节目资讯
刊物:空中英语教室
日期:2013-04-01
难易度:Medium
关键字:bloom, frontier, awareness, innocense, arbor, practical joke
Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to Studio Classroom.
My name is Gabe.
I'm Carolyn.
And thank you for joining us for today, the first day of April.
We're going to be learning all about April today.
Our lesson is going to teach us the different things that you can celebrate
during the month of April.
Well, what do you think of when you think about April?
What comes to your mind, Carolyn?
Well, April's a really great month.
It starts to get warmer, and the flowers start to bloom.
It's also a really great month because my birthday is in April.
What? No way.
Your birthday is in April?
Wait. My sister's birthday is also in April.
So that's what I like to celebrate.
When's your birthday?
Well, my birthday's on April 20.
When is your sister's birthday?
It's April 16!
Hey, you guys can celebrate during the same week, Carolyn.
That's awesome.
Well, that sounds great.
We can have a big birthday party.
That's a great idea.
We can have a big birthday party for Carolyn and my sister in the month of
April.
Well, what else does April make you think about?
Well, actually, Gabe, I didn't want to say anything, but I think there's
something on your head.
What?
Yeah. It's big and brown and...
Something on my head?
Yeah.
Wait! What is it?
Oh... April Fools.
Carolyn...
You! You're a funny one.
April Fools.
Yes, today is April Fools' Day.
Well, let's get started with our first reading for this lesson about April.
April.
April showers bring May flowers.
During April in the northern hemisphere, flowers bloom, and the world comes back
to life after a long winter.
Some think this month's name comes from the Latin word aperire, meaning to open,
referring to the opening of flowers.
And April's name says much more as well.
A - Arbor Day, a holiday that celebrates and encourages planting trees, falls on
April 26 this year.
J. Sterling Morton, a pioneer on America's frontier, was passionate about nature
and proposed this holiday.
It was first held in Nebraska on April 10, 1872, and has since spread throughout
the U.S.
Well, there are many things to celebrate in April.
And right at the beginning of our lesson, we read a sentence: April showers
bring May flowers.
It's a fun little rhyme, showers and flowers.
Of course, when it rains, then plants can survive, and you might see flowers.
After winter, you will see more flowers in the spring.
Well, we get started by reading: During April in the northern hemisphere,
flowers bloom, and the world comes back to life after a long winter.
Let's take a look at that word from the Word Bank.
It is the word "bloom." Carolyn, what does that mean?
Well, if something blooms, then it opens up.
And so here we see that "flowers bloom in April in spring" means that they were
closed, and now they have opened into beautiful flowers.
Now what is something else that could bloom, Gabe?
Well, something else that could bloom... If... you could have flowers that
bloom.
I also think of flowers or plants that produce nuts.
You also might say those kinds of things bloom as well like an almond tree or
a... or cherry blossom tree.
There are different things that bloom.
But usually I do think of flowers that bloom.
And I also think of the word "blossom." It's very similar, B-L-O-S-S-O-M.
A flower blossoms.
That means it opens up.
It becomes what is beautiful when you think of a flower.
How else could you use that word "bloom," Carolyn?
Well, I also think of a person that blooms.
If someone is successful or coming out of their shell, they are opening up to
the world, they bloom.
And it's usually a very positive thing.
That's right.
These words, bloom and blossom, they are always positive.
Well, we have something else we want to look at from that sentence.
It's a phrase: back to life.
So we just read the world comes back to life after a long winter.
Back to life, does that mean the world is dead, Carolyn?
No, it doesn't mean that the world is dead, Gabe.
It just means that in winter, everything seems to be very cold.
The trees lose all of their leaves, and it doesn't really look alive.
But in the spring, things gain their color.
They start to bloom.
They start to open back up and come back to life.
All right. They come back to life.
Well, something else I think about is bears.
That's right.
Many bears sleep for a long time during the winter.
It's called hibernating.
And they seem dead, so you might say that bears come back to life after the
winter.
Well, we continue with our article.
Some think this month's name comes from the Latin word aperire, meaning to open,
referring to the opening of flowers.
Carolyn, my Latin is not very good.
I don't know if I said that word right, but this word does mean to open or the
opening of flowers.
That's right.
And that's why many people think that the word April comes from this word
aperire, maybe.
I'm not quite sure how to say it either since it is Latin, not English.
And we see that "And April's name says much more as well." And in our article we
start with the letter A.
And what does A stand for, Gabe?
A is for Arbor Day.
We find here: This is a holiday that celebrates and encourages planting trees;
and this falls on April 26 this year.
Um, this year, Carolyn? Why this year?
That's right.
It is this year, not next year or last year because this holiday changes the
date each year because it always occurs on the last Friday of April.
So it could be on 26, 27; the date can change.
All right.
And you see that phrase "falls on." That means it happens to be on April 26 this
year.
Well, we continue learning about Arbor Day with J. Sterling Morton, a pioneer on
America's frontier,
and he was passionate about nature, and he proposed this holiday.
So he proposed this holiday, he came up with the idea.
He said: OK. This date should be celebrated right now.
Well, we have a word we want to talk about here in this sentence.
It is the word "frontier." Carolyn, can you tell us about this word?
Well, if you are on the frontier, then you are on the edge of something.
You are exploring new territory, new areas.
And a lot of times we think of space as the final frontier.
All right, the final frontier because we have a lot more to explore out there.
It's something that is newly discovered or maybe hasn't been discovered too much
yet.
Well, we're going to continue learning more about Arbor Day, but first let's go
spend some time with Steve and Ken in the Information Cloud.
Hi, friends. Welcome to the month of April.
We have a special holiday in this month called Arbor Day.
Yes, Arbor Day is one of several holidays in April.
Now we need to be careful when we use this word "holiday." When Americans hear
this word,
they usually think of a day determined by the government for people to be off
work or school.
Now though Arbor Day is a holiday, it's still a work day.
Holidays that are non-working days are called national holidays.
Examples include the Fourth of July, Labor Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Now holidays are reserved for days that are of religious or national
significance.
Schools, businesses and workplaces often close for holidays.
The British use a different term, bank holiday.
Why?
Because banks are closed on this day.
And to the British, "holiday" is also what Americans refer to as vacation.
So instead of going on vacation, they usually just say go on holiday.
You know, Americans and Canadians are probably the only people that use the word
"vacation." In the rest of the English-speaking world,
most people say go on holiday rather than go on vacation.
That's right.
So whether you say holiday or vacation, we hope you'll be able to go on one
before too long.
(Chinese).
Going back to our last sentence about Arbor Day, we see it was first held in
Nebraska,
(a state in the United States,) on April 10, 1872, and has since spread
throughout the U.S.
Well, I remember celebrating Arbor Day when I was in junior high school.
And a lot of the students came together, we planted trees around the school.
Now it's time for us to go see Michelle in the Language Lab.