节目资讯
刊物:空中英语教室
日期:2014-01-28
难易度:Medium
关键字:gasp, stomp, shrug, creak


























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Today we're continuing the story True Colors about Amber and her ruined poster.
She wants to blame her coworker Violet for ruining the poster, but she doesn't
know for sure.
A janitor named Bruno tells her things are not always so black and white.
But Amber thinks he sees everyone through rose-colored glasses.
Well, we're not sure who the troublemaker is, but I know there's at least one
more color idiom in the next part of the story.
Let's read it now.
And then we'll visit Michelle.
(Music).
True colors.
Amber just shrugged.
She couldn't prove anything, and she had work to do.
Amber painted all day and into the night.
She tried to work the splashes of orange into her design.
The sky outside was pitch black.
Then Amber heard movement in the hallway.
She turned off the lights and hid under her desk.
Maybe whoever had put the paint on her poster had returned.
The door creaked open.
Amber heard something move across the dark floor and open the door of the paint
cupboard.
(Music).
All right.
(Chinese).
And now let's go to the other teachers.
Thank you, Michelle.
Well, just before our break, Bruno tried to convince Amber that perhaps Violet
didn't ruin her poster.
And how does Amber respond?
She just shrugs.
What does it mean to shrug?
Well, that's when your shoulders go up and down.
A shrug can mean many things.
Often it means I don't know.
So if someone asks you a question and you don't know the answer, you could just
shrug.
Other times it means I don't care.
Maybe you don't really know what to say about something and you just want to
move on with your life, so you shrug.
I think that's kind of what Amber is doing here.
And sometimes that's the best thing to do, to shrug it off.
If someone does something to annoy you, perhaps you should just shrug it off.
That means you don't worry about it or think about it anymore.
You pretend it never happened.
Yeah. Maybe someone said something really mean to your friend, and he's really
upset.
He wants to get revenge and do something mean back.
That's when you can tell your friend: Hey, take it easy. Just shrug it off.
That could be good advice.
Well, back to Amber.
She had to get back to work.
She continued painting her poster.
And she worked all day and into the night.
This is a fun phrase to describe that she didn't just work until evening, she
worked much later than evening.
She worked into the night.
You know, sometimes we can say we work into the morning, too.
We work all through the night and into the wee hours of the morning.
I love that phrase.
I love it, too. The wee hours of the morning.
Wee, W-E-E, means little.
So the wee hours of the morning means the earliest hours of the morning.
Well, Amber was probably going to work not just into the night, but overnight,
into the wee hours of the morning.
She really cares about her project.
That's right.
And she got creative, too.
We read that she tried to work the splashes of orange into her design.
She tried to work something into something else.
And I think Liz is waiting in the Grammar Gym to tell us more about this phrase.
Let's go there now.
Welcome to the Grammar Gym, friends.
I hope you're all doing well today.
My name is Liz.
In today's lesson we see this sentence:
She tried to work the splashes of orange into her design.
That's our Grammar Tip sentence.
And the writer is talking about how the subject is trying to make the orange
paint become part of the original design.
Notice the sentence pattern: [subject] tried to work [noun 1] into [noun 2].
This is a great sentence pattern to use when you want to talk about how someone
is trying to make something mix or come together well with something else.
Let's have a look at some example sentences.
If Sally is trying to mix chocolate powder into her bread dough, we can say:
Sally tried to work the chocolate powder into the dough.
Or let's say Nancy is busy and has tried to make time for an appointment, so we
can say:
Nancy tried to work the appointment into her busy schedule.
If you'd like to see some more example sentences, they're available in today's
Grammar Tip section in your Studio Classroom magazine.
That's all the time we have for today.
Thanks again for joining me here.
This is Liz from the Grammar Gym.
See you next time.
Thank you, Liz.
Well, our story continues.
Amber worked into the night, and by now the sky outside was pitch black.
Hey, there's another phrase to talk about: pitch black.
