词汇大师-- In Moldova, as Demand for English Grows

　　AA: I'm Avi Arditti and this week on Wordmaster: another in our recent conversations with English teachers from around the world. These are teachers I met in Seattle at the annual convention¹ of the TESOL association². TESOL stands for Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages.
Every year I ask some of the teachers I meet what it's like to teach English in their country. This week, the spotlight³ is on a former Soviet⁴ republic of four million people in Eastern Europe.

　　VIKTORIYA GALIY: "My name is Viktoriya Galiy and I am the director of the International Language Training Center in Moldova. And Moldova, it's a very small country between Ukraine and Romania. And our school has been operating since nineteen ninety-four. And we teach English -- predominantly in English, but also German, Romanian, Italian.
"And we also are going to expand and add a few more languages, like Spanish and French. And we teach English to adults, to the sixteen and older, but also we have teenagers and younger learners, like four-and-a-half through six years old.
"What it is like teaching⁵ in Moldova? Well, it is not easy, because I would say that we don't have native English speakers, teachers. That's one thing. And then another thing is it's -- the difficulty is to train our local teachers, because again we would like to be more exposed to international programs, but again we don't have those.
"But I would say that the interest [in] English is growing, and rapidly. Maybe it's because of the European Union that is out there, close to Moldova, getting closer to Moldova. But I would say mostly it's because young people, they would like to study English and go study abroad, or use English in their work in those companies that are international companies.
"Again, the interest is growing because in Moldova, the special thing about Moldova is that French was the language that people would study in schools and universities. And whenever it is something that comes up in English, so people had difficulty. And, again, now the interest is growing, and so now like French is not that popular, of course, and English is like [the] number one language."
AA: "And how much influence are you seeing of slang⁶, of American slang, from movies, from television, or maybe from e-mails, among the young people in their writing?"
VIKTORIYA GALIY: "It's huge. Absolutely huge. And especially with like small kids. Sometimes they come and they say something that the teachers do not understand and then parents say, oh, you know, we watch these cartoons, and that's why the kid picks up language from cartoons or movies rapidly. And you know we even have these workshops, like Saturday workshops for free for our students, and slang, American slang, was one of our topics, just because there is interest among students and this is something that we needed to explore."
AA: "Well, as an English teacher, how do you feel about that, when students use it? Do you teach them the proper context⁷ or when it's OK to use slang and when it's not?"
VIKTORIYA GALIY: "Of course, we have to teach slang, but within the appropriate content, right? The thing is that we are far away from that contact, as teachers. That's why -- this is one of the problems that we face. We would like to know more, to hear more about slang, and using slang in everyday speech. It's just the thing that we don't have is the opportunity every day."
AA: Viktoriya Galiy is executive⁸ director of the International Language Training Center in Chisinau, Moldova.
So far in the past few weeks, we've brought you English teachers from Iraq, Libya, the United States, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and now Moldova. These segments⁹ can all be found at our Web site. Go to voanews.com/wordmaster. And our e-mail address is [email protected]. I'm Avi Arditti.

1 convention   

n.惯例，习俗，常规，会议，大会

参考例句：

• How many delegates have checked in at the convention?大会已有多少代表报到？
• He sets at naught every convention of society.他轻视所有的社会习俗。

2 association   

n.联盟，协会，社团；交往，联合；联想

参考例句：

• Our long association with your company has brought great benefits.我方和贵公司的长期合作带来了巨大的利益。
• I broke away from the association ten years ago.我10年前就脱离了那个团体。

3 spotlight   

n.公众注意的中心，聚光灯，探照灯，视听，注意，醒目

参考例句：

• This week the spotlight is on the world of fashion.本周引人瞩目的是时装界。
• The spotlight followed her round the stage.聚光灯的光圈随着她在舞台上转。

4 Soviet   

adj.苏联的，苏维埃的；n.苏维埃

参考例句：

• Zhukov was a marshal of the former Soviet Union.朱可夫是前苏联的一位元帅。
• Germany began to attack the Soviet Union in 1941.德国在1941年开始进攻苏联。

5 teaching   

n.教学，执教，任教，讲授；(复数)教诲

参考例句：

• We all agree in adopting the new teaching method. 我们一致同意采取新的教学方法。
• He created a new system of teaching foreign languages.他创造了一种新的外语教学体系。

6 slang   

n.俚语，行话；vt.使用俚语，辱骂；vi.辱骂

参考例句：

• The phrase is labelled as slang in the dictionary.这个短语在这本字典里被注为俚语。
• Slang often goes in and out of fashion quickly.俚语往往很快风行起来又很快不再风行了。

7 context   

n.背景，环境，上下文，语境

参考例句：

• You can always tell the meaning of a word from its context.你常可以从上下文中猜出词义来。
• This sentence does not seem to connect with the context.这个句子似乎与上下文脱节。

8 executive   

adj.执行的，行政的；n.执行者，行政官，经理

参考例句：

• A good executive usually gets on well with people.一个好的高级管理人员通常与人们相处得很好。
• He is a man of great executive ability.他是个具有极高管理能力的人。

9 segments   

部分( segment的名词复数 )； 瓣； [计算机]（字符等的）分段； [动物学]节片

参考例句：

• He is eating oranges in segments. 他正在一瓣瓣地吃橘子。
• Gene cloning provides a means of purifying and propagating specific DNA segments. 基因克隆化提供了一种纯化和扩增特定DNA片段的方法。