Learning to learn in English

Writing

1.Write your CV for a job of your choice (say what it is). Use your own details and qualifications and work experience which you hope to get in the future.

2.Withthe partner exchange your CVsand check out ifyour CVsfollow the rules on CV writing.

Speaking

You have come across an advertisement on internship programs and made an appointment for an interview. Now you are in the Personnel Manager office. Talk to the manager.

Greet the applicant. Offer to take a sit.

Return greeting. Introduce yourself.

AskfortheCV.

Check the formal requirements.

Give all the necessary information.

Say what internship options are available. Ask which one the applicant is interested in.

Say what program you would

like to join and why.

Ask about the applicant’s previous experience, skills, qualities.

For each skill on these lists, state whether you:

have that skill already (put a V)

don’t have it yet but have the potential to develop it (put a ?)

will never have that skill (put a X)

Unit 2. Progress Monitoring

In this unit you have worked on the vocabulary related to the topic “Jobs and Career Options”:

Tick(V) thepoints you areconfidentabout and cross (X) theones you need to revise.

2. Within a minute complete the word web for the noun job.

well-paid

JOB

3.Write down a short vocabulary list (10 items) on the topic “Job” and compare your lists with the partner. Cross out the items you have on both lists and explain the meaning of the rest of the words and phrases.

4.Read these sayings. Comment on the one you like most.

“If a man does only what is required of him, he is a slave. If a man doesmore thanisrequired ofhim, heisa freeman.” Chineseproverb

“Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.” Aristotel “No problemis insurmountable. With a little courage, teamwork and

determination a person can overcome anything.” B. Dodge “Striving for successwithout hard work islike trying to harvest where

you haven’t planted.” David Bly

5. Game

Guess the job

Work in teams. One of you should think about a job in your subject area and the others in the group must try to guess what the job isby asking “Yes” and “No” questions about it. Make sure everyone asks the same number of questions.

Example: In your job…

6. Roleplay

Your friend has just applied for one of the part-time/holiday jobs from the ads you have read in Unit 1. Talk to him/her and find out about the job:

responsibilities and hours

skills and personal qualities required

salary and benefits/perks

Progress Test

1.Rewrite the sentences in reported speech. Use various verbs of speaking.

a)I’m afraid I can’t take the job before January. (She explained …) b)Paul Smith has just come back from his yearlong expedition around

the globe. (They ...)

c)Now, if you look at this graph you will see the temperature changes in this region over 50 years. (The lecturer ...)

d)I’m sure in 2050 thousands of people will be living in giant space stations. (Prof. Smith ...)

e)Studying the dolphins’ behavior was the most exciting thing I’ve ever

done. (Paul ...)

f)No, you are wrong! The course starting date is next week, not tomorrow! (Helen ...)

g)Peterissoabsent-minded! Lastweek hehadanaccidentinour chemistry lab. He broke a test tube with some toxic substance in it! (Peter ...) h)Hello, everybody! Let me introduce Mia Travis to you. She is a new

member of the ‘Whale Programme’ team. (The tutor ...) i) Sorry, I can’t take your point. (Mr. Brown ...)

j) Why don’t we do a summer internship? (Bob ...)

2.Complete sentences with the most suitable phrasal verb in the box. Use the correct form of the verb.

3. From the words below make nouns describing people by adding suffixes

4.Read the letter of application and fill in the gaps with the words in the box.

December 12, 2009

Mr. Robert Burns President, Template Division MEGATEK Corporation 9845 Technical Way Arlington, VA 22207 burns@megatek.com

Dear Mr. Burns,

I learned of MEGATEK through online research using the a) ---

----------- database through Career Services at Virginia Tech where I am completing my Master's b) ------------ in Mechanical Engineering. From my research on your web site, I believe there would be a good fit

my degree in May 2012.

As a graduate student, I am one of six members on a software development f) ---------- where we are writing a computer aided aircraft design

As a graduate student, I am one of six members on a software

coding, and testing of a graphical portion of the program which requires the use of GIARO for graphics input and output. I have a strong h) --------------- in computer aided design, software development and engineering, and believe that these skills would benefit the designing and manufacturing aspects of Template software. Enclosed is my resume which further outlines my i) ----------------------.

would appreciate the opportunity to discuss a position with you, and will k) -------------- you in a week or ten days to answer any questions you may have and to see if you need any other information from me

William Stevens 123 Ascot Lane Blacksburg, VA 24060 (540) 555-2556 WStevens@vt.edu

Resume attached as MS Word document

Self study

Exploring Career Information

It is important for students to undertake the job preparation process early in their academic career, from reading job ads and examining the job market, to building their CVs (resumes). By starting this process early, you can better explore and guide your interests so that you establish clear and focused coursework tracks. There are a great number of websites that are designed to help you explore career paths and find practical information about the job search process.

