Part 3. University Life

A. Keywords.

life, American university, student body, undergraduate school, graduate school,

Vocabulary. minority, well-versed, rule of thumb, seminar.

A1. you are going to hear a lecture on university life in the U.S.

First, listen to the first part of the lecture.

Complete the outline.

Today I'd like to give you some idea about how life at an American university or college might be different for the way it is in your country.

To be sure, the student body on the U.S campus is a pretty diverse group of people.

First of all, you'll find students of all ages.

Although most students start college at around the age of 18.

You'll see students in their 30s and 40s, and even occasionally in their 60s or 70s.

Students in the U.S campus come from a wide variety of socioeconomic backgrounds.

Many students work at least part-time, and some of them work full-time.

Some of the students live in the dormitories on campus, some of them have their own apartments, usually with other students, and others live at home.

Some colleges and universities have a very diverse student population with many racial and ethnic minorities.

Some schools have a fairly large foreign students population.

So you can see that one meets all kinds of people in the U.S college or university campus.

Now you have some general idea of differences in the students body population.

I'd like to talk a few minutes about what I think an average student is, and then discuss with you what a typical class might be like.

Let's begin my talking about a average student entering his or her freshman year.

Of course, such a person never really exists.

But still it's convenient to talk about an average student for our purposes.

Foreign students are often surprised at how poorly prepared American students are when they enter a university.

Actually, at very select schools, the students are usually very well prepared.

But in less selective schools, they may not be as well-prepared as students in your country are.

Schools in the states simply admit a lot more students than is usual in most other countries.

Also, most young American university students have not travelled in other countries,

and are not very well-versed in international matters, and do not know a lot about people from other countries.

Foreign students usually find them friendly, but not very well informed about their countries or cultures.

What kind of academic experiences will this so-called average student have?

The average undergraduate student takes 5 classes a semester and is in class about 15 hours a week.

If he or she takes a class that has a laboratory, this will require two or three more hours.

Many introductory undergraduate classes are given in large lectures of 100 or more students.

However, many of these classes will have small discussion groups of 15-20 students that meet once a week.

In these smaller groups, a teaching assistant will lead a discussion do help clarify points in the lectures.

Other kinds of classes, for example, language classes will be much smaller so that the students can practice language.

In general, American professors are informal and friendly with their students.

And as much as possible, they expect and invite participation in the form of discussion.

A large amount of reading and other work is often assigned to be done outside the class.

And students are expected to take full responsibility for complete these assignments and ask questions in class about those areas they don't understand.

As a rule of thumb, students spend two to three hours preparing for each hour they spend in the class.

American professors often encourage their students to visit them during office hours, especially if the students are having problems in the class.

A2, Now listen to the second part of the lecture.

Finish the outline.

Let's move on now to discuss student obligations in a typical American class.

These obligations are usually set down in the course syllabus.

A syllabus is generally handed out to the students on the first or second class meeting.

A good syllabus will give the students a course outline that mentions all the topics should be covered in the class.

It will also contain all the assignments and the dates they should be completed by.

And an average university course of one semester might have 3 examinations or 2 examinations and a paper.

The dates of the examinations and what the examinations will cover should be on the syllabus.

If a paper is required, the date it's due should also be on the syllabus.

The professor may also decide that he or she will be giving quizzes during the semester, either announced or unannounced.

For students coming from a system where there is one examination in each subject at the end of the year, all these testing can be a little surprising at first.

Oh, by the way, maybe this would be a good place for me to mention the issue of attendance.

Another really difference in our system is our attendance policies.

Perhaps you come from a system where attendances are optional.

Generally speaking, American professors expect regular attendance and may even grade you down if you're absent a lot.

All these information should be on your syllabus. along with the professor's office number and office hours.

I have only a couple minutes left.

And I'd like to use them to talk about how graduate school is somewhat different from undergraduate school.

Of course, it's much more difficult to enter a graduate school.

And most students are high qualified and high motivated.

Students in graduate school are expected to do much more independent work than those in undergraduate school with regularly scheduled exams,etc.

Some classes will be conducted as seminars.

In a seminar class, there are may be no exams.

But students are expected to read rather widely on topics and be prepared for thorough discussion of them the class.

Another possibility in graduate classes is that in addition to readings done by all the students.

Each student may also be expected to work independently in some areas of interest.

And later make a presentation that summarizes what he or she has learned.

Usually, each student then goes on to write a paper on what he or she has researched to turn in to the professor for a grade.

I hope that today's lecture has given you some ideas about student life on an American campus.

And you have noticed some differences between our system and yours.

B. Keywords.

experiment, play with the language, testing, passive, unwillingness to make mistakes, rely on, read.

Vocabulary. peep, invariably, stick one's neck out, off one's own bat.

B1. Before you listen to the conversion, please list some of the things that a good student or a bad student will do in the classroom.

B2. Now listen to the conversion in which a teacher described the sort of things a good student or a bad student does or does not do in a classroom.

In the following chart, some facts have been given to you,

The symbol "dot cycle" stands for major points, while the symbol "white diamond" stands for the supportive details.

Complete the chart.

What I wanted to ask really was, you are a teacher, in teaching for some years now.

what would you say, how would you