Level III
Chapter 2
Listening Speaking
Language Section
IC3, IT, TOEFL, Best Answer
English | Vietnamese | Persian | Spanish
Assessment
Topic: Water Ecology/ Sinh thái học về nước
بوم شناسیِ (اکولوژیِ) آب
Guiding Question: Your life: does a river run through it?
Câu hỏi hướng dẫn: Có dòng sông nào chảy qua cuôc đời của bạn không?
سوال راهنما:
زندگی شما: آیا رودخانه ای در آن جریان دارد؟
Introductory Motivation and Focus:Breaking News: Listening to News Reports
|
|
|
Have you been in a flood, typhoon, or in near-drowning conditions?
We need water for survival. We depend on water to nourish and clean our bodies. We cannot feed ourselves without rain or irrigation quenching the thirst of our crops and livestock. So water is welcomed into our lives. But there are times that water is a devastating force in storms and natural disasters.
Listen to the following news report
(transcript):
This is the morning news . . .
A typhoon is approaching the central coast. It is not moving very quickly so people have time to react. Meteorologists at the National Typhoon Center are monitoring the storm very carefully. They are warning the population that a typhoon is approaching. Winds are increasing in strength and the residents are taking the necessary precautions. Many schools and businesses are closing early. Parents are making sure that their children are safe at home. Some people are doing some last-minute shopping for food and emergency supplies. Stores are running out of things like candles, flashlights and batteries. Many residents are boarding up their windows.
The government is encouraging those who live very close to the ocean to move to evacuation centers. Heavy traffic is causing huge bottlenecks on certain roads and bridges. The shelters are filling up with people from all over the area. Volunteers and government employees are looking after their needs. They are providing blankets, bedding and food. The evacuees are not feeling very safe, however. Everybody is standing anxiously around the television and radio, waiting for news.
(pause)
In the evening news tonight . . .
The typhoon is hitting the coast with devastating force. Gigantic waves are crashing onto the beaches. The wind is attacking everything in its path. Trees and branches are falling to the ground, windows are breaking, roofs are flying off houses. The wind is picking up any loose object and is carrying it away. Anybody foolish enough to go outdoors is running the risk of injury of death from all the flying debris. Some areas of the city are experiencing power outages.
(end of transcript)
(adapted from http://ww2.college-em.qc.ca/prof/epritchard/hurrica2.htm)
In this chapter, we will be putting together a newscast of some of these natural disasters involving water. But, before we do, let us observe how some of these stories are broadcast on television or on radio.
Watch a local news program in Vietnamese. Fill out the following questionnaire.
|
Newscast in Vietnamese 1. List the stories in the order presented. How many minutes were given to each topic? |
|
TOPIC |
MINUTES |
|
1 ______________________________________________________________________ 2 ______________________________________________________________________ 3 ______________________________________________________________________ 4 ______________________________________________________________________ 5 ______________________________________________________________________ |
|
|
2. Listen to the reporters. Can you mimic their speech patterns? How would you describe their tone? Upbeat? Serious? Alarmed? Uncaring? Why do you think so?
|
|
|
3. If you are watching television, where do the reporters' eyes look when speaking?
|
|
|
4. What do the reporters do when they are finished their story?
|
|
|
5. When does the camera zoom in or out?
|
|
|
6. If you are listening to the radio, what do reporters do to help their audience “see” the events of the newscast?
|
|
If you are able, listen and/or watch a news broadcast in English on television or on radio. Fill out the questionnaire:
|
Newscast in English 1. List the stories in the order presented. How many minutes were given to each topic? |
|
TOPIC |
MINUTES |
|
1 ______________________________________________________________________ 2 ______________________________________________________________________ 3 ______________________________________________________________________ 4 ______________________________________________________________________ 5 ______________________________________________________________________ |
|
|
2. Listen to the reporters. Can you mimic their speech patterns? How would you describe their tone? Upbeat? Serious? Alarmed? Uncaring? Why do you think so?
|
|
|
3. If you are watching television, where do the reporters' eyes look when speaking?
|
|
|
4. What do the reporters do when they are finished their story?
|
|
|
5. When does the camera zoom in or out?
|
|
|
6. If you are listening to the radio, what do reporters do to help their audience “see” the events of the newscast?
|
|
Discussion:
- In what ways were the broadcasts similar?