Search the sites http://www.bls.gov/k12/index.htm

http://www.the-aps.org/education/k-12misc/careers.htm

Do the career exploration in your subject area.

Make a resource for your fellow students. You can do this in the form of a handout or a poster.

QUESTIONS TO GUIDE YOU:

What is this job like: job responsibilities and working conditions?

What are the training requirements?

How much does this job pay?

How many jobs are available in this area?

What are the prospects?

Scripts

Module 1 Unit 1

Five NewYear’s Resolutions for English Learners

AA: I’m Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on Wordmaster: English teacher Lida Baker suggests five resolutions for people who want to improve their English in the NewYear.

LIDA BAKER: “My first resolution that I would recommend people make is to spend a certain amount of time listening to English — and it can be five minutes a day or it can be 10 minutes a week or it can be whatever suits a person’s work schedule, life schedule or whatever. But it’s really important to set goals and to stick to them. And it would be very helpful if people had Internet access to do this, because what I’m going to recommend is listening to sites that have scripts included. “

RS: “What do you do if you don’t have access to a computer, how can you listen better? LIDA BAKER: “Well, almost everyone all over the world has access to pop music. And one of my resolutions would be to spend time listening to English music. The advantage of listeningto music is that it’s a really wonderful way to work on your pronunciation, because you know, you get a feeling for the stress and the rhythm of the language when you’re singing. And also music is full of idioms, so it’s a terrific way to learn colloquial vocabulary and to work on your pronunciation. And a third advantage of listening to music is that it’s really easy to remember. “So for people who have access only to a radio, even they can do something to improve their English just by listening to pop music. And I might add, if you do have access to the Internet, there are lots of Internet sites that will give you the lyrics to pop songs. Do a search, type ‘music’ or ‘songs’ plus ‘lyrics,’ and you’llfindsites where you can type in the name of the song and it will give you the lyrics to the song.

RS: “So spend a little bit more time listening, or have a goal for listening. Listen to English music. What else?”

LIDA BAKER: “Something else I tell my students, and they’re always surprised when I tell them this, is read children’s books.”

AA: “That makes sense, though.”

LIDABAKER: “Yeah. Why do you say that?” RS: “Well, few words.”

AA: “It’s simpler.”

RS: “Direct, simple. Lots of pictures.” LIDA BAKER: “There you go.” RS: “That puts it in a context.”

LIDABAKER: “There you go. And the other thing is, you can find children’s books at all levels. If you were a total beginner in English, you start with books that have just a few words on the page and lots of pictures, and you can work your way up to books that have relatively speaking more text and fewer illustrations. But again, children’s books are very motivating. To this day I enjoy reading the books that I read to my daughter when she was a little girl.”

AA: “So now we’ve got the listening to the radio, listening to music, going online and looking for scripts of programs to go with the audio, reading children’s books. What’s your next resolution?”

LIDA BAKER: “Learn a new word every day. And if you don’t have time to do it every day, do it every other day. Again, pick a realistic goal. Choose your word, look up the meaning, but then don’t stop there. Look at the examples in the dictionary for how the word is used. You know -is it used as a noun? Is it a verb? Is it used to talk about people? If it’s an adjective, does it have a positive meaning or a negative meaning? So look for what’s called the connotation of the word. And then, when you’re sittingin your car, or you’re walking to the bus stop or sitting on the bus, practice. Put the word into your own sentences. Think of ways that you could use that word. … And so now we come to our last resolution, which in a way is the most difficult one, because my last resolution would be, even if it’s only very occasionally, talk to native speakers every chance you get.

RS: Lida Baker teaches English and writes textbooks in Los Angeles, California.

AA: That’s all for Wordmaster this week. Our e-mail address is word@voanews.com. And Internet users can read and listen to all of our segments at voanews.com/wordmaster. RS: WithAviArditti, I’m Rosanne Skirble. Aversion of this programfirst airedon December 22, 2004

(http://www.voanews.com/specialenglish/archive/2006-01/2006-01-10-voa10.cfm)

Module 1 Unit 2

Jackie: Hello, welcome to Weekender!My name’s… umm, myname’s… ohdear what was it again? Oh yes! Jackie Dalton. Today’s topic is memory and the programme will hopefully provide you with some helpful study tips when it comes to memorizing information. We’ll do this with the help of Andrew Maze. He’s a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of Manchester in the UK. What’s his tip for how to learn things you need to remember?

Andrew: The best way to learn it is to space your learning. So you don’t say I’ve got to learn this… so sit down and spend about ten hours trying to put it in your head in a sort of mass practice fashion.

Jackie: Andrew’s tip for effective learning is to space itout – don’t try and learn a lot in one go. Why is this?

