节目资讯
刊物:空中英语教室
日期:2013-10-02
难易度:Medium
关键字:non-dominant, look-up, senior, critical, sudoku, crossword, tweet
Hello, and welcome to Studio Classroom.
My name is Gabe.
And my name is Carolyn.
And your English will improve today as we continue learning about making our
brains smarter.
Well, of course in yesterday's lesson, we learned some tips... some steps toward
making your brain smarter.
Now maybe you are curious about this, maybe you are a little doubtful.
Can we actually make our brains smarter?
Well, that's a good question.
Carolyn, what do you think about this?
Well, a lot of people think that oh well, there are very smart people in the
world, and then there are people who are not as smart.
But you know, it might just take you a little bit longer to learn it.
I think that if you continue to work at it, you try to learn things, then you
can still improve your brain.
You can make it faster.
You can make it stronger.
And there are a lot of good memory tricks in games that you can do to even just
help you remember people's names when you first meet them.
That's right.
So even beyond today's lesson, you can go online and look up some of these
memory tricks, ways to improve your memory.
Well, I agree.
I think it's kind of like physical exercise.
For some people, it will take a lot to get physically fit.
For other people, it's a little bit faster.
But it's always possible to improve.
Let's get started with the second part of our lesson for today, Make Your Brain
Smarter.
Make Your Brain Smarter.
Use your non-dominant hand.
If you are right-handed, use your left hand for everyday activities, or use your
right hand if you are left-handed.
Doing familiar things in a new way will cause your brain to create new neural
networks.
Read often.
As you read, take the time to look up people or places that aren't familiar.
Reading expands your vocabulary if you search for words and definitions that you
don't know.
Do puzzles.
According to the Mayo Clinic, doing sudoku and crossword puzzles keeps the brain
sharp into your senior years.
Well, I do enjoy doing puzzles to keep my brain sharp.
But let's go to our first step for today.
It is use your non-dominant hand.
And that is a word from our Word Bank.
Non-dominant means not dominant or not the main one.
So a lot of times we do use this term when talking about hands.
Are you right-handed or left-handed?
Which one is your dominant hand?
Well, for me, it's my right hand.
That's my dominant hand.
I use my right hand to write.
And I also lead with my right hand more when I'm playing drums.
So if I want to make my brain smarter, maybe I should lead more with my... with
my left hand.
Do more with my left hand on the drums.
Hey, that's great for drummers out there.
This is a great tip: Lead more with your non-dominant hand.
And that's great.
You can practice writing as well.
And in our first tip right here:
If you are right-handed, use your left hand for everyday activities, or use your
right hand if you are left-handed.
And so everyday activities, that could just mean writing your name.
So instead of using my right hand to hold a pen, I would use my left hand and
try writing with it.
I've done that before.
It's... it's not a very good idea.
My handwriting is not very clear when I do that.
But maybe I should just practice more.
Well anyway, it's time for us to learn something new with Steve and Ken in the
Information Cloud.
Good to see you, friends.
I'm glad we get to see each other almost every day.
That's right, every day except Sunday.
Hey, Steve, how is "every day" spelled?
Is it one or two words?
Well, good question, Ken.
The answer is it depends.
In today's lesson we see the sentence: Use your left hand for everyday
activities.
Now "everyday" is one word here.
And that's because it's an adjective, meaning common and ordinary.
So everyday activities are ordinary daily activities like brushing your teeth or
locking the front door.
We might also talk about everyday people.
And that means ordinary people.
Right.
So when do we use "every day" as two words?
When we're using it as an adverb phrase, meaning each separate day.
If I write I get up every day at 7, I should write "every day" as two words.
So in that example, every day, two words, serve the function of an adverb,
modifying the verb phrase get up.
So, let's go back to Ken's initial question, in the sentence "We see each other
almost every day," is "every day" one or two words?
Well, it should be every day, two words.
(Chinese).
Thank you, gentlemen.
Every day you have great English tips for us.
Well, let's continue here learning about using our non-dominant hands.
Doing something familiar... or doing familiar things in a new way will cause
your brain to create new neural networks.
Now in yesterday's lesson, we saw the phrase "neural pathway." Here we see
neural networks.
Actually, it kind of means the same thing.
It's a connection of some kind.
That's right, although I think a network might be a little bit more complicated
than just a pathway.
So a pathway would be a single path.
And a network, everything is coming together.
And that's great.
If you use your non-dominant hand, you can create these networks in your brain.
That's right.
Well, we see another thing, another step towards having a smarter brain.
And that is to read often.
Of course your parents and your teachers and lots of people encourage you to
read.
And here you see that it can be helpful for your brain.
As you read: Take the time to look up people or places that aren't familiar.
Do you do that?
That is a great tip.
And to look something up, to look up, that is from our Word Bank as well.
If you look something up, then you look for more information about it.
So if you come across a name of a person or a place that you aren't really
familiar with, you can do a quick search on the Internet.
Now it's very easy to look up information about the place.
Actually I frequently do that with my smartphone.
If I'm not sure about something, I'll just go to the online dictionary or
encyclopedia and look it up.
Of course, it's kind of funny that the words "look up" are in this sentence as
Word Bank words.
If you didn't know what those words meant, you could look them up in a
dictionary.
That's right.
Well, we continue.
Reading expands your vocabulary if you search for words and definitions that you
don't know.
So again, it's not just people and places that you're not familiar with but
words as well.
So look up those definitions and learn some new words in English or in Chinese.
That's right.
These will expand your vocabulary, or stretch your vocabulary.
Now let's see another tip here - Do puzzles.
According to the Mayo Clinic, doing sudoku and crossword puzzles keeps the brain
sharp into your senior years.
Well, that is great because I love to do sudoku and crossword puzzles.
They are so much fun - although crossword puzzles can be very difficult.
They can be a little difficult.
But actually, I find them more challenging than sudoku.
I prefer doing crossword puzzles.
Carolyn, do you like sudoku or crossword more?
I think that sudoku puzzles are usually easier for me because they're set up on
just the grid and they give you a few numbers,
and then you just have to play this number game, trying to figure out which
number goes in which square.
But a crossword puzzle, you have all these different clues... and it can be very
tricky.
That's right.
But it can be a great way to improve your knowledge of the English language
especially, doing a crossword puzzle.
Actually, I think many newspapers include crossword puzzles and sudoku puzzles.
Try them out if you haven't yet.
That's right.
And in this sentence here, we do have another word from our Word Bank: senior.
Talking about your senior years, that just means when you are older.
You're older.
Well, past retirement age.
Usually you talk about a senior citizen as someone who is past their age of
retirement.
And of course someone who is older like this, maybe 60 or 70 or older are in
their senior years.
And if you play these games, keep your mind sharp, then you will not have as
many memory problems during your senior years.
Well, right now it is time for us to learn something with Michelle in the
Language Lab.