节目资讯
刊物:空中英语教室
日期:2013-02-05
难易度:Medium
关键字:peer, zookeeper, glimpse, enclose, nocturnal, elusive
Hey, everyone, and welcome to Studio Classroom.
I am your teacher Gabe.
I'm Carolyn.
And I'm Nathanael.
We're glad you could join us here today.
We have a lesson called "What's New at the Zoo?" What's new at the zoo?
Well, I'm sure many of you like to go to zoos.
There's lots that you can do at a zoo.
Of course, you can look at lots of different kinds of animals.
But here's my question for you:
What do you like most about going to a zoo?
Nathanael, what do you like most about zoos?
Well, there's a lot to like about zoos, but I actually like that you can take a
nice, long walk, even a hike at a good zoo.
There's a good path that you can follow at a zoo and get some exercise that way.
All right. Carolyn, what about you?
What do you like about zoos?
I really like to read the little information cards that they have in front of
each animal exhibit so that I can learn something new about each animal.
Well, I think that's really interesting too.
There is something new to learn every time everywhere you go.
I like the smells at zoos.
Well, not really.
I do like the animals but not necessarily the smells at zoos.
We have a lot to learn and lots of different zoos we're going to talk about over
the next couple of days.
So pay attention, we're going to learn something new.
Here we go.
(Music).
What's New at the Zoo?
Many zoos offer much more than just a quick look at animal life.
Where can you peer at a giraffe or marvel at an elephant without taking a trip
to Africa?
At a zoo, of course.
Zoos give people a chance to get up close to animals from every continent in the
world.
But zoos that offer more than just a chance to see animals are worth seeking
out.
Singapore Zoo.
At Singapore Zoo, enjoy breakfast while a family of orangutans sits nearby
enjoying theirs.
A zookeeper tells the breakfast crowd about each member of the family.
Well, we're starting to learn about that Singapore Zoo, but let's go back to the
very beginning.
Even in our title, we see a good question here:
What's new at the zoo?
What's new?
you can actually greet someone with this question.
What's new with you?
That means how are you doing.
What's going on in your life?
What's new?
Well, we see this first sentence:
Many zoos offer much more than just a quick look at animal life.
And right there there's a word that I would like to talk about, an extra word
here.
It is the word "offer." And you see it used in one way in our article.
But there are different ways to use this word.
Carolyn, what's another way you could use this word "offer"?
Well, I could ask you, Gabe, can I offer you a drink?
I would appreciate that.
You can offer me a drink.
I would take that drink gladly.
Nathanael, could I offer you a ride home this afternoon?
Oh, that's OK, Gabe. But thanks for offering.
No problem.
Well, how else could you use that word "offer"?
Actually, you can also use the word "offer" as a noun, something like: Does the
zoo have a discount offer for groups?
It works as a noun as well.
All right.
It works as a noun or a verb.
And as you can see here, it's used like this:
Many zoos offer much more than just a quick look at animal life.
You can do more things than just take a look at animals and see what's going on.
Well, we have some special zoos.
Our first question is: Where can you peer at a giraffe or marvel at an elephant
without taking a trip to Africa?
Where can you do these things?
Carolyn, where can you do these things?
At a zoo, of course.
But in that sentence, that very first one, we saw a key word; the word: peer.
Now when I think of the word "peer," I think of maybe someone who is equal to
me.
But here it's being used as a verb.
Now what does the verb "peer" mean, Nathanael?
Yeah. It's like you're catching a sight of something.
Sometimes maybe something is hard to see, but you catch a little sight of
something; in this case, an animal.
That's right.
You're peering through something.
You're peering maybe over a wall or into... through the glass to see these
animals.
Sometimes you can peer into a cage.
Maybe if there is a really high wall and you want to see what is on the other
side of that wall, you can stand up on your tiptoes and peer over the wall.
I like to go to the edge of cliffs and peer down to see what is down there.
So it's another way to see sea, actually.
You can peer at different animals when you take a trip to a zoo or of course if
you go to Africa.
But not everybody has a chance to go to Africa, you can go to a zoo to see lots
of different kinds of animals.
So Carolyn, how does our article continue?
Well, it says zoos give people a chance to get up close to animals from every
continent in the world.
So there's a wide variety of animals that you can see at the zoo.
That's right. There are.
But zoos that offer more than just a chance to see animals are worth seeking
out.
There are a lot of special zoos around the world, pretty famous zoos for
different reasons, and they are worth seeking out.
Well, we have some words we want to look at here, some extra words: seek out.
It says that these zoos are worth seeking out.
Nathanael, can you tell us about these words?
Well, "seek out" basically means to look for.
You can seek a person out or you can seek something out.
That's right.
Actually, sometimes I do like to seek people out.
If I need advice about something, I might seek my mentor out.
I might ask him for advice about things that can help me in my life.
I would seek him out.
Carolyn, how else could you use these words?
Well, yes, you could use it if you wanted to seek out a person.
I wanted to seek him out after class because I needed to ask him a question.
Or maybe you go to the store to buy something very specific, so you want to seek
it out.
All right. So you could seek people out; you could seek something out.
Obviously you could seek these zoos out.
They are very interesting zoos, and they are worth seeking out.
They're worth something.
That means it's valuable.
Time is valuable, of course.
You can use your time to go and visit these zoos.
The first one is the Singapore Zoo.
Nathanael, what do we know about the Singapore Zoo?
Well, the article says:
At Singapore Zoo, enjoy breakfast while a family of orangutans sit nearby
enjoying theirs.
Enjoy your breakfast along with a family of orangutans really close by.
That sounds like a lot of fun.
Would you guys like to eat breakfast with animals at a zoo?
I think that would be a very fun experience to be able to interact with the
animals so closely.
I do too.
Nathanael, how does that sound to you?
It sounds like it would be a little exciting, maybe too exciting, for me.
Right. Well, it does sound kind of interesting.
This is a cool experience that you might have at the Singapore Zoo.
Our article continues: A zookeeper tells the breakfast crowd about each member
of the family.
Well, let's take a look at that Word Bank word there.
It is: zookeeper.
Zookeeper is someone who works at the zoo.
He knows a lot about different kinds of animals.
And he can tell you different things; he feeds the animals.
Carolyn, what else can you tell us about a zookeeper?
Well, a zookeeper is someone who works at the zoo and takes care of the animals.
And actually, I wanted to be a zookeeper until I was about 16.
I had studied all sorts of facts about animals and was very interested in
working in a zoo.
No way! You wanted to be a zookeeper?
I sure did.
Wow!
Nathanael, would you ever consider being a zookeeper working at a zoo?
Well, it wasn't something that I really thought about.
But I do know that if you want to be a zookeeper, you should probably get a
degree.
You should study biology, zoology, or get a veterinarian degree - veterinarian
as in an animal doctor.
That is great advice.
Friends, you can seek Nathanael out for advice about what degrees to get for
going to work at the zoo.
Well, you can be a zookeeper, you can do different things at a zoo.
It can be pretty exciting.
Right now it's time for us to spend some time with Michelle in the Language Lab.
Hi, everyone. I'm Michelle.