Category Life in society

Improving your language skills is a journey of discovery, allowing you to learn new things about other people and yourself. Academic Listening Encounters: Life in Society is like a compass or roadmap that can help you along this path. The material in this book is taken from the discipline of sociology: the study of people in society and the way we live in groups.

You may find ideas that are new and also material that reminds you of your own community and personal experiences. Active involvement is at the heart of any type of learning, so you should use this book as a context for your own experience. The specific academic skills you can expect to improve are listening, note taking, and discussion.

Listening to people is often a challenge because they may speak quickly, use words that you have never heard, or interrupt each other. Lecturers do not usually speak in the same way as they write, and it can be hard to understand how a lecture is organized. This book will give you practice in listening to people of all ages, backgrounds, and regions, and you will gain confidence as your comprehension improves.

Secondly, the book emphasizes the tools that will allow you to become a better note taker. Note taking is a vital skill for all kinds of academic study, but taking notes on interviews or lectures is different from taking notes on text because usually you cannot go back and check your comprehension. Taking notes on recorded material that you can listen to again, however, allows you to do just that. You will learn how to use symbols and abbreviations that will help you take notes quickly, and you will also learn how to organize your notes in efficient ways that allow you to review the material easily. This will help you to develop the confidence you need when you are a participant in a conversation or at a lecture.

Finally, do not neglect the opportunity to discuss the material in the chapters. In this book, you may find ideas that surprise you, concepts that catch your attention, or stories that make you want to share a time in your own life with your classmates. Use the opportunity to develop your listening skills while you listen to others contribute their voices to the class discussion, Then take your turn at sharing your own impressions and experiences. If you are shy about speaking, consider that discussion is an art that we all continue to improve throughout our lives, and remember always that other people will be enriched by what you have to say.

Good luck with your academic studies in English!

Km Sanabria

his unit is about the mass media and its effects on our lives.

Chapter 5 concerns the news coverage provided by the media. You will hear interviews with three people about the strengths and weaknesses of the news we get from television, radio, and the newspaper. In the lecture, a journalist gives her insight into how an event becomes a news story. In Chapter 6, you will hear people discuss the positive and negative effects of various forms of the media. The lecture is about the dangerous effects the media can have on us.

D getting started

In this section you arc going to discuss the mass media and think about what makes news interesting and relevant to our lives.

READING AND THINKING ABOUT THE TOPIC

1 Read the following passage.

The modern world depends on extensive communication between people, organizations, and governments. Rapid transportation and electronic communication have shortened the distances between us, and most of us are now aware of what is going on in places far away. Much of our new awareness comes from die mass media, including newspapers, magazines, movies, TV, and the Internet, which allows information to be communicated quickly throughout the world.

However, the rapid growth in the mass media sometimes raises questions about its value. For example, although we gel more information and news from the mass media

than ever before, some people believe that today’s news is not necessarily of good quality. Technological advances have given us the impression that we understand the world better because we have access to more information about it. But this is not always tine. The information we get may be inaccurate, one-sided, or incomplete.

Answer the following questions according to the information in the passage.

1 How is the modern world connected?

2 What does the mass media allow us to do?

3 Why do some people question the value of the mass media?

Read these questions and share your answers with a partner.

1 What kinds of mass media do you use most?

2 Do you think that the quality of the news we get from newspapers, radio, TV, and the Internet is good? Why or why not?

3 Do you believe that technology helps us understand the world better than we used to? Why or why not?

LISTENING FOR SPECIFIC INFORMATION

1 Read the headlines below. Then listen to the news stories that correspond to the headlines. Choose the headline that goes with each story by writing the number of the storv next to its headline.

2 Compare your answers with a partner.

3 If the headlines in step 1 appeared in a newspaper you were reading, which stories would you read first? Why? Discuss vour answers with your partner.

Q AMERICAN VOICES: Carol, Shari, and Frank

In this section you will hear three people discuss different perspectives on the news. Carol, a teacher, will explain her mixed feelings about the news she watches on TV. Shari, a student in her twenties, and Frank, a retired postal worker, will discuss their reactions to the news they read in the newspaper.

BEFORE THE INTERVIEWS

SHARING YOUR OPINION

1 Look at the following chart. In each column, circle the word or words that best describe your answer to the question.

2 Discuss your responses with a partner and explain your opinions. Which questions prompted similar answers? Where did you disagree?

