Lesson 50 PartⅠ

Lesson  50

PartⅠWarming-up Exercises

Spot Dictation: Louis Braille (Ⅱ)

Training Focus:

Spot dictation

Directions: You are going to listen to a passage. Some words on the printed passage have been taken out. Listen carefully. Fill in the blanks with the words you hear on the tape.

Key:

He studied different ways of making dots and dashes on paper. At last he arrived at a simple system in which he used six holes within a small space. With these six holes in different positions within this space he could make sixty-three different combinations. Each combination indicated a letter of the alphabet or a short word. There were even combinations to indicate punctuation marks. Soon Louis wrote a book using the “Braille” system.

At first people did not believe that the system of Louis Braille was possible or practical.

One day a girl who had been blind since she was born played the piano beautifully before a large audience. Everyone in the audience was very pleased. Then the girl got up and said that the people should not thank her for playing so well. They should thank Louis Braille. It was Louis Braille, she said, who has made it possible for her to learn music and to play the piano.

Some of Louis' friends went to his home to see him. He was sick in bed. They told him what had happened. Louis began to cry. He said, “This is the third time in my life that I have cried: First, when I became blind. Second, when I heard about 'night writing, 'and now because I know that my life has not been a failure.” A few days later Louis Braille died. He was only 43 years old when he died.

Lesson 50 PartⅡ

Lesson  50

Ex.Ⅰ

Directions: Fill in the blanks with the words you hear on the tape.

Key: (see tapescript)

Ex.Ⅱ

Directions: Answer the questions according to the information you hear from the news.

1. What have Israeli troops again used to stop demonstra tions by Palestinian students on the occupied West Bank?

2. Why did the students hold the demonstrations?

3. How many Beirzeit students have been arrested so far this week by Israeli troops?

Key: (see tapescript)

Tapescript:

News  (1′20″)

News Item 1

Reports say Israel has strengthened its forces surrounding Palestinian guerrillas in Beirut, Lebanon. Lebanese news reports say more Israeli tanks and armored vehicles have moved into the area. The cease-fire between the guerrillas and Israeli forces is continuing. But reports say a bomb exploded Tuesday in a car outside the Palestine Research Center in west Beirut. The reports say one person was killed and at least thirty others were injured.

News Item 2

Also in the Middle East

Israeli troops have again used tear gas and water cannons to stop demonstrations by Palestinian students on the occupied West Bank. The students were demonstrating at Beirzeit University in Ramalla to show support for Palestinian guerrillas in Beirut. Israeli troops have arrested about forty Beirzeit students so far this week. They also have blocked the area surrounding the university. 

Lesson 50 Part Ⅲ

Lesson  50

Ex.Ⅰ

Directions: Answer the questions according to what you hear on the tape.

Key: (see tapescript)

Ex.Ⅱ

Directions: Fill in the blanks with the words you hear on the tape.

Key: (see tapescript)

Tapescript:

An Outstanding Character  (1′51″)

----Helen Keller (Ⅱ)

Miss Sullivan had once been blind herself and she was an extremely gifted teacher. She constantly spelled out words in Helen's hand. At first Helen didn't understand the connection between words and things. But once she understood this connection she was eager to learn everything. She couldn't see or hear so she learned by touch and feeling. Helen learned to read books in Braille, a special language for the blind. A person reads Braille by touching raised dots on a page. Helen also learned foreign languages: French, German, Latin and Greek. She learned to write and to speak. She could ride a horse, swim, row a boat, climb trees. Helen always wanted to do what other people did. She went to Redcliff College and Ann Sullivan went with her. There weren't many books in Braille then, so Miss Sullivan cantinued to teach her by the use of hands. Geometry was especially difficult. Helen made squares and triangles from wire. She felt the shapes of these wires until she could see them in her mind. With miss Sullivan's help Helen Keller finished college with high honors.

All her life she learned through touch and smell and feeling. She once said that hands speak almost as loudly as words. The touch of some hands frightened her. Shaking hands with some people was like shaking hands with a storm. The hands of other people were full of sunshine and warmth. By touch she learned to love music. She felt its vibrations in the air. She would put her hands on a piano while someone played and enjoy the music for hours. Because of her sense of touch she understood sculpture very well. Her fingers told her more than most other people saw with their eyes.

Through her lectures and her writing Helen Keller reached millions of people. Her life is an inspiration, not just to the blind and the deaf but to people everywhere.

Before Ann Sullivan died Helen Keller wrote about her teacher, “It was the genius of my teacher, her sympathy, her love which made my first years of education so beautiful. My teacher is so near to me that I do not think of myself as apart from her. All the best of me belongs to her. Everything I am today was awakened by her loving touch.”