Experts analyzed how language can affect children’s lives and the role it plays in everyday life They also determined which languages tend to lead to the best career opportunities as an adult. “We believe that language learning is hugely beneficial for children’s development and it is a real investment for the future,” said Antonella Sorace, professor of developmental linguistics (语言学) at Edinburgh University. The study involved a survey of 2,001 parents with children under the age of 18, as well as another survey of more than 500 business leaders.
So which languages took the top spot? Results indicated that children should be learning French, German, and/or Chinese if they want to be successful within the next ten years. Mastering a second language opens the door to new markets for businesses and allows them to create new relationships with potential partners. Besides being able to speak another language, the academic and interpersonal skills that can be acquired from learning a new language are important as well. “Children who are exposed to different languages become more aware of different cultures, other people, and other points of view. They also tend to be better than monolinguals (只用单语的人) at multitasking and are often more advanced readers,” said Sorace.
A vast majority of parents surveyed in this study (85 percent) believe it is important for their children to learn a second language, and about one in four believe it will increase their child’s career opportunities and improve their chance of being employed. The future employment markets are in need of space tour guides, robot coaches, front-line e-commerce workers, nurses etc. No matter what a child choose to be, multilinguals and cross-culture talents will probably have a good chance to take the lead. However, 45 percent of parents surveyed admit that their child or children cannot speak a second language.
If you want your child to stand out from the crowd, follow the habits of parents of successful people-give children chores, set high but realistic expectations, get yourself educated, make time for bonding, accept and recognize their feelings—and, of course, make sure they learn one of the three success languages!
1. Who might be a person that took part in the survey?A.A young technician with no child. | B.A farmer with a 19-year-old child. |
C.A librarian with a 16-year-old child. | D.A middle-aged reporter with no child. |
① Developing one’s strong will.
② Improving the ability to observe things.
③ Acquiring academic and interpersonal skills.
④ Having access to new markets for businesses.
⑤ Forming new relationships with potential partners.
A.①③⑤ | B.③④⑤ | C.①②④ | D.②③④ |
A.About 500. | B.About 600. | C.About 700. | D.About 800. |
A.To present some parents’ opinions. | B.To offer readers some suggestions. |
C.To explain some concepts. | D.To tell readers a story. |
相似题推荐
【推荐1】What is culture? Culture is too complex to define in simple terms.
To understand the culture of a particular country or region, one could examine its components, among which are material culture, language, and social organization. Material culture includes the tools and symbols in a society, not including those physical things found in nature, unless they have undergone some change or have been given meaning by people.
Social organization differs somewhat from society to society. The primary kind of community association is based on blood ties.
Cultural analysis serves a variety of purposes. Understanding the various dimensions and their inter-relatedness helps promote cross-cultural awareness.
A.Language is the most obvious difference between cultures. |
B.Some scholars even suggest that it is useless to try. |
C.The values represented within a culture can also change with the passing of time. |
D.However, there are certain agreed-on fundamentals that can be easily identified. |
E.In many developing countries, the extended family fulfils several social and economic roles. |
F.For example, a mouse running on a street is not part of a culture, but the Mickey Mouse is. |
G.It leads on to the promotion of goodwill, social and economic planning and harmony between social groupings or societies. |
【推荐2】We all know what a brain is. A doctor will tell you that the brain is the organ (器官) of the body in the head. But a brain can mean so much more.
To tease is to make fun of someone. But a brainteaser is not one who makes fun of someone else’s brain. A brainteaser is a puzzle that makes you think.
To understand the next brain expression you first need to know the word “drain”. As a verb, to drain means to remove something by letting it flow away. So, a brain drain may sound like a disease where the brain flows out the ears. But a brain drain is when a country’s most educated people leave their country to live in another.
Next, we have a brainchild. A brainchild sounds like a really smart kid. But it isn’t. A brainchild is an idea that one has without any help from others. If you have a really great idea, it is your brainchild — no one else’s.
However, if many people are responsible for a great idea, you can say they brainstormed it. It is a process of thinking creatively about a difficult topic. For example, business leaders may use brainstorming to create new products.
