The practice of students endlessly copying letters and sentences from a blackboard is a thing of the past. With the coming of new technologies like computers and smart phones, writing by hand has become something of nostalgic (怀旧的)skill. However, while today’s educators are using more and more technology in their teaching, many believe basic handwriting skills are still necessary for students to be successful—both in school and in life.
Virginia Berninger, professor of educational psychology at the University of Washington, says it’s important to continue teaching handwriting and help children acquire the skill of writing by hand.
Berninger and her colleagues conducted a study that looked at the ability of students to complete various writing tasks—both on a computer and by hand. The study, published in 2009, found that when writing with a pen and paper, participants wrote longer essays and more complete sentences and had a faster word production rate.
In a more recent study, Berninger looked at what role spelling plays in a student’s writing skills and found that how well children spell is tied to how well they can write. “Spelling makes some of the thinking parts of the brain active which helps us access our vocabulary, word meaning and concepts. It is allowing our written language to connect with ideas.” Berninger said.
Spelling helps students translate ideas into words in their mind first and then to transcribe(转换) “those words in the mind written symbols on paper or keyboard and screen,” the study said. Seeing the words in the “mind’s eye” helps children not only to turn their ideas into words, says Berninger, but also to spot spelling mistakes when they write the words down and to correct then over time.
“In our computer age, some people believe that we don’t have to teach spelling because we have spell checks,” she said. “But until a child has a functional spelling ability of about a fifth grade level, they won’t have the knowledge to choose the correct spelling among the options given by the computer.”
1. What makes writing by hand a thing of the past?2. What did Berninger’s study published in 2009 focus on?
3. Decide which part is false and underline it and explain.
Spelling makes some of the thinking parts of the brain active which helps us access our vocabulary, word meaning and concepts. It has no linking with ideas.
4. What’s your idea about spelling plays an important role in our daily life? Explain why.( In about 40 words)
I came to England last summer. I have been in England for eleven months. I am going to finish my studies in England soon, and will leave
There are many
4 . When learning a foreign language, most people fall back on traditional methods: reading, writing, listening and repeating. But if you also gesture with your arms while studying, you can remember the vocabulary better. Linking a word to brain areas responsible for movement strengthens the memory of its meaning. This is the conclusion a research team in Leipzig reached after using magnetic pulses to deliberately disrupt these areas in language learners. “Our results provide neuroscientific evidence for why learning techniques that involve the body’s motor system should be used more often,” neuroscientist Brian Mathias, said in a news release.
As Mathias and his colleagues describe in the Journal of Neuroscience, they had 22 German-speaking adults learn a total of go invented artificial words (such as “lamube” for “camera”, and “atesi” for “thought”) over four days. While the test subjects first heard the new vocabulary, they were simultaneously shown a video of a person making a gesture that matched the meaning of the word. When the word was repeated, the subjects performed the gesture themselves.
Five months later, they were asked to translate the vocabulary they had learned into German in a multiple-choice test. At the same time, they had an apparatus (装置)attached to their heads that sent weak magnetic pulses to their primary motor cortex——the brain area that controls voluntary arm movements. When these interfering signals were active, the subjects found it harder to recall the words that were accompanied by gestures. When the apparatus sent no interfering signals (but still appeared to the subjects to be active), they found it easier to remember the words. The researchers concluded that the motor cortex contributed to the translation of the vocabulary learned with gestures. This applied to concrete words, such as “camera”, as well as abstract ones, such as “thought.”
“There’s now quite a lot of literature showing that gestures play a role in learning. I think where this study takes it a step further is trying to understand why,” says Susan Goldin-Meadow, a psychologist who studies the effects of gestures on learning but was not involved in the new study. Research like this, as well as brain imaging, suggests the activation of the brain’s motor areas could be a factor. “It’s not necessarily the only reason why,” Goldin-Meadow adds, “but it’s probably a contributor.”
The effect did not occur when the test subjects were only presented with matching pictures instead of gestures when learning vocabulary. In an experiment published in 2020, the Leipzig research team found that the adult brain uses motor areas to remember foreign-language words. But it is not only the motor component itself that promotes learning. The meaning of the gesture also figures in ——gestures particularly promote the memory of words if they represent the meaning of the word pictorially.
“I think we underuse gesture in our classrooms,” Goldin-Meadow says. “People use it spontaneously (自发地), if they’re good teachers and good listeners. We don’t necessarily bring it into the class if we don’t think about it, but it could be used more often and more effectively.”