- In what ways were the broadcasts different?
- Are there reasons why these newscasts are similar and different?
Read the article below . Does this sum up how news of the tsunami was reported in the Vietnamese news media? In this chapter, we examine if “news” in Vietnam is reported in the same as in the U.S. and in other parts of the world. Is there a Vietnamese or Asian style of reporting?
Dissecting Disaster Coverage
http://www.bangkokpost.net/education/site2005/wnja1105.htm
How a major news story evolves over time
It has been more than two weeks now since a tsunami devastated coastal areas along the Andaman Sea and the vast Indian Ocean. That is long enough for us to discern the patterns that news coverage takes as a story develops over time.
This story began with all of the confusion that normally accompanies a sudden catastrophe. No one was sure exactly what happened, how many people had been killed or injured, or the extent of the damage. As is typically the case, the initial estimates were way off the mark — in the case, far too low.
News writers always try to put a disaster like this in some kind of perspective, giving readers an idea of just how bad it is compared with other calamites in the past. The first comparisons focused on the magnitude of the earthquake that set off the tsunami. It turns out that, at 9.0 on the open-ended Richter scale, it was the largest earthquake recorded in 40 years.
As soon as it became obvious that people had died on a massive scale, the tsunami was soon being compared with the worst disasters of all time. It now appears that it was by far the worst tsunami disaster in history. In fact, only earthquakes and floods in China and a cyclone in Bangladesh have ever killed more people.
As is almost always the case, reports in the first few days of a disaster come from places that people can reach. That is why there was so much coverage of Thailand, Sri Lanka and India — and it is also why the first casualty tolls were relatively low. It was only later when people were able to enter the remote areas of Indonesia nearest the earthquake that the true extent of the tragedy became known.
In reading reports of a disaster on this scale, you can always expect a wide mix of stories — from straight factual reporting to human-interest stories of hair-raising or miraculous survivals to heart-rending accounts of personal misfortune.
People also want to know why things were allowed to get so bad and what can be done to prevent so many people from dying in the future. That is why have seen many reports on the lack of a tsunami warning system in our region and what is being done to establish one.
Then, of course, there are the stories of the rehabilitation efforts. These have been rather slow in coming because of the need to find and identify the dead as well as the sheer scale of the destruction, but you can expect to see quite a few such stories in the coming weeks.
Vocabulary
Terms for BroadcastingBroadcasting refers to those things that come over the airwaves such as radio and television. These things come to us from a broadcasting station. The person who reports the news is called a reporter. Some reporters speak from the studio which is located at the station. The studio is the room that is equipped with the technology for putting the broadcast on the airwaves. It is equipped for sound and cameras. The main reporter is often called the anchor and in Western broadcasts the anchor reporter will introduce the news item and then transfer the listening audience to hear reports from the field. A field reporter goes to the place where the news item is taking place. For example, if the field reporter is telling the listening audience about a flood, they may actually stand by the floodwaters and in the rain to relay their report. Other terms and phrases that we will hear in the broadcast in this chapter appear below with a brief explanation: headlines --the title of the report. Headlines are found in bold print on newspapers and broadcast news borrowed this term from the printed media. A headline usually is not a complete sentence and is designed to capture the attention of the reading, listening or viewing audience. “back to you” or “back to you in the studio”--because an anchor reporter is used, after each report, the anchor speaks. To make the transition from the field to