Andrew: What you do is you process certain parts of it on one day and then you come back to it the following day or a few days later and learn it again and then you do that again and again. And this is much more efficient with much less time spent on the learning, you can get up to very high levels of memory performance and furthermore, it survives over long periods of time much better than if you learn it all in one go.

Jackie: Andrew talks about ‘processing’ information, which means organising it, -taking the information in and putting it in the right place – processing information. He says you process what you learn much better if you just do a little at a time and leave a gap before you try to learn more. This, he says, is a more ‘efficient’way of learning – more efficient – it’s a better way of using your time.

Jackie: Another tip for you, I always thought the best time to study for exams was the morning, because that’s when I felt most focused and awake. But according toAndrew, we tend to remember things better if we learn them at night. Why is this? Listen to Andrew to find out.

Andrew: Ifyou learn something last thing at night and then go to sleep and compare that with learning somethingduring the day and you thenhave 8 active hours after that in which you’re learning new things, what you find after a few days is that you remember the information that

you learnt last thingat night, immediately before you went to sleep - you remember that best. If you learn something during the day and then carry on learningother things for about eight hours or so, you remember that stuff much less efficiently.

Jackie: So according to Andrew, if you memorize things before you go to sleep, you remember them better because your brain can process the information overnight. It’s harder to memorize things in the morning because your brain still has to cope with all the other information it receives over the rest of the day. Let’s listen to Andrew again. We’ll look at some of the language he uses afterwards.

Andrew: And the evidence is growing that that’s because if we learn new things, the parts of the brain that store this new information are busy storing these new memories and that interruptsthe memoriesthat wentin immediatelybefore, it prevents thembeing consolidated very efficiently.

Jackie: So if your brain is trying to store things you’ve just learnt, then you start trying to learn something else, that gets in the way of the processing. What expression did Andrew use to say that it’s become more and more clear that this is what happens?

Andrew: And the evidence is growing that …

Jackie: The evidence is growing that. ‘Evidence’ is facts or signs that show that something is true. Andrew said evidence is growing – so there are more and more facts that show that trying to learn a lot in one go is less efficient than just learning a little at a time. He also used the word ‘consolidated’. Do you know what that means? If not, try to work it out from the context.

Andrew: And the evidence is growing that that’s because if we learn new things, the parts of the brain that store this new information are busy storing these new memories and that interruptsthe memoriesthat wentin immediatelybefore, it prevents thembeing consolidated very efficiently.

Jackie: To ‘consolidate’ means to bring things together in order to make them more easy to deal with. Well, I hope you’ve managed to consolidate all the information you’ve just received. Andif you want tomake sure youremember what youlearnt today, have a rest, go to sleep, come back another day and go through it all again. Happy learning!

Module 2 Unit 1

ALook at Washington University

This is the VOA Special English Education Report. A student at Xinjiang Normal University in China has a question for our Foreign Student Series. Akbar Mamat wants to go overseas after graduation and would like some information about Washington University.

Washington University in Saint Louis, Missouri, is a medium-sized school in the Midwest. It has almost eleven thousand students. Twelve percent this last school year were internationalstudents, mostly graduate students. The universityhas schoolsfor law, medicine and social work. It also has a business school, a school of design and visual arts and a school of engineering and applied science. But more than seventy percent of courses are taught through the Arts and Sciences program.

The new school year that begins this fall will cost fifty-two thousand dollars for undergraduates. That includes twelve months of living expenses estimated at seventeen thousand dollars. Graduate tuition differs by prog-ram. Tuition for the Master of Social

Work program, for example, will cost twenty-seven thousand dollars in the coming year. The Master ofBusiness Administrationprogram willcost aboutthirty-eight thousand dollars.

The university offers financial assistance to international students, including first-year students, but says its resources are limited. Scholarships are available. The university also offers a monthly payment plan to spread out the cost of tuition. And it offers loan programs.

International students in the United States generally cannot receive federal student loans. But theymay be able to take out private loans, as many American students do. The student loan industry is in the news right now. Investigations are looking at questionable dealings between colleges and lenders.

Washington University in Saint Louis was named Eliot Seminary when it opened in eighteen fifty-three. Later the name was changed to honor the first American president, George Washington. But other schools share the name Washington, includingthe University of Washington and George Washington University. So in nineteen seventy-six Washington University added the words “in Saint Louis” to its name.

And that’s the VOA Special English Education Report, written by Nancy Steinbach. Our Foreign Student Series on higher education in the United States is online at voaspecialenglish.com. I’m Steve Ember.

(http://www.voanews.com/specialenglish/archive/2007-06/2007-06-20-voa2.cfm)

Module 2 Unit 1

Speaker 1 Sylvia Earle Biologist

(2.2) I grew up more or less fearless with respect to all sorts of things — spiders, squirrels, birds, mammals — because of the gentleness that both my father and my mother and my family in general expressed toward our fellow citizens on the planet. That empathy for living things became naturally expanded as I grew up into a study of living things. I became a biologist just following my heart, I suppose. I couldn’t imagine wanting to do anything else.

