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Outside view
Chicago is the third largest American city after New York and Los Angeles. It's hard to believe that in 1871, a great fire destroyed the whole of Chicago's downtown. The only building to survive the great fire was the Stone Water Tower. The best architects in the world arrived to rebuild the city. Many of them were young and prepared to try new ideas. They used a tall steel frame and curtains of glass to make a different type of building-- the skyscraper. In just 15 years, a new Chicago was born. The centre of the city is now called the Loop, and it takes its name from the elevated track that circled. The buildings contained inside the Loop are a textbook of American architecture. Everyone call Chicago the \City\. Why? It's not because the weather. It's because the politicians of Chicago talk so much about their city. In fact, all the people of Chicago enjoy talking about their city. They like to tell you about Sears Tower, 110 stories of office space. That's a world record. It's so tall it takes 70 seconds to ride the elevator to the top. Beautiful modern sculptures by Picasso and others, help to make Chicago a centre of art. Then there's O'hare International Airport. With 840 flights every day, it's the busiest airport in the world. The people of Chicago are very proud of their beautiful lake shoreline, 29 miles of park land along Lake Michigan. And they don't let you forget that Chicago is the home of the Blues. Musicians like Muddy Waters made Blues popular, and even influenced the Rolling Stones. Chicago is home to the Bulls basketball team and the Cubs baseball team. The city certainly has a wonderful history. Chicago, a city where everyone works hard to be a part of the winning team.
Listening in
I'm Standing in the Arrivals Hall of Terminal 3, Beijing Capital Airport's newest terminal which became operational in March 2008. The terminal, which has a third runway and a rail link to the city centre, is the second largest in the world. Designed by the famous British architect Norman Foster, it extends almost three kilometers but took only three and a half years to build. The terminal has been designed to look and feel Chinese. The building, a mixture of glass and steel, uses the traditional Chinese colors of red and gold. Columns(柱体) inside are red and the roof is a dull gold. From the air it is said to resemble a flying dragon.
The building has the largest technology. To save energy, the roof allows in the maximum amount of light and heat, and the advanced baggage system can handle up to 19,000 pieces of luggage per hour.
The terminal is only one of a number of new buildings that have made Beijing a leading example of 21st century architectural design. Another design success is the capital's new National Centre for the Performing Arts, which opened in late December 2007.
The centre, which has created huge interest all over the world, is based at West Changan Avenue, just west of the Great Hall of the People and Tian'anmen Square. Designed by French architect Paul Andreu, it took six years to complete. The building is in the shape of a dome made of titanium(钛) and glass, and changes color depending on the amount of sunlight it receives. A
manmade lake surrounds it and to enter the building you walk through an 80-metre-long underwater corridor with a glass ceiling.
The inside of the centre is as light as the outside. A glass curtain that goes from the floor to the ceiling reflects sunlight during the day and the city lights at night. The floor is made in ten different colours of marble which came from all over China.
The centre has three main performance venues. The Opera House, with almost 4,000 seats is the largest venue, followed by the Concert Hall with seating for 2,000 and the Theatre with seating for 1,035. Top companies from all over the world will perform there. Guests walking through the gardens and trees that surround the lake describe the building and the performances as \ Listening in 2
Man: Three weeks ago we asked listeners to vote for the most unusual buildings in the world. Architecture is a very popular interest with the public and the response has been astonishing-we‘ve been flooded with emails. So here‘s the countdown starting with number five.
Woman: yes, number five is Gaudi’s Batllo House in Barcelona, pain, designed by Antoni Gaudi, one of Spain‘s greatest architects. The building was completed in 1906 and the amazing thing about it is that the exterior looks as if it‘s been made from bones. Man: it really does. I‘ve seen it, it‘s most impressive.
Woman: in fact, the skulls are balconies and the bones are the pillars that support them. It's a masterpiece and a huge tourist attraction.
Man: Next, at number four, is an office building in Prague, in the Czech Republic that's supposed to look like a couple dancing together and is called the Dancing House. I'm not so sure it looks like a dancing couple myself.