As a student, you will often be asked to answer questions about specific information that you have heard. Preview the questions before you listen so that you know what information to listen for.

1 Read the questions about "group pressure” situations below.

1 You have been invited to the wedding of a family member you don’t like. Everyone else in your family is going. Would you go to the wedding?

2 Your friends are planning to see a popular movie this weekend and have asked you to go with them. You have read reviews that say it is a really bad movie.

Would you go with your friends anyway?

3 All your friends have started to wear a new style of shoes. When you first see the shoes, you think they look uglv. Would you consider buying them anyway?

4 Your parents have been invited to their friend’s house in the country for the weekend. They want you to go with them. You are in college and need to study. Would you go away with your parents for the weekend?

Listen Lo two college students – Rebecca and Jim. What do they say they would do in these situations? Take notes about their answers.

Compare your answers in a small group. Discuss whether anv of Rebeccas or Jim’s reasons for their answers surprise you. What would you do in these situations?

О AMERICAN VOICES: Henry, Victor, and Samira

In this section you will hear three Americans discuss one type of group pressure – peer pressure – among young people. You will hear Henry’s perspective as the father of two xns. Then you will hear two young people, Victor and Samira, talk about the influence ‘ their peers.

BEFORE THE INTERVIEWS

SHARING YOUR OPINION

1 Henry is an American father of two teenage boys. Read the behaviors in the chart. Decide which ones you think he would let his sons do.

Victor is a young boy and Samira is a teenage girl. The interviewer asks them both this question:

Do you think your friends have a lot of influence on you?

Which of the following answers do you think is Victor’s (write V) and which do you think is Samira’s (write S)? Why?

1 “Well. . . sometimes.”

2 ___ "Totally. I mean, we talk about everything, and, like, I have my own

opinions about stuff and all that, but we always talk everything over.”

3 Compare your answers to steps 1 and 2 with a partner.

PERSONALIZING THE TOPIC

Work in a small group. Make a chart like the one below1. Fill in the chart with activities that your own parents or caregivers allowed or did not allow you to do. Discuss the reasons you were or were not allowed to do them.

DRAWING INFERENCES

Drawing inferences means understanding things that are not directly stated by a speaker. When you listen to people speak, you should not only think about what they tell you directly, but you should also be aware of what they communicate indirectly. Drawing inferences is a critical aspect of listening.

1 For each of the following statements, decide whether you think it correctly reflects what Linda or Shingo inferred in their interviews. Write T next to the statement if you think it is true or F if you think it is false.

1 Linda probably thinks that

a it isn’t easy for girls to make friends if they aren’t good at spoils, b boys today communicate with each other better than thev did in the past.

___ c it is difficult for boys to grow up in today’s changing world.

___ d both boys and girls should be caring members of societv.

2 Shingo probably thinks that

a parents want their daughters to stay closer to them than then – sons, b schools should offer the same classes to boys and girls, c parents love their sons and daughters in different ways, d children should not be allowed to make then – own decisions.

2 Work with a partner. Check to see if you drew the same inferences. Explain why you thought each answer was true or false. You may disagree about your answers.

SHARING YOUR OPINION

1 Look at the following photographs. They show people of both sexes in roles that were unusual for their gender in the past.

2 Discuss the photographs with a partner. How common would these scenes be in your і community?

D GETTING STARTED

In this section you are going to discuss what it means to be part of a family. You will also hear information about the contemporary American family.

READING AND THINKING ABOUT THE TOPIC

If you read or think about a topic before you hear it discussed, you will find the discussion much easier to understand.

1 Read the following passage.

What exactly is a family? The traditional idea of a nuclear family, meaning two married adults who live together and take care of their children, is becoming less and less common in the industrialized world. In the United States, for example, only about one quarter of all families have this structure. In fact, there have been such far-reaching social changes over the past century that the word family is becoming hard to define.

The concept of family has to take into account such social changes as industrialization, increased geographical mobility, and women’s progress toward gaining equal rights. Other considerations include increases in single-parent families, cohabitation ‘people living together without getting married), divorced couples who marry other people, and othe; increasingly accepted alternative family structures.

2 Answer the following questions according to the information in the passage.

1 What is meant by a “traditional nuclear family”?

2 Why is the word family hard to define today?

3 What changes have affected family structure over the past century?

3 Read these questions and share your answers with a partner.

1 Has your own family been affected by the social changes mentioned in the passage? If so, how?

2 How would you define the word family today?