(2.3) When asked as a child “What do you want to be when you grow up?” I didn’t know exactly what to call it, but I did know that I wanted to do something that related to plants and animals. Ithink for a while I entertained the thought that maybe I wanted to be a veterinarian. I knew about veterinarians, and I loved cats and dogs and horses, and all the traditional kinds of creatures that human beings surround themselves with. But I was increasingly interested, fascinated, and really enchanted by the wild creatures. As I grew older and learned more about them, I think I determined that was the direction I would be taking.

(2.4) Well, I say that I worked when I went through school, but it wasn’t to me work. It was really a source of pleasure. I worked as a laboratory assistant, and it was throwing me right into the midst of the very people that I wanted to be with. And never mind that I was washing glassware, and whipping up banana medium to feed the fruit flies and things and things ofthat sort. I found it just that... that I was with the people Imost admired. It gave me an entree. It gave me experience. It gave me acceptance with them – I became the lowliest member of the team, but part of the team.

Speaker 2 Linus Pauling Nobel Prizes in Chemistry and Peace

(2.5) When I was 11 years old, I became interested in insects — entomology. And for a year I read books about insects and collected specimens of butterflies and beetles in the

Willamette Valley in Oregon. When I was 12, I became interested in rocks and minerals. I couldn’t collect very many; there wasn’t a goodsource of minerals except agates, but I read a great deal about minerals. Then when I was 13, I became interested in chemistry in these remarkable phenomena in which one substance is converted into another substance, or two substancesreact to produce a third substance with quite differentproperties. Thenwhen Iwas 18, in 1919, when I was teachingquantitative analysis full time at OregonAgricultural College for one year between my sophomore and junioryears, I read the papers of IrvingLangmuir in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, in 1919 and went back to G.N. Lewis’s 1916 paper. These papers dealing with the nature of the chemical bond, the role of electrons in holding atoms together interested me very much. That has been, essentially, the story of my life ever since.

(2.6) So far as my scientific career goes, ofcourse, there was the decision that I made in 1945 — ’46 perhaps, but starting in 1945 — and that may have been made by my wife rather than me, to sacrifice part of my scientific career to working for control of nuclear weapons and for the achievement of world peace. So, for years I devoted half my time, perhaps, to giving hundreds of lectures and to writing my book, No More War, but in the earlier years especially, to studying international affairs and social, political and economic theory, to the extent that it enabled me ultimately to feel that I was speaking with the same authority as when I talked about science. This is what my wife said to me back around 1946. If I wanted to be effective, I’d have to reach the point where I could speak with authority about these matters and not just quote statements that politicians and other people of that sort had made.

Speaker 3 Donna Shirley Mars Exploration Program

(2.7) Ialways wanted to fly airplanes, from the time I was very small. And when I was six, a friend of mine, a girlfriend, andIhad this plan. She was goingto be a nurse and I was going to be a bush pilot and we were going to fly into the outback and rescue people. And that was our objective. So, I built modelairplanes and hungthem from the ceiling and had a lotof books about airplanes.Andthen, whenIwas10, we went tomyuncle’sgraduationfrommedicalschoolandon the programitsaid, aeronauticalengineering. I askedmy motherwhat that was andshe said, “Oh, that’speople whobuildairplanes.”Isaid, “That’swhatIwanttobe.”Andso,that’swhenIdecided that Iwas going to be an aeronautic engineer.

(2.8) WhenI was12 or so Istartedreadingscience fiction.And, IreadArthurC. Clarke’s The Sands of Mars, and Ray Bradbury’s Martian Chronicles, and Heinlein’s books about Mars, and just got completely fascinated with the idea of Mars and going into space and space travel. And so, when I got to college, there really wasn’t a space program. I got to college in 1958 and that was the year that Explorer One was orbited, following Sputnik. And so, you really couldn’t specialize in space, nobody knew how to do it. And so, I ended up still working on airplanes.

(2.9) I signed up for 19 hours. The normal load was 15, but I wanted to take flying. And so, I signed up for this flying class, in addition to a fairly heavy course load. And plus, I’m good at taking multiple choice tests, which was the entrance exam for school. And so, they putme inadvanced chemistryandcalculus andallthese advancedclasses, and Iwas woefully unprepared for them. So, with the heavy course load, flying took a lot of time. So, I really didn’t do very well for at least the first eight weeks. And in fact, I was flunking and my parents came up and, oh my gosh, you know, “Can we get you a tutor? What can we do?”

So I went home over Christmas and just studied the whole time, and pulled out a B average that semester. But it was pretty hairy.