the studio, this expression is often used. “still coming up”--in Western broadcasts the anchor often reminds us of what news items are yet to be reported on. This is done because there are competing news broadcasts from other stations and one particular station wants to keep your attention on what news items will come so that you will not change stations. Often the most interesting news items are saved for last so that the stations can keep its audience, so the anchor reporter may say, “Still coming up in this report is news of pirates in the South China Sea and the Troubles Michael Jackson faces in Court.” Re-cap --At the end of the broadcast the main headlines are repeated. This is called a re-cap. |
Vocabulary for Reporting Disasters:
disaster |
typhoon |
to evacuate |
evacuation |
catastrophe |
hurricane |
to take precautions |
evacuation shelters |
crisis |
earthquake |
to monitor |
shelters |
victims |
tsunami |
to be safe |
refuge |
refugees |
landslides |
to surge |
humanitarian response |
evacuees |
flood |
to peak |
disaster relief |
residents |
saturated ground |
to trigger |
aid |
the injured |
worst-hit areas |
to be anxious |
|
the missing |
flooded areas |
to drown |
magnitude |
homeless |
winds |
to slam into |
tremendous |
dead |
riverbanks |
to overwhelm |
gigantic |
officials |
flooded out |
horrific |
|
authorities |
washed away |
initial estimates |
dramatic |
meteorologists |
inundated areas |
final toll |
tragic |
weather forecasters |
stricken areas |
death toll |
devastating |
seismologists |
swollen river |
terrible consequences |
|
International Red Cross |
landfall |
Study Skill A:
Becoming a Better Listener: Making Predictions
Life can be unpredictable and surprising. But a life full of the unexpected and unanticipated can be very difficult and tiring, indeed. Fortunately, there are some things in life that are predictable. Predictability is often possible in context. In the Reading chapter (Level 1, Reading Chapter 2) we looked at photos and understood that familiarity with the context enabled us to “read” more into the picture. Using that picture while reading about it, allowed us to read faster and with more comprehension. Likewise, understanding the patterns and context of something that we listen to, allows us to listen with ease and more comprehension. Making predictions about what the speaker will be saying and anticipating what questions will be answered enables us to be better listeners.
Like an academic lecture, a newscast has a predictable pattern.
First, when you hear a news item, you quickly review what you already know.
For example, if you hear in the headlines of the news that typhoon has hit the coast, all that you know about typhoons should come to mind.
Then, what questions do you think the reporter has to answer to make that event newsworthy and inform the listening audience.
For example, if you hear in the in the headlines of the news that a typhoon has hit the coast, you can predict that these questions will be answered:
WHO? |
Who was affected by the typhoon? |
WHAT? |
What strength did the typhoon have? What category storm is it? What is a “typhoon”? |
WHEN? |
When did the typhoon hit? |
WHERE? |
Where on the coast did the typhoon make landfall? |
WHY? |
Why do typhoons form? |
HOW? |
How many people were injured? How many people died? How many people are displaced? |
So you quickly formulate your questions and listen for the answers.
Listening to a newscast can form this pattern:
- The reporter makes a statement.
- You predict what he or she will say next based on what you already know and/or what questions you have.
- You judge quickly whether you were right or wrong.
- If you were right, fine. Listen for the next statement.
- I not, you must consider what was actually said and base your predictions on that.
This is called “active listening.” When you are an active listener, you become more involved and interactive. This enables you to be a better listener. As a person learning English, you will probably find that you can listen and understand more than you can speak.
Exercises and Activities for Speaking Skill A:
Exercise 1: Make Predictions. Below are headlines for a number of news stories. Read the headlines and make predictions. Space is provided for jotting down what you already know and questions you can predict will be answered.
