Lesson 11 AN IOWA CHRISTMAS
By PAUL ENGLE
ILLUSTATED FOR AMERICAN HERITAGE BY DOUGLAS GORSLINE
E very Christmas should begin with the sound of bells, and when I was a child mine always did. But they were sleigh bells, not church bells, for we lived in a part of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where there were no churches. My bells were on my father’s team of horses as he drove up to our horse-headed hitching post with the bobsled that would take us to celebrate Christmas on the family farm ten miles out in the country. My father would bring the team down Fifth Avenue at a smart trot, (licking his whip over the horses’ rumps and making the bells double their light, thin jangling over the snow, whose radiance threw back a brilliance like the sound of bells.
There are no such departures any more: the whole family piling into the bobsled with a foot of golden oat straw to lie in and heavy bullalo robes to lie under, the horses stamping the soft snow, and at every motion of their hoofs the bells jingling, jingling. My father sat there with the reins firmly held, wearing a long coat made from the hide of a favorite family horse, the deep chestnut color still glowing, his mittens also from ihe same hide. It always troubled me as a boy of eight that the horses had so indiderent a view of their late friend appearing as a warm overcoat on the back of the man who put the iron bit in their mouths.
There are no streets like those any more: the snow sensibly left on the road for the sake of sleighs and easy travel. We could hop oil and ride the heavy runners as they made their hissing, tearing sound over the packed snow. And along the streets we met other horses, so that we moved from one set of bells to another, from the tiny tinkle of the individual bells on the shafts to the silvery, leaping sound of the long strands hung over the harness. There would be an occasional brass-mounted automobile laboring on its narrow tires and as often as not pulled up the slippery hills by a horse, and we would pass it with a triumphant shout for an awkward nuisance which was obviously not here to stay.
The country road ran through a landscape of little hills and shallow valleys and heavy groves of timber, including one of great towering black walnut trees which were all cut down a year later to be made into gunstocks for the First World War. The great moment was when we left the road and turned up the long lane on the farm. It ran through fields where watermelons were always planted in the summer because of the fine sandy soil, and I could go out and break one open to see its Christmas colors of green skin and red inside. My grandfather had been given some of that farm as bounty land for service as a cavalryman in the Civil War.
Near the low house on the hill, with oaks on one side and apple trees on the other, my father would stand up, flourish his whip, and bring the bobsled right up to the door of the house with a burst of speed.
There are no such arrivals any more: the harness bells ringing and clashing like faraway steeples, the horses whinnying at the horses in the barn and receiving a great, trumpeting whinny in reply, the dogs leaping into the bobsled and burrowing under the buffalo robes, a squawking from the hen house, a yelling of “Whoa, whoa,” at the excited horses, boy and girl cousins howling around the bobsled, and the descent into the snow with the Christmas basket carried by my mother.
While my mother and sisters went into the house, the team was unhitched and taken to the barn, to be covered with blankets and given a little grain. That winter odor of a barn is a wonderfully complex one,
rich and warm and utterly unlike the smell of the same barn in summer: the body heat of many animals weighing a thousand pounds and more; pigs in one corner making their dark, brown-sounding grunts; milk cattle still nuzzling the manger for wisps of hay; horses eyeing the newcomers and rolling their deep, oval eyes white; oats, hay, and straw tangy still with the live August sunlight; the manure steaming; the sharp odor of leather harness rubbed with neat’s-foot oil to keep it supple; the molasses-sweet odor of ensilage in the silo where the fodder was almost fermenting. It is a smell from strong and living things, and my father always said it was the secret of health, that it scoured out a man’s lungs; and he would stand there, breathing deeply, one hand on a horse’s rump, watching the steam come out from under the blankets as the team cooled down from their rapid trot up the lane. It gave him a better appetite, he argued, than plain fresh air, which was thin and had no body to it.
A barn with cattle and horses is the place to begin Christmas; after all, that’s where the original event happened, and that same smell was the first air that the Christ Child breathed.
By the time we reached the house, my mother and sisters were wearing aprons and busying in the kitchen, as red-faced as the women who had been there all morning. The kitchen was the biggest room in the house and all family life save sleeping went on there. My uncle even had a couch along one wall where he napped and where the children lay when they were ill. The kitchen range was a tremendous black and gleaming one called a Smoke Eater, with pans bubbling over the holes above the fire box and a reservoir of hot water at the side, lined with dull copper, from which my uncle would dip a basin of water and shave above the sink, turning his lathered face now and then to drop a remark into the women’s talk, waving his straightedged razor as if it were a threat to make them believe him. My job was to go to the woodpile out back and keep the fire burning, splitting the chunks of oak and hickory, watching how cleanly the ax went through the tough wood.
It was a handmade Christmas. The tree came from down in the grove, and on it were many paper ornaments made by my cousins, as well as beautiful ones brought from the Black Forest, where the family had originally lived. There were popcorn balls, from corn planted on the sunny slope by the watermelons, paper horns with homemade candy, and apples from the orchard. The gifts tended to be hand-knit socks, or wool ties, or fancy crocheted “yokes” for nightgowns, tatted collars for blouses, doilies with fancy flower patterns for tables, tidies for chairs, and once I received a brilliantly polished cow horn with a cavalryman crudely but bravely carved on it. And there would usually be a cornhusk doll, perhaps with a prune or walnut for a face, and a gay dress of an old corset-cover scrap with its ribbons still bright. And there were real candles burning with real flames, every guest sniffing the air for the smell of scorching pine needles. No electrically lit tree has the warm and primitive presence of a tree with a crown of living fires over it, suggesting whatever true flame Joseph may have kindled on that original cold night.