Speaker 4 Leon Lederman Nobel Prize in Physics

(2.10) When I was a kid, it was science, it was very romantic activities, I read newspaper articles about scientists. It turned out to be physics in retrospect, I didn’t know it at the time, I couldn’t spell it. I read a book by Einstein, for kids, he wrote it for kids. It was called The Meaningof Relativitywonderfulbook. He compared science with a detective story, where you have clues, and the scientist as detective, trying to put things together. False clues, you got to check up on them, make sure they’re right. That was a bigimpression.

(2.11) (My brother) liked to do experiments. He would collect all kinds of equipment – electricity, chemicalsfrom the drugstore. Occasionally, somehowhe’dgethold of a chemistry set, and we had a flash of opulence. And he loved to do things, and he’d make things work, and I loved to watch him, and I think that was a stronginfluence on me. It sort of introduced me to things and how they work, and that was impressive. So I think that he probably disposed me toward chemistry, and in high school the chemistry teachers were more fun. So there I was a chemist.

(2.12) I had spent three years in the army, and the first year in graduate school a tough one, because Ihad forgotten how to study, and I wasn’t doingthat well, and the classeswere very crowded. The professors were just getting back from their own war work, and didn’t have much time for counseling. And so I was sort of at loose ends, and depressed, and my course work was poor, and I went around looking for my old college friends — who were either in graduate schoolor already had graduated— to get support, and theysupportedme. Iremember trying to — several of them were clustered up at MIT, and they said “Why don’t you transfer here, andwe’llhelp you?” So Itriedto, but my earlygrades were sobadI couldn’t getintoMIT. People at MIT are a little embarrassed about that now.

(Adaptedfrom:http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/halls/sci)

Module 3 Unit 1

Now, the VOA Special English program, WORDS AND THEIR STORIES.

Computer technology has become a major part of people’s lives. This technology has its own special words. One example is the word mouse. A computer mouse is not a small animal that lives in buildings and open fields. It is a small device that you move around on a flatsurface infrontofa computer. The mouse moves the pointer, or cursor, on the computer screen.

Computer expert Douglas Engelbart developed the idea for the mouse in the early nineteen sixties. The first computer mouse was a carved block of wood with two metal wheels. It was called a mouse because it had a tail at one end. The tail was the wire that connected it to the computer.

Using a computer takes some training. People who are experts are sometimes called hackers. A hacker is usually a person who writes software programs in a special computer language. But the word hackeris also used todescribe a personwho triesto stealinformation from computer systems.

Another well known computer word is Google, spelled g-o-o-g-l-e. It is the name of a popular search engine for the Internet. People use the search engine to find information

about almost any subject on the Internet. The people who started the company named it Google because in mathematics, googol, spelled g-o-o-g-o-l, is an extremely large number. It is the number one followed by one hundred zeros.

When you Google a subject, you can get a large amount of information about it. Some people like to Google their friends or themselves to see how many times their name appears on the Internet.

If you Google someone, you might find that person’s name on a blog. A blog is the shortened name for a Web log. A blog is a personal Web page. It may contain stories, comments, pictures and links to other Web sites. Some people add information to their blogs every day. People who have blogs are called bloggers.

Blogsare notthe sameas spam. Spamisunwanted salesmessagessentto your electronic mailbox. The name is based on a funny joke many years ago on a British television show, Monty Python’s Flying Circus. Some friends are at an eating place that only serves a processed meat product from the United States called SPAM. Every time the friends try to speak, another group of people starts singing the word SPAM very loudly. This interferes with the friends’ discussion – just as unwanted salesmessages interfere with communication over the Internet.

This VOA Special English program, WORDS AND THEIR STORIES, was written by Jill Moss. I’m Faith Lapidus.

(http://www.voanews.com/specialenglish/archive/2007-11/2007-11-20-voa2.cfm)

Module 3 Unit 2

Website of the Week — Universal Digital Library

Time again for our Website of the Week, when we showcase interesting and innovative online destinations. Our web guide is VOA’s Art Chimes.

This time it’s an online library with a rather ambitious goal.

SHAMOS: “Universal Digital Library is a project started at Carnegie Mellon more than 10 years ago with the unabashed objective of digitizing all published works of man and making them freely accessible over the Internet at any time, any place, for anybody.”

Professor Michael Shamos of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh is a director of the Universal Digital Library at ulib.org. When he says “published works,” he’s not just talking about books. The library will eventually also include newspapers, magazines, photographs, and other media.

Institutions in China, India and Egypt are also involved, with books being scanned in 50 centers around the world. The library has digitized more than 1.5 million books so far in about 20 languages. Most of them are older works, no longer under copyright.

