时间:2019-02-19 作者:英语课 分类:听播客学英语


英语课

   I read an interesting story in the newspaper last week. It said that researchers at University College London had measured the brains of people who are bilingual (that is, people who speak two languages well) and also the brains of people who spoke 1 only one language. They found that the part of the brain which processes information is better developed in people who are bilingual than in people who are mono-lingual. This effect is particularly strong in people who learnt a second language as a young child of less than five years old. So, quite simply, learning a second language makes your brain work better, and if you learn another language when you are very young, your brain will be very wonderful indeed!


  If you are listening to this podcast, you are – I guess – learning a language which is not your own. So you must all have brains which work very well. The report in the newspaper is good news for you. Congratulations.
  But it is bad news for us English, because we are really bad at learning foreign languages. Only the Americans are as bad as we are. So, British brains and American brains are perhaps not as good as the brains of people in a country like Switzerland where it is normal for people to speak two or even three languages to a high standard. In Britain, only about one adult in ten can communicate at all in a language other than English. In fact, “one in ten” may be too optimistic. A few years ago, a survey by a recruitment agency found that only 5% of British people could count to 20 in another language. What? How difficult is it to learn to count to 20 in German, or French, or Italian? British people who go to live in Spain or France are notorious 2 for failing to learn Spanish or French, even after they have lived in the country for many years.
  You probably know already that English children move from primary school to secondary school at the age of eleven. At secondary school, they start learning a foreign language, normally French. A year or two later, some children will start a second foreign language. At one time, the second foreign language was normally German, but this is not the case today. German language teaching has declined 3 sharply 4 in Britain. Spanish has taken its place. I do not know why Spanish has become so much more popular than German. Perhaps it is because so many English people go to Spain for their holidays.
  In addition, in big cities where there is a large immigrant population, it is common for secondary schools to offer courses in south Asian languages like Punjabi or Urdu. But of course, most of the children who take these courses speak the language at home already. The courses give them a better knowledge and understanding of their own language, which is a good and important thing to do, but it does not teach them a new language.
  Students at an English language college in Canada. Photo by Adrian Bailon/flickr.
  When they are 14, children in England have to choose which subjects they will study for their General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) exams, which they take when they are 16. The government decided 5 a few years ago that it would no longer be compulsory 6 for children to include a foreign language in the subjects they chose. The result has been that the number of children who study a language after the age of 14 has fallen dramatically. The number of children taking the GCSE French exam, for example, has fallen by 50% since 2001.
  We see the same pattern when we look at British universities. The total number of students at university in Britain has risen, but the number of students taking degree courses in foreign languages has fallen. There have been particularly big declines 7 in the numbers studying French and German.
  This is not a good situation. Everyone – politicians, school teachers, academics – agree about this. If young people do not study a foreign language, probably they will not understand much about other countries or other cultures. Most British teenagers, however, do not think that learning a foreign language is interesting or important. They think that they will never need to speak a foreign language, and that all foreigners speak English anyway. Foreign languages have a low status with young people. Our government thinks that part of the answer is to start language learning at a younger age. It wants primary schools to start teaching a foreign language. However, at the same time, it has cut funding for adult education classes in foreign languages.
  The problem is complicated and deep-seated. How do you think that we can interest more young people in England in learning languages?

n.(车轮的)辐条;轮辐;破坏某人的计划;阻挠某人的行动 v.讲,谈(speak的过去式);说;演说;从某种观点来说
  • They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
  • The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。
adj.臭名昭著的,声名狼藉的
  • He was notorious as a gambler.他是臭名昭著的赌徒。
  • His short temper had become notorious.他的臭脾气是出了名的。
v.辞谢,谢绝(邀请等)( decline的过去式和过去分词 );(道路、物体等)下倾;(太阳)落下;(在品格、价值上)降低
  • We asked her to come to our party, but she declined. 我们请她来参加我们的晚会,但是她谢绝了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • He declined to charge his memory with so many details. 他不愿在脑中记这么多细枝末节。 来自《简明英汉词典》
adj.锐利地,急速;adv.严厉地,鲜明地
  • The plane dived sharply and rose again.飞机猛然俯冲而后又拉了起来。
  • Demand for personal computers has risen sharply.对个人电脑的需求急剧增长。
adj.决定了的,坚决的;明显的,明确的
  • This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
  • There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。
n.强制的,必修的;规定的,义务的
  • Is English a compulsory subject?英语是必修课吗?
  • Compulsory schooling ends at sixteen.义务教育至16岁为止。
辞谢,谢绝(邀请等)( decline的第三人称单数 ); (道路、物体等)下倾; (太阳)落下; (在品格、价值上)降低
  • As one grows older one's memory declines. 一个人的记忆力随着年老而衰退。
  • Hearing sensitivity declines with age. 听觉因年老而衰退。
学英语单词
aminonitriles
anti-codon
back burn
Banqiao City
beebes
break-axe
breakage effect
Breakage of Packing Clause
Bruttium
BSMRA
camerer
Chief Warrant Officer
chimney emission
cis-homoaconitase
co-invariant
coalite
compressed gas condenser
contract conditions
cooperation based on division of labor
country folk
cucumis melo inodoruss
cutting-off tool
data base control
decorticator
deep-slot motor
diaphragm accumulator
drill pipe alignment method
extragalactic compact radio source
extrasyllabically
fairing spoke
fatidic
film capacitor
freely orienting chain
functional manual
Galium xinjiangense
gamogastrous
genus Viburnum
grazing site
guiltier
hareems
heptanamine
hour circles
HYDRARG
hydroxylamine sulfate
hysterotomy
in a qualified sense
incrested
informal label
internal bulge
J function
kanomwan
kinhin
lactic acid piperazinium salt
lanpher
light-meter
longitudinalis inferior
LSI logic function testing
lupin
magnetic chamber
make a show of ourselves
marang
masner
medium access control (mac)
metastatic multiple calcification
mill flow sheet
mismatch slotted line
mistura rhei et natrii bicarbonatis
MOPN
mythimna separata
naddis
navigation star (navstar)
open hash table
panregional
parallel scalar processor
parasympathomimetic
physiology statistics
portlights
precondenser
prestress(ing)
Pteracanthus claviculatus
rear axle stand
red blood cell enzyme
regenerationist
russet coat
saccobolus saccoboloides
scale of budget
scalloping (twt)
semisoft
sessionary
sherryvallies
sibilismus aurium
soracco
spenser
supplementary tank
tharn
Those were times!
timekeeper trials
tube sample boring
TV-fluroscopy
unpreparable
unsaddling
West Warren