That means so dark you can't see anything.
And it's so dark, sometimes we also call it pitch dark.
It's pitch dark outside or it's pitch black in here.
I can't see.
Sometimes it gets so dark you can't even see your hand in front of your face.
That's when you know it's pitch black.
That right.
Now in case you're wondering, "pitch" is a kind of thick, dark, really sticky
substance sometimes used to pave or repair roads and other things.
So that's where the idiom came from.
Sometimes people also say it's black as pitch.
It means the same thing as pitch black.
Well, I'm curious about what's going to happen to Amber now that it's pitch
black outside.
Here we read that Amber heard movement in the hallway.
Movement is the idea of something moving.
We could also say Amber heard something moving in the hallway.
Right. Often if we can't see something moving, but we can hear it, we say that
we hear movement.
I hear movement upstairs.
I hear movement out in the field.
Oh. But sometimes we also say that we see movement.
We're not sure what it is but it's moving, so we say: I see movement in the
field.
Let's go check it out.
OK. So today's story is getting pretty exciting.
Amber turned off the lights and went to hide under her desk.
Who is it?
Who do you think it is that put paint on Amber's poster?
I don't know, Gabe.
But we are about to find out.
Now our author is having fun here creating suspense, especially with this next
sentence:
The door creaked open.
And the word "creak" is actually a kind of sound, right, Gabe?
That's right.
It kind of sounds like the word itself, creak...
Now, I don't know if you like scary stories.
But if you do like telling them, sometimes adding creaks and others sounds like
this can be a lot of fun.
They're great because they get your audience's imaginations going.
Words and sounds like this help to create a picture in people's minds.
That's for sure.
I can imagine this door opening slowly... making that creaking sound.
And then Amber heard some more movement.
She heard something move across the dark floor and open the door of the paint
cupboard.
(Background Noise).
Were you scared? Were you scared?
It's fun to scare people sometimes.
OK. Well, we see a word here: cupboard.
That is an interesting word.
And when you look at it... actually, originally it was a place to store cups - a
cupboard.
But when you put the two words together, it becomes cupboard.
Make sure you don't pronounce it cup-board.
It's cupboard.
Well, I'm not sure what's going to happen next, but I really want to know now.
I'm ready to know who's messing up Amber's poster.
What's the next part of the story?
Do we have to wait until tomorrow?
Uh... yeah.
But our author is very clever.
She's given us a cliffhanger.
A... a what?
A cliff... you know what, I shouldn't say too much.
Steve and Ken are in the Information Cloud ready to talk all about this.
Let's go see them.
And then we'll enjoy the Editor's Summary.
A cliffhanger is a suspenseful situation that writers insert at the end of a TV
episode, chapter of a book or at the end of a movie.
Cliffhangers often show the main character in a dangerous situation or the main
character learning about some shocking information.
Now the origin of the word cliffhanger comes from those old black-and-white
movies where their heroine finds herself dangling from a cliff by her
fingertips.
Will she fall to her death?
Another classic cliffhanger is when the villain ties the heroine to the railroad
tracks.
Will someone save her before the speeding train arrives?
Again, cliffhangers are purposely placed at the end of a scene or chapter
because the suspense they create keeps an audience's attention and brings them
back for more.
They want to know how the story ends.
Our lesson today has been something of a mystery, right?
After all, who destroyed Amber's poster?
Well, today's cliffhanger entices us to return one last time tomorrow to learn
who did it.
Right.
Friends, if you are looking to spice up your creative writing, try including a
cliffhanger.
(Chinese).
Violet is shocked and angry.
Bruno defends Violet.
And Amber has to try to save her poster, so she works into the night.
All of a sudden, she hears a noise, so she hides.
And then she hears someone come in and open the paint cupboard door.
Thank you, Linda.
Well, I'm very excited to find out what happens in this story.
And I hope you are, too.
So join us again tomorrow as we continue to learn about True Colors.
Right here at Studio Classroom.
See you then.