That sounds like a lot, but Shamos notes it’s less than two percent of all books ever published. The priority for adding books to the digital library is pretty much based on what’s available. Not every university library is willing to lend out thousands of books for months at a time while they are scanned.

SHAMOS: “We had many debates about this early in the project. Do you convene a committee of scholars to pick the million most important things there are on Earth? I don’t think we could ever do that. So instead of doing that we said, look, the ultimate goal is to digitize everything. If you’re going to do that, it doesn’t matter what you do first.”Shamos

says the Universal Digital Library will equalize opportunities for those who don’t now have access to a great library or the means to buy lots of books.

SHAMOS: “If there happens to be some brilliant kid who lives in an impoverished town in India, and he doesn’t have access to educationalmaterials, he will never be able to develop into the kind of genius that he might be. And so, this is criticalfor dissemination ofinformation to those who don’t have access.”

But you don’t have to be a budding, young genius to use the Universal Digital Library.

Allyou need isan Internetconnection toulib.org, or get the link from our site, voanews.com.

(by Art Chimes, 2007,http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/2007-12/2007-12- 07voa30.cfm?CFID=23670522&CFTOKEN=99751850)

Module 4 Unit 1

An ancient piece of Greek technology recovered from a shipwreck more than 100 years ago is amazing scientists who have analyzed it in detail. Fragments of bronze gearwheels, now green and crumbling from millennia of underwater corrosion, have long been thought to be parts of a 2,100-year-old astronomical calculator. VOA’s David McAlary reports that the new examination shows the mechanism to have been far more sophisticated for its time than anyone had thought.

This is what the ancient Greek device probably sounded like. The noise comes from a recent reconstruction based on pieces recovered by sponge divers exploring a 2,100-year- old shipwreck off the Greek island Antikythera in 1901.

Astronomer Mike Edmunds of Cardiff University in Wales is part of the British, Greek, and American team that made the copy and analyzed the original so-called Antikythera Mechanism.

“This is a unique device,” said Mike Edmunds. “Nothing like a device of this complication is known for 1,000 years afterwards until you get to the medieval cathedral clocks.”

The Greek device contains a complicated arrangement of at least 30 precision, hand-cut bronze gears and three pointing styluses housed inside a wooden case covered with inscriptions. Because the machine is fragmented, its specific functions have been controversial.

Scientists have been trying to copy it ever since its discovery, but Edmunds’ team was able to do so after using high resolution X-ray scanning technology to examine the pieces. They were also able to decipher twice as many of the inscriptions as had been read by the late Yale University scholar Derek Price, who studied it decades ago.

Team member Xenophon Moussas, a physicist at the University of Athens, described the device to Nature magazine, which has published the group’s paper on it.

“We can count something like 30 gears, which helped astronomers ofthe second century BC, we believe now, to calculate the positions of the sun, perhaps to work out the time of eclipses of the moon and and possibly of the sun as well,” said Xenophon Moussas. “Since we discovered inside the mechanisms very many hidden writings, which are the manual of this ancient computer, we know for sure that many parts of the text refer to the motion of the planets.”

In a Nature magazine commentary, Francois Charette ofLudwig-Maximilians University in Munich, saysthe research shows theAntikythera Mechanism to be the most sophisticated such object yet found from the ancient and medieval periods. He points out that the

archaeological record to date shows it was a long time before gearing mechanisms so advanced re-emerged.

The curator of mechanicalengineeringofthe Science MuseumofLondon, MichaelWright, had previously studied the device. He told Nature magazine that much skill went into it.

“I can tell you from having examined the original that the man who made it was a highly skilled mechanic,” said Michael Wright. “He knew exactly what he was doing. The other thing I can tell you about it is that the man who designed it certainly knew his astronomy.”

The paper on the device shows the Antikythera Mechanism is based on a mathematical model of the moon’s motion developed by the astronomer Hipparchus of Rhodes 2,100 years ago. Mike Edmunds at Cardiff University speculates that the ancient Greek scientist even helped design it.

“It’s very tempting to think so,” he said. “We haven’t actually found his sort of fingerprints or actually ‘Hipparchus made this’ [inscribed] on the mechanism, but whoever did build this was extremely intelligent. It’s just beautifully designed. I think that is one of the most surprisingthings that comes out ofthis.” Francois Charette at Ludwig-Maximilians University writes that the long interval between the design of the Antikythera Mechanism and the advent ofmedievalgearingmakes itobviousthatthe technicalsophistication available to some parts of the Greco-Roman world was simply not transmitted further. The gear-

wheel, he says, had to be re-invented.