But if you can’t find a solution to a problem, you may have to rack your brains. In this way, you may find a solution. Sometimes, you have to rack your brains, trying to remember someone’s name.
Now, if people are brainwashed, it does not mean their brains are nice and clean. To brainwash means to make someone accept new ideas by using repeated pressure in a forceful way. Keep in mind that brainwash is never used in a positive way.
1. What can we learn about a brain drain?A.It refers to a brain disease. | B.It means a very difficult puzzle. |
C.It may put a country at a disadvantage. | D.It means something that flowed away. |
A.They got the idea quickly. | B.They thought up the idea together. |
C.They thought poorly about the idea. | D.They didn’t know how to use the idea. |
A.Think hard. | B.Become smarter. |
C.Create new things. | D.Touch your head. |
A.He thinks very clearly now. | B.He looks at things passively. |
C.He is under a lot of pressure. | D.He is forced to accept new things. |
【推荐3】“Homestay is a form of study-abroad program.It allows the visitor to stay with a local family to better understand the local lifestyle.It also helps to improve the visitor’s language ability.If you wish to learn more about foreign cultures or to get foreign experience,you should join this kind of holiday.
After we got to London,we went to stay with different families.I was lucky that my host family (寄宿家庭)was a white couple who had a daughter about my age.
The holiday was a valuable experience for me.I enjoyed every minute of it.
A.Yes,time really flew fast. |
B.I am sure you won’t be disappointed. |
C.After this meeting,I always thought about this kind of holiday. |
D.It took me 8 hours to fly to London. |
E.They treated me as a daughter of their family. |
F.The holiday was filled with activities every day. |
G.This is really a good choice. |
【推荐1】Surely one of the world’s most attractive rivers as well as being its longest, the mighty Nile River runs constantly ever northwards 6,650 kilometre (4,132 miles) from its origins in Africa to its mouth on the Uat-Ur, the Egyptian word for the Mediterranean Sea. Along its passage, it gave life to the ancient Egyptians, nourishing (滋养) them with its annual deep layers of rich black earth providing the basis for the agriculture, which supported the flowering of their culture.
Seneca, the Roman philosopher and statesman, described the Nile as a “remarkable sight” and an amazing wonder. The surviving records indicate this is an opinion widely shared by ancient writers who visited Egypt’s “mother of all men”.
The river gains its name from the Greek “Neilos”, meaning valley, although the ancient Egyptians called their river Ar, or “black” after its rich earth. However, the story of the Nile River doesn’t begin in the expansive delta (三角洲) of marshes (沼泽) and lakes of its Mediterranean exit, but in two distinct sources, the Blue Nile, which falls down from the Abyssinian highlands and the White Nile, which springs from equatorial Africa.
The Nile’s broad fan-shaped Delta is flat and green. At its farthest reaches, Alexander the Great built Alexandria, a busy port city and home to the Library of Alexandria and the famed Pharos Lighthouse, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Beyond the expanse of the Nile Delta lies the Mediterranean and Europe. At the far end of the Nile, sat Aswan, the gateway city to Egypt, a small, hot, garrison town for Egypt’s armies as they hotly contested the territory with Nubia over the centuries.
1. How did the Nile River contribute to the ancient Egypt’s civilization?A.By supplying enough drinking water. |
B.By providing transport to the country. |
C.By offering support to the agriculture. |
D.By developing its tourism to other states. |
A.The origins of the river are delta of marshes and lakes. |
B.The White Nile flows from the Abyssinian highlands. |
C.The Greek name of the river has something to do with soil. |
D.The Nile River originated from two distinct destinations. |
A.Local market. |
B.Business area. |
C.Military station. |
D.Cultural center. |
A.The Nile River in Ancient Egypt. |
B.The Culture of Egypt and Its river. |
C.The Great Function of the Nile River. |
D.Important Places along the Nile River |
【推荐2】Charlotte Grainger explains that it was her primary school teacher who first speculated that she might write a novel. “I thought the height of achievement would be to write a book because it seemed such a challenge and anyway I didn’t know what other teenagers were doing, like being in the Olympics, for example. When I turned 13, I thought I may be as well attempt this now. Recently I told my ex-teacher about it and she was astonished. She told me she’d meant I’d do it when I was 30 or 40. That had never occurred to me — I couldn’t understand why I’d be expected to put something on hold that I had a chance of being good at.”
