节目资讯
刊物:空中英语教室
日期:2013-03-25
难易度:Low
关键字:perform, communication, self-expression, gesture, mime, Roman Empire
Hello, everyone, and welcome to Studio Classroom.
My name is Gabe.
And I'm Nathanael.
Um, that's great, Nathanael.
Carolyn, why didn't you say hello?
Yeah. It's not very nice.
You should say hello.
Oh.
Wait, she...
You're not speaking?
You want us to be quiet?
Wait, Carolyn is not saying anything, but she's doing something with her hands.
Wait. Five plus five plus five plus five...
No. Nathanael, what is she doing?
I know. It's a lot of fives.
There's maybe... she's trying to push something...
OK.
... forward, but there's nothing here.
There's nothing here.
Oh! She... she's pushing a wall.
She's pushing a wall.
Yeah?
Carolyn... She's smiling.
A wall that's invisible?
She's happy about it.
She's smiling?
Yeah. We're good. We're good.
She's pushing a wall.
OK. It's fun to push walls.
Walls are fun?
No. No, no, no.
Safe! In baseball! Yeah?
Gabe, the lesson! The lesson.
The lesson is about mimes.
The Art of Mime!
The Art of Mime! Yeah. That's right, Carolyn.
Carolyn is being a mime right now.
Yes. Thank you. Thank you.
She's clapping for us. Excellent.
Well done.
Yeah, well done, Carolyn.
We were a little slow knowing what you were doing.
Friends, that's true.
We have an important and fun lesson today about the Art of Mime.
So open up your magazine and let's get started with the first reading for today.
Ah.
The Art of Mime.
In this art form, actions speak louder than words.
What do you think of when you think of a face painted white?
A shirt with stripes?
White gloves and a black hat?
In the West, this figure might come to mind when we think of mime.
Mime is the art of acting without using speech.
The word can also refer to a person who performs this art.
This type of art has grown and changed over the centuries.
What began as a simple form of communication is now a form of theater.
(Music).
This is a great form of theater; and we see at the beginning:
In this art form, actions speak louder than words.
So it is a form of art.
And these actions are louder than words, which is a very interesting phrase.
And I think that Steve and Ken have a little more information for us in the Info
Cloud.
Hi, friends.
Do actions really speak louder than words?
I would say yes.
What we do is more important than what we say.
What do you think, Steve?
I agree, Ken.
And there are many English phrases that confirm this, like: Do as I say, not as
I do.
It means don't imitate my behavior but obey my instructions because kids pick up
their behavioral cues more from watching than they do from listening.
A mother who smokes might forbid her child who is interested in starting the
habit by saying: Do as I say, not as I do.
Ken, as a father of a young boy, you should understand how quickly and easily
kids imitate others' actions.
I sure do.
Kids don't think about why they do what they do, nor do they think about the
consequences of their actions.
All they know is they want to act just like their friends or their older
siblings.
Hmm, sounds like a case of "monkey see monkey do," which is kind of a kid's
saying but it doesn't just apply to kids.
Many adults are guilty of acting like monkeys too, imitating others' actions
without thinking.
(Chinese).
Thanks, guys.
Well, our article today opens with a series of questions.
So Nathanael, I'm going to ask you these questions.
Oh.
What do you think of when you think of a face painted white?
A face painted white... um, drama.
Drama. OK.
A shirt with stripes?
Hmm, a shirt with stripes... a sailor?
A sailor! Oh, that's a good answer. OK.
And white gloves and a black hat?
Ah, Fred Astaire, a famous dancer.
Well, those... those are pretty good guesses, but uh, Gabe, what do we think of
in the West when we have these three things?
Well, I think our author wants us to think of a mime.
We continue: In the West, this figure might come to mind when we think of mime.
And Carolyn, by the way, it is very good to hear your voice again.
At the beginning of today's lesson in the introduction, she was trying to be a
mime.
