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
We are continuing our lesson Cellphones in School, a conversation between Mr.
Brown and Mrs. Lee.
Today Mr. Brown has made the point that having cellphones banned in school make
students less likely to be able to cheat on their tests.
But Mrs. Lee makes another good point that cheating has been around long before
cellphones.
Well, let's see how this conversation continues in the next part of our reading.
(Music).
Cellphones in School.
I wish all students were that responsible with their cellphones.
But before we made the rule against cellphones, they were often used for
bullying.
Students would take embarrassing pictures of each other and post them or send
hurtful text messages.
That's very sad, but you don't need a cellphone to bully someone.
Besides, don't teachers have enough to do without trying to enforce a rule
against cellphones?
They do, indeed, but I still think cellphones in school do more harm than good.
Well, I must be going.
Thank you for your time.
(Music).
All right.
Well, just before the break, Mrs. Lee was talking about how students could
possibly use their cellphones or smartphones to look up class-related
information online.
Well, let's see what Mr. Brown has to say here.
He says: I wish all students were that responsible with their cellphones.
But before we made the rule against cellphones, they were often used for
something else - they were often used for bullying.
Oh, my.
Well, that is a big problem.
And that is also a word from our Word Bank, the word "bully." If someone is
bullied,
to be bullied means that someone is making fun of another person or they're
being very mean to them.
Maybe walking down the hall, just minding your own business and someone knocks
the books out of your hand.
Oh, that could be a form of bullying.
That's right.
Well, there are many forms of bullying, especially in schools.
Um, now this word can be a noun or a verb.
You can bully somebody.
And if you do that, people will call you a bully.
They might say: Please don't bully me, or stop bullying me.
Carolyn, do you think that maybe cellphones or smartphones can be used to maybe
help go against bullying or flight bullying?
Well, that is a very good point, Gabe.
I was reading a news article about a school in the U.S.
They are going to be uh... they're going to begin using a program to help
students report bullying using their cellphones.
If students see someone being bullied, they can send a text message to a phone
in the school.
OK.
And the school won't know who sent the message, but they will be able to contact
the student again to get more information.
Well, bully reporting sounds like a great idea.
You can report a bullying incident to your principal or to authorities at the
school.
That could be a help in fighting against bullying.
Mr. Brown continues his line here.
He says students would take embarrassing pictures of each other and post them or
send hurtful text messages.
Yes, it's true.
Now with cellphones, you can bully in another way by doing these kinds of
things, sending embarrassing pictures or... or hurtful text messages.
Well, that is a shame that they are taking this really wonderful technology that
can be so helpful and using it to do bad things.
Well, Mrs. Lee continues with the next line.
That's very sad, but you don't need a cellphone to bully someone.
Besides, don't teachers have enough to do without trying to enforce a rule
against cellphones?
All right.
Well, I kind of agree with Mrs. Lee here.
Again, she says that you don't need cellphones to do this.
We talked about cheating before.
You don't need a cellphone to cheat.
Here you don't need a cellphone to bully somebody.
But we also see a key word from this sentence.
The word is "enforce." And if there's a rule and you really take the rule
seriously, then you should enforce that rule.
That's right.
So here Mr. Brown is just trying to enforce the rule of banning cellphones.
They are not allowed in school.
And you might think of a police officer as someone who also enforces rules.
Police officers will give out tickets or fines to people who break the law.
It's true.
So you could force rules; you enforce the laws of a city.
Now sometimes a city might have so many laws and so many rules, and some of them
are more serious than others.
So sometimes police won't stop you from doing something.
You could say they aren't really enforcing that law.
Or maybe they should enforce this law even more.
That is true.
Well, so Mr. Brown is trying to enforce this rule and explain how important it
is to Mrs. Lee.
Now Mr. Brown, would you like to continue?
Ah, yes. So of course the question was: Don't teachers have enough to do without
trying to enforce this kind of rule?
Now Mr. Brown says:
They do, indeed, but I still think cellphones in school do more harm than good.
Well, Carolyn, what do you feel about this?
Well, Mrs. Lee has her closing line here:
Well, I must be going.
Thank you for your time.
So it sounds like Mrs. Lee still does not really agree with the teacher's point
of view.
That's right, she doesn't.
So she just says she's going to give up arguing and leave.
Thank you for your time.
Well, Mr. Brown says: I still think that cellphones in school do more harm than
good.
If you use the word "still" like this, that means maybe you've been arguing or
discussing something for a long time, and you feel the same way that you did.
You still feel this way.
I still think cellphones in school do more harm than good.
That's right.
So Mr. Brown has not changed his mind.
Mrs. Lee hasn't changed her mind, either.
They still have their own opinions on this matter.
Well, right now it is time for us to learn something with Michelle in the
Language Lab.
(Chinese).
And now let's see what our teachers are up to.
What an interesting lesson today.
Should you have access to a cellphone in your school or not?
Well, after listening to this conversation from this lesson between Mr. Brown
and Mrs. Lee, what do you think about this?
Carolyn?
Well, I remember before I had a cellphone, I was in school for many years.
And it was never really a problem trying to get ahold of my parents or someone.
If there was an emergency, I would just go to the office and use the phone
there.
But now that everyone has cellphones and there are even programs to use them to
prevent bullying, I think that maybe it would be OK.
Yeah, I kind of agree with you.
I think that having a cellphone in school is helpful or can be helpful.
Of course, it's up to each individual student, that might be you, to be
responsible with your cellphone in school.
Well, thank you for joining us today.
And of course we will see you next time right here at Studio Classroom.
See you.