It’s a winter afternoon, in the offices of Charlette’s publishers. The public relations representative for the book is keeping us company in case Charlotte might need defending. But she needs neither parental nor professional support. She’s her own person: spirited, with an alert face and great intelligence, but also a steadiness that prevents any overconfidence she could be forgiven for feeling.
She has a theory about teenagers and the way they are “betrayed” by the fiction that is specifically aimed at them. There are, she maintains, three types of teenagers depicted in novels. “There’s the outsider who becomes acceptable to society, the naive teenager who knows nothing about the big wide world, and the awkward teenage character who is socially skilled. The overall impression teenagers can get from some writers is teenagers can’t possibly know who they are because they are not experienced enough to know the truth. And when that is being pushed onto them by writers, it can undermine their self-belief. ”
Charlotte has always been a keen reader of famous fantasy writers, some of whom you might suppose she’d be grateful to, but in fact they almost put her off writing entirely. “Books by my favorite fantasy writers explore deep things about psychology and about life. I was asking myself: is this seriously what I have to be doing to write a good book and am I really up to it?” She does, however, praise the influence of a book called “How Not to Write a Novel. “It tells you that if the reader starts to guess what’s going to happen, the suspense has probably gone. ”
1. Why did Charlotte write her first novel at 13?A.She considered it something she might be good at. |
B.She wanted to live up to her teacher’s expectations. |
C.She wished to prove age was no barrier to success. |
D.She felt it impossible to delay doing anything. |
A.She needs to be more confident. | B.She is more modest than expected. |
C.She should take more advice from others. | D.She should be allowed more independence. |
A.Mentioned. | B.Identified. | C.Betrayed. | D.Described. |
A.They were too boring to read. | B.They offered inspirations for her novel. |
C.They nearly made her frightened of writing. | D.They taught her the skill of creating suspense. |
【推荐3】Feeling controlled by your to-do list can certainly make you unhappy, but new research suggests that more free time might not be the magic elixir (灵丹妙药) many of us dream it could be.
In a new study shown last week, researchers analyzed data from two major surveys about how Americans spend their time. Together, the surveys included more than 35,000 respondents (受访者). The researchers found that people with more free time generally had higher levels of subjective well-being—but only up to a point.
People who had up to two hours of free time a day generally reported they felt better than those who’d had less time. But people who had five or more hours of free time a day generally said they felt worse.
So finally the free-time “sweet spot” might be two to three hours per day, the findings suggest. “While too little time is bad, having more time is not always better,” said Marissa Sharif, lead author of the paper.
Of course, most people know that being too busy can cause stress. But the new study is not the first to question whether more free time will actually make people as happy as they believe it will. Part of “sweet spot” has to do with how people spend the free time. Researchers conducted several smaller online experiments. In one they asked participants to imagine having 3.5 to 7 free hours per day. They were asked to imagine spending that time doing “productive” things (like exercising) or to imagine doing “unproductive” activities (like watching TV).
Study participants believed their well-being would suffer if they had a lot of free time during the day—but only if they used it unproductively. Though that experiment was hypothetical (假设的), which is one limitation of the new research, it’s certainly in line with other research showing that being in a state of “flow” can be good for people’s mental health.
In other words, how people use their free time matters, Sharif said. Of course, what feels “productive” is up to you.
1. What can we know about the new study?A.It included many American respondents. | B.It surveyed people from different countries. |
C.It found that more spare time was better. | D.It’s the first to question the importance of free-time. |
A.Less than 2 hours. | B.About 3.5 hours. | C.About 2 to 3 hours. | D.More than 7 hours. |
A.The experiment included unproductive activities. |
B.The experiment wasn’t in line with other researches. |
C.The experiment didn’t include enough participants. |
D.The experiment was not based on adequate evidence. |
A.Being productive is an important matter. |
B.The way people spend their spare time makes a difference. |
C.Being in a state of “free” can be good for people’s mental health. |
D.More free time will actually make people as happy as they believe. |