Woman: Oh, I don‘t know, if you use a little imagination.
Man: This work of art was designed by a Czech architect, Valdo Milunic, and the great Canadian architect Frank Gehry and was completed in 1996
Woman: Moving on the third place is a very strange house indeed. It's instantly recognizable by the tall long legged figures at the front. It was built by a French postman called Ferdinand Cheval and he spent 33 years constructing it from stones he collected while delivering mail. It's called the Ideal Palace and is in a small town, in France. It's quite an extraordinary from the photos. I‘d love to see it.
Woman: Me too. And now, in second place is a hotel that, although it was only built in 1997, is already a legend. It's the Bur Al Arab Hotel on the coastline of Dubai. This building is the tallest hotel in the world and it looks like a billowing（汹涌的） sail.
Man: And finally, in first place is the most unusual building of all according to our listeners, the Basket Housein Newyark, Ohio, in the United States. It's the company office of the
Longaberger Basket Company and as its name suggests, it looks like a casket. The building, which was completed in 1997, is made of steel. The exterior is covered in stucco（灰泥）, a substance that gives it a rough surface and this makes it look like a basket.
Woman: Actually, when you get closer it looks lees like a basket.
Unit 9
Inside view conversation 1
M: So you still OK for next Friday evening?
W: yes I am looking to it. It starts at 7, doesn‘t it? J: Hello, mate .What are you up to? M: Hey, Jack. How are things?
J: Not so bad. What about you? Haven‘t seen you in ages? Is this your latest squeeze? M: Not really. This is Janet. She is a friend from work. J: Nice to meet you.
M: So you still in the same job?
J: Yeah, but not for long. I am getting really hacked off（非常恼火） with it. M: That‘s tough. Fancy a pint one day. J: Yeah, nice one.
M: I will see you down in the local. It‘s on me. Bye now. J: OK, mate. See you.
W: I have no idea what you two were talking about. I was completely lost.
M: That was my mate—my friend, Jack. We were at school together. He‘s got quite a strong London accent.
W: Well. It was like a different language. It wasn‘t just the accent. I haven‘t a clue what he said. M: Well. I asked him about his job and he said he was getting really hacked off—fed up. W: Now, I am beginning to understand. So then you invite him for a drink? M: Yean, fancy a pint.
W: And the local is the local pub, isn‘t it? M: Yeah, I said I‘d buy him the drink. W: This one is on me, OK?
M: Well done. You are becoming a right pukka（真的） Londoner.
W: Hang on. I am confused again. And what did he mean when he asked if I was you latest squeeze?
M: Oh, nothing really. He just wanted to know if you were my new girlfriend. W: Now I get it.
Conversation 2
M: so one more week and you will be going back to Oxfords
W: that‘s right .I am going to miss the place. But tell me, how do you get on with the language? M :it‘s hard to say .I sometimes can‘t understand anything. How do you find it?
W well ,it depends .On the one hand ,there’re so many words which are so different to the ones we learned at school .But on the other hand, I guess I understand most of it, especially when people use standard English ,not slang（俚语）.
M :you know, English is an extraordinary language .It keeps changing over the centuries. Take Shakespeare, for example.，they reckon he introduced over 3000 words into English. W: Such as ?
M: Well, let me think, words like amazement, assassination,（暗杀） critic, majestic（庄严的）, oh, many of words we use today.
W: And I believe he introduced a number of phrases as well.
M: Yes, someone who has ―a heart of gold‖ a very kind person, or the ―green—eyed monster‖ which is someone who is very jealous. And there are even everyday expressions like ―to catch a cold‖ or ―to break the ice ,which are originally in his plays. W: Well, I will have to brush up（复习） my Shakespeare .I‘ve got tickets for Shakespeare‘s Globe next Friday.
M: Tickets? What‘s on? W: Romeo and Julie
M: Oh, great. Who are you going with? W: Oh, er, no one special
M: Friday, that‘s your last day, isn‘t it? Well ,I will see you before then but have a great time. Oh, and take an umbrella .It might rain at Globe Theatre
W: OK, shashibiya‘s in the rain. Sounds like a good name for a musical.
