4) Para. 4:
5) Para. 5:
TASK ONE Discovering the Main Ideas
1. 1) No, Will Pidcroft doesn't think that English can be mastered within a short period of time. He says that in fact English is not that easy to learn; otherwise, he wouldn't be working as an English teacher any more as there would be far less demand for trained English teachers. 2) Yes, he does.
3) Behaviorists believe that language learning is a kind of habit formation. So they are fond of making students repeat phrases and do exercises where they continually have to change one word in a sentence. They assume that people learn things very much like parrots and chimpanzees.
4) Pidcroft thinks that interest is a very important factor in language learning. No one can ever learn to speak English or any other language unless he or she is interested in it.
5) Parrots and chimpanzees make noises that are meaningless while the speech sounds human beings make are meaningful and they can relate them to their own lives. In other words, human beings use language to communicate. 2.
1) Para. 1: Advertisements often give the false impression that learning English is easy and does not need much effort.
2) Para. 2: There is no such thing as a good method that suits all students in every situation. 3) Para. 3: People used to believe that the only way to learn a language was to spend a lot of time in a country where it was spoken. The other extreme is that some think that they can learn a foreign language at home relying solely on dictionaries.
4) Para. 4: Teaching methods based on the behaviourist theory may not work, as human beings are not parrots or chimpanzees.
5) Para. 5: Interest is the key to learning a language, which is a means of communication.
6) Para. 6: To learn a language well, it is important that we have other people to talk to and listen to.
TASK TWO Reading Between the Lines
1. Read the following statements and then decide whether each of them is true or false based on the information in the text. Write T for True and F for False in the space provided before each statement.
1) ______ In order to catch the attention of potential learners, advertisements usually exaggerate （夸大） the fast pace and great ease of learning English.
2) _____ To be able to read the original works by great writers can be a motivation for people to learn the language of those great writers.
3)______ People don't believe what advertisements say about language learning at all. 4)______ Each individual teacher may have his or her unique way of teaching a language.
5)______ The only way to learn a language well is to go and live in a country where it is spoken. 6) ______ Learning a language is just like how a parrot imitates a human being.
2. Read the following sentences carefully and discuss in pairs what the author intends to say by the italicized parts.
1) But it is difficult for anyone to explain in simple language why one method is better than another, and it is no use pretending that anyone has discovered a perfect way of teaching English in every possible situation. (Para. 2)
2) A large number of theorists seem to think it is a pity we aren't, because it would make it easier to use their methods. (Para. 4)
3) Human beings, unlike parrots and chimpanzees, do not like making noises unless they understand what the noises mean and can relate them, to their own lives. (Para. 5)
TASK TWO Reading Between the Lines
1. 1) T 2) T
3) F (Lots of people must believe what advertisements say; otherwise, the advertisements would no longer exist.) 4) T
5) F (Living in a country where the target language is spoken has advantages over many other methods.)
6) F (Language learning must be meaningful. A parrot, however, makes meaningless noises by imitating human beings.)
2.
1) There is no such thing as the best way of teaching English which suits all situations.
2) Many behaviorist theorists wish that human beings were just like parrots or chimpanzees, so that they could use their methods of teaching on human beings with ease.
3) Human beings are not like animals. When they talk, they make speech sounds that are meaningful and relevant to their lives.
TASK THREE Voicing Your Views
Work in groups of threes or fours and have a discussion on issues related to language learning. 1) List as many similarities and differences as you can think of in terms of learning English and Chinese, and write them down in the space provided.
Similarities Differences
a.__________________________ a.__________________________ b._________________________ b.__________________________ c.__________________________ c.__________________________ d.__________________________ d.__________________________
2) Is Chinese as difficult for a foreigner to learn as English is for a Chinese? Give reasons to support your view.
3) Do you think motivation is a very important factor in learning a foreign language? Are you highly motivated to learn English? Why or why not?
4) Do you believe what advertisements say about the fast pace and great ease of learning a foreign language? Why or why not?
TASK THREE Voicing Your Views
1) Teachers may guide students to approach this question from different aspects: from pronunciation, spelling, vocabulary and meaning, grammatical structures, and word order, to such global aspects as discourse structures, pragmatic appropriateness and cultural relevance.
2) An appropriate answer to this question will be a positive \Chinese is as difficult for a foreigner to learn as English is for a Chinese. But for learners of a foreign language that belongs to the same language family as their mother tongue, some aspects may seem easier. But overall, all languages are equally difficult (or equally easy) to learn.
3) Yes, it is. Motivation is always an important factor in learning a foreign language. Teachers may ask students to select some students in their class who are very good in English and ask them to discuss if these students are motivated or not in learning English. Teachers may guide students to list all kinds of motivations into two general types: instrumental motivation and integrative motivation.
4) Answers may vary. Most students may say \taking unsuccessful English classes because of empty promises made in advertisements. However, some students may say \schools.
TEXT B
KEY WORDS AND EXPRESSIONS
particularly ad. rid v. dislike n. character n. care v. & n. intelligent a. steadily ad. furthermore ad. solemnly ad. confusion n. semester n. apparently ad. astonish vt. illustration n. edition n. glimpse n.
adventure n. dive v. have trouble with at all costs rid of
mean every word of it a glimpse of
dive into
John Holt 约翰.霍尔特
for pleasure clear up sure enough
Dr. Seuss 索伊特博士
Rockwell Kent 罗克威尔.肯特 Grinch 格林奇
Unit 1 Text B Learning to Read
As all of us know, learning to read and write in a language is always a tough job and it takes a lot of time. But good teachers know how to encourage their students to learn. In the following text, the author tells us about his own experience in teaching a reading class. John Holt
1. In one of my classes were many children who had had great trouble with schoolwork, particularly reading. I decided to try at all costs to rid them of their fear and dislike of books, and to get them to read oftener and more adventurously (冒险地).
2. One day soon after school had started, I said to them, \reading that you have probably never heard a teacher say before. I would like you to read a lot of books this year, but I want you to read them only for pleasure. I am not going to ask you questions to find out whether you understand the books or not. If you understand enough of a book to enjoy it and want to go on reading it, that's enough for me. Also I'm not going to ask you what words mean.\
3. \Give an author thirty or forty pages or so to get his story going. (Read about thirty or forty pages of a book and see what the story is like.) Then if you don't like the characters and don't care what happens to them, close the book, put it away, and get another. I don't care whether the books are easy or hard, short or long, as long as you enjoy them. Furthermore, I'm putting all this in a letter to your parents, so they won't feel they have to quiz or check your reading at home.\
4. The children sat stunned (使震惊) and silent. Was this a teacher talking? One girl, who had just come to us from a school where she had had a very hard time, and who proved to be one of the most interesting, lively, and intelligent children I have ever known, looked at me steadily for a long time after I had finished. Then, still looking at me, she said slowly and solemnly, \do you really mean that?\
5. Apparently she decided to believe me. The first book she read was Dr. Seuss's How the Grinch Stole Christmas, not a hard book even for most third graders. For a while she read a number of books on this level. Perhaps she was clearing up some confusion about reading that her teachers, in their hurry to get her up to \(She might not be very clear about what she was reading and might want to continue reading more at this level. But she was not given time to do so, as her teachers would like her to read at an upper level.) After she had been in the class six weeks or so and we had become good friends, I very tentatively（试探性地）suggested that, since she was a skillful rider and loved horses, she might like to read National Velvet. (（《玉女神驹》is a classic children’s book.）I made my sell as soft as possible, (I suggested as greatly as I could that she might try reading National Velvet) saying only
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