Transcripts Unit 1


1.1 1 Scientists estimate that about 25% of the time we are asleep is spent dreaming. But why do we dream? Some experiments suggest that dreams help our brains to organize information. Each day your brain collects a lot of new information. This could be something very simple like the colour of a car you saw, or something more complicated such as an exam you prepared for. Your brain decides which information to forget and delete, and which to keep stored in the memory. Research shows that dreams play an important part in this process.


2 Edwin Hubble, an American astronomer, created a new instrument, the Hubble Telescope, which is powerful enough to measure light from 10 to 15 light years away. Hubble’s observations have provided evidence that supports the Big Bang theory. According to the Big Bang theory, the universe was smaller, denser and hotter than anything we can imagine. Then, suddenly, it exploded. In less than a second, the universe went from being smaller than an atom to being bigger than a galaxy. Astronomers estimate that this happened approximately 14 billion years ago. It is important to note, however, that a significant number of scientists believe that the Big Bang theory does not explain how all the matter in the universe came from nothing. It seems that more research is required before we can be sure.


3 There’s a website I read where they talk about all the strange things in the sky that people see. You know, UFOs, that’s unidentified flying objects. Every year hundreds of people see things in the sky, like bright lights, and nobody knows what they are. But I think they are alien spaceships. And it’s all top secret. The Government knows that there are aliens out there, but they don’t tell us because they don’t want people to be frightened. But I’m not scared, actually. They are probably very friendly.


4 When we make a decision, do we really make the decision? Do we have a choice? Let me explain. When you put a shirt on in the morning, how do you decide which shirt? Let’s say you chose the cleanest one. Why? Because you have a tutorial today and society tells us to wear clean shirts not dirty shirts for tutorials. So we don’t make a decision, it was already made. We just don’t know it.


1.2 1 A What is the rarest blood type? B AB Negative. Less than 1% of the world population has this type of blood. The most common blood type is O, about 47% of the population.


2 A Who discovered penicillin? B The Scottish biologist, Alexander Fleming. He actually discovered it by accident.


3 A Has a dog ever been into space? B Yes, the Russians sent a dog called Laika into space in 1957. This was four years earlier than the first human astronaut, Yuri Gagarin.


4 A Will there ever be a cure for cancer? B Possibly. There have been some breakthroughs in vaccines. In the USA, five billion pounds is spent every year on research.


5 A Is the number of malaria cases going down? B Yes, it is. It is going down by about 5% a year.


6 A Are European Union countries going to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases they produce?


B Yes, all the major countries signed an agreement to cut greenhouse gases by 20% by 2020.


1.3 a Where has he gone? b What did he do? c How does he know? d What is he doing? e What will he do? f What is he going to do?


1.4 As a professor of language teaching I am often asked the same question, ‘What’s the best way to learn a language?’. Well, that’s a very difficult question to answer because it depends on so many factors such as ‘What language are you learning?’, ‘What languages do you already speak?’, ‘What do you need the language for?’ and so on. But we do know from decades of research that most successful language learners share certain characteristics. So, I’m going to give you a profile of a ‘good’ language learner. Broadly speaking, I can say that a good learner experiments with language and she takes risks. That’s the first thing. And she is realistic. By realistic, I mean she knows that learning a language is not simple or easy. It takes time and effort. She accepts that sometimes progress will seem slow. Next, she is independent, meaning she doesn’t just sit in the classroom expecting to learn. Instead, she is always looking for opportunities to learn, to practise, to improve. And importantly, a good learner is able to find the right balance between accuracy and fluency. And by accuracy we mean communicating correctly, not making mistakes or errors, and by fluency we mean communicating freely and easily. Right, the final feature of a successful learner is that she thinks critically about her learning journey. By this I mean she is aware of her progress and knows what she needs to improve. And she knows which methods work for her, and which methods don’t. Because we are all different, and we learn in different ways.


1.5 a So, I am going to give you b learning a language is not simple or easy c she is always looking d a good learner is able to find e she is aware of her progress


192 English for the 21st Century • Transcripts


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