中级英语听力教程Lesson 18 Why Go to School.docx

1、中级英语听力教程Lesson 18 Why Go to SchoolWhy Go to School?Text AMATTHEW: Lesley, youre a teacher. How does the English school system work?LESLEY: Um, well, first of all most children start school at the age of five and theycant leave school until the age of sixteen , which is just , you know , the age the

2、age of five until eleven. . . um, andpreviouslythey used to take an eeven plus examination which would then determine whether they would go to a grammar school or alternatively a secondary modern school. But now we have a. a new systen where children arent divided off at the age of eleven and will g

3、o into a comprehensive system ofschooling, and. . . will do the things that theyre bestable to do at certain ages and if they want to take the exams they are able t at. . . at the age of sixteen.MATTHEW: Do you think thats a . . . an improvement to th system?LESLEY: Well,. mm, theoretically. its sup

4、posed t be much better because it gives. . .it stops separating children off at the age of eleven and gives them a better chance, and in fact what usually happens is that those children who wouldnt. . . er who would have gone to a grammar school tend to be at the top end of the comprehensive system,

5、 and those that would have gone to secondarymodern school find themselves at the lower levels of the school.MATTHEW: Do you think that the present school system is an efficient way of educating children?LESLEY Mm. . . well if you , if you accept that , you know , there have to be schools,it seems to

6、 work fairlyefficiently. Of course one of our great problems in England is that we have very large classes and. . . um, it would be very nice in a class, there are only twenty. . . mm and so that each child gets more individual attention so that their own particular needs just arent passed over.MATT

7、HEW Do you think the. . . the subjects that er. . . children study today are adapted to present-day society?LESLEY It would be very good if. er, more children at school had the opportunity of learning about the society they live in. in economic terms and in socialterms , so that they are much more a

8、ware of the problems that we face today. But I also think that education isnt only something that has to be. . . has to be relevant. . . um, I think education can be just a. . a gradualextension of one self , and I dont think its um. . . importarit for subjects to be seen only in terms of how useful

9、 they are when you leave school. . . but how much you enjoy them and how much they mean to you.MATTHEW David, what would you do in an average day at school?DAVID Um. it mainly consists of English and Maths, which takes up a lot of the lesson time and then. . . um. . . like on Mondays , for example.

10、. .er, we would do .er, I dont know, Maths, English, Art, History and then Tuesdays would be some more English, probably . um, His tory , Reiigious studies , Physics , whatever taking now which is O level , which is. isnine subjects in all.MATTHEW I see, so you can choose. . . the subject you want t

11、o take for O level. You dont have to take. . . every subject in the schdol?DAVID No,. no, no.MATTHEW What about games. . . er and drama and things like that?DAVID We have about an hour and a half of games a week, and for about an hour a weekwe. . . do a. . . a thing known as er. . . social studies,

12、which isum. its a kind of a cross-section of. er what life wili be after we we leave school. . . Um. . . where we do drama. . a . . . we study ecology,sociology et cetera. Um, its not O level, we dont take an O level in it, its just for er. expersence.MATTHEW janet, do you. think that your daughters

13、 gain a tremendous amount from their education?JANET I think they. . . they gain a certain amount of um. necessary knowledge,yes,but I wish it was broader. I wish that instead of being driventowards passing exams that they had, certainly at this stage ofadolescence ,the chance to really broaden thei

14、r outlook completely and not feel this necessity to read towards passing an exam , to collecting a piece of paper at the end of it.MATTHEW Er. . . do you have any specific ways in which you think. . . time atschool could be improved?JANET Yes , I think there could be a. . . a lot more encouragement

15、in doing things for their own sake, for getting the satisfaction out of them. um,rather than this rat race that everybodys forced into. . . um. for what is achieved at the end. I think . . . a lot more should be done to encourage people to get the value out of it themselves.MATTHEW Do you think that