There are no dinners like that any more: every item from the farm itself, with no deep freezer, no car for driving into town for packaged food. The pies had been baked the day before, pumpkin, apple, and mince; as we ate them, we could look out the window and see the cornfield where the pumpkins grew, the trees from which the apples were picked. There was cottage cheese, with the dripping bags of curds still hanging from the cold cellar ceiling. The bread had been baked that morning, heating up the oven for the meat, and as my aunt hurried by I could smell in her apron that freshest of all odors with which the human nose is honored—bread straight from the oven. There would be a huge brown crock of beans with smoked pork from the hog butchered every November. We could see, beyond the crock, the broad black iron kettle in a corner of the barnyard, turned upside down, the innocent hogs stopping to scratch on it.
There would be every form of preserve: wild grape from the vines in the grove, crab apple jelly, wild blackberry and tame raspberry, strawberry from the bed in the garden, sweet and sour pickles with dill from the edge of the lane where it grew wild, pickles from the rind of the same watermelon we had cooled in the tank at the milk house and eaten on a hot September afternoon.
Cut into the slope of the hill behind the house, with a little door of its own, was the vegetable cellar, from which came carrots, turnips, cabbages, potatoes, squash, Sometimes my scared cousins were sent there for punishment, to sit in darkness and meditate on their sins; but never on Christmas Day. For days after such an ordeal they could not endure biting into a carrot.
And of course there was the traditional sauerkraut,, with Hecks of caraway seed. I remember one Christmas Day, when a ten-gallon crock of it in the basement, with a stone weighting down the lid, had blown up, driving the stone against the floor of the parlor, and my uncle had exclaimed, “Good God, the piano’s fallen through the floor.”
All the meat was from the home place too. Most useful of all, the goose—the very one which had chased me the summer before, hissing and darting out its bill at the end of its curving neck like a feathered snake. Here was the universal bird of an older Christmas: its down was plucked, washed, and hung in bags in the barn to be put into pillows; its awkward body was roasted until the skin was crisp as a fine paper; and the grease from its carcass was melted down, a little camphor added, and rubbed on the chests of coughing children. We ate, slept on, and wore that goose.
I was blessed as a child with a remote uncle from the nearest railroad town, Uncle Ben, who was admiringly referred to as a “railroad man,” working the run into Omaha. Ben had been to Chicago; just often enough, as his wife Minnie said with a sniff in her voice, “to ruin the fool, not often enough to teach him anything useful.” Ben refused to eat fowl in any form, and as a Christmas token a little pork roast would be put in the oven just, for him, always referred to by t he hurrying ladies in the kitchen as “Ben’s chunk.” Ben would make frequent trips to the milk house, returning each time a little redder in the face, usually with one of the men toward whom he had jerked his head. It was not many years before I came to ass ociate Ben’s remarkably fruity breath not only with the mince pie, but with the jug 1 funnel sunk in the bottom of the cooling tank with a stone tied to its neck. He was a romantic person in my life for his constant travels and for that dignifying term “railroad man,” so much more impressive than farmer or lawyer. Yet now I see that he was a short man with a fine natural shyness, giving us knives and guns because he had no children of his own.
And of course the trimmings were from the farm too: the hickory nut cake made with nuts gathered in the grove after the first frost and hulled out by my cousins with yellowed hands; the black walnut cookies, sweeter than any taste; the fudge with butternuts crowding it. In the mornings we would be given a hammer, a (lut iron, and a bowl of nuts to crack and pick out for the homemade ice cream.
And there was the orchard beyond the kitchen window, the Wealthy, the Russet, the Wolf with its
giant-sized fruit, and an apple romantically called the Northern Spy as if it were a suspicious character out of the Civil War.
All families had their special Christmas food. Ours was called Dutch Bread, made from a dough halfway between bread and cake, stuffed with citron and every sort of nut from the farm—hazel, black walnut, hickory, butternut. A little round one was always baked for me in a Clabber Girl baking soda can, and my last act on Christmas Eve was to put it by the tree so that Santa Clans would find it and have a
snack—after all, he’d come a long, cold way to our house. And every Christmas morning, he would have eaten it. My aunt made the same Dutch Bread and we smeared over it the same butter she had been churning from their own Jersey (highest butterfat content) milk that same morning.
To eat in the same room where food is cooked—that is the way to thank the Lord for His abundance. The long table, with its different levels where additions had been made for the small fry, ran the length of the kitchen. The air was heavy with odors not only of food on plates but of the act of cooking itself, along with the metallic smell of heated iron from the hard-working Smoke Eater, and the whole stove offered us its yet uneaten prospects of more goose and untouched pies. To see the giblet gravy made and poured into a gravy boat, which had painted on its sides winter scenes of boys sliding and deer bounding over snow, is the surest way to overeat its swimming richness.
The warning for Christmas dinner was always an order to go to the milk house lor cream, where we skimmed From the cooling pans of fresh milk the cream which had the same golden color as the flanks of the Jersey cows which had given it. The last deed before eating was grinding the coffee beans in the little mill, adding that exotic odor to the more native ones of goose and spiced pumpkin pie. Then all would sit at the table and my uncle would ask the grace, sometimes in German, but later, for the benefit of us ignorant chil” dren, in English:
Come, Lord Jesus, be
our guest,
Share this food tliat you
have blessed.
