节目资讯
刊物:空中英语教室
日期:2013-09-11
难易度:Medium
关键字:ban, occasionally, bully, enforce, abuse
Hello, and welcome to Studio Classroom.
My name is Gabe.
And I'm Carolyn.
And your English will improve today.
We're continuing our lesson called Cellphones in School.
Already we've been enjoying this conversation between Mr. Brown and Mrs. Lee
because Mrs. Lee's son was caught pulling his cellphone out in the middle of
class.
So Mr. Brown took it away.
And then Mrs. Lee had to go and get it back from Mr. Brown.
So they're in this conversation talking about whether or not you should be
allowed to have cellphones in school.
Well, many of you have cellphones.
Uh, what do you usually use your cellphone for?
Carolyn?
Well, my cellphone is not a smartphone, so I use it to call people, text people.
And actually, I use it a lot for math because I'm used to things like Fahrenheit
instead of Celsius or feet instead of meters.
So I change those and do some math on my cellphone so I understand what people
are talking about.
Well, you know what, Carolyn?
If you had a smartphone, then you could just go to the Internet and do that
really quickly,
and... and figure out what pounds are and kilograms and Celsius and Fahrenheit.
Yeah, my... my cellphone can do that.
It's not a problem.
OK. Well, we'll continue talking about that some other time, Carolyn.
For now it's time to continue this lesson - Cellphones in School.
(Music).
Cellphones in School.
True.
There are some good reasons for students to have cellphones at school.
But students abuse them too, by using them to cheat on tests.
Cellphones don't cause cheating, though.
Long before cellphones, students found ways to cheat.
There are already rules against cheating, and surely that includes cheating with
cellphones.
It does.
But banning cellphones helps prevent that form of cheating.
Perhaps, but cellphone use during breaks isn't harmful.
It's good to let students take their minds off schoolwork occasionally.
Or they can use smartphones to look up class-related information online.
(Music).
Well, let's go back to the beginning of this conversation.
Of course at the end of yesterday's lesson, Mrs. Lee was talking about how
important it is for a student to have a cellphone.
If there's an emergency, they can contact their parents at home.
Well, Mr. Brown says: True.
There are some good reasons for students to have cellphones at school.
But students abuse them too, by using them to cheat on tests.
Well, Carolyn, what does that mean, to abuse your cellphone?
Well, it means that you are not using it the way that you're supposed to.
So you might say that you are abusing your privilege to have access to your
cellphone.
So if you abuse something, then you're taking advantage of it in a way.
That's right.
Actually Carolyn just said a very common phrase: to abuse your privilege.
P-R-I-V-I-L-E-G-E, abusing your privileges or abusing your rights.
A privilege is a good thing.
Your rights are great.
But don't abuse them, OK.
Use your things in the right way.
Well, Mrs. Lee continues.
Oh, yes, she does.
Cellphones don't cause cheating, though.
Long before cellphones, students found ways to cheat.
Yes, I couldn't agree more, Carolyn.
It's true, cellphones don't cause cheating.
Actually, cheating is a horrible thing.
Uh, lots of other things are bad, too: stealing, killing.
Things don't cause you to steal or to kill.
They might... they might help you, but they don't cause you... actually people
do that.
They don't need these things in order to cheat, steal or kill.
That's right.
Well, right now we have seen a phrase in this sentence that Liz would like to
talk... to us about in the Grammar Gym.
Welcome to the Grammar Gym, friends.
My name is Liz.
In today's article we see this sentence:
Long before cellphones, students found ways to cheat.
That's our Grammar Tip sentence.
Our focus today is on the phrase at the beginning of the sentence: long before.
It's a sure way of saying a long time before something.
So today's sentence just means:
Long before cellphones were invented, students found ways to cheat.
We use "long before" to point out how there was a long period of time before
something happened.
The point is not how much time but rather the fact that there was a very long
period of time.
For example:
Benny cleaned up the whole house long before his parents got home.
Or: The art thieves were already out of the country long before the museum
discovered their paintings were missing.