16、 er. . . education is just something that takes placeinside a school building , or is . it a. . . an activity which takes place not only outside but right the way through your life?JANET I think it starts the moment youre born, and . . . er. that its going on all around you. Its notjust taking place

17、 in a school building. . . um it should be. . . part of your whole life.Text B In 1967, The Observer, one of Britains leading Sunday newspapers papers , organized a competition for secondary school-children ; they had to write about The School that Id Like. This meant , of course , that they also ha

18、d to say what was wrong with the schools they had.David , 15But what is the main purpose of schools to educate young people so that when they go out into thewvorld they will be prepared for t? But are they? We learn our Mathematics, English, Physics, etc. , but what do you learn about sex, marriage

19、and things like this? These are just as important but we dont learn very much about them.Carol , 17Give us more variety! Give us the chance to visit factories more frequently , to talk with miners , dustmen , doctors , lawyers , jail-birds and drugaddicts, too. Give us the chance to visit remand man

20、d homes and prisons. We want to know more about life and less about books.Robin, 16What a bore school is nowadays, the same as it has been for hunireds of years. What we get is the same old thing: teacher, outdatedtextbooks , and a class fed up to the teeth with the teacher and the school. What we n

21、eed is one great change in the educational system of the country. Children do not want to be taught at, but want to find things for themselves. If a child is interested in the way a rabbits heart works, let him go and find out, by cutting one up.Irena , 15Homework should not be given. Many of us wou

22、ld rather spend another hour at school than two hours at home doing an hours homework, where we are constantly being distracted by televisionand such things.Sidney, 15The first step must surely be to raise teacherssalaries by at least fifty per cent so as to attract first-class people to the profess

23、ion. And the only means of doing this is by offering salaries equal to their responsibility in shaping the hopes of tomorrow and competitive with those offered by industry.Christopher, 16The discipline and life of the school would be based on freedom for the pupil. So freedom and a minimum of contro

24、l would be important and the pupils, male and female, would be treated as adults and allowed to see if they can live together in a community like intelligent people. Given this responsibility and freedom, the pupils obviously would not always be well-behaved and sensible, but they would, I believe,

25、grow up to be mature and intelligent adults who are socially and in all other ways, useful to the community.Margaret , 14. . . all this (i. e. freedom in schools) suggests that the school would always bechaotic, which would give all the. pupils an insihgt into what life, after school, is like:chaos.

26、 Additional Information I am beginning ro feel the pressure of work. None of the courses are as simple as they appear to be. There are a lot of reference books to consult and you can consider yourself lucky if you manage to get half of them from the Iibrary. Most copies seem to bepermanentlylent out

27、. The reading rooms are always crowded and you have to get there early in order to find a place. The biggest headache is our dormitory. Though there are desks for us to work at, nobody ever works there. For one thing, the room is so crowded that there is little elbow room, and it is so dark that we

28、need the electric light even in day time. The worst is the human element - there are always those who dont want to work and wont let others work either. They either chat, sing, play the guitar or listen to tapes. How I miss my littlecubicle10of a room at home! Perhaps its only a reaction against my

29、early excitement, but anyway I am often overcome by low spirits. Sometimes I even think I am wasting my time here and wish I had not come here at all. But of course I know they are only passing moods caused by my disillusionment. I find some of the teachers just hopeless and totally irresponsible. A

30、ll they are interested in is to earn some extra money by moonlighting. In one way. they are to be sympathized with because they do need the extra money what .with their low salaries and the rising prices. But surely they shouldnt let us suffer as a result. My biggest disappointment is in my fellow s

31、tudents. Of course I am ceferring only to some, and perhaps they are only a minority. They are a far cry from my old image of college students. They dress and behave no better than the hooligans we often see in the streets. I really dont know how they managed to get into the university, for they dont seem to be interested in their studies at all.All they care for is to have a good time , as though to enter university is an end in itself. They hold dances every Saturday evening or play cards in the dormitories deep into the night , drinking and smoking heavily. Whats mor