There are no blessings like that any more: every scrap of food for which my uncle had asked the blessing was the result of his own hard work. What he took to the Lord for Him to make holy was the plain substance that an Iowa farm could produce in an average year with decent rainfall and proper plowing and manure.
The first act of dedication on such a Christmas was to the occasion which had begun it, thanks to the Child of a pastoral couple who no doubt knew a good deal about rainfall and grass and the fattening of animals. The second act of dedication was to the ceremony of eating. My aunt kept a turmoil of food circulating, and to refuse any of it was somehow to violate the elevated nature of the day. We were there not only to celebrate a fortunate event for mankind, but also to recognize that suitering is the natural lot of men—and to consume the length and breadth of that meal was to suder! But we all laced the ordeal with courage. Uncle Ben would let out his belt—a fancy Western belt with steer heads and silver buckle—with a snap and a sigh. The women managed better by always getting up from the table and trotting to the kitchen sink or the Smoke Eater or outdoors for some item left in the cold. The men sat there grimly enduring the glory of their appetites.
After dinner, late in the afternoon, the women would make despairing gestures toward the dirty dishes and scoop up hot water from the reservoir at the side of the range. The men would go to the barn and look after the livestock. Afy older cousin would take his new .22 rifle and stalk out across the pasture with the remark, “I saw that fox just now looking for his Christmas goose.” Or sleds would be dragged out and we would slide in a long snake, feet hooked into the sled behind, down the hill and across the westward sloping fields into the sunset. Bones would be thrown to dogs, suet tied in the oak trees for the juncos and winterdefying chickadees, a saucer of skimmed milk set out for the cats, daintily and disgustedly picking their padded feet through the snow, and crumbs scattered on a bird feeder where already the
crimson cardinals would be dropping out of the sky like blood. Then back to the house for a final warming-up before leaving.
There was usually a song around die tree before we were all bundled up, many thanks all around for gilts, the basket as loaded as when it came, more so, for leftover food had been piled in it. My father and uncle would have brought up the team from the barn and hooked them into the double shafts of the bobsled, and we would all go out into the freezing air of early evening.
On the way to the door I would walk under a photograph of my grandfather, his cavalry saber hung over it (I had once sneaked it down from the wall and in a burst of gallantry had killed a mouse with it behind the cornc rib). With his long white beard he looked like one of the prophets in Hurlbut’s illustrated Stoiy of the Bible, and it was years before I discovered that he had not been off, as a young man, fighting the Philistines, but the painted Sioux. It was hard to think of that gentle man, whose family had left Germany in protest over military service, swinging that deadly blade and yelling in a cavalry charge. But he had done just that, in some hard reali/ation that sometimes the way to have peace and a quiet life on a modest farm was to go off and fight for them.
And now those hells again as the horses, impatient from their long standing in the barn, stamped and shook their harness, my lather holding them hack with a soft clucking in his throat and a hard pull on the reins. The smell of wood smoke flavoring the air in our noses, the cousins shivering with cold, “Goodbye, good-bye,” called out from everyone, and the bobsled would move oil, creaking over the frostbrittle snow. All of us, my mother included, would dig down in the straw and pull the buffalo robes up to our chins. As the horses settled into a steady trot, the bells gently chiming in their rhythmical beat, we would fall half asleep, the hiss of the runners comforting. As we looked up at the night sky through halfclosed eyelids, the constant bounce and swerve of the runners would seem to shake the little stars as if they would fall into our laps. But that one great star in the East never wavered. Nothing could shake it from the sky as we drifted home on Christmas.
Paul Engle was born in Iowa in 1908, grew up in Cedar Rapids, and was educated in Iowa schools. Soon after receiving his master’s degree from the State University of Iowa he began teaching there. He is now professor of English and conductor of the un iversity’s nationally famous poetry workshop.