And you are a very good mime at that.
Oh. Well, thank you.
Maybe I have a future career in mime.
And what is mime?
Mime is the art of acting without using speech.
So that is why I did not say anything earlier today.
Now how does this continue, Nathanael?
The next sentence says the word can also refer to a person who performs this
art.
It's a good point to make.
So mime is an art form.
It's also a person.
And you can actually also use "mime" as a verb - to mime something, kind of to
act it out without words.
That's right.
And we see a key word in this sentence as well, the word "perform." So we want
to talk about that word from our Word Bank.
If you perform something, what does that mean, Gabe?
Well, it means you're doing something for other people to see in some way.
Maybe you're entertaining them.
Maybe you're uh, also just doing something educational, but it's doing something
in front of some kind of audience.
You are performing for somebody.
I usually think of maybe going to see a show like a Broadway musical or a...
some kind of a theater show, a drama.
That is a kind of performance where people perform.
That's right.
Uh, have you performed anything, Nathanael?
Oh. Well, I have performed in quite a few plays when I was in high school and in
college.
It's one of my favorite things to do - acting.
I like performing.
Well, I also really enjoy performing in theater.
And when I was in high school, I often performed with the band because I was a
member.
And we performed many different types of music.
Well, continuing on we see that this type of art has grown and changed over the
centuries.
So it started out as the one thing and then became something else because what
did it use to be, Gabe?
Well, it used to be a simple form of communication.
But I want to take a look at that word "over" from that sentence.
This type of art has grown and changed "over" the centuries.
And usually I think of this word as being on top of something else.
Um, it's over something.
But we see it a little... used a little differently here.
Carolyn, what does this mean, "over the centuries"?
Well, it's talking about the passing of time.
So time is going on, and it is going over the centuries.
But you could also say over the days, over the weeks or years.
Nathanael, could you give us an example?
Well, since we're talking about performing, you might say that people who
perform, like celebrities, may fade over the years.
People aren't always famous for a very long time, maybe just a short time.
That's right.
And we see that what began as a simple form of communication is now a form of
theater.
So over the years, mime went from being communication to a form of theater.
And "communication" is one of our Word Bank words today.
So let's take a look at that.
If you communicate with someone, then you are interacting with them, you are
talking to them, and there is a meaning.
Uh, how do you communicate, Gabe?
Well, usually I communicate by talking.
But something I don't think about that's probably even more accurate is that I
communicate more with my actions.
Actions do speak louder than words.
So my non-verbal communication, or the communication where I don't use words,
actually means a lot.
I communicate with my hands or other things like that.
Nathanael, how might you use that word?
Well, there's all kinds of communication.
Gabe mentioned that he studied communication before to me.
And when you study communication, it's such a broad thing with so many different
parts, sometimes you need to be more specific,
like you studied TV as part of communication.
But of course, there're Skype and texting and instant messaging.
These are all forms of communication that we can use today.
That's right.
And communication is very important in our relationships with people.
We want to make sure that we communicate our meanings clearly to have good
relationships with others.
Well, I think now Liz has something she would like to communicate to us in the
Grammar Gym.
Then we'll go see Michelle in the Language Lab.
Hello, friends.
How are you doing today?
My name is Liz.
And thanks for joining me here at the Grammar Gym.
We see the sentence in today's article:
What began as a simple form of communication is now a form of theater.
That's our Grammar Tip sentence.
Our focus is on the sentence pattern: What began as a... is now a...
This is a great sentence pattern to use in formal situations to talk about how
something used to be one way but has changed into something completely
different.
For example:
What began as a two-man business team is now a company with five hundred
workers.
Or: What began as a tiny laboratory in the back of a school building is now a
separate research center.
If you want more example sentences, you'll find them in today's Grammar Tip
section in your magazine.
And that's it for today.
This is Liz from the Grammar Gym, saying goodbye.
See you next time.
Hi, everyone. I'm Michelle.