节目资讯
刊物:空中英语教室
日期:2013-02-19
难易度:High
关键字:rebound, encroachment, rumbling, cavity, bulbous-nosed, jackhammer
Hello, and welcome to Studio Classroom.
My name is Gabe.
I'm Carolyn.
And I'm Nathanael.
And you're joining us for day two of our lesson about how Scientists Hope to
Protect Seals by Understanding Their Sound.
Of course, seals are not the only animals that have unique sounds.
Actually, Nathanael, Carolyn and I are each thinking of a different kind of
animal.
And we're going to make their animal calls, or their sounds right now, OK?
So, here we go.
Are you guys ready?
Yes.
Ready.
Here we go.
Three, two, one.
(Background Noise).
Yes? Carolyn?
What?
What was that?
Was that a rooster?
Oh, that's a pretty good guess.
I was going to say (Background Noise).
Excellent.
Sounds like a rooster, right?
Yeah, it sounds like a rooster.
Good job. Good job.
Thank you.
Well, Nathanael, what is your animal sound?
Well, I'll let them guess.
But mine sounds like this... (Background Noise).
Jacob! Jacob from Twilight.
I mean, a wolf.
OK.
Yes, a wolf.
And Gabe, your sound would be?
Well, mine is a moose call.
Here we go.
Here, moose!
They love it.
They get it every time.
They always come whenever I say "Here, moose!" Right now it's time for us to get
started with our first reading of the day.
Here we go.
(Music).
Scientists Hope to Protect Seals by Understanding Their Sound.
Once hunted to near-extinction, the northern elephant seals have rebounded.
Now, scientists are concerned about the potential human impact on the growing
population,
and they hope that understanding the seals' communication and organization will
help protect the bulbous-nosed cutie-pies.
"The more we can learn, the more we can predict how they'll respond to these
types of encroachments and better protect them," said Caroline Casey,
the project's field research coordinator.
Well, we find out something scary about elephant seals here at first, but things
did improve.
Once hunted to near-extinction, the northern elephant seals have rebounded.
"Near-extended" means that at one time there were almost no elephant seals left,
but now they have rebounded.
And "rebounded" is a key word for today, so we want to look at this.
Gabe, what does "rebounded" mean in this case?
Well, if something rebounds, it's like it recovers from something bad.
So of course, they were near extinction, almost none left, but now there are
lots more.
Their... their species has rebounded.
They have recovered from that.
So you can use this word in other ways, though, Carolyn.
How would you use that word?
Well, you can use it to mean recover.
And when I think of recover, I think of an illness.
So you can rebound from an illness if you've been in the hospital for a while.
And then you get better, you have rebounded.
I also think of last month's article about the American bald eagle.
At one time they were near extinct in America as well, but it seems like they
have also rebounded.
Those are great examples.
Now let's continue in the article.
Now, scientists are concerned about the potential human impact on the growing
population.
What does that mean, human impact on the growing population?
Well, if the human impact just means that the impact that humans are having, and
on the environment that the seals live in, so.
Humans have some sort of impact, or they affect how the seals live.
That's right.
They have an influence, and often a negative influence.
I think sometimes we forget the impact that we have on the environment.
Maybe one person doing something careless isn't so bad,
but so many people can have a big human impact on things like elephant seals and
other things in the environment.
OK. Finishing out the sentence it says:
And they hope that understanding the seals' communication and organization will
help protect the bulbous-nosed cutie-pies.
Interesting words there at the end: bulbous-nosed.
That's a More Information word today.
If something is bulbous, it is shaped like a bulb or a ball.
What type of thing could be bulbous, do you think, Gabe?
Would kind of thing could be bulbous?
Well, I think of a light bulb.
I think maybe this word comes from that word "bulb." And of course, a light bulb
is kind of shaped like that.
If you see a light bulb that you can use in your house, it is shaped like this.
Maybe this, um, elephant seal also has a nose that looks kind of like that.
But what else could be bulbous shaped, Carolyn?
Well, I really like to work in the garden and plant flowers.
And there are many types of flowers that have bulbs instead of seeds.
So instead of planting a seed in the ground, you have a large bulb, something
that's very round,
and probably already has some leaves on it to plant into the ground.
OK.
Now you have an idea of what bulbous might look like if it's used to describe
something.
And then you see this word: cutie-pies.
It sounds strange and looks strange, but really it's a name that we say for
someone that is cute.
If you meet someone's child for the first time, you might say: Oh, they're a
cutie-pie.
There are a lot of other names like this that Steve and Ken, I think, are going
to discuss in the Information Cloud.
How you address a person says a lot about how well you know that person.
OK. Let's begin with talking to strangers, especially if they're older
strangers.
You'll address them in a formal way which might include a title like Mr., for
man, or Ma'am, for a woman.
Hmm. As your relationship with a person develops, you might learn he or she has
a nickname.
Sometimes the nickname comes from the shortened form of the person's proper
name.
For example, a man named Robert might choose to be called by the more informal
name "Bobby" by his friends and family.
Sometimes a nickname comes from a person's character or habit.
For example, a man who is left-handed might have the nickname: Lefty.
OK. The next level in names is the pet name.
Pet names are intimate, affectionate names you call someone you have a very
close relationship with.
Lots of people use pet names, though couples are probably the people who use
them the most.
The most common pet names in English are "darling, sweetheart and sugar." People
get creative, though,
and invent new ones all the time like cutie-pie, suggy wuggy and mookie-pookie
bear.
Yes, you can be creative and make your loved ones happy.
(Chinese).
Thank you, Mr. Steve and Mr. Ken.
Well, we continue.
The more we can learn, the more we can predict how they'll respond to these
types of encroachments and better protect them.
I like this sentence.
We have a couple of things to learn here.
The more we can learn, the more we can predict.
We want to talk about these extra words: the more something, the more something
else.
This is a great sentence pattern you can use.
How might you use this, Carolyn?
Well, the more time we spend at the zoo, the more animals we can see.
Excellent. Nathanael?
Well, the more I study it, the more interesting it becomes to me.
Excellent.
And the more... let's see, the more seals fight, the more irritated they become.
You can see there are many different ways to use this phrase.
Try it in the English today.
We also have a Word Bank word there.
So let's talk about that.
It is an encroachment.
An encroachment is when someone comes up onto your territory or tries in some
way to show that they are in charge.
You were in charge at first, and then they're slowly becoming in charge.
They are encroaching.
It's an encroachment.
Carolyn, how would you use that word?
Well, the sea levels are starting to encroach on the beaches.
I like that.
So the sea levels are rising, and the beaches are becoming smaller.
They are being encroached upon.
All right.
Nathanael, what does this word make you think of?
Well, I was thinking with this article, you could say the scientists should be
careful of encroaching on the seals' territory.
And if you notice, both Carolyn and I said "on" after encroaching.
Encroaching on or encroach on.
It's important to use that phrase that way.
All right, so encroaching on someone's territory.
And of course, earlier we talked about the human impact on these seals.
Humans are encroaching upon these seals' territory.
And Nathanael said something very important.
Even these scientists want to be careful about encroaching upon these seals.
Well, it's time for us right now to continue.
Who said this?
Caroline Casey, the project's field research coordinator.
And now it's time for us to learn something new with Michelle in the Language
Lab.
Hi, everyone. I'm Michelle.