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 it for today.
This is Liz from the Grammar Gym.
See you next time.
Thanks, Liz.
Now Mrs. Lee was talking about how long before cellphones were even around,
students were finding ways to cheat.
And she continues her line:
There are already rules against cheating, and surely that includes cheating with
cellphones.
It does.
But banning cellphones helps prevent that form of cheating.
Well, let's take a look at one of these words, the word: ban.
And if cellphones are banned from school, that means you're not supposed to
bring them in to your school.
That's right.
So a ban is an official rule against something.
It is not allowed.
If you are traveling, you need to make sure that you are not bringing any banned
items with you on the plane.
There is a long list of items that you are not allowed to have with you, like
certain kinds of liquids.
You can only have a small bag of liquids, and everything else is banned.
You are also not allowed to bring any kind of weapon onto an airplane.
That's right.
Those things are banned.
When I was in high school, playing cards were banned.
We weren't supposed to bring cards to play with at school.
So different things could be banned in different areas.
Now Carolyn also mentioned this word as a noun.
There is a ban on something.
That means something is banned.
Of course banning cellphones helps prevent this kind of cheating.
And Mrs. Lee continues:
Perhaps, but cellphone use during breaks isn't harmful.
It's good to let students take their minds off schoolwork occasionally.
Wait! I need to interrupt you here, Carolyn... Mrs. Lee, because we have some
things we want to talk about from that sentence.
It's good to let students take their minds off something.
Let's look at that phrase: to take your mind off of something.
That means you're thinking about something, maybe you're studying,
maybe you're really stressed and you're trying to figure something out, it's
good to take your mind off and do something else.
That's right.
So maybe you are very busy; you have a lot of thoughts in your mind.
It's good to take your mind off of them by taking a walk.
You can just go for a nice walk outside to take your mind off of your work.
That's right.
Sometimes we take our mind off of pain as well.
Something is really difficult for us emotionally.
We need to do something lighter to take our mind off the pain.
Well, let's take a look at another word here from our Word Bank.
It's the word "occasionally." If you do something occasionally, that means you
do it every once in a while.
Yes. So not often, just sometimes, like, I drink coffee occasionally.
I don't drink it every day, only when I need a real extra boost of caffeine.
I don't like to drink coffee every day.
And for me, I swim occasionally.
It's not something I do every day or often, but I like to swim occasionally.
We can also use the phrase "on occasion." It means the same thing.
I... I swim on occasion.
OK. Well, how does Mrs. Lee continue her line?
Oh, yes.
She says: Or they can use smartphones to look up class-related information
online.
So here she's saying that smartphones, if the student has that kind of
cellphone, could actually be very helpful to the student when they're trying to
learn things at school.
Well, I agree with Mrs. Lee here.
And you can use this phrase "class-related." Maybe you could replace the word
class with work.
Sometimes your supervisor or boss might come by and say: Is that work-related?
Are you doing something that is work-related?
That's right.
Well, right now it is time for us to do something English-related and learn
something new with Steve and Ken in the Information Cloud.
Then we'll visit Michelle in the Language Lab.
You know, Steve, I think it's great being an English teacher here in Asia.
Why do you say that, Ken?
Because students look up to me.
They respect me.
That's true. I agree.
Friends, let's take a look at that simple phrase: look up to someone.
When you look up to someone, you respect or admire that person.
I hope you all look up to your teachers.
OK. Let's now change that a little.
"Look someone up" has a different meaning.
Very different.
When my friends from the U.S. plan on visiting Asia, I always tell them be sure
to look me up.
If you look someone up, then you go visit that person when you're in the area
they live in.
OK. Now let's to replace a person with a word - look up a word.
When you come across an unfamiliar word, you can look it up.
When you look up a word, you search for information on that word.
You find out what it means and how it is used.
When I ask Ken what a certain word means, he usually tells me...
Look it up.
Look it up where?
Look it up in the dictionary, the encyclopedia or on the Internet.
(Chinese).
Hi, everyone. I'm Michelle.