Lesson Ten Diogenes and Alexander I．Teaching Objectives: After learning this unit, students are supposed to: 1. get familiar with the rules of word formation ; 2. get familiar with some grammatical points; 3. retell the text as a whole; 4. have a thorough understanding of the whole text: Diogenes and Alexander 5. get a list of the new words and expressions and be able to use them freely in writing and daily conversation; II.Listening and speaking activities 1.Listen to the recording of the text and fill in the blanks about the main ideas of the article. 2. Talk about this passage with your friends ,and talk about what you think of Diogenes. III. Reading Comprehension and Language Activities 1. Pre-reading discussions: 1) What do you think of the person who lying on the street , shoeless, bearded, half-naked ? ? 2) Are you a cynic person?. 2. Background knowledge : 1) Cynic and Cynicism (愤世疾俗者与犬儒主义) ： The Oxford English Dictionary describes a cynic as a person “ disposed to find fault “ and as one who “shows a disposition to disbelieve in the sincerity or goodness of human motives and actions, and is wont to express this by sneers and sarcasm.”In short ,the cynic is “a sneering fault-finder” The ancient school of Cynicism was founded in the fourth century BC by Antisthenes. The Cynics urged both men and women to follow a way of life in harmony with nature and to reject all unnecessary civilized luxuries. They also rejected all social conventions ,customs and laws. 2)Diogenes （第欧根尼） Diogenes was a famous Cynic philosopher living during the time of Plato ( the 4th century BC ). Having to flee from Sinope because of charges against him and his father for debasing the public coin , Diogenes went to Athens where he studied under comforts of civilized life , and lived an extremely ascetic lifestyle. Later on the captured by pirates and sold into slavery in Crete to Xeniades, who was so impressed by the philosopher that he made him the teacher of his children . He is said to have died of old age in the same year as Alexander the Great in 323 BC. 3. Text analysis: Part One (para.1-10) Description of Diogenes as a beggar, a philosopher and a missionary, his lifestyle and doctrine: Cynicism. Part Two (para.11-12) Description of Alexander the Conqueror, who was the greatest man of the time . Part Three(para.13-17) The dramatic encounter of the two , revealing that only these two men
第一单元 课程开始之际，就如何使学习英语的任务更容易提出一些建议似乎正当其实。 学习英语的几种策略 学习英语决非易事。它需要刻苦和长期努力。 虽然不经过持续的刻苦努力便不能期望精通英语，然而还是有各种有用的学习策略可以用来使这一任务变得容易一些。以下便是其中的几种： 1．不要以完全相同的方式对待所有的生词。你可曾因为简直无法记住所学的所有生词而抱怨自己的记忆力太差？其实，责任并不在你的记忆力。如果你一下子把太多的生词塞进头脑，必定有一些生词会被挤出来。你需要做的是根据生词日常使用的频率以不同的方式对待它们。积极词汇需要经常练习，有用的词汇必须牢记，而在日常情况下不常出现的词只需见到时认识即可。你会发现把注意力集中于积极有用的词上是扩大词汇量最有效的途径。 2．密切注意地道的表达方式。你可曾纳闷过，为什么我们说“我对英语感兴趣”是“I’m interested in English”，而说“我精于法语”则是“I’m good at French”?你可曾问过自己，为什么以英语为母语的人说“获悉消息或密秘”是“learnthenewsorsecret”,而“获悉某人的成功或到来”却是“learn of someone’s success or arrival”?这些都是惯用法的例子。在学习英语时，你不仅必须注意词义，还必须注意以英语为母语的人在日常生活中如何使用它。 3．每天听英语。经常听英语不仅会提高你的听力，而且有助你培养说的技能。除了专为课程准备的语言磁带外，你还可以听英语广播，看英语电视和英语电影。第一次听录好音的英语对话或语段，你也许不能听懂很多。先试着听懂大意，然后在反复地听。 你会发现每次重复都会听懂更多的xx。 4．抓住机会说。的确，在学校里必须用英语进行交流的场合并不多，但你还是可以找到练习讲英语的机会。例如，跟你的同班同学进行交谈可能就是得到一些练习的一种轻松愉快的方式。还可以找校园里以英语为母语的人跟他们
2014101018 第五单元 Translation of Text A 夜莺与玫瑰 1 “她说如果我给她带去红玫瑰，她愿意和我一起跳舞。”年轻的学生哭喊道，“但满院子都没有一朵红玫瑰。” 2 这番话给在老橡树上自己巢中的夜莺听见了，她通过橡树叶张望，心中诧异。 3 “在我的花园没有红玫瑰！”他哭着说，他美丽的大眼满含泪水：“啊，圣贤之书我已读完，哲学奥妙尽藏心中，然而缺少一朵红玫瑰却使我的生活瞬时暗淡！” 4 “终于有一位重感情的人了，”夜莺说，“我曾日日夜夜为他歌唱，现在我终于见到他了。” 5 “王子明晚将举行一个舞会，”年轻的学生喃喃道：“我的爱人也将前往我若为他采得红玫瑰，她将和我一直跳舞到天亮。我会揽她入怀，而她也会偎依在我的肩头。但在我的花园没有红玫瑰，因此我只能独自坐那儿黯然神伤，心痛无比。” 6 “他确实是一个重感情的人，”夜莺说。真爱是美好的，它价胜千金。 7 “乐师们将奏乐助兴，”年轻的学生道，“我的爱人将和着竖琴和小提琴声翩翩起舞。她的身姿是如此的轻盈宛似蜻蜓点水般。但他是不会和我一起跳的，因为我没有红玫瑰献给她。”于是他扑倒在草地上，双手捂着脸放声痛哭起来。 8 “他为什么哭泣呢？”一只绿色的蜥蜴翘着尾巴经过他身边时问道。 9 “是啊，到底为什么呢？”一只在阳光下挥动着翅膀的蝴蝶问道。 10 “到底为什么呢？”一朵雏菊用低沉的声音对他的邻居说道. 11 “他为一只红玫瑰哭泣。”夜莺说。 12 “为了一朵红玫瑰？”他们叫道，“太荒谬了！”那本来就有点愤世嫉俗的小蜥蜴肆无忌惮的笑道。但是夜莺了解男孩的悲痛，默默无声地坐在橡树上。 13 突然她张开自己棕色的双翼，向空中飞去。她犹如影子般穿越树林，又如影子般越过花园。 14 在草地的中心一棵美丽的红玫瑰树傲然屹立。她看到后立即向它飞去：“给
Book 4-Unit 5 Text A The Telephone Anwar F. Accawi 1.When I was growing up in Magdaluna, a small Lebanese village in the terraced, rocky mountains east of Sidon, time didn't mean much to anybody, except maybe to those who were dying. In those days, there was no real need for a calendar or a watch to keep track of the hours, days, months, and years. We knew what to do and when to do it, just as the Iraqi geese knew when to fly north, driven by the hot wind that blew in from the desert. The only timepiece we had need of then was the sun. It rose and set, and the seasons rolled by and we sowed seed and harvested and ate and played and married our cousins and had babies who got whooping cough and chickenpox—and those children who survived grew up and married their cousins and had babies who got whooping cough and chickenpox. We lived and loved and toiled and died without ever needing to know what year it was, or even the time of day. 2.It wasn't that we had no system for keeping track of time and of the important events in our lives. But ours was a natural or, rather, a divine—calendar, because it was framed by acts of God: earthquakes and droughts and floods and locusts and pestilences. Simple as our calendar was, it worked just fine for us. 3.Take, for example, the birth date of Teta Im Khalil, the oldest woman in Magdaluna and all the surrounding villages. When I asked Grandma, "How old is Teta Im Khalil" 4.Grandma had to think for a moment; then she said, "I've been told that Teta was born shortly after the big snow that caused the roof on the mayor's house to cave in."
