Jane: Now look, er, what's all this, er, story about you and this car I've been hearing so much about? Everybody else has been hearing it, but you haven't told me. (Mhm)John: Well, I was driving to Norwich with a friend, erm, we teach there and, erm, I was driving behind a Lotus Elan sports-car (Yes) on dual-carriageway and, erm, after about, er, three or four miles, er, behind this car, er, we, we left (the) dual-carriageway and, erm, entered a two-way road. And, er, this Lotus suddenly slowed down for no reason whatsoever. (There ...)Jane: Not a side road or anything?
John: No, no, no turning off, no lay-bys, and it just slowed down, and, er, I thought, that's, that's odd and, er, I overtook the Lotus, er, slowly and, erm, looked over at the driver, ... and as I did, I saw him slump over the wheel.
Jane: Oh, how awful!
John: Yes.
Jane: So what did you do next?
John: So, erm, I pulled into the kerb about thirty yards or so, er, in front of the Lotus (Yes) and, erm...my, er, passenger and myself got out and we, we walked back towards his car. My friend was on the grass verge and, er, I was in the middle of the road. We never even, erm, reached the car. I was about five yards from the car when, er, suddenly, erm, there was a noise of full acceleration and the car just shot forward-nearly ran me down. So I had to leap for my life. I was absolutely shaken because the car must have missed me by about half an inch or so, (I mean), (How dread...) it just shot past me and I saw my car smashed in front of my eyes. (How dreadful!) Yea, just, just smashed to smithereens, pieces of car flying all over the road and, erm, both cars locked together went down the road and there was a bend at the bottom of the road and I thought well, th..., the next thing is going to be a head-on collision. (Yes, of course.) Erm. But, fortunately, nothing came in the opposite direction and, erm, and then both cars went across the road and, erm, up a grass bank, which ... it was quite a tall bank and, erm, and, er, at the top of the bank there was a large hedge. Well, my car left the Lotus a, and literally took off and shot through the hedge (Oh, goodness!) and landed in a ploughed field. (Yes) But the Lotus veered to the left and got stuck in the hedge, in the thick part of the hedge. And, erm, the acceleration was still on full and the back wheels were tearing up the grass verge, throwing mud and soil, earth and grass all over the road, er, it was just, you know, absolutely terrif ... (How terrify...) Yes, (Yes) because the Lotus, erm, radiator burst and, and there was steam everywhere; it was like a, like a cloud of steam and smoke, and, er, the first thing, erm, of course, we thought of doing was to get the driver out (Well, of course.) Yes. (Quite) So, erm, we tried to get the passenger door open, (Yes) but it was locked, so we had to climb through the hedge and, er, get round to the driving-door. Well, by that time, there was so much steam we couldn't see, so it was a matter of fumbling in the, in the steam and smoke and thinking any moment the car was going to explode.
Jane: Yes, it wasn't on fire, in fact, that, at that point, was it?
John: No, no, it wasn't on fire, but, erm, with the noise of the engine, an... and all the steam it was just you know, very, frightening. (Oh, how dreadful!) Erm, well we managed to get the driver out, turn the ignition off. We laid him in the mud actually because it was a ploughed field and, (Yes) er, I ran out in the road and shouted for help and, erm ... er, a car driver told me help, er, was already on its way and, erm, I, er, managed to get blankets from people that had stopped and, er, we tried to make the man comfortable, and erm ... a man appeared shortly afterwards and he was from a nearby American airbase and, er, he was a medical man, so he was able to, erm, (Examine him) e... examine him and, er, I helped him, tried to, you know, er, make the man, er, well, you know, do all we could for the man. Erm ...
Jane: He was unconscious, was he?
John: Yes, yes; ... and then the police, a... police arrived and (the) fire brigade (Yes) and, er, ... er, we were told to, er, leave the scene by the police and go to the police station and, erm, there we had to make a statement, (Yes, of course.) and, er, I had to have a breathalyser test, and...
Jane: But they thought you'd been in the car ... of course they did. Yes.
John: Because, because they thought I'd, th... they automatically thought I'd been driving the car (Of course. Yes) and, er, when I told them the story they had to apologize for giving me a breathalyser and they said, 'Gosh,' you know, 'how, how incredible'.
Jane: So, what happened to the man?
John: And, erm, we were in the middle of making the statements and, erm, the telephone rang and the, the policeman, erm, was told that, that the man was dead, (Oh!) and, erm, and then two days later we had to attend a Coroner's inquest where we were told that the man had died of a heart attack and, in fact, he was dead, erm, before he crashed into my car.
Jane: Oh-h-h! What an alarming story! How dreadful!
John: Yes.
Today the Federal Aviation Administration reviewed that five air traffic controllers based in Kansas City have been taken off the job because of drug use. Earlier this month thirteen controllers at the southern California centre were removed from their jobs for off-duty drug use. Also today the FAA continued to investigate alleged drug use at the nation's sixth largest airlines, US Air. NPR's Wendy Kaufman reports.
"Drug use, even off-duty, is banned for controllers under Federal Aviation Administration rules. So far the FAA has conducted investigations into alleged drug use by controllers at two facilities-Palmdale in southern California and now Kansas City.
