必修1
Module 1 My First Day at Senior High
My name is Li Kang. I live in Shijiazhuang, a city not far from Beijing. It is the capital city of Hebei Province. Today is my first day at Senior High school and I’m writing down my thoughts about it.
My new school is very good and I can see why. The teachers are very enthusiastic and friendly and the classrooms are amazing. Every room has a computer with a special screen, almost as big as a cinema screen. The teachers write on the computer, and their words appear on the screen behind them. The screens also show photographs, text and information from websites. They’re brilliant!
The English class is really interesting. The teacher is a very enthusiastic woman called Ms Shen. We’re using a new textbook and Ms Shen’s method of teaching is nothing like that of the teachers at my Junior High school. She thinks that reading comprehension is important, but we speak a lot in class, too. And we have fun. I don’t think I will be bored in Ms Shen’s class!
Today we introduced ourselves to each other. We did this in groups. Some students were embarrassed at first but everyone was very friendly and it was really nice. Ms Shen gave us instructions and then we worked by ourselves.
Ms Shen wants to help us improve our spelling and handwriting. We do this in a fun way, with spelling games and other activities. I like her attitude very much, and the behavior of the other students shows that they like her, too.
There are sixty-five students in my class – more than my previous class in Junior High. Forty-nine of them are girls. In other words, there are three times as many girls as boys. They say that girls are usually more hard-working than boys, but in this class, everyone is hard-working. For our homework tonight, we have to write a description of the street where we live. I’m looking forward to doing it!
A Letter from a Senior High Student
Dear Li Kang,
How’s it going? I thought I’d write to tell you about the American school system. Secondary school in the US usually covers seven years, grades six to twelve. Ninth to twelfth grades are high school. At the end of twelfth grade, American students receive the high school diploma. Students need a high school diploma if they want to go to college.
The school year is divided into two semesters, the first of which is September through December, and the second January through May. We have a LONG summer vacation! We start school at 7:50 am and we finish at 3 pm.
I take part in all kinds of after-school activities – I play football, basketball, volleyball, table tennis and I go to theater club.
Will you tell me something about your summer vacation and the Chinese school system in your next letter? Best wishes, Rob Marshall
Module 2 My New Teachers
They say that first impressions are very important. My first impression of Mrs. Li was that she was nervous and shy. I think perhaps she was, as it was her first lesson with us. But now, after two weeks, the class really likes working with her. She’s kind and patient, and she explains English grammar so clearly that even I can understand it! – She avoids making you fell stupid! I’ve always hated making mistakes or pronouncing a word incorrectly when I speak English, but Mrs. Li just smiles, so that you don’t feel completely stupid! I think maybe she goes a bit too slowly for the faster students, but for me it’s wonderful! I feel I’m going to make progress with her.
I’d guess that Mrs. Chen is almost sixty. She’s very strict – we don’t dare to say a word unless she asks us to. She’s also very serious and doesn’t smile much .when she asks you to do something, you do it immediately! There are a few students in our class who keep coming to class late but they’re always on time for Mrs. Chen’s lessons! Some of our class don’t like her, but most of us really appreciate her because her teaching is so well organized and clear. And a few students even admit liking her! During scientific experiments, she explains exactly what is happening and as a result my work is improving. Physics will never be my favourite lesson, but I think that I’ll do well in the exam with Mrs. Chen teaching me.
Mr. Wu’s only been teaching us for two weeks and he’s already very popular. I think this is because he really enjoys teaching Chinese literature – he loves it, in fact! He’s got so much energy, this is one class you do not fall asleep in! He’s about 28, I think, and is rather good-looking. He talks loudly and fast, and waves his hands about a lot when he gets excited. He’s really amusing and tells jokes when he thinks we’re getting bored. Even things like compositions and summaries are fun with Mr. Wu. I respect him a lot.
Different Countries, Different Schools
It is interesting to look at differences between schools in different countries. In many European countries, for example, the relationship between teachers and students is quite formal. This is true of France, Germany, and Spain, where discipline and respect for the teacher is considered very important. The same is true of Russia. In northern European countries, however, the relationship between teachers and students is much friendlier and more relaxed. In America, students and teachers are quite relaxed with each other. In Britain, relationships are quite relaxed, but teachers can have big problems with discipline.
Another important difference is whether schools are state schools or private schools. State schools are paid for by the government, but in private schools, the parents pay for the education of their children. Germany and France have both state and private schools, but most students go to state schools, which are very good. Similarly, America has both state and private schools. Most American children go to state schools, but the private schools can be very good. Britain has both state and private schools. In Russia, children go to state schools.
