节目资讯
刊物:空中英语教室
日期:2013-05-11
难易度:Low
关键字:housekeeper, psychologist, salary, average, arithmetic, worth one's weight
in gold, priceless
Welcome to Studio Classroom.
My name is Gabe.
And I'm Carolyn.
And we're very glad you could join us for today's special lesson about mothers.
Well, we have a question in our title: What's a Mother Worth?
We're going to be learning about the different things that mothers do.
Moms have a very important job.
I know my mom does have a very important job.
And I'm sure yours does, too, and Carolyn's.
And I'm just curious what your mother does for you and your family.
Maybe you can talk about that in English.
Carolyn, what does your mom do for you?
Well, my mom does a lot of stuff.
She has a full-time job.
But she also cooks and cleans and drives us places, make sure we stay organized,
and listens to us when we have problems.
And she's a very busy woman because she has four children.
Wow! Well, your mom is a very busy woman.
My mother is also a wonderful mother.
She does a lot of stuff for us - cooking, listening to us especially.
She loves to be there for us.
And it's time for us to learn a little bit more about what a mother is worth in
today's lesson.
So open up your magazine and let's begin.
(Music).
What's a Mother Worth?
Do you ever think about all the jobs your mother does?
Do you think your mother is worth her weight in gold?
You may certainly feel that way, and mothers do many things for their families.
Mothers are cooks, nurses, housekeepers and child-care workers.
Their job descriptions may also include psychologist, tutor, manager, waitress
and more.
Each year, the website salary.com tries to put a dollar value on all those jobs.
The website figured the number of hours moms spend on each job.
Then they arrived at the average hourly wage.
Well, our lesson begins with a question:
Do you ever think about all the jobs your mother does?
Do you think about everything that your mother does?
I think this is a good question for us to think about because sometimes I think
we take things for granted, especially people who are important in our lives.
Do you think this is true, Carolyn?
I do think this is true.
It's very easy to forget just how much people help us and how much we need other
people in our lives.
So today we're going to be talking about what is a mother worth.
And the very first line here says: Do you think your mother is worth her weight
in gold?
This is another good question.
Do you think your mother is worth her weight in gold?
Well, what does this phrase mean, to be worth your weight in gold?
Well, gold, of course, is very valuable.
It's very expensive.
But most of the time, a piece of gold does not weigh a lot.
However, you probably weigh more than gold.
Are you worth your weight if you are completely made of gold?
That would be very, very valuable indeed.
Yes. So I do think that my mother is worth of her weight in gold.
It would be very valuable, worth a lot, because my mother is a very important
person.
Well, continuing on.
You may certainly feel that way, (and I do) and mothers do many things for their
families.
It's true.
That's right. It is true.
"Mothers are cooks, nurses, housekeepers and child-care workers," just to start
off with.
Let's take a look at something from that sentence, the key word "housekeeper."
Well, what is a housekeeper?
That is someone who might clean your house, someone who makes things nice and
tidy and neat.
And of course, they clean, like sweeping the floor doing the dishes, making sure
things are organized in the house.
That's right.
So some people hire a housekeeper to come in and clean their home.
But a lot of times it's your mom is the housekeeper.
Maybe you can help her this Mother's Day with that responsibility.
I think that's a great idea, Carolyn.
Of course, a mom's job might be a housekeeper.
Of course, you could also be a housekeeper as well.
You could help to make things look nice.
So moms are cooks.
They cook things for you.
They are nurses.
Maybe when you're feeling sick or something happens, they can help you feel
better.
And they're child-care workers.
Of course all of these things, all of these words that we're using are actual
jobs, professions, that some people have even if they are not mothers.
That's right.
And learning more about things that moms do:
Their job descriptions may also include psychologist, tutor, manager, waitress
and more.
So moms have many, many different jobs and many job descriptions.
Here we see one that is psychologist.
And this is another word from our Word Bank.
A psychologist is someone who studies the way people think so that they can give
good advice when we have a problem.
I think that's something that psychologists do.
They know how to give good advice.
They listen.
I also think maybe they help you understand why you think the way that you do.
That's what a good psychologist will be able to do.
So a mom has this job description.
She has a job description of tutor and manager, waitress and many more.
So let's continue.
Each year the website salary.com tries to put a dollar value on all those jobs.
We just listed many jobs.
And there's a website, salary.com, it'll try to put a dollar value to see how
much these jobs are worth.
That's right.
And we see that word "salary" is also from the Word Bank.
If you have a salary, that's the amount of money you make for the job that you
have.
That's right. That's your salary.
Do have a monthly salary?
You get paid every month.
Or maybe your job is based on the hours that you work.
So what is your salary?
Well, that is a question that you might not want to ask if you ever visit a
Western country.
That's kind of a sensitive question.
What is your salary?
You might be curious.
But be careful who you ask.
You want to make sure you are good friends with that person.
That's right.
But it is good if you are applying for a job that you know what the salary is
before you decide to take it.
Well, we are trying to put a dollar value on the jobs that moms do, so.
How much should a mom make for all of the jobs that she does at home?
Well, we're talking about salary.com here.
And the website figured the number of hours moms spend on each job.
They figured this out. OK.
And then they arrived at the average hourly wage.
We're going to learn a little bit more about that a little bit later.
But let's first look at this Word Bank word: average.
The average of something is when you add up everything and divide by the amount
of things, so.
For instance, if you have three different numbers, you add them together, and
then you divide by three, that last number is the average.
That's right.
And usually you have an average when you are talking about your grades, your
grade point average.
You want to know what your grades are on average.
Well, now it's time for us to join Liz in the Grammar Gym to learn something
more about this sentence.
And then we'll visit Michelle in the Language Lab.
Hello, friends.
Welcome to the Grammar Gym.
My name is Liz.
In today's article we see this sentence:
Then they arrived at the average hourly wage.
That's our Grammar Tip sentence.
Our focus today is on the phrase: arrived at.
Normally we use "arrive" to mean to come to a place like: The plane has finally
arrived.
But in today's sentence, "arrived at" means concluded.
In other words, the people finally came up with a decision as to what the
average hourly wage should be.
This use of "arrive at" is more often in formal situations where people want to
talk about plans, ideas, answers or solutions.
For example:
After much discussion, the team arrived at this solution.
Or: Albert's decision is shocking; how did he arrive at that decision?
Now it's your turn to practice.
Think of how an idea, plan, answer or solution is formed, and try using "arrive
at" instead.
And that's it for today.
This is Liz from the Grammar Gym.
See you next time.
Hi, everyone. I'm Michelle.