节目资讯
刊物:空中英语教室
日期:2013-10-08
难易度:Medium
关键字:pursuit, recognition, publicity, compelling, sponsor, anti-bullying
Hello, and welcome to Studio Classroom.
My name is Gabe.
And my name is Carolyn.
And your English will improve today.
We're continuing our lesson Reaching for Records.
And of course in our last lesson we talked about Ashrita Furman, who has set
many world records.
We also learned about the history of the Guinness Book of World Records, or the
Guinness World Records, as it is now called.
Now I wonder about recent records.
Do you know of any recent world records?
Maybe something that was set this year.
Carolyn?
Well, there was a record set this year for the oldest man alive, and then the
oldest man who has been living in recent history.
His name was Jiroemon Kimura, and he was from Japan.
He was 116 years old.
And his birthday, I think, was May.
And then he passed away in June.
Wow! 116 years old!
Hey, that's a lot of green tea probably.
Those kinds of things can keep you healthy.
Well, what other things have you learned about recently?
Talk about them with your friends in English.
And of course, right now let's get started in our lesson for today.
The topic is Pursuit of Records.
Reaching for Records.
Pursuit of Records.
Breaking a world record requires extraordinary skill.
But why spend time developing extraordinary skill at crushing eggs with one's
toes or balancing a ladder on one's chin?
Fame: According to two-time world-record breaker Larry Olmsted,
"Everyone wants to be famous." Breaking a record is a way to gain some
recognition even if you don't become a household name.
Fortune: Alastair Galpin has made a career of breaking records.
He gives school presentations about his experiences and offers companies
publicity for sponsoring his record-breaking attempts.
(Music).
Well, there are many reasons why people want to break these world records.
And here our section is titled Pursuit of Records.
And pursuit is one of the words from our Word Bank.
Now what is a pursuit, Gabe?
Well, if you're in pursuit of something, that means you're chasing after
something.
So the verb form of this word is pursue, P-U-R-S-U-E.
What are you pursuing?
Well, some people are in pursuit of records.
They are pursuing breaking some kind of world record.
Or trying to make a new record or set a new record, like yesterday we were
learning about a man named Ashrita Furman.
And he seemed to set some very interesting records like balancing a pool cue on
his finger.
Perhaps no one had ever done that before.
That's right.
Well, why do people pursue these kinds of records?
We read here: Breaking a world record requires extraordinary skill.
But here's a good question.
But why spend time developing extraordinary skill at crushing eggs with one's
toes or balancing a ladder on one's chin?
Actually, those things were things that Ashrita Furman did.
The man from yesterday's lesson, he did these things.
Carolyn, have you ever crushed eggs with your toes?
Uh, no. That is not a skill I have developed.
No?
Gabe, can you balance a ladder on your chin?
Hmm, no.
But I guess I could try.
I'll go get a ladder right now.
Well, I... I don't know if we have time for that because, well, we want to spend
some time with Liz in the Grammar Gym.
Hi there, friends.
Welcome to the Grammar Gym.
My name is Liz.
In today's article we see this question:
But why spend time developing extraordinary skill at crushing eggs with one's
toes or balancing a ladder on one's chin?
That's our Grammar Tip sentence.
Notice the phrase at the beginning of the sentence: why spend time.
It's a shorter way of saying why should one spend time.
So we can say: But why should one spend time developing extraordinary skill at
crushing eggs with one's toes or balancing a ladder on one's chin?
Use this phrase "why spend time" when you want to talk about why something
should or shouldn't be done.
For example:
Why spend time sitting in your car in a traffic jam when you can save time and
money riding public transportation?
Or: Why spend time going from store to store looking for a gift when you can
just shop online and have the gift delivered to your friend?
If you have a copy of this month's magazine with you, be sure to check out
today's Grammar Tip section for more example sentences.
And that's it for today.
This is Liz from the Grammar Gym.
See you next time.
Bye-bye.
Thank you, Liz.
Yes, why spend time doing those things?
Now Gabe, I'm glad to see that the time you spent with that ladder, you didn't
hurt yourself.
That's good.
I didn't hurt myself, but my chin is a little bit sore.
Anyway, here we're learning about some reasons why people want to break records.
And one thing is fame.
OK. We read here:
According to two-time world-record breaker Larry Olmsted, "Everyone wants to be
famous." Do you agree with that?
Well, I don't know if everyone wants to be famous.
But people do like it when other people know who they are, maybe not famous but
at least to be popular or liked by other people.
I think that's pretty true.
It's true.
And he continues... or we continue reading:
Breaking a record is a way to gain some recognition even if you don't become a
household name.
All right. A household name is just a name that everyone knows.
You don't have to be... you can go anywhere and everybody knows who you're
talking about, like a famous actor or actress.
Now let's talk about this word from our Word Bank.
It is recognition. You have recognition.
What does that mean?
Well, it means that people recognize what you've done, that they know about you.
Or they give you praise or adoration.
They... they tell you how much they appreciate or enjoy the things that you've
done.
They recognize your accomplishments.
Well, if you have accomplished something, do you like to get recognition for
what you have done?
It's a good question.
Well, another reason why people pursue records is fortune.
Alastair Galpin has made a career of breaking records.
He's made a career of this.
Let's take a look at that phrase.
What does it mean to make a career of something?
Well, it means that you take something, some sort of task and you turn that into
your job.
So here instead of having a regular job, maybe at an office, his career, or what
he wants to do for his work for his life, is to break world records.
That's all he does.
That's right.
He made a career of this.
What do you want to make a career of?
Well, we continue here learning about Mr. Galpin.
He gives school presentations about his experiences and offers companies
publicity for sponsoring his record-breaking attempts.
Great.
And we have another word there, the word publicity.
Now publicity means that you get attention from the media - so magazines,
newspapers, TV, reporters, journalists.
We learned about journalists in one of our lessons this month.
And so if you get publicity, then people will know more about you.
That's right.
And some people say no publicity is bad publicity.
Even if they're showing you doing something kind of strange, at least you're in
the news, at least you're becoming a little bit famous.
Well, anyway, it's time for us to learn more with Michelle in the Language Lab.
And then we'll see you later.