节目资讯
刊物:空中英语教室
日期:2012-04-27
难易度:Medium
关键字:assignment, pace, turn in something, concept, sink
OK. I hope you had a great break, friends.
Welcome back.
Jane and Ben, our friends, who go to different schools.
Their schools, it turns out, have different teaching methods.
In giving homework, Jane's school favors long-term projects while Ben's school
prefers daily practice.
Let's get back to their discussion about it at the top of the right-hand column.
(Music).
What Kind of Homework is Best?
I wish I went to your school and only had to turn in projects that I worked on
over the course of the whole class.
With a long project, you get the chance to apply new concepts as soon as you
learn them.
What could be greater than that?
With daily homework, you get the chance to have the teacher's constant guidance.
With a project, you don't get any feedback until the project is done.
Then if you did it wrong, you're sunk.
So Ben and Jane are discussing the pros and cons of homework, having short
assignments that you do every day or having long projects?
Which do you think is better?
Well, right now I agree with Ben.
I like the idea of having a project to work at my own pace.
And Brandon, you said you like daily assignments, more like Jane's opinion.
That's right. I tend to agree with Jane here.
I like to have those assignments every day.
And then I can finish them and turn them in.
And then I'm done!
So I like that.
Let's see what they have to say, what else our arguments include.
Ben starts off. He says:
I wish I went to your school and only had to turn in projects that I worked on
over the course of the whole class.
So, well, for one, we learned they don't go to the same school.
That's right.
And so we see a comparison here.
Ben is saying he wishes that he would be able to go to Jane's school and be
involved in these projects,
and just work on these projects for many days at a time, and then turn in the
project.
That would be great, he thinks.
He says: With a long project, you get the chance to apply new concepts as soon
as you learn them.
Now I agree with him here that you can start using new concepts.
But I don't think that that's just for projects, I think you do that on a daily
basis as well.
That's right.
You can always be using new concepts or thinking of ideas.
But I think what we see here Ben is thinking about the whole project, the
product as a whole, and there are many different concepts.
And you can learn those well because you're using them a lot during that one
particular project.
Now the word concept, we've used it a lot.
A "concept" is a principle or an idea.
For example, if you are in math class, and they teach you a new rule of
mathematics.
That is a concept, a new idea, a new principal.
And we see that Ben says: Well, what could be greater than that?
And so he really wants to work on a project while Jane says:
With daily homework, you get the chance to have the teacher's constant guidance.
And so Jane is thinking:
I hand in my daily assignment.
And then the teacher gives me some feedback and tells me:
Oh, you did well in this area; or you need to work in this area.
And so that's what Jane desires.
So she wants the teacher giving constant guidance.
Now we see "constant," we know it means to continue all the time; it doesn't
stop.
Now "guidance" means they are helping you along.
You can see "guide" minus the E in the beginning of this word.
That "guide," we know, is to help someone make their way a certain direction.
You lead them.
So a teacher could work as someone who leads you through these different
concepts, these new ideas, and helps you learn.
And Jane continues with... she says: With a project, you don't get any feedback
until the project is done.
And I think this is a great point, Kaylah.
You could be working on something, and what if you're doing it incorrectly?
Oh, no! That is a big problem.
So I think Jane makes a very good point here.
I think she does make a good point.
You could be doing it wrong the whole time.
But hopefully, you've been paying enough attention in class and focused enough,
Brandon, that you know what the project should be.
And you feel free to ask questions along the way.
Well, we see if this happens, Jane says: Then if you did it wrong, you're sunk.
Oh, no! You can think of maybe a ship sinking.
This is a very negative thing.
You would be drowning in water, and you would have to be catching up.
That's the kind of idea here.
You wouldn't be able to... to maybe get the project done on time because you've
wasted so much time doing it incorrectly.
So if you have done a project wrong, you've probably not been paying very close
attention.
I kind of hope you were paying attention along the way, Brandon.
But we see that you wanted a specific thing from the teacher.
I think this is a good word for us to look at.
That word is: feedback.
That's right.
Feedback is so very important.
If you receive feedback, someone tells their opinion about something, and
they're trying to help you.
Maybe you have just had a performance of some sort, and you want to get feedback
from the audience.
You want to know "Did you like my performance? If you didn't like it, what can I
improve on?" this sort of thing.
And this is so important when we're talking about doing assignments in school or
at work because we want to improve.
That's right.
Now we see the word "feed," we often think of that being... having to do with
food.
But that's not what it's focusing on here.
Here it is about giving an opinion about what has happened.
So maybe your boss gives feedback about your work so you know how to improve or
what you're doing very well in.
So as a student, you would want the feedback from your teacher so you know what
is working and what's not working.
And this feedback is important because if you're doing the project wrong, they
will let you know, your teachers will let you know.
We see the last sentence here.
Then if you did it wrong, you're sunk.
"You're sunk" means you have failed on this assignment.
Maybe you have invested a lot of time or money into something.
And if it doesn't work, someone might say: You're sunk.
That's right.
We see that "sunk" is the past tense of the verb "to sink." But here we're not
talking about physically sinking, going beneath a surface.
Maybe a boat on water would sink underneath.
Here we're talking about failure.
And that is actually an idiom that we use in English quite often is: you're
sunk, or they're sunk, or she is sunk.
You're saying that they have failed.
They have done something incorrectly, and they will not be able to recover.
Well, so you can think about this for yourself.
Well, do you want to work on a project, or would you like to have daily
assignments?
It's a good question to ask yourself.
Well, right now it's time for us to watch an interview.
Daily assignment is easy for high school students.
But project assignment would be a better way for college students to develop the
critical thinking.
While doing the project assignment, students need to do some research on their
topic or their issues.
They might go to a library, surf on the Internet or get some tips from their
teachers.
During the process, they would get different point of view and get more
information.
So in my opinion, I would like to do the project assignment because it's more
challenging and more interesting.
As a college student, I prefer to do a long project, but not too long - maybe a
week - because of two reasons.
First, because the limit... limit of time, and I have to arrange my time well so
I can learn how to um, do the time management.
And second is because we have a short time to finish our project, so I can learn
how to discipline myself to do projects efficiently.
And also, we can learn... various information in a short period.
So that's why I like to do a long-term project, but not too long, a week.
So that's all my point of view.
Thank you.
Hi, everyone. I'm Michelle.
(Chinese).
And I guess we have to say goodbye now.
I'll see you tomorrow.
Bye-bye.
Michelle, thanks again. We appreciate those tips.
Friends, please practice those and refer to them often.
OK.
So rather than defending their respective schools, Ben and Jane wish they could
switch places.
This is a good time to use the English idiom:
"The grass is greener on the other side of the fence" because Ben thinks Jane
has it better, and Jane thinks Ben has it better.
Which leads us to the question: Is one style of homework better than another or
not?
We'll look at that question tomorrow.
Until then, everyone, have a fantasticFriday.