听力原文

Part 1, Listening Comprehension

SECTION A MINI-LECTURE

What Do Active Learners Do

Ability for learning. Active learners tmderstand that the responsibility for learning mustcome from within, while passive learners often want to blame others for their lack ofmotivation, poor performance, time management problems and other difficulties that theymight experience. When active learners don’t perform as well as they’ve hoped, they evaluatewhy they didn’t do well and change those studying behaviors the next time. Passive learners,on the other hand, often approach evey. course in the same manner, and then get angry withprofessors when their performance is poor. It is only when students accept the respon- sibilityfor their own learning that they can truly be called active learners.

So, from what I have said so far, you can see that being an active learner involves both skilland will. By skill, I mean the tools to handle the studying and learning demands placed on you,like how to read with purpose, when and where to get assistance if you are having difficulty. Bywill, I mean the desire and motivation to follow through. Here I’d like to emphasize that skill isnothing without will. For example, you may have a friend who is knowledgeable, but notmotivated in the classroom, even though he reads widely and can intelligently discuss a varietyof issues, he does little school work and rarely studies. In other words, students, such asthese, may have the skills to do well, but for some reason, they simply do not have the will. Andbecause skill and will go hand in hand, unmotivated students, those who do not have the will,may experience difficulty in college.

OK, today we discuss the differences between an active learner and a passive one, andsome useful study strategies that may eventually help you become an active learner.

SECTION B INTERVIEW

Interviewer: Good morning, Mr. West. Nice to have you on ore" program.

Interviewee: Good morning.

Interviewer: OK. We all work or very few people can get away with not working. Work is a factof life when we’re adults. But before, there wasn’t a lot of choice in the selection of work. Nowthings are different.With greater mobility, the mobility that is offered when people havegreater opportunities for higher education or training, more and more people are able to choosethe fields that interest them . They can and do have opinions about what makes one job forthem better than another job. So, Mr. West, what do people actually want from their jobs?What are workers’ opinions, you know, about what makes one job better than another?

Interviewee: Well, to answer your questions, I’d like to look at two polls, two surveys. Theywere both done in the 1990s. The purposes were to find out what issues or jobcharacteristics were especially important to workers.

Interviewer: Umm. What were they?

Interviewee: Some of you might guess that the answer is obvious.

Interviewer: I think so.

Interviewee: You might say "oh people just want higher salaries, more money." But let’s see ifthat’s true.

Interviewer: OK.

Interviewee: Now, the first poll. The first poll was taken in 1990, and this poll askedrespondents to choose what was the most important to them among five items. And they wereonly allowed to choose one out of the five items.

Interviewer: So what were the five items?

Interviewee: Alright. The first item was important and meaningful work. The second was highincome. The third was chances for advancement, promotion and so on. The fourth item wasjob security, and the fifth was shorter work hours, OK?

Interviewer: It would be interesting to know the survey results.

Interviewee: Yes, now let me tell you the results. 50% considered important and meaningfulwork the most important characteristic of a job. They didn’t choose high income. Interesting.Anyway, 24% did say high income was the most important characteristic of a job. Of theremaining, 16% said chances for advancement was most important. Maybe these were youngerworkers, starting out on a career. 6% said job security and fmally4% said shorter work hourswas most important.

Interviewer: I think what’s striking about the results is that by far workers valued importantand meaningful work as more important than any of the other characteristics, that includedsalary.

Interviewee: Yeah. Now I’m going to tell you about another poll, and this poll was taken ayear later in 1991, and it asked the respondents to reflect on how important certain jobcharacteristics were in their work.And this is a different type of poll because whereas in thefirst poll, respon- dents had to choose only one out of five, in this poll they wanted theirrespondents to react to each item separately. You know, this is to rank each item as "notimportant", "somewhat important", "important" or "very important". So they have four choicesfor each item.

Interviewer: Sorry to interrupt you. How many items altogether?

Interviewee: Oh, the poll had 16 items. Let me give you a few examples.

Interviewer: OK.

Interviewee: The second item they asked about is interesting work. They asked howimportant is interesting work to you. And again, I’m just going to tell you about how manypeople said it was very important. In this case, 78% of the respondents ranked this as veryimportant to them.

Interviewer: 78%?

Interviewee: Yes, 78%. This is a key point, I think. One often sees people working for a lotless if they enjoy their work.

Interviewer: That’s true.

Interviewee: The fourth item they asked about was opportunity to learn new skills. Howimportant is that to you? 68% ranked this as very important. And I think that goes again to theidea of interest level, personal satisfaction, and the idea that people want their work to bemeaningful.

Interviewer: Definitely.

Interviewee: Another item, item NO. 7, recognition from coworkers.. 62% of therespondents said that this was very important. It was important for them to be recognized, tobe respected, and acknowl- edged for the work they’ve done. And I see recognition as apsychological benefit. There’s no monetary reward necessarily attached to it, althoughsometimes they could be. But more people are looking for the psychological reward in termsof appreciation.

Interviewer: It seems to me that people value psychological reward a lot more than money.

Interviewee: That’s right. At least the poll result seemed to say so. Now, let’s take a look atanother item, NO. 14.

Interviewer: OK!

Interviewee: NO. 14 was chances for promotion. 53% said that this was very important tothem. It was im portant to them to have opportunities for advancement, chances forpromotion. And I think this goes along with high income and recognition. That’s both apsychological reward, promo tion, as well as a monetary reward.

Interviewer: Umm.

Interviewee: 15 is contact with a lot of people. Some people are very people-oriented, and52% said that this was very important to them.

Interviewer: So we can see workers do have a lot of things that are very huportant to them.

Interviewee: Yes, but you can also see the variation in numbers. But a note of caution here.These are av erages, and polls talk about averages. But still I think it is important for employersto become more aware of polls like these because it might allow them to keep their workerssatisfied in ways that maybe they haven’t thought of before.

Interviewer: Yeah, OK. Thank you very much Mr. West for talking to us on the program.

Interviewee: Pleasure.