(by David McAlary,2006, http://www.voanews.com/english/2006-11-30-voa72.cfm)

Module 4 Unit2

The Discoveries Behind ThisYear’s Nobel Prizes for Science

VOICE ONE:Thisis SCIENCE INTHENEWSin VOASpecialEnglish. I’m Bob Doughty. VOICE TWO: And I’m Faith Lapidus. This week – we tell about the Nobel Prizes. We also tellabout the winners ofthe two thousand six prizes in chemistry, physics and medicine. VOICE ONE: The Nobel Prizes are presented each year on December tenth. The Peace Prize is given in Oslo, Norway. The others are given in Stockholm, Sweden.

December tenth is the anniversary of the death of Alfred Nobel. He died in eighteen ninety-six. The Swedish engineer held legal rights to more than three hundred inventions. One is for the explosive dynamite.

Alfred Nobel left nine million dollars to establish yearly prizes in his name. He said they should go to living people who have worked most effectively to improve human life. He said the physics and chemistry prizes should be given by the Swedish Academy of Sciences. He asked the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm to present the medical prizes.

VOICE TWO:The first Nobelprizeswere presentedinnineteen-oh-one. Eachawardincludes a gold medaland ten million Swedish kronor. Today, that is worthmore than one million three hundredthousand dollars. The moneyis sharedifmore thanone personwinsa prize. However, a prize may not be divided among more than three persons.

Scientific groups in Sweden choose the winners from among those nominated by past winners and specially chosen university professors. How the choices are made is a secret amongthe committee members. The names of those nominated are not made public for fifty years.

VOICE ONE: The Karolinska Institute this year chose two Americans to share the Nobel Prize in Physiologyor Medicine. Craig Mellois a professor atthe University ofMassachusetts Medical School in Worcester, Massachusetts. Andrew Fire is a professor at the Stanford University School of Medicine in Palo Alto, California.

The scientists did their prize-winning work in the nineteen nineties for the Carnegie Institution of Washington, D.C. At the time, the two men worked at laboratories in Baltimore, Maryland. Theyperformed experimentswithverysmallworms. Theyfoundthey couldcontrol genes in the creatures with injections of specially designed ribonucleic acid, or RNA.

VOICE TWO: All living cells need molecules of RNA and another chemical, called deoxyribonucleic acid or DNA. DNA makes copies of itself for new cells. RNA makes other chemicals necessary for these cells.

The RNA used in the experiments needed to possess two lists of genetic orders, or strands. The scientists found that this double-stranded RNA stopped the action of targeted genes within cells more effectively than other methods. This discovery of the way cells control individual genes is known as RNA interference, or RNAi.

VOICE ONE: The discovery was made just eight years ago. That is considered very recent for a Nobel Prize. But scientists say the Nobel Committee probably recognized the work so quickly because it changed the science of genetics. They say Professors Fire and Mello opened up a whole new area of research.

Later experiments showedthatRNAiispresent incells ofnearly all organisms. Scientists have begun working on ways to use it to get cells to control genes responsible for causing diseases. The discovery already is being used to develop possible treatments for diseases such as macular degeneration and hepatitis.

VOICE TWO: Two Americans are the winners of the two thousand six Nobel Prize for physics. John Mather andGeorge Smootwon forproducingwhatscientistssay is the strongest evidence yet that the universe began with a great explosion. The two men are being honored for their work with the Cosmic Background Explorer satellite, or COBE.

The American space agency launched the satellite into Earth’s orbit in nineteen eightynine. An instrument on COBE was designed to receive energy waves from the first big explosion, also known as the Big Bang. It measured the temperature of the energy waves. The measurements confirmed the main idea of the Big Bang theory — that the explosion created a huge number of microwaves that have continued to expand and cool.

VOICE ONE: John Mather is an unusual Nobel Prize winner because he works for the United States government. He is a top scientist with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, NASA. He was the main investigator in developing the COBE satellite. George Smoot works at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory in Berkeley, California. He led the team that studied the information provided by the satellite.

Mister Mather explained their work by calling it an attempt to solve the mystery of the beginning of the universe. He said COBE found small amounts of the earliest moment of time. Scientists have used the findings to estimate the age of the universe as more than thirteen thousand million years old.

The chairman of the Nobel Prize Committee for Physics said the two Americans did not prove the Big Bang theory, but gave it very strong support. Per Carlson called their work one of the greatest discoveries of the century. He said it increases our knowledge of our place in the universe.

VOICE TWO: Still another American won the two thousand six Nobel Prize in Chemistry. RogerKornbergisbeinghonoredfor hisworkin genetic research. The NobelPrize committee said he showed how information in the nucleus of genes is copied and moved to other parts of a cell. The committee said he was the first to show pictures of this process taking place.

The process involves copying information from a cell’s DNA into what is called messenger RNA. The messenger RNA then moves the information from the nucleus to other areas of the cell where it builds proteins that control cell action.

Scientists say this “transcription” is what keeps living things alive. Any interference causes cancer, heart disease or other disorders.

