节目资讯
刊物:空中英语教室
日期:2013-07-29
难易度:High
关键字:evoke, habitat, elusive, scar, forage, squid, sucker
Hello, and welcome to Studio Classroom.
My name is Gabe.
And my name is Carolyn.
And you are joining us for a lesson all about whales.
The title is Whales: The Giants of the Sea.
Yes, it's true.
These are giants that live in the sea, or giant creatures that live in the sea.
So I do wonder if you like to learn about animals.
And sometimes in school, maybe you read books about animals.
Carolyn, did you ever read any books about animals?
Well, actually one of my favorite books growing up that I read probably 50 or 60
times was the Black Stallion.
And it was a story about a horse.
But I also loved reading lots of other books about animals: Misty of
Chincoteague, Scruffy as well as just information about animals.
National Geographic magazines, as much information as I could find.
Well, I know you love animals.
I haven't read many books about animals.
I do know a poem called The Lion by Roaold Dahl.
"The lion just adores to eat.
A lot of red and tender meat..." Well, I can't share the whole thing with you.
But I love that poem, and I do enjoy watching movies about animals, too.
One movie about a whale is Free Willy.
I love that movie.
Well, today we're going to be learning about Whales: The Giants of the Sea.
Here we go.
(Music).
Whales: The Giants of the Sea.
Discover more about the world's biggest mammals.
"There she blows!".
That famous line from Herman Melville's famous 1851 novel, Moby Dick, evokes
images of Captain Ahab and his sailors on their search for the great white
whale.
Today people still go in search of the great whales, hoping for a glimpse of
them in their natural habitat.
A mystery.
These giant marine mammals have always fascinated humans because of their
enormous size as well as their mysterious ways.
The sperm whale, for example, is an elusive creature that lives in remote waters
and has rarely been tagged with long-distance tracking devices by researchers.
For that reason, not much is known about these whales.
Yes, whales certainly are a mystery.
Well, let's go back to the very beginning of our lesson:
Discover more about the world's biggest mammals.
Yes, they are the biggest.
They can be called the giants of the sea.
Now a mammal is a kind of animal.
And it's a mammal where the female produces milk.
That's just one thing that you can know about mammals.
How do we continue, Carolyn?
Well, the article begins "There she blows!" And this is a famous quote.
Continuing: That famous line from Herman Melville's famous novel, 1851 novel,
Moby Dick,
evokes images of Captain Ahab and his sailors on their search for the great
white whale.
So this line brings to mind images, or it evokes images.
Let's look at that word from our Word Bank, the word "evoke." If something
evokes an image, then it brings that image to mind.
That's right.
You bring it out of somebody.
It evokes something.
For example, maybe you see a picture, and it makes you angry.
So you could say this picture evokes anger.
I am angry because I saw this picture.
So you can evoke emotions.
Maybe you go to see a show.
The opera can evoke many emotions when you are watching.
It can.
And it... you can also have other things that are evoked, like memories.
Maybe the smell of cinnamon or of cookies evokes the memory of your childhood at
Christmastime.
And it's a wonderful thing.
So this famous line, "There she blows," is a very popular quote from... Herman
Melville's book, Moby Dick.
And it is about Captain Ahab searching for the white whale.
How do we continue, Gabe?
Well, today people still go in search of the great whales, hoping for a glimpse
of them in their natural habitat.
And I think it's true.
Many people love to go on boats or cruises in hopes of seeing a whale swim by
really close by.
Let's take a look at a word from our Word Bank.
It is "habitat." Someone's habitat, or actually usually an animal's habitat is
where it lives.
And a natural habitat is where these animals would be found in nature.
That's right.
So the natural habitat for a whale would be in the ocean.
There are many other kinds of habitats around the world.
We talked a little bit about a beetle this month that lives in the desert.
That is its habitat.
Actually that's its natural habitat, the Namib beetle.
But sometimes things are not natural habitats.
I think of many animals in zoos.
Most of them are not living in their natural habitats.
They might be OK for them, they'll survive.
But it's not their natural habitat.
Well, how do we continue, Carolyn?
Well, our next section is "A mystery." So we're going to be talking about a
mystery.
These giant marine mammals have always fascinated humans because of their
enormous size as well as their mysterious ways.
That's right.
Now earlier this month we talked about the mysteries of the mind.
And now we're learning about mysteries in the deep blue sea.
OK. So these have always fascinated humans.
We're very excited and interested in whales because of their enormous size.
"Enormous" just means very big or huge.
You could talk about someone who has an enormous appetite.
I think whales have an enormous appetite.
They can be lots of things.
That's right.
And we'll be learning about those things later in our lesson.
But they also have mysterious ways.
So there isn't much that we really know about them.
But right now we want to learn something with Steve and Ken in the Information
Cloud about this short paragraph.
It's interesting that in this day and age of science and discovery, there's
still a lot of mystery surrounding whales.
Well, there's still a lot of mystery surrounding the English language, too.
You're right, Ken.
In fact, there are many myths about English that we mistakenly take as fact.
We mentioned one last week. Remember?
Using double negatives is not proper English.
Right.
Now in today's lesson, you may have noticed the paragraphs are just one or two
sentences long.
And this brings us face-to-face with another English myth, which is, when
writing, a paragraph must have a minimum of five sentences.
Traditionally, the first sentence would introduce the topic.
The next three sentences follow up with support.
And the last sentence would summarize everything, making a tidy paragraph.
Well, it may have some merit, but as one former journalism professor said:
Imposing the five-sentence paragraph structure on students tends to make their
writing mechanical and lifeless.
And it does little to help enlarge their powers of argument and organization.
Five-sentence paragraphs might be a good guideline for young writers, but is it
a rule?
No. It's a myth.
(Chinese).
Thank you, guys.
Well, let's go on to our next paragraph here.
The sperm whale, for example, is an elusive creature that lives in remote waters
and has rarely been tagged with long-distance tracking devices by researchers.
OK. So this sperm whale... or the sperm whale isn't seen very often.
It's pretty rare to see one of those.
That's right.
You could say that it is elusive.
And that is a word for our Word Bank.
If something is elusive, then it is difficult to find or difficult to catch.
So you might have an elusive animal.
Maybe you are trying to follow something through the wood.
You see a deer.
But it is elusive, and you can't find it.
When I went to visit Australia with my sister, we saw the elusive cassowary.
It's a big bird.
Actually, it's a dangerous bird that they don't see very often.
But on our tour that day, our guide said that they hadn't seen one for at least
four or five months.
So it definitely was an elusive animal, hard to find, but we saw it.
That's right.
Well, these whales are elusive.
And it's difficult for researchers to tag them, to put something on them so that
they can track where they go and learn more about them over long distances.
Continuing: For that reason, not much is known about these whales.
So we really don't know much about sperm whales because they're so difficult to
find.
Well, not much is known about sperm whales although researchers are still trying
to discover new facts, new things they can share with us.
But we will learn more later after our break.
First, let's enjoy some time with Michelle in the Language Lab.