Headline #1: TSUNAMI DEATH TOLL TOPS 56,000: OFFICIALS JUST REACHING HARDEST HIT AREAS OF INDONESIA
|
What I already know: |
What questions I have:
|
|
Questions I predict will be answered
|
|
|
Other predictions I have for this news story.
|
|
Headline #2: VIETNAM FLOOD VICTIMS FACE CROCIDILES THREAT
|
What I already know:
|
What questions I have: |
|
Questions I predict will be answered
|
|
|
Other predictions I have for this news story.
|
|
Headline #3: HOMELESS FOR THE HOLIDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES
|
What I already know: |
What questions I have:
|
|
Questions I predict will be answered
|
|
|
Other predictions I have for this news story.
|
|
Exercise 2: Now listen to these three short news items. How were your predictions?
|
(transcript) Number One Headlines: TSUNAMI DEATH TOLL TOPS 56,000: OFFICIALS ARE JUST REACHING THE HARDEST HIT AREAS OF INDONESIA The number of dead in Indonesia has risen to 27,174, almost doubling the death toll from the massive underwater earthquake and the equally massive tsunami that followed it.The latest numbers, confirmed by the Ministry of Health in Jakarta on Wednesday, push the final toll from Sunday's catastrophe to over 56,000. Officials could not reach some remote areas, like Indonesia's Aceh province, India's Andaman and Nicobar Islands and the Maldives, until Tuesday, and once there, they found scenes much worse than they imagined. The "putrid stench of the dead" hung heavily Tuesday over Banda Aceh as officials slowly came to grips with the devastation. The 9.0 magnitude earthquake struck off the western-most portion of Indonesia's northern Sumatra Island early on Sunday. As far away as Somalia on Africa's east coast, reports trickled in of fishermen swept out to sea and swimmers lost. Entire villages were swept away in Somalia and a Kenyan television reporter said "hundreds were killed" there. In all, at least 12 countries -- including the Maldives, Myanmar, Malaysia, Bangladesh and Tanzania -- were affected by the monstrous waves. Along with many private humanitarian aid groups, the United States, Australia, Germany, Japan and other nations have pledged relief to help victims throughout the region. More than 18,000 of those confirmed dead were in Sri Lanka, where the giant waves swept a 1,000-passenger train off its tracks, and the dead and injured overwhelmed hospitals and medical workers. "It's a huge situation, and there are instances where bodies are decomposing, and they're being photographed and fingerprinted" before being taken to mass graves. And there are instances where entire families have been wiped out." It was announced that Friday would be a national day of mourning. Twelve trucks carrying rice, lentils and sugar left a U.N. World Food Program depot in the Sri Lankan capital of Colombo on Tuesday, headed to the country's southern and eastern coasts, The Associated Press reported. The U.N. mission was also dispatching water bottles, bed sheets and cooking utensils, AP said. The most essential need at the moment was to keep people alive with cooked meals and clean drinking water -- and only later to begin rebuilding. As aid began to arrive in several countries, families continued to flock to makeshift morgues seeking lost loved ones as more than a million people have been left homeless in Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka and Thailand. (end of transcript) |
|
(transcript) Number Two Headlines: VIETNAM FLOOD VICTIMS FACE CROCIDILES THREAT Unusually high floodwaters have already forced nearly 200,000 people in the Mekong Delta to abandon their homes. But victims of the flooding are having to contend with a new threat - the arrival of crocodiles in the Mekong Delta. An aid worker who saw one of the crocodiles said it was 2m long and was now being kept in a pond at a police post close to the Cambodian border. Many other sightings have been reported and one account reports that a fisherman in Vietnam's badly flooded An Giang province caught a 25kg crocodile. Local people were quoted as saying that the floodwater must have flushed it down from Cambodia. Crocodiles have swum into the Mekong Delta. Environmentalists say they would not normally expect to find wild crocodiles in the Mekong Delta. But they say there are some crocodile farms both in Vietnam and in Cambodia, and it is possible that some crocodiles have escaped from flooded farms. (end of transcript) (Excerpts from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/957273.stm, 5 October, 2000 by Owen Bennett-Jones in Hanoi) |