MoreWork on the Text Ⅱ Vocabulary 1. Translate. (P14 1 From English into Chinese. (1学校教职员工 (10青春期 (2政治上的成熟 (11种族偏见 (3成长过程中的变化 (12每天工作日程 (4认同危机 (13伦理道德观念 (5恋爱关系 (14处理日常生活的能力 (6遗传工程 (15历史背景 (7学术生活 (16异性 (8偶然事件 (17感情上的支持 (9民族认同 (18生活方式 2 From Chinese into English. (1 to pursue an education (10 to drag one's feet (2 to acquire knowledge (11 to evaluate the result (3 to handle the case (12 to process knowledge (4 to define the word (13 to perform one's duty (5 to select one's major (14 to narrow the gap
(6 to resent the treatment (15 to expand business (7 to establish their identity (16 to expect better results (8 to frustrate the students (17 to assemble cars (9 to declare war (18 to present facts 2. Give synonyms and antonyms of the following. (P15 1 Give synonyms. (1 objective, purpose, end (7 choice (2 to happen (8 to choose/to pick or pick out (3 to increase/to enlarge/to grow/to develop (9 main/chief/principal/leading (4 to try/to attempt/to make an effort (10 belief (5 clear (11 strong feeling (6 magazine (12 to get/to gain/to obtain 2 Give antonyms. (1 masculine (9 to exclude (2 immature (10 disapproval (3 independence (11 mistrust/distrust
Unit1 课程开始之际，就如何使学习英语的任务更容易提出一些建议似乎正当其时。 Some Strategies or Learning English 学习英语绝非易事。它需要刻苦和长期努力。 虽然不经过持续的刻苦努力便不能期望精通英语，然而还是有各种有用的学习策略可以用来使这一任务变得容易一些。以下便是其中的几种。 1. 不要以完全同样的方式对待所有的生词。你可曾因为简直无法记住所学的所有生词而抱怨自己的记忆力太差？其实，责任并不在你的记忆力。如果你一下子把太多的生词塞进头脑，必定有一些生词会被挤出来。你需要做的是根据生词日常使用的频率以不同的方式对待它们。积极词汇需要经常练习，有用的词汇必须牢记，而在日常情况下不常出现的词只需见到时认识即可。你会发现把注意力集中于积极有用的词上是扩大词汇量最有效的途径。 2．密切注意地道的表达方式。你可曾纳闷过，为什么我们说我对英语感兴趣是I'm 湩整敲瑳摥椠?湅汧獩屨，而说我精于法语则是???潧摯愠?牆湥档？你可曾问过自己，为什么以英语为母语的人说获悉消息或秘密是汜慥湲琠敨渠睥?牯猠捥敲屴，而获悉某人的成功或到来却是汜慥湲漠?潳敭湯?环猠捵散獳漠?牡楲慶屬？这些都是惯用法的例子。在学习英语时，你不仅必须注意词义，还必须注意以英语为母语的人在日常生活中如何使用它。 3．每天听英语。经常听英语不仅会提高你的听力，而且有助你培养说的技能。除了专为课程准备的语言磁带外，你还可以听英语广播，看英语电视和英语电影。第一次听录好音的英语对话或语段，你也许不能听懂很多。先试着听懂大意，然后再反复地听。你会发现每次重复都会听懂更多的东西。 4．抓住机会说。的确，在学校里必须用英语进行交流的场合并不多，但你还是可以找到练习讲英语的机会。例如，跟你的同班同学进行交谈可能就是得到一些练习的一种轻松愉快的方式。还可以找校园里以英语为母语的人跟他们随意交谈。或许练习讲英语最容易的方式是高声朗读，因为这在任何时间，任何地方，不需要搭档就可以做到。例如，你可以看着图片18 / 1 或身边的物件，试着对它们详加描述。你还可以复述日常情景。在商店里购物或在餐馆里吃完饭付过账后，假装这一切都发生在一个讲英语的国家，试着用英语把它表演出来。 5．广泛阅读。广泛阅读很重要，因为在我们的学习环境中，阅读是最重要、最可靠的语言输入来源。在选择阅读材料时，要找你认为有趣的、不需要过多依赖词典就能看懂的东西。开始时每天读一页是个好办法。接下去，你就会发现你每天可以读更多页，而且能对付难度更高的材料。6．经常写。写作是练习你已经学会的东西的好方法。除了老师布置的作文，你还可以找到自己要写的理由。有个笔友可以提供很好的动力；与某个跟你趣味相投但来自不同文化的人进行交流，你会学到很多东西。经常写作的其他方式还有记日记，写小故事或概述每天的新闻。 语言学习是一个积累的过程。从读和听中吸收尽量多的东西，然后再试着把学到的东西通过说和写加以运用，定会大有收益。 Unit2 弗朗西斯·奇切斯特在六十五岁时开始了只身环球航行。本文记述的就是这一冒险故事。 Sailing Round the Word 弗朗西斯·奇切斯特在独自驾船作环球航行之前，已有好几次让他的朋友们感到吃惊了。他曾试图作环球飞行，但没有成功。那是1931年。 好多年过去了。他放弃了飞行，开始航海。他领略到航海的巨大乐趣。奇切斯特在首届横渡大西洋单人航海比赛中夺魁时，已经五十八岁。他周游世界的宿愿重又被唤起，不过这一次他是要驾船环游。由于他患有肺癌，朋友们和医生们都认为他不该去，但奇切斯特决意实施自己的计划。