VOICE ONE: Roger Kornberg told the New York Times newspaper that his work has influenced the development of drugs and treatments for medical conditions. He said understanding transcription is central to research into using stem cells to cure diseases like diabetes.

Professor Kornberg works at Stanford University School of Medicine in California. Reports say he is the sixth Nobel Prize winner to have a father who also won a Nobel. Arthur Kornberg shared the NobelPrize in Medicine in nineteen fifty-nine, also for work in genetics. He and Severo Ochoa were honored for discovering how cells produce DNA.

Roger Kornberg said he clearly remembers visiting Stockholm when he was twelve years old to see his father receive the Nobel Prize. And he expressed happiness that he can take his family there for the ceremonies this year.

VOICE TWO: It must be noted that Americans won all the scientific Nobel Prizes this year. An Associated News report says Nobel officials were not surprised. The permanent secretary for the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences reportedly said the United States is leading Europe in scientific research. Gunnar Oquist also said European governments are not providing scientists with the money they need to carry out good research.

Other Nobel Prize committee members said money to pay for research is extremely important to producing good scientific work. Anders Liljas is a member of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry. He reportedlysaidAmericanuniversities oftenhave more creative environments than those in other countries. He said American scientists talk to each other a lot instead of working separately.

VOICE ONE: This is not the first time that Americans have won the Nobel Prizes in medicine, physics and chemistry all in the same year.

In nineteen eighty-three, Subramanyan Chandrasekhar and William Fowler shared the physicsprize for increasingthe understandingof the universe. HenryTaube wonthe chemistry prize for work on electron transfer reactions. And, Barbara McClintock won the medicine prize for discoveries in genetics.

VOICE TWO: SCIENCE IN THE NEWS was written by Nancy Steinbach. Brianna Blake was our producer. I’m Faith Lapidus.

VOICE ONE: And I’m Bob Doughty. Internet users can download transcripts

And audio files at voaspecialenglish.com. Join us again next week for more news

about science in Special English on the Voice of America.

(2006, http://www.voanews.com/specialenglish/archive/2006-10/2006-10-16-voa2.cfm)

Module 5 Unit 1

Cities Around the World Are ‘Going Green’

VOICE ONE: I’m Steve Ember.

VOICE TWO: And I’m Barbara Klein with EXPLORATIONS in VOA Special English. Today we explore ways in which localgovernments around the world are workingto protect the environment. These “green cities” are working to reduce energy use and pollution in new and creative ways. Such efforts by city governments not only help reverse the effects of climate change. They also help governments save large amounts of money on energy costs. And, cities that are leaders in this green movement set a good example to their citizens about the importance of environmental issues.

VOICE ONE: The Kyoto Protocol is an international agreement aimed at reducing the release of harmful gases that are believed to cause climate change. The United States is not part of the agreement. But since two thousand five, over eight hundred American mayors across the country have agreed to sign their own version of the protocol. It is called the Mayors Climate ProtectionAgreement. Local leaders have agreed to follow the suggestions of the Kyoto Protocol in their communities. These mayors have come together to show how acting locally can help solve world problems and protect the environment. “Going green” generally includes saving energy and water, using natural and renewable materials and reusing materials. Here are some interesting ways in which several American communities are “going green.”

VOICE TWO: Eight years ago, officials in Chicago, Illinois, decided to replace the black tar roof on the city government building with a planted garden. The aim was to reduce energy costs, improve air quality and control the amount of rainwater entering the city’s waste system. Green roofs also help reduce a problem called urban heat islands. During hot weather, the building’s tar roof couldreach temperaturesofupto seventy-sixdegreesCelsius. With the garden, the temperature of the roof area was reduced by at least thirty degrees Celsius. Workers planted over one hundred fifty kinds of plants that could survive severe weather. Now, the area is cooler, the building requires less energy to keep cool, and the roof looks nice. Chicago also offers money to help people pay for building their own green roof systems.

VOICE ONE:The city ofBoston, Massachusettshas starteddevelopinga planfor a program to make compost fertilizer out of dead leaves, plants and food waste. The gases released from the plant waste would provide the electrical power needed to operate the compost center. After being processed in this environmentally safe center, the compost material could be sold locally. This plan would reduce pollution made by the current waste center and could produce enough electricity to power up to one thousand five hundred homes. New York City is experimenting with using waves in the East River to create energy. And, in Oakland California, you can ride on one of several public hydrogen-powered buses. These buses release zero pollution into the air. However, they cost five times more than common buses.

VOICE ONE: Popular Science magazine recently published a list of the fifty “greenest” cities in the United States. Researchers combined information from United States population records as wellas the Green Guide made by the National Geographic Society. The list rates citiesby lookingattheirrenewable energysources, transportationprograms, recyclingefforts