【推荐2】Left out of society: Vanuatu’s deaf community push for national sign language

Tasale Edward Bule, a 45-year-old fisher from Vanuatu’s Efate island, remembers the day the world went silent. “I woke up one morning and remember not hearing the birds sing, or the rooster crow,” Bule says. “I asked everyone to call my name to see if I would hear them – it was then I realised I had _________the hearing in both my ears.” The illness that took his hearing has never been clearly explained to Bule by a doctor. But at 14, and with no _________sign language or disability support, he left school, despite dreaming of one day becoming a pilot or an engineer.

Bule’s story would be _________ much of the deaf community in the Pacific country of Vanuatu. With no national sign language, most people have to_______their own ways to communicate. Some use signs they’ve developed with their families and communities, but then _________to communicate outside this group. Others, like Bule, rely largely on lip-reading to _________.

Disability advocates say this leaves the deaf community unable to participate fully in society. The group are also more _________during natural disasters, frequent in Vanuatu. Thus people are seeking to create an official language in the hope of _________life for the hard of hearing community in the Pacific nation.

_________, the government hopes to fix this too. It is currently developing a national sign language, to be called Storian wetem han, or “using hands to communicate”.

The initiative, which is funded by the Global Partnership for Education and the World Bank, has seen __________travel the country collecting signs from deaf people, and filming deaf people signing different words, which will be __________to a sign language dictionary software program and turned into a national sign language.

Once developed, Vanuatu would join Fiji, Kiribati, Samoa and Solomon Islands as Pacific nations with a national sign language, though at present Papua New Guinea is the only country where its sign language, Auslan-PNG Sign, is an officially __________national language.

The government hopes that Storian wetem han will be able to be __________fully across the country in 2024.

For now though, Arthur Simrai, a field officer for the Vanuatu Society for People Living with DisabilitySimrai, says that many of those living with hearing loss don’t __________sign language on the rare occasions that they see it. “Most of the people who can’t hear, they don’t know the sign language on the screen,” he said. “They have their own sign at home … with their family to signal or communicate what they want … but not everyone in the community know.”

If Vanuatu is able to make a __________of its national sign language, Simrai says, it would make an enormous difference to the lives of people who are deaf across the country.

【推荐1】During most of human history, people spent much or all of the daytime outside, farming, or hunting. Only fairly recently has this changed, and today many people in the United States spend almost 90 percent of their time _________--a lifestyle change that apparently affects us in unforeseen ways. It _________ that we need sunlight in order to stay healthy.

The bright light from the sun affects our sleep patterns, our internal biological clocks, and our energy level. _________sunlight helps our bodies process food and produce vitamin D3, a substance that is _________ calcium and phosphorous absorption. Sunlight is necessary for the formation of melanin, the pigment that darkens the skin and protects it from excessive light. The light that enters our bodies through our eyes is _________ the production of serotonin, which regulates the constriction (收缩) of blood vessels, and the production of the hormone melatonin, which affects energy levels.

The _________, wavelength, and time of sunlight all govern how it affects us. The intensity of light outdoors on a cloudy day is about 10 times greater than the most intense indoor light, and on a sunny day it is much _________ than that. Most artificial lights have wavelengths that are limited mainly to visible light. _________ sunlight includes light that has both higher and lower wavelengths than visible light does. These wavelengths are crucial to the production of melanin, melatonin, and serotonin. Plus, some research shows that exposure to morning light is needed to _________ sleep patterns.

Doctors have recently recognized Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) as a condition that is __________ sunlight exposure. The symptoms generally include depression, irritability, temporarily __________ eyesight, overeating, lethargy, short attention span, and withdrawal from social activities. The __________ the days are during the winter, the more likely people are to suffer from SAD. Researchers have found that 10 percent of the people in New Hampshire experience its symptoms, __________ only 2 percent of the people in Florida do.

The signs of SAD typically appear in the fall and continue through the beginning of spring. Many people may have these symptoms to some degree, and for some people they are so severe that they__________ the ability to lead productive lives. Get outdoors as much as possible during the winter months and when indoors, to sit near windows or bright lights. __________, the disease may not be combated.

【推荐2】Whether it is tossing the Frisbee (掷飞盘) on the campus or representing your town in the local baseball league, sports remain prevalent in American society.

Athletics begin at a young age. As they learn to walk and talk, kids in America also learn to run, throw and kick. They are _________ to sports at a young age so that they form a habit of remaining _________ and fit, while also _________ themselves. Most towns offer a “Parks and Recreation” program, which sponsors various educational physical activities, such as sports summer camps or monthly hikes. _________, towns often create youth leagues that _________ children to complete against other towns. These programs, run by volunteers, stress not only skill development, but also values of _________ and enjoyment no matter what the outcome.

Athletics continue at more _________ levels throughout elementary school to university, with extracurricular programs playing a development role and training students to perhaps even eventually become _________.

At the professional level, spectator sports have become a staple (重要部分) of American tradition and culture. Families and friends gather around the television or endure hours of _________ to support their favorite teams, while these athletes are made into international celebrities.

Professional sports in the U.S. are largely __________ by the Big Four Leagues: the National Football League (NFL), Major League Baseball (MLB), the National Basketball Association (NBA), and the National Hockey League (NHL). With teams __________ major cities, these spectator sports draw large crowds and are followed almost __________ by some fans.

Soccer has __________ to rise to prominence in America; however, with their performance in the 2010 World Cup and more exposure to Europeans teams through the arrival of star such as David Beckham and Thierry Henry, Major League Soccer (MLS) in America as a spectator sport has certainly __________.

International competition is rare and often considered not as __________ as the domestic leagues. However, during the Olympics and the World Cup, Americans do rally around their countrymen to perform at the international level.

【推荐3】Painting, the execution of forms and shapes on a surface by means of pigment, has been continuously practiced by humans for some 20,000 years. Together with other activities that may have been ritualistic in ________ but have come to be described as artistic, painting was one of the earliest ways in which man sought to express his own personality and his   understanding of abstract things. ________ music and dance, however, examples of early forms of painting have ________ to the present day. And painting, like other arts, exhibits ________ qualities that make it easy for viewers of all nations and civilizations to understand and appreciate.

The major existing examples of early painting anywhere in the world are found in Western Europe and the former Soviet Union. But some 5,000 years ago, the areas in which important paintings were executed ________ to the eastern Mediterranean Sea and neighboring regions. ________, Western painting shared a European cultural tradition.

Western painting is in general ________ by its concentration on the representation of the human ________, whether in the heroic context of antiquity or the ________ context of the early Christian and medieval world. The Renaissance(文艺复兴)   extended this tradition through a close examination of the natural world and an investigation of balance, harmony, and perspective in the visible world, ________ painting to the developing sciences of anatomy and optics. The first real break from figurative painting came with the growth of ________ painting in the 17^th and 18^th centuries. The landscape and figurative traditions developed together in the 19^th century in an atmosphere that was ________ concerned with “painterly” qualities of the _________ of light and color and the expressive qualities of paint handling.

In the 20^th century, these interests ________ the development of a third major tradition in Western painting, abstract painting, which sought to uncover and express the true ________ of paint and painting through action and form.