2014101018 第六单元 Translation of Text A 青香蕉 1尽管这种事情在任何地方都可能发生，但我与青香蕉的邂逅却源自于巴西腹地一条险峻的山路上。我那老式吉普车正吃力地穿过景色优美的乡村，这时，水箱突然漏水了，而离我最近的汽车修理站也还要十英里。发动机过热迫使我在临近的村庄停了下来。村里有一个小商店和分布在四处的几座房子。有村民围过来看，三股细细的热水柱从水箱外壳上的小孔喷出来。“这容易解决，”一个人说到。他让一个小男孩跑去拿些青香蕉来。这个人还拍了拍我的肩膀，安慰我问题会解决的。“青香蕉。”他笑了，其余的人都这么说着。 2我和他们闲聊起来，心里却一直在想他们用这青香蕉怎么能修补好水箱。毫无疑问，提问会暴露我的无知，因此我开始赞叹眼前美丽的乡村景色。耸立在我们周围巨大的岩石群，很像里约热内卢著名的糖面包山。“看见那边那块高高的岩石了吗？”那人指着一块特别高而且细长的黑色石柱问我，“那块岩石标志着世界的中心。” 3我看着他，想知道他是否在和我开玩笑，但他却表情严肃，反过来认真地审视着我，似乎想确定我是否领会了他那句话的深刻含义。这种情况要求我必须表现出认同。他点头说：“绝对是中心。这儿的人都知道。” 4这时，小男孩抱着青香蕉回来了。那个男子把其中一根掰成两半，将其断口处按在水箱的外壳上。香蕉遇到炙热的金属融成了胶，立刻就堵住了漏洞。面对如此情景，我惊呆了，我当时的表情一定是傻傻的，所有的人都笑了起来。他们把我的水箱装满水，又让我带上一些香蕉，以防沿途中水箱再出问题。路上，我又用了一次青香蕉，一个小时后，我开着车到达了目的地。当地的一修理工笑着问我：“谁教你用青香蕉的？”我告诉了他那个村子的名字。“他们有没有指给你看标志世界中心的那块岩石?”他问道。我告诉他，他们指给我看了。“我祖父就是那儿的人，”他说，“那的确是中心。一直以来这儿的人都知道。” 5作为美国教育的产物，除了把青香蕉当作还没长熟的水果，我从来就没注意过它。但突然在那条山路上，当我需要它时，它正巧出现了。可是仔细想一想，其实青香蕉一直在那儿存在着。时间可以追溯到香蕉的最初的起源。那个村子里的人都知道它已经很多年了，我现在也因此认识它了。我开始珍视村民们的聪明才智和青香蕉的特殊潜能。曾有一段时间，我一直困惑于教育家们提出的“领悟的瞬间”，而现在我知道自己刚刚同时经历了两个这样的瞬间。 6我又用了一些时间来领会村民们认为那块标志着世界中心的岩石的重要性。开始时我怀疑他们的说法，因为我知道实际上世界的中心是位于新英格兰的某个
Unit1 Another School Year — What For Let me tell you one of the earliest disasters in my career as a teacher. It was January of 1940 and I was fresh out of graduate school starting my first semester at the University of Kansas City. Part of the student body was a beanpole with hair on top who came into my class, sat down, folded his arms, and looked at me as if to say "All right, teach me something." Two weeks later we started Hamlet. Three weeks later he came into my office with his hands on his hips. "Look," he said, "I came here to be a pharmacist. Why do I have to read this stuff" And not having a book of his own to point to, he pointed to mine which was lying on the desk. New as I was to the faculty, I could have told this specimen a number of things. I could have pointed out that he had enrolled, not in a drugstore-mechanics school, but in a college and that at the end of his course meant to reach for a scroll that read Bachelor of Science. It would not read: Qualified Pill-Grinding Technician. It would certify that he had specialized in pharmacy, but it would further certify that he had been exposed to some of the ideas mankind has generated within its history. That is to say, he had not entered a technical training school but a university and in universities students enroll for both training and education.