|
(transcript) Number 3 Headlines: HOMELESS FOR THE HOLIDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES Tens of thousands of people in the Philippines and Vietnam are spending the holidays in temporary shelters, following a series of deadly typhoons over the past few months, which caused major destruction in South East Asia. The Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies are appealing for emergency funds to assist storm survivors in both countries. In Vietnam, around 200,000 homes were damaged when Typhoon Durian slammed into the Mekong Delta in early December. Meanwhile, Durian damaged more than 300,000 homes in the Philippines, while Typhoon Utor, which struck the country on 10 December, destroyed another 10,000 houses. Typhoons and heavy rains – even the threat of the volcano’s eruption – are common occurrences in this part of the Philippines and most families have learned to live with the wrath of Mother Nature. But 2006 was unprecedented and has broken many records. When a typhoon hit at the end of September, residents thought they had seen the worst of what the storm season had to offer. But the rain kept falling and then, two months later, Durian hit the country with such force, it caught many people off-guard. (End of transcript) (Excerpts from http://www.ifrc.org/Docs/News/06/06122801/index.asp, |
Lecture/Presentation: Lecture/Presentation:
Imagine that you are a group of journalists reporting in a radio newscast. Below are the facts of four news stories in which water has created devastation in Asia, so there will be four reports in the newscast. But before creating your newscast, let us understand some terms and concepts of broadcasting. Broadcasting means: to transmit or make public by means of radio or television. A newscast is a radio or television broadcast of news.
The class should divide into five groups: One group will be the anchor team. The other four groups will be the field reporting teams.
The Anchor Team will:
- select one or two people to be the anchor reporter(s)
- write a script for the newscast that will welcome the listening audience to the broadcast (see the Skill A exercise below to help in the planning and writing of the script)
- select the order that the news stories will come in the broadcast
- consult with the other four groups to find a way to introduce their stories
- at the end of each news story will thank the reporter(s)
- will write the script for the re-cap or summary
- Say goodbye to the audience and ask them to tune in tomorrow.
The four reporting teams will:
- be assigned to one of the four stories below
- select one person to be the reporter
- use the facts in their news story and write a script for their report (see the Skill A exercise below to help in the planning and writing of the script)
- think of a way to capture the interest of the audience
- think of a way to end the report and transition back to the anchor reporter.
Then perform your newscast.
|
Facts: Flood Story
(from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4537224.stm, 17 December 2005) |
|
Facts: Flood Evacuations and Precautions
(from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/1547566.stm, 17 September, 2001) |
|
Facts: Tsunami
(from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Indian_Ocean_earthquake and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsunami) |
|
Facts: Typhoon
(from: http://voanews.com/english/archive/2006-12/2006-12-01-voa26.cfm?CFID=96479510&CFTOKEN=87262249 ) |
Exercises and Activities for Listening Skill A:
Exercise 3: Preparing the Script
As you organize the information and prepare a script for your news story, follow these steps:
Read through all the facts about your story.
- Choose a headline that summarizes what the news story is about and captures the attention of the audience.
- Then write down questions that should be answered by the news story.
- Answer these questions with your facts. You may go to the internet or other resources to find answers that may not appear in the facts.
- Re-organize those answers into a news story.
Study Skill B: Vowel Pronunciation
You have been studying the English language for many years now. Perhaps, in previous study, you have worked on your pronunciation. Provided here and throughout these chapters, we provide more clarification about pronunciation. It may be of benefit, after years of study, to review pronunciation explanations. It may be more meaningful now that you have studied the language for so long.