1. What did the subjects do during their four-day learning of artificial words?| A．They tried their best to invent go artificial words. |
| B．They figured out the meaning of different gestures. |
| C．They showed researchers videos of making gestures. |
| D．They repeated gestures to learn the meaning of words. |
| A．control the brain area where voluntary arm movements occurred |
| B．help researchers confirm the role of gestures in learning a language |
| C．interfere with the active signals contributing to the recalling of words |
| D．make it easier for them to pass the multiple-choice test of new words |
| A．Gestures activate the brain’s motor areas. |
| B．Understanding gestures takes further steps. |
| C．More literature about gestures were studied. |
| D．Gestures make brain imaging more detailed. |
| A．language learners should be more deliberate about the gestures they choose to use |
| B．new words can be more easily remembered in combination with meaningful gestures |
| C．traditional language learning methods are not enough for learners |
| D．good teachers and good listeners don’t necessarily underuse gestures |
5 . While high school does not generally encourage students to explore new aspects of life, college sets the stage for that exploration. I myself went through this
I never felt an urge to
The
After that, feeling the need to
The following term, I
| A．searching | B．planning | C．natural | D．formal |
| A．progress | B．experience | C．major | D．opinion |
| A．choose | B．read | C．learn | D．create |
| A．official | B．foreign | C．body | D．spoken |
| A．love | B．concern | C．goal | D．request |
| A．meeting | B．trip | C．story | D．task |
| A．recorded | B．performed | C．recited | D．discussed |
| A．idea | B．amount | C．dream | D．reason |
| A．disturbed | B．supported | C．embarrassed | D．attracted |
| A．end | B．past | C．course | D．distance |
| A．showing | B．acting | C．saying | D．wanting |
| A．exercise | B．explore | C．express | D．explain |
| A．print | B．write | C．sign | D．count |
| A．slow | B．steady | C．normal | D．obvious |
| A．chair | B．sponsor | C．attend | D．organize |
| A．missed | B．passed | C．gave up | D．registered for |
| A．forbidden | B．welcomed | C．ignored | D．repeated |
| A．Lastly | B．Thus | C．Instead | D．However |
| A．required | B．caused | C．allowed | D．expected |
| A．easy | B．popular | C．quick | D．new |
6 . A lot of people think that they are not good at learning a new language.
Good language learners look for opportunities to hear and use the new language outside of the classroom on a daily basis and consequently learn the language more quickly.
In addition, good language learners try different ways to make their message understood. For example, if they do not know the word for “laundromat,” they might say “the place where you can wash clothes.”
Finally, good language learners are prepared to take risks.
| A．Becoming fluent in a language takes time. |
| B．But we can learn a new language through looking up new words. |
| C．If that does not work, they might even try drawing it or acting it out. |
| D．Besides, good language learners use various ways to learn English words. |
| E．They understand that making mistakes is natural and is necessary to learn. |
| F．If they’re studying in a country where the language is spoken, this is easy to do. |
| G．However, we can learn from good language learners to become better at languages. |
7 . “How can I learn English well?” This is a question many students ask. In my opinion the most effective way is to learn lessons by heart. If you can recite the text and write it out you’ve learned it fairly well. And if you can tell what the lesson says in your own words you're a very successful learner indeed. Your English will be quite perfect.
This is a difficult task. However if you try to learn by heart only part of each lesson you’ll find it not half as hard as you might have thought. Learning this way you will make rapid progress. Of course writing is also necessary. It helps you a lot on our way to success in English.
Equally important is to feel the language. You should be able to laugh at jokes and be shocked at bad news. When using English try to forget your mother tongue. Instead of helping you your own language gets in your way. So never try to see English through translation.
1. In the writer’s opinion the most effective way in learning English is ____.| A．to practise speaking writing and feeling it | B．to forget your own native language |
| C．to learn lessons by heart. | D．to memorize the English words and grammatical rules |
| A．help you to study English well | B．stop you mastering English |
| C．make English easy to | D．help you notice mistakes |
| A．to get a knowledge of English by touching. | B．to be able to read and write English |
| C．to translate English into your own by imagining. | D．to be able to experience the rich language. |
Body language is a type of nonverbal communication in which physical behaviors are used to express the information. The interpretations may vary from country to country, or culture to culture.
9 . Have you ever found yourself in this situation: You hear a song you used to sing when you were a child—a bit of nostalgia (怀旧) or “blast from the past, ”as we say. But it is not a distant childhood memory. The words come back to you as clearly as when you sang them all those years ago.
Researchers at the University of Edinburgh studied the relationship between music and remembering a foreign language. They found that remembering words in a song was the best way to remember even one of the most difficult languages.
Here is what they did. Researchers took 60 adults and randomly divided them into three groups of 20. Then they gave the groups three different types of “listen-and-repeat” learning conditions. Researchers had one group simply speak the words. They had the second group speak the words to a rhythm, or beat. And they asked the third group to sing the words.
All three groups studied words from the Hungarian language for 15minutes. Then they took part in a series of language tests to see what they remembered.
Why Hungarian, you ask? Researchers said they chose Hungarian because not many people know the language. It does not share any roots with Germanic or Romance languages, such as Italian or Spanish. After the tests were over, the singers came out on top. The people who learned these new Hungarian words by singing them showed a higher overall performance. They did the best in four out of five of the tests. They also performed two times better than those who simply learned the words by speaking them.
Dr. Katie Overy says singing could lead to new ways to learn a foreign language. The brain likes to remember things when they are contained in a catchy or memorable tune.
Dr. Ludke said the findings could help those who struggle to learn foreign languages. On the website of University of Edinburgh Dr. Ludke writes, “This study provides the first experimental evidence that a listen-and-repeat singing method can support foreign language learning, and opens the door for future research in this area.”
1. The “song” mentioned in the first paragraph is intended to ________.| A．recall the past | B．attract the readers |
| C．introduce the topic | D．compare the childhood with the present |
| A．singing is the best way to learn a language |
| B．Dr. Katie Overy and Dr. Ludke disagree with each other |
| C．a listen-repeat method is very effective for any language learner |
| D．the brain probably works best when the foreign language learners sing the words |
| A．An American is going to learn some Chinese. |
| B．A child is going to have his first music lesson. |
| C．A student is going to learn a new English song. |
| D．A mother is going to teach her baby how to speak. |
Is English an easy language to learn? It actually