Michael Welzenbach 1. When I was 12 years old, my family moved to England, the fourth major move in my short life. My father’s government job demanded that he go overseas every few years, so I was used to wrenching myself away from friends. 2. We rented an 18th-century farmhouse in Berkshire. Nearby were ancient castles and churches. Loving nature, however, I was most delighted by the endless patchwork of farms and woodland that surrounded our house. In the deep woods that verged against our back fence, a network of paths led almost everywhere, and pheasants rocketed off into the dense laurels ahead as you walked. 3. I spent most of my time roaming the woods and fields alone, playing Robin Hood, daydreaming, collecting bugs and bird-watching. It was heaven for a boy —but a lonely heaven. Keeping to myself was my way of not forming attachments that I would only have to abandon
大学英语精读1课文翻译 Unit1 Some Strategies or Learning English 学习英语绝非易事。它需要刻苦和长期努力。 虽然不经过持续的刻苦努力便不能期望精通英语，然而还是有各种有用的学习策略可以用来使这一任务变得容易一些。以下便是其中的几种。 1. 不要以完全同样的方式对待所有的生词。你可曾因为简直无法记住所学的所有生词而抱怨自己的记忆力太差？其实，责任并不在你的记忆力。如果你一下子把太多的生词塞进头脑，必定有一些生词会被挤出来。你需要做的是根据生词日常使用的频率以不同的方式对待它们。积极词汇需要经常练习，有用的词汇必须牢记，而在日常情况下不常出现的词只需见到时认识即可。你会发现把注意力集中于积极有用的词上是扩大词汇量最有效的途径。 2．密切注意地道的表达方式。你可曾纳闷过，为什么我们说 "我对英语感兴趣"是"I'm interested in English"，而说"我精于法语"则是"I'm good at French"？你可曾问过自己，为什么以英语为母语的人说"获悉消息或秘密"是"learn the news or secret"，而"获悉某人的成功或到来"却是"learn of someone's success or arrival"？这些都是惯用法的例子。在学习英语时，你不仅必须注意词义，还必须注意以英语为母语的人在日常生活中如何使用它。 3．每天听英语。经常听英语不仅会提高你的听力，而且有助你培养说的技能。除了专为课程准备的语言磁带外，你还可以听英语广播，看英语电视和英语电影。第一次听录好音的英语对话或语段，你也许不能听懂很多。先试着听懂大意，然后再反复地听。你会发现每次重复都会听懂更多的东西。 4．抓住机会说。的确，在学校里必须用英语进行交流的场合并不多，但你还是可以找到练习讲英语的机会。例如，跟你的同班同学进行交谈可能就是得到一些练习的一种轻松愉快的方式。还可以找校园里以英语为母语的人跟他们随意交谈。或许练习讲英语最容易的方式是高声朗读，因为这在任何时间，任何地方，不需要搭档就可以做到。例如，你可以看着图片或身边的物件，试着对它们详加描述。你还可以复述日常情景。在商店里购物或在餐馆里吃完饭付过账后，假装这一切都发生在一个讲英语的国家，试着用英语把它表演出来。
UNIT1 又一学年——为了什么？ 约翰·切阿迪 1.给你们讲讲我刚当老师时候的一次失败经历吧。那是1940年的1月，我从研究生院 毕业不久，在堪萨斯城大学开始第一学期的教学工作。一个瘦高，长得就像顶上有毛的豆角架一样的男学生走进我的课堂，坐下，双臂交叉放在胸前，看着我，好像在说：“好吧，教我一些东西。”两周后我们开始学习《哈姆雷特》。三周后他双手叉腰走进我的办公室，“看，”他说，“我来这是学习当药剂师的。我为什么必须读这个？”由于没有随身带着自己的书，他就指着桌子上放着的我的那本。 2.虽然我是位新老师，我本来可以告诉这个家伙许多事情的。我本来可以指出，他考 入的不是制药技工培训学校而是大学，而且他在毕业时，应该得到一张写有理学学士而不是“合格的磨药工”的学位证书。这证书会证明他专修过药剂学，但它还能进一步证明他曾经接触过一些人类发展史上产生的思想。换句话说，他上的不是技能培训学校而是大学，在大学里学生既要得到培训又要接受教育。 3.我本来可以把这些话都告诉他，但是很明显，他不会待很长时间，说了也没用。 4.但是，由于我当时很年轻而且责任感也很强，我尽量把我的意思这样表达出来：“在 你的余生中，”我说，“平均每天24小时左右。谈恋爱时，你会觉得它有点短；失恋时，你会觉得它有点长。但平均每天24小时会保持不变。在其余的大约8个小时的时间里，你会处于睡眠状态。 5.“然后在每个工作日8个小时左右的时间里，我希望你会忙于一些有用的事情。假 设你毕业于一所药科大学——或工程大学，法学院，或者其他什么大学——在那8个小时时间里，你将用到你的专业技能。作为一个药剂师，你要确保氯化物没有和阿斯匹林混在一起；作为一个工程师，你要确保一切都在你的掌控之中；作为一个律师，你要保证你的当事人没有因为你的无能而被处以电刑。这些都是有用的工作，它们涉及到的技能每个人都必须尊重，而且它们都能给你带来基本的满足。无论你还干些什么，这些技能都很可能是你养家糊口的本领。它们会给你带来收入；但愿你的收入总能够用。” 6.“但完成一天的工作后，剩下的8小时你做什么呢？比如说你可以回家，和你的家 人待在一起。你所供养的是一个什么样的家庭呢？孩子们在家里能接触到一点还算是精辟的思想吗？你主持的家庭中有民主气息吗？家里有书吗？有那种一般敏感的人看了不会发怵的画吗？孩子们会听到巴赫的音乐吗？” 7.这差不多就是我所说的，但这个讨厌鬼不感兴趣。“看，”他说，“你们教授用你 们的方法培养孩子；我会以我自己的方式抚养我自己的孩子。我呀，我会尽一切努力挣钱的。” 8.“我希望你能赚很多，”我告诉他，“因为你在开支票的余暇会愁没事干的。” 9.14年后的今天，我仍然在教书，在此我要告诉你们，大学的职责并不只是在于培训 你，它还要使你接触人类思想的精髓。如果你没时间看莎士比亚的作品，没时间看哲学入门，没时间欣赏艺术的存续，也没时间学习我们称之为历史的人类发展的课
现代大学英语精读第3册教案 CONTEMPORARY COLLEGE ENGLISH---BOOK 3 The title of teaching: UNIT 1 Your College Years Period of the teaching: 10 classes Objectives: 1. To expand basic vocabulary and expressions 2. To appreciate the theme of the text 3. To know about some background information about Eric H Erickson‘s Developmental Stages. 4. To review the grammatical knowledge about the conjunction while and to learn to use parallelism. Key points: 1. Language study and expressions 2. Background information 3. Word Building: de-, pro-, -ject, -volve, -ogy. 4. Paraphrases of difficult sentences Difficult points: 1. ways of expressing the object 2. Writing devices: antithesis 3. The corresponding information about the text Methods of teaching: 1. Interactive teaching method 2. Communicative Teaching method 1
