大学英语精读第5册1 5课文全文翻译.docx

1、大学英语精读第5册1 5课文全文翻译大学英语精读第5册和第6册全文课文翻译 A Kind of SermonIt is probably easier for teachers than for students to appreciate the reasons why learning English seems to become increasingly difficult once the basic structures and patterns of the language have been understood. Students are naturally surpris

2、ed and disappointed to discover that a process which ought to become simpler does not appear to do so. It may not seem much consolation to point out that the teacher, too, becomes frustrated when his efforts appear to produce less obvious results. He finds that students who were easy to teach, becau

3、se they succeeded in putting everything they had been taught into practice, hesitate when confronted with the vast untouched area of English vocabulary and usage which falls outside the scope of basic textbooks. He sees them struggling because the language they thought they knew now appears to consi

4、st of a bewildering variety of idioms, clichd and accepted phrases with different meanings in different contexts. It is hard to convince them that they are still making progress towards fluency and that their English is certain to improve, given time and dedication. In such circumstances it is hardl

5、y surprising that some give up in disgust, while others still wait hopefully for the teacher to give them the same confident guidance he was able to offer them at first. The teacher, for his part, frequently reduced to trying to explain the inexplicable, may take refuge in quoting proverbs to his co

6、lleagues such as: You can lead a horse to water but you cant make him drink ” or, more respectfully if less grammatically :”It aint what you say, Its the way that you say it. His students might feel inclined to counter these with: The more I learn, the less I know. Of course this is not true. What b

7、oth students and teachers are experiencing is the recognition that the more complex structures one encounters in a language are not as vital to making oneself understood and so have a less immediate field of application. For the same reason, from the teachers point of view, selecting what should be

8、taught becomes a more difficult task. It is much easier to get food of any kind than to choose the dish you would most like to eat on a given day from a vast menu. Defining the problem is easier than providing the solution. One can suggest that students should spend two or three years in an English-

9、speaking country, which amounts to washing ones hands of them. Few students have the time or the money to do that. It is often said that wide reading is the time or the money to do that. It is often said that wide reading is the best alternative course of action but even here it is necessary to make

10、 some kind of selection. It is no use telling students to go to the library and pick up the first book they come across. My own advice to them would be: read what you can understand without having to look up words in a dictionary (but not what you can understand at a glance); read what interests you

11、; read what you have time for (magazines and newspapers rather than novels unless you can read the whole novel in a week or so); read the English written today, not 200 years ago; read as much as you can and try to remember the way it was written rather than individual words that puzzled you. And in

12、stead of read, I could just as well say listen to. My advice to teachers would be similar in a way. I would say Its no good thinking that anything will do, or that all language is useful. Its no good relying on students to express themselves without the right tools for expression. Its still your dut

13、y to choose the best path to follow near the top of the mountain just as it was to propose a practicable short-cut away from the beaten track in the foothills. And if the path you choose is too overgrown to make further progress, the whole party will have to go back and you will have to choose anoth

14、er route. You are still the paid guide and expert and there is a way to the top somewhere.The Fifth Freedom More than three centuries ago a handful of pioneers crossed the ocean t Jamestown and Plymouth in search of freedoms they were unable to find in their own countries, the freedoms of we still c

15、herish today: freedom from want, freedom from fear, freedom of speech, freedom of religion. Today the descendants of the early settlers, and those who have joined them since, are fighting to protect these freedoms at home and throughout the world. And yet there is a fifth freedom - basic to those fo

16、ur - that we are in danger of losing: the freedom to be ones best. St. Exupery describes a ragged, sensitive-faced Arab child, haunting the streets of a North African town, as a lost Mozart: he would never be trained or developed. Was he free? No one grasped you by the shoulder while there was still

17、 time; and nought will awaken in you the sleeping poet or musician or astronomer that possibly inhabited you from the beginning. The freedom to be ones best is the chance for the development of each person to his highest power. How is it that we in America have begun to lose this freedom, and how ca

18、n we regain it for our nations youth? I believe it has started slipping away from us because of three misunderstandings. First, the misunderstanding of the meaning of democracy. The principal of a great Philadelphia high school is driven to cry for help in combating the notion that it is undemocrati

19、c to run a special program of studies for outstanding boys and girls. Again, when a good independent school in Memphis recently closed, some thoughtful citizens urged that it be taken over by the public school system and used for boys and girls of high ability, what it have entrance requirements and

20、 give an advanced program of studies to superior students who were interested and able to take it. The proposal was rejected because it was undemocratic! Thus, courses are geared to the middle of the class. The good student is unchallenged, bored. The loafer receives his passing grade. And the lack

21、of an outstanding course for the outstanding student, the lack of a standard which a boy or girl must meet, passes for democracy. The second misunderstanding concerns what makes for happiness. The aims of our present-day culture are avowedly ease and material well-being: shorter hours; a shorter wee

22、k; more return for less accomplishment; more softsoap excuses and fewer honest, realistic demands. In our schools this is reflected by the vanishing hickory stick and the emerging psychiatrist. The hickory stick had its faults, and the psychiatrist has his strengths. But hickory stick had its faults

23、, and the psychiatrist has his strengths. But the trend is clear. Tout comprendre cest tout pardoner (To understand everything is to excuse everything). Do we really believe that our softening standards bring happiness? Is it our sound and considered judgment that the tougher subjects of the classic

24、s and mathematics should be thrown aside, as suggested by some educators, for doll-playing? Small wonder that Charles Malik, Lebanese delegate at the U.N., writes: There is in the West (in the United States) a general weakening of moral fiber. (Our) leadership does not seem to be adequate to the unp

25、recedented challenges of the age. The last misunderstanding is in the area of values. Here are some of the most influential tenets of teacher education over the past fifty years: there is no eternal truth; there is no absolute moral law; there is no God. Yet all of history has taught us that the den

26、ial of these ultimates, the placement of man or state at the core of the universe, results in a paralyzing mass selfishness; and the first signs of it are already frighteningly evident. Arnold Toynbee has said that all progress, all development come from challenge and a consequent response. Without

27、challenge there is no response, no development, no freedom. So first we owe to our children the most demanding, challenging curriculum that is within their capabilities. Michelangelo did not learn to paint by spending his time doodling. Mozart was not an accomplished pianist at the age of eight as t

28、he result or spending his days in front of a television set. Like Eve Curie, like Helen Keller, they responded to the challenge of their lives by a disciplined training: and they gained a new freedom. The second opportunity we can give our boys and girls is the right to failure. Freedom is not only

29、a privilege, it is a test, writes De Nouy. What kind of a test is it, what kind of freedom where no one can fail? The day is past when the United States can afford to give high school diplomas to all who sit through four years of instruction, regardless of whether any visible results can be discerne

30、d. We live in a narrowed world where we must be alert, awake to realism; and realism demands a standard which either must be met or result in failure. These are hard words, but they are brutally true. If we deprive our children of the right to fail we deprive them of their knowledge of the world as

31、it is. Finally, we can expose our children to the best values we have found. By relating our lives to the evidences of the ages, by judging our philosophy in the light of values that history has proven truest, perhaps we shall be able to produce that ringing message, full of content and truth, satis

32、fying the mind, appealing to the heart, firing the will, a message on which one can stake his whole life. This is the message that could mean joy and strength and leadership - freedom as opposed to serfdom. Your Key to a Better LifeThe most important psychological of this century is the discovery of

33、 the self-image. Whether we realize it or not, each of us carries about with us a mental blueprint or picture of ourselves. It may be vague and ill-defined to our conscious gaze. In fact, it may not be consciously recognizable at all. But it is there, complete down to the last detail. This self-image is o