The Vowel Chart
VOWEL SOUND |
KEY WORD |
TONGUE POSITION |
LIP POSITION |
FACIAL MUSCLES |
__ |
me |
high-front |
un-rounded |
tensed |
i |
hit |
high-front |
un-rounded |
relaxed |
__ |
ate |
mid to high-front |
un-rounded |
tensed |
e |
let |
mid-front |
un-rounded |
relaxed |
a |
sat |
low-front |
un-rounded |
relaxed |
o |
hot |
low-center |
un-rounded |
relaxed |
u |
hut |
mid-center |
un-rounded |
relaxed |
aw |
saw |
low-back |
slightly rounded |
tensed |
__ |
so |
mid to high-back |
round-rounder |
tensed |
|
oo |
look |
high-back |
rounded |
relaxed |
___ |
cool |
high-back |
very rounded |
tensed |
_ |
kite |
low/high-center/front |
un-rounded |
tensed |
|
ow |
cow |
low/high- |
un-rounded- |
tensed |
|
oy |
boy |
low/high-back/front |
round- |
tensed |
(from the ESL Teacher Book of Lists, The Center for Applied Research Education, 1993, p. 130)
Vowel Progression: Pete, pit, pate, pet, pat, pot, putt, Paul pole, pull, pool
Problem English Sounds for Speakers of the Vietnamese Language:
__ a |
__ e |
k |
l |
ng |
p |
r |
sh |
s |
y |
l-clusters |
r-clusters |
Exercises and Activities for Listening Study Skill B: Pronunciation Contrasts
Exercise 4: The following words begin and end with the same sound, but the vowel sound between is different. Listen carefully to how each pair of words is pronounced differently. Then listen again and repeat. Repeat the exercise many times.
(transcript-say entire Part 1 once, then repeat with pauses between each pair of words or after each sentence for students to repeat)
Part 1:
_ |
bake - back |
fade - fad |
cape - cap |
base – bass |
rain – ran |
haze – has |
|
played – plaid |
rake – rack |
shame - sham |
|
brain – bran |
mate – mat |
slate - slat |
|
gale – gal |
lace – lass |
aid - add |
I HATE this HAT.
I am MAD at the MAID.
The CAP matches the CAPE.
He is the only one PAINTING.
He is the only one PANTING.
It is a modern PLANE.
It is a modern PLAN.
It’s just a small SNAKE.
It’s just a small SNACK.
(transcript-say entire Part 2 once, then repeat with pauses between each pair of words or after each sentence for students to repeat)
Part 2:
_ |
bait – bet |
late – let |
gate - get |
aid - Ed |
raid – red |
rake – wreck |
|
paper – pepper |
fade – fed |
wait - wet |
|
Yale – yell |
sale – sell |
lace - less |
|
taste – test |
wade – wed |
waist - west |
Don’t LET them be LATE.
Please TELL me a TALE.
Don’t WAIT until you’re WET.
We must pay our DEBT on that DATE.
Can you TASTE it?
Can you TEST it?
He wanted to SAIL the boat.
He wanted to SELL the boat.
Put it in the SHED.
Put it in the SHADE.
(end of transcript)
Vietnamese Language Skills: Short speeches on the world supply of drinking water.
Clean Water
Clean drinking water is a crucial aspect of health for everyone in the world. Increasingly, people believe that clean water reserves may be dwindling, or at least will not be able to reach as many people as they have in the past. If clean drinking water does become a global problem, many other problems could arise as well as different groups of people vie for the remaining water sources.
Exercise:
Go online and conduct some casual research into how water becomes dirty, and how it can be cleaned. Then get into small groups and combine your research and present everything as a short speech. Finally, present your short speeches in Vietnamese to the class as to how we can create a world where everyone has access to clean drinking water and healthy lives.
Vocabulary
Nguồn- |
Source |
Bị ô nhiễm- |
Polluted |
Trữ lượng- |
Reserve |
Nguy hiểm- |
Dangerous |
Nước sạch- |
Clean water |
Cạn kiệt- |
Dwindling |
Nước uống- |
Drinking water |
Làm bẩn- |
Contaminate |
Phong phú- |
Abundant |
Chế biến, xử lý- |
Process |
Vai trò- |
Role |
Cạnh tranh- |
To vie for |
Trách nhiệm- |
Duty |
Xung đột- |
Conflict |
Kết quả- |
Results |
|
|
Contact
| |
© 1996-2008 Eastern Mennonite University
EMU is a liberal arts Christian college with core values of peace and sustainability.