UNIT 1 As we are at the start of the course, this seems a good moment to offer some advice on how to make the task of learning English easier. 课程开始之际，就如何使学习英语的任务更容易提出一些建议似乎正当其时。 Some Strategies for Learning English Learning English is by no means easy. It takes great diligence and prolonged effort. 学习英语绝非易事。它需要刻苦和长期努力。 Nevertheless, while you cannot expect to gain a good command of English without sustained hard work, there are various helpful learning strategies you can employ to make the task easier. Here are some of them. 虽然不经过持续的刻苦努力便不能期望精通英语，然而还是有各种有用的学习策略可以用来使这一任务变得容易一些。以下便是其中的几种。 1. Do not treat all new words in exactly the same way. Have you ever complained about your memory because you find it simply impossible to memorize all the new words you are learning? But, in fact, it is not your memory that is at fault. If you cram your head with too many new words at a time, some of them are bound to be crowded out. What you need to do is to deal with new words in different ways according to how frequently they occur in everyday use. While active words demand constant practice and useful words must be committed to memory, words that do not often occur in everyday situations require just a nodding acquaintance. You will find concentrating on active and useful words the most effective route to enlarging your vocabulary. 1. 不要以完全同样的方式对待所有的生词。你可曾因为简直无法记住所学的所有生词而抱怨自己的记忆力太差？其实，责任并不在你的记忆力。如果你一下子把太多的生词塞进头脑，必定有一些生词会被挤出来。你需要做的是根据生词日常使用的频率以不同的方式对待它们。积极词汇需要经常练习，有用的词汇必须牢记，而在日常情况下不常出现的词只需见到时认识即可。你会发现把注意力集中于积极有用的词上是扩大词汇量最有效的途径。 2. Watch out for idiomatic ways of saying things. Have you ever wondered why we say, "I am interested in English", but "I am good at French"? And have you ever asked yourself why native English speakers say, "learn the news or secret", but "learn of someone's success or arrival"? These are all examples of idiomatic usage. In learning English, you must pay attention not only to the meaning of a word, but also to the way native speakers use it in their daily lives. 2．密切注意地道的表达方式。你可曾纳闷过，为什么我们说“我对英语感兴趣”是“I'm interested in English”，而说“我精于法语”则是“I'm good at French”？你可曾问过自己，为什么以英语为母语的人说“获悉消息或秘密”是“learn the news or secret”，而“获悉某
Study the following sentences carefully and then paraphrase them in English: Unit One Your College Years 1.… identity is determined by genetic endowment (what is inherited from parents), shaped by environment, and influenced by chance events. (2) Who we are is determined by three things: first, our genes, or what our parents have given us, our legacy; second, environment, and third, luck or opportunities. 2.These religious, moral, and ethical values that are set during the college years often last a lifetime. (7) These values that are established during the college years often last a lifetime. It is believed that our character or basic moral principles are formulated during this period of time. 3.These are exciting times yet frustrating times. Probably nothing can make students feel lower or higher emotionally than the way they are relating to whomever they are having a romantic relationship with. It is difficult for a college student to make a clear role of being a man or a woman in the future because they feel excited and confused about their sexual roles. They may feel happy and unhappy, without much hope for the future. 4.Probably nothing can make students feel lower or higher emotionally than the way they are relating to whomever they are having a romantic relationship with. (5) When students are in a romantic relationship with the opposite sex, they are most likely to feel unhappy or happy emotionally. 5.It may be heightened by their choice to purse a college education. (3) If they choose to continue their education, they will face an even more serious struggle between the desire to be independent and the need to depend on the financial support of their parents. 6.While students are going through an identity crisis, they are becoming independent from their parents yet are probably still very dependent on them. This independence/dependence struggle is very much part of the later adolescence stage. They have been away from their parents and become independent, but somehow they can not be completely independent from their parents because they still need their parents to provide the money to support their life and study. Unit 3 A Dill Pickle 1.She shivered, hearing the boatman's song break out again loud and tragic, and seeing… She was very sensitive to art and music and she felt excited as the man was describing the beautiful picture. 2.… although at the time that letter nearly finished my life. I found… and I couldn't help laughing as I read it. To write such a break-up letter was very difficult for Vera. The letter reminded them of the heart-broken feeling and it finished both the man and the woman. But he trivialized the letter, and even mocked the letter, which hurt Vera deeply.