英语单词大师：Looking Between the Covers

 AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on WORDMASTER: getting the most out of textbooks for English learners. Maria Spelleri, who teaches English for academic purposes, goes so far as to talk about getting "intimate" with a textbook.

MARIA SPELLERI: "Well, you know, many international students, when they come to the United States, even though they may be very good English students, have learned English at a very high level, they're just not quite able to manage the textbooks that they face in college. And that's really because these books are very tough. They're intimidating¹. They're not user-friendly, they're very dense², unattractive, oversized, heavy. I think students look at these things and just imagine all the potential for forgetting that lies within the covers of those books."RS: "Do you want to be on intimate terms with your textbook?"MARIA SPELLERI: "Well, I think if you want to be successful in college, you do. And you need to build familiarity with a textbook, and that's going to help you reduce that psychological intimidation³ and see your textbook as just another learning tool, like your calculator or whatever."RS: "How do you go about doing that?"MARIA SPELLERI: "Well, you have to really explore your textbook, you have to make an effort, and you've got to do this in the first week of class because after that it's almost too late. Start at the beginning of the book. First, you should read the notes to the student, which is a section that I think almost everybody passes up as something irrelevant⁴. But you can find great tips for study success, for how to use the book, other materials like Web sites and supplemental study guides that can help you with the course.

"Proceed to the table of contents. Again, a lot of people skip the table of contents unless they're just looking for a certain page. But the table of contents, an overview⁵ of that, can tell you how the book is set up, and following the same pattern within each chapter. And the student has to get familiar with the terminology⁶ that the book uses: does it use units, chapters, sections, parts? Because this is what the professor is going to use in the course.

"So many of the freshman-level textbooks are basically introducing the new vocabulary of a discipline. So the back of the book has a glossary⁷. I mean, many students don't even realize that's back there. So get to the back of the book, page four hundred five, page five hundred, and notice the glossary.

"And the appendices, also. This is where you're going to find your basic information that the textbook writer is assuming you already know -- for example, a table of elements for a chemistry book, or MLA [Modern Language Association] formatting⁸ for a literature book."RS: "Textbooks are written in a different language. Textbooks are not written as if we're speaking to one another. How do you advise students to get through that, so they'll understand the textbooks, the writing in the textbooks, which tends to be very complex?"MARIA SPELLERI: "That's a great question. The very first thing a student has to do is to decide that they are going to be interactive⁹ with their textbook. They are going to build this friendship by listening to the textbook and communicating back to the textbook. And this means reading interactively¹⁰. One method of doing this is the SQ3R method which is Survey, Question, Read, Recite and Review. And it's a way of attacking your textbook, and attacking your reading, kind of a methodical way.

"You start with a survey, which is looking through the assigned reading, the chapter or the unit, looking at the pictures, reading the captions¹¹, reading the headings, the subheadings. And that really primes your brain for what's coming, and once you're more receptive, it makes the comprehension go much easier for you as well."AA: "And what's the next step from there?"MARIA SPELLERI: "Well, to question. As you are surveying, you need to question. Let's say, for example, you're reading a psychology¹² text and you see a heading in a chapter, or a subheading, that says 'situational and dispositional shyness.' You should automatically form a question in your head: what's the difference between those two?

"And as you form these questions in your initial survey, and then you go back and move on to the next step, the reading, you're going to be looking unconsciously for the answers to those questions. It's this kind of brain priming that helps the reader stay engrossed¹³ in the material that otherwise is kind of flying at them and they're not really comprehending it."AA: Maria Spelleri teaches English for academic purposes at Manatee¹⁴ Community College in Venice, Florida. We'll have more from her next time. That's WORDMASTER for this week. For more advice about learning English, go to voanews.com/wordmaster. And our e-mail address is [email protected]. With Rosanne Skirble, I'm Avi Arditti.