In southern California thirty-four controllers were taken off their radar scopes. Pending the outcome of investigation, thirteen tested positive for drugs, and we were told they could quit or enter a treatment program, or opt for treatment. In Kansas City thirty-six controllers were investigated. The five who tested positive for drugs have all agreed to undergo treatment. Three controllers are still under investigation. The proportion of drug users is small. Of the roughly five hundred controllers at the two facilities only seventy were suspect, and of those only eighteen tested positive for drugs. Air traffic control supervisors say they don't see drug use as a serious problem in their work force. Still as one FAA official put it, one drug user is one too many.
Right now there is no routine drug testing for controllers though that will change around the first of the year. There will be pre-employment urine test and test along with the annual physical exam. According to the FAA, there has never been a fatal accident involving a major US airline in which alcohol or drug abuse was a factor for the controllers or for the pilots. But there have been a sizeable number of fatal accidents in which commuter pilots, air taxi pilots and private pilots had been drinking, and a much smaller number of cases in which drugs were a factor.
On another matter, drug use, or, more precisely, alleged drug use by flight crews at US Air has been front-page news in Pittsburgh, the airline's operating base. A grand jury is conducting an investigation into alleged drug use, sales and distribution. Over the weekend, a Pittsburgh press newspaper quoted area hospital officials, who said they had treated about twenty US Air flight crew members for cocaine overdoses. US Air acknowledges that one pilot nearly died of an overdose. He had last flown on September 7th, and was taken to the hospital on September 10th. The airline has removed him from flight duty, and the FAA is considering revoking his medical certificate that would mean he could not fly any aircraft. Meanwhile the FAA is conducting an investigation of the airline and is working with the grand jury and the FBI. I'm Wendy Kaufman in Washington.
Lectures and Note-takingNote-taking is a complex activity which requires a high level of ability in many separate skills. Today I'm going to analyse the four most important of these skills.
Firstly, the student has to understand what the lecturer says as he says it. The student cannot stop the lecture in order to look up a new word or check an unfamiliar sentence pattern. This puts the non-native speaker of English under a particularly severe strain. Often-as we've already seen in a previous lecture-he may not be able to recognize words in speech which he understands straight away in print. He'll also meet words in a lecture which are completely new to him. While he should, of course, try to develop the ability to infer their meaning from the context, he won't always be able to do this successfully. He must not allow failure of this kind to discourage him however. It's often possible to understand much of a lecture by concentrating solely on those points which are most important. But how does the student decide what's important? This is in itself another skill he must try to develop. It is, in fact, the second of the four skills I want to talk about today.
Probably the most important piece of information in a lecture is the title itself. If this is printed (or referred to) beforehand the student should study it carefully and make sure he's in no doubt about its meaning. Whatever happens he should make sure that he writes it down accurately and completely. A title often implies many of the major points that will later be covered in the lecture itself. It should help the student therefore to decide what the main point of the lecture will be.
A good lecturer, of course, often signals what's important or unimportant. He may give direct signals or indirect signals. Many lecturers, for example, explicitly tell their audience that a point is important and that the student should write it down. Unfortunately, the lecturer who's trying to establish a friendly relationship with his audience is likely on these occasions to employ a colloquial style. He might say such things as 'This is, of course, the crunch' or 'Perhaps you'd like to get it down'. Although this will help the student who's a native English-speaker, it may very well cause difficulty for the non-native English speaker. He'll therefore have to make a big effort to get used to the various styles of his lecturers.
It's worth remembering that most lecturers also give indirect signals to indicate what's important. They either pause or speak slowly or speak loudly or use a greater range of intonation, or they employ a combination of these devices, when they say something important. Conversely, their sentences are delivered quickly, softly, within a narrow range of intonation and with short or infrequent pauses when they are saying something which is incidental. It is, of course, helpful for the student to be aware of this and for him to focus his attention accordingly.
Having sorted out the main points, however, the student still has to write them down. And he has to do this quickly and clearly. This is, in fact, the third basic skill he must learn to develop. In order to write at speed most students find it helps to abbreviate. They also try to select only those words which give maximum information. These are usually nouns, but sometimes verbs or adjectives. Writing only one point on each line also helps the student to understand his notes when he comes to read them later. An important difficulty is, of course, finding time to write the notes. If the student chooses the wrong moment to write he may miss a point of greater importance. Connecting words or connectives may guide him to a correct choice here. Those connectives which indicate that the argument is proceeding in the same direction also tell the listener that it's safe time to write 'Moreover', 'furthermore', 'also', etc., are examples of this. Connectives such as 'however', 'on the other hand' or 'nevertheless' usually mean that new and perhaps unexpected information is going to follow. Therefore, it may, on these occasions, be more appropriate to listen.
The fourth skill that the student must develop is one that is frequently neglected. He must learn to show the connections between the various points he's noted. This can often be done more effectively by a visual presentation than by a lengthy statement in words. Thus the use of spacing, underlining, and of conventional symbols plays an important part in efficient note-taking. Points should be numbered, too, wherever possible. In this way the student can see at a glance the framework of the lecture.
The Way We WereMemories, light the corners of my mind,Misty water colour memories,Of the way we were,Scattered pictures of the smiles we left behind,Smiles we gave to one another,For the way we were,Can it be that it was all so simple then,Or has time rewritten every line,If we had the chance to do it all again,Tell me, would we, could we.
Memories may be beautiful and yet,What's too painful to remember,We simply choose to forget,So it's the laughter we will remember,Whenever we remember the way we were,The way we were. |