Outside view
Do you really want to learn English? Clestino Santee, an English language teacher gives students important advice.
M: Please give some advice to those who come to the US to learn English.
W: Well, I’d love to give some suggestions and some advices based on my experience to students learning English. First of all, don‘t be afraid to speak to Americans. Americans seem to enjoy meeting people from other countries, and they like to share the information that they have. So if you are afraid to speak to Americans that mean you are passing about an opportunity for communication, which is really what it is all about. It‘s not about reading books or learning grammar in some abstract way, it‘s more about speaking, communicating learning how real people talk and what they have to say. Um, a good way to do this is to go out in to the community. Another piece of advice I‘d like to give to people is try to learn as much about you culture as you can. And I think in that way you‘ll be more confident and you‘ll also be able to appreciate our culture a little bit better learning about some of the differences but also some of the similarities. M: What is the best age to learn English?
W: As a teacher and a tutor I‘ve taught all the different ages from, really, people in their 60s and the 70s, all the way down to lowest elementary（小学的） school children. And I found some real
differences. Of course, the adults have more traditional based, traditional form of education that they base their form of learning on. Also, in many cases they‘re more hesitant to speak. They‘re a little bit more embarrassed and they want to make sure that they have the structure of the grammar. However, the young children are like sponges（海绵）. They really just want to soak up every piece of the information. They are not afraid of making mistakes as are the older people. It is so much easier to learn a language when you‘re a child. But you know it can be done at any age. And I think it just takes a little bit more of an effort and also the willingness to take risks to appear a little bit of foolish perhaps. But in so doing, if you can laugh at yourself a little bit and your own mistakes then other people feel more comfortable around you. And this makes everybody, and make more comfortable and of course communication is what it‘s all about. M: What is the best way to teach English?
W: There‘re so many different ways of teaching English. It varies school to school. It varies teacher to teacher. It also varies as to whether you‘re taking private lessons with a tutor or if you‘re in a large classroom situation. In some ways, it‘s great to have a tutor individually because you can have somebody work with you one-on-one. However, there is also an advantage to be able to take a class with students from., not just your country but other countries as well. So therefore, you can communicate with other people, which is again, what it‘s all about. You can learn about other cultures in addition to the American culture. You can learn about other cultures. I‘ve had students who complain about being in a class with other English-as-a-second-language students, but over all I ha e found that the communication outweighs any disadvantages. So students really enjoy meeting each other and being forced to speak in English.
Listening in
P: We have with us today Dr Jonathan Bingham, an expert on disappearing languages. I understand that as many as 2000 languages are in danger of disappearing?
B: Yes. There are more than 6000 languages in the world, and about 2000 of them may disappear.
P: Presumably this is because there are very few people left who speak the languages.
B: That‘s right. For example, there‘s a remote part of the north Australian coast-where a man called Pick lives. There are only three remaining speakers of his Aboriginal language. One lives quite a distance away and the other is his sister who he‘s got allowed to speak to because she‘s a woman.
P: So with only three speakers that languages is certain to die out, isn‘t it?
B: It looks like it. Another, it‘s got to be admitted very amusing example-200 years ago a German explorer came across a village near the Orinoco river in Venezuela. He heard a parrot speaking and asked the villagers what is was saying. They said they didn‘t know because the parrot had learned is language from its owner. The owner, who had died, was the last person to speak it.
B: Very sad. But nowadays small tribes or peoples get absorbed into the mainstream cultures around them and-have to speak the language or that culture in order to survive. The terrible thing is, when a language disappears, the culture and its traditions tend to disappear too. P: Why is that?
B: Well, for example, there are 28000 Khanty members of an aboriginal people who live in Siberia, in northern Russia-and only 20 of them speak their traditional language well. Now there are words in their language that refer to certain rituals and these words don‘t exist in Russian. How can they