1 intimidating   

vt.恐吓，威胁( intimidate的现在分词)

参考例句：

• They were accused of intimidating people into voting for them. 他们被控胁迫选民投他们的票。
• This kind of questioning can be very intimidating to children. 这种问话的方式可能让孩子们非常害怕。

2 dense   

a.密集的，稠密的，浓密的；密度大的

参考例句：

• The general ambushed his troops in the dense woods. 将军把部队埋伏在浓密的树林里。
• The path was completely covered by the dense foliage. 小路被树叶厚厚地盖了一层。

3 intimidation   

n.恐吓，威胁

参考例句：

• The Opposition alleged voter intimidation by the army.反对党声称投票者受到军方的恐吓。
• The gang silenced witnesses by intimidation.恶帮用恐吓的手段使得证人不敢说话。

4 irrelevant   

adj.不恰当的，无关系的，不相干的

参考例句：

• That is completely irrelevant to the subject under discussion.这跟讨论的主题完全不相关。
• A question about arithmetic is irrelevant in a music lesson.在音乐课上，一个数学的问题是风马牛不相及的。

5 overview   

n.概观，概述

参考例句：

• The opening chapter gives a brief historical overview of transport.第一章是运输史的简要回顾。
• The seminar aims to provide an overview on new media publishing.研讨会旨在综览新兴的媒体出版。

6 terminology   

n.术语；专有名词

参考例句：

• He particularly criticized the terminology in the document.他特别批评了文件中使用的术语。
• The article uses rather specialized musical terminology.这篇文章用了相当专业的音乐术语。

7 glossary   

n.注释词表；术语汇编

参考例句：

• The text is supplemented by an adequate glossary.正文附有一个详细的词汇表。
• For convenience,we have also provided a glossary in an appendix.为了方便，我们在附录中也提供了术语表。

8 formatting   

n.格式化v.使格式化( format的现在分词 )；规定…的格式（或形状、大小、比例等）；安排…的格局（或规格）；设计…的版面

参考例句：

• Select the block of text and-click and choose Default Formatting. 选择目标文字块，点击鼠标右键，选择默认格式。 来自互联网
• There are emerging conventions about the content and formatting of documentation strings. 这里介绍文档字符串的概念和格式。 来自互联网

9 interactive   

adj.相互作用的，互相影响的，（电脑）交互的

参考例句：

• The psychotherapy is carried out in small interactive groups.这种心理治疗是在互动的小组之间进行的。
• This will make videogames more interactive than ever.这将使电子游戏的互动性更胜以往。

10 interactively   

adv.交互式的；互动

参考例句：

• Do you instinctively think interactively and are you savvy across multiple media? 时常用交互式方式思考并灵敏地使用多媒体吗？ 来自互联网
• Use Chat to communicate interactively with someone on another computer. 使用“聊天”与其它计算机上的用户进行交流。 来自互联网

11 captions   

n.标题，说明文字，字幕( caption的名词复数 )v.给（图片、照片等）加说明文字( caption的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• I stared, trying to grasp the point of the picture and the captions. 我目不转睛地看着漫画，想弄清楚漫画和解说词的意思。 来自辞典例句
• Indicates whether the user or the system paints the captions. 指示是由用户还是由系统来绘制标题。 来自互联网

12 psychology   

n.心理，心理学，心理状态

参考例句：

• She has a background in child psychology.她受过儿童心理学的教育。
• He studied philosophy and psychology at Cambridge.他在剑桥大学学习哲学和心理学。

13 engrossed   

adj.全神贯注的

参考例句：

• The student is engrossed in his book.这名学生正在专心致志地看书。
• No one had ever been quite so engrossed in an evening paper.没人会对一份晚报如此全神贯注。

14 manatee   

n.海牛

参考例句：

• We watched dolphin,manatee,sea lion and whale shows.我们看了海豚、海牛、海狮和鲸的表演。
• One of the most extraordinary river creatures is Amazonian manatee.其中河里最特别的生物之一要数亚马孙海牛。