
A fire of purpose, sparked by God, took flame in JC's heart at those
get-togethers.
And I love the imagery of this sentence, Gabe.
Well, I do, too.
You see the imagery of a flame in the different words here, like fire, spark,
flame. OK.
Well, let's take a look at this word from our Word Bank. It is spark.
And you need a little spark to get a fire going.
That's what creates many fires.
That's right.
And here it was sparked by God.
So it's not a noun; it's not a spark but sparked - to start something, to get it
going.
And you could say that the conversation was sparked by a small comment that was
made.
So something small ended up producing this big discussion.
OK, so that's one way you could use this word spark.
But do remember, it can also be a noun.
It takes a spark to start a fire.
And then as Nathanael says, or he writes: It took flame in JC's heart.
OK. So that means the fire became brighter, and it became a full fire.
That's right.
And right now it is time for us to continue learning with Michelle in the
Language Lab.
Then we will continue with our lesson.
(Chinese).