Module 3 My First Ride on a Train
My name is Alice Thompson. I come from Sydney, Australia and I’m 18 years old. Recently I had my first ride on a long-distance train. And what a ride! A friend and I traveled on the famous Ghan train. We got on in Sydney and we got off in Alice Springs, right in the middle of Australia, more than four thousand kilometers away. We spent two days and nights on the train.
The train was wonderful and the food was great. We ate great meals cooked by experts! For the first few hundred kilometers of the journey, the scenery was very colorful. There were fields and the soil was dark red. After that, it was desert. The sun shone, there was no wind and there were no clouds in the sky. Suddenly, it looked like a place from another time. We saw abandoned farms which were built more than a hundred years ago.
The train was comfortable and the people were nice. During the day, I sat and looked out of the window, and sometimes talked to other passengers. I read books and listened to my Chinese cassettes (I’m studying Chinese at school). One night, at about midnight, I watched the night sky for about an hour. The stars shone like diamonds.
Why is the train called the Ghan? A long time ago, Australians needed a way to travel to the middle of the country. They tried riding horses, but the horses didn’t like the hot weather and sand. A hundred and fifty years ago, they brought some camels from Afghanistan. Ghan is short for Afghanistan.
Camels were much better than horses for traveling a long distance. For many years, trained camels carried food and other supplies, and returned with wool and other products.
The Afghans and their camels did this until the 1920s. Then the government built a new railway line, so they didn’t need the camels any more. In 1925, they passed a law which allowed people to shoot the animals if they were a problem. In 1935, the police in a town shot 153 camels in one day.
The Maglev – the Fastest Train in the World
The fastest train in the world, the Transrapid Maglev, runs between Shanghai’s Pudong Airport and Longyang station in downtown Shanghai. Traveling at a speed of over 400 kilometers per hour, the train can complete the 30-kilometer journey in eight minutes.
Maglev means “magnetically levitated”. The Transrapid Maglev is the world’s first high-speed train using magnetic levitation technology. Magnetically levitated trains travel in a vacuum between two magnets. There are no rails and no noise. They travel very fast and they use less energy.
On December 31, 2002, Premier Zhu Rongji and the German chancellor attended the opening ceremony of the train service. Both leaders took the train to Pudong Airport.
On November 12, 2003, the Maglev reached a speed of 501 kilometers per hour on the track between Longyang Station and Pudong, a new world record speed for a train.
Module 4 A Social Survey – My Neighourhood
A Lively City
XL: It’s great to see you again, John.
JM: It’s great to see you! It’s been six years since we last saw each other, you know. And this is the first time I’ve visited your hometown. XL: Yes, I’m so glad you could come.
JM: You know, I’ve seen quite a lot of China and I’ve visited some beautiful cities, but this is one of the most attractive places I’ve been to. It’s so lively, and everyone seems so friendly.
XL: Yes, it’s one of the most interesting cities on the coast, everyone says so. I feel very fortunate living here. And I love living by the seaside.
JM: you live in the northwest of Xiamen, is that right? XL: Yes, that’s right.
JM: What’s the climate like?
XL: Pretty hot and wet in the summer, but it can be quite cold in the winter.
JM: Sounds OK to me. There are a lot of tourists around. Don’t they bother you? XL: Yes, they can be a nuisance in the summer because there are so many of them. JM: Oh, look at that huge apartment block!
XL: Yes, they’ve just completed it. The rent for an apartment there is very high. JM: I believe you! This area’s so modern!
XL: Yes, this is the business district. They’ve put up a lot of high-rise buildings recently. And there are some great shopping malls. See, we’re just passing one now. my wife’s just bought a beautiful dress from one of the shops there.
JM: Maybe I could buy a few presents there.
XL: I’ll take you there tomorrow. Now we’re leaving the business district and approaching the harbour. We’re entering the western district, the most interesting part of the city. It’s got some really pretty parks…
JM: It seems lovely. Is that Gulangyu Island, just across the water?
XL: Yes, it is. It’s a gorgeous island with some really interesting architecture. JM: So they tell me. Do you think we could stop and walk around for a while?
XL: Yes, I was just going to do that. We can park over there. A friend’s told me about a nice little fish restaurant near here. Shall we go there for lunch? JM: That sounds great. I’m starving!
Cultural corner
In some countries in western Europe, such as France, Spain and Britain, the countryside is changing.
Life has become difficult for many villages, and some are disappearing. There are a number of reasons for this. Firstly, young people from villages usually want to live somewhere livelier and they often move to the towns and do not return. Secondly, people move to the cities to find work, as there are often very few jobs in the countryside. Sometimes villages remain because people from the cities have bought a “second home” in the village, where they come and stay at weekends. The price of homes goes up and people from the area cannot afford to buy a house there. Another problem is that it is becoming more and more difficult for farmers to make money from their farms. So they sell their land and find another job.
All these things mean that many villages in Western Europe are fighting to survive. We can only hope that they will remain. The countryside would be a sadder and uglier place without them.
Module 5 A Lesson in a Lab
Passage A
It is hard to think of a world without metals. Different metals have different uses, for example, steel is used in cars, and iron is used in electrical equipment.
When we use metals, it is important to know how they react with different substances, for example, water and oxygen. The reaction of metals with these substances can be put in order. Here is a table with the metals that react most at the top, and the metals that react least at the bottom.
Passage B
A Simple Scientific Experiment
Below is a description of a simple scientific experiment. It shows us how iron reacts with air and with water.
Aim: To find out if iron rusts (a) in dry air; (b) in water that has no air in it (air-free water); (c) in ordinary water.
Apparatus: 3 clean iron nails; rest tubes; test tube holder; cotton wool; oil; Bunsen burner. Iron in dry air
Method
Put some iron nails at the bottom of a test tube. Push some cotton wool down the tube. Leave the tube for one week.
Result
After one week, the nails have not rusted.
Conclusion
Iron does not rust in dry air.
Iron in air-free water Method
Half-fill a test tube with water.
Boil the water for three minutes. (this makes sure there is no air in the water.) Put two or three clean nails in the water.
Add some oil to the water. This will keep air out of the water. Leave the tube for one week.
Result
The nails do not rust in the tube with air-free water.
Conclusion
Iron does not rust in air-free water.
Iron in ordinary water Method
Half-fill a test tube with water and add two or three clean nails. Leave the tube for one week.
Result
The nails rust in the tube with ordinary water.
Conclusion
Iron rusts in ordinary water.
Cultural Corner
My feelings about science have really changed. I never used to enjoy science, but last year I changed schools, and the science teachers at my new school are excellent. The science facilities are very good, with laboratories that have all the latest equipment. Our chemistry teacher, Mr Longford, takes us to public science lectures about four times a term, and these are always very interesting, as the lecturers are people who have made real discoveries in their area of science. The fact is, Canada has many first-class scientists. In the last twenty years, seven Canadian scientists have won the Nobel Prize! The Nobel Prize is the highest scientific prize there is, so we should be very proud of that,
I’m becoming more and more interested in physics, and have decided that I want to study it at university. I’m going to try to go to either Montreal or Ottawa University, as both are supposed to have good Physics Departments. My parents are astonished. They always thought I would become an English teacher!
Module 6 The internet and Telecommunications
Passage
The internet is the biggest source of information in the world, and it’s accessible through a computer. It consists of millions of pages of data.
In 1969, DARPA, a US defence organization, developed a way for all their computers to “talk” to each other through the telephone. They created a network of computers called DARPANET. For fifteen years, only the US army could use this system of communication. Then in 1984, the US National Science Foundation (NSF) started the NSFNET network. It then became possible for universities to use the system as well. NSFNET became known as the Inter-Network, or “Internet”.
The World Wide Web (the web) is a computer network that allows computer users to access information from millions of websites via the Internet. At the moment, about 80 percent of web traffic is in English, but this percentage is going down. By 2020, much web traffic could be in Chinese. The World Wide Web was invented in 1991 by an English scientist, Tim Berners-Lee. Berners-Lee built his first computer while he was at university using an old television! He came up with the idea of the World Wide Web in 1989 while he was working in Switzerland.
Berners-Lee made it possible for everyone to use the Internet, not just universities and the army. He designed the first “web browser”, which allowed computer users to access documents from other computers. From that moment on, the web and the Internet grew. Within five years, the number of Internet users rose from 600,000 to 40 million.
The Internet has created thousands of millionaires, but Berners-Lee is not one of them. Everyone in the world can access the Internet using his World Wide Web system. He now works as a lecturer at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston.
Passage B
Talking on a mobile phone is expensive, so a lot of people send text messages. Text messages are much cheaper than talking on a mobile phone, and you can make it even cheaper by shortening the words that you use. You can do this by taking out “unimportant” letters in the words (usually vowels) and using numbers instead of words (2=to, 3=free, 4=for, 8=ate, so h8=hate, etc.). You can also avoid using punctuation like inverted commas. Here is an example: Im hm nw, why nt gv me a cll? (I’m home now, why not give me a call?) What do you think these text messages mean? Whr hv U bn? Iv bn wtng hrs fr a cll Do U wnt 2 g 2 the cnma tnite?
I gt a txt mssge frm my frnd. Shes hvng a prty on strdy. Do U wnt 2 cm?
Mobile phone users have developed a series of symbols to show how they feel. They are called emoticons, nad there are some examples below. To read an emoticon, you have to look at it sideways.
For example, if you say something in a text message which is a joke, you can follow it with a smiling face. Like this:
Why didt u call me? I’m so sad. :)
Here are some others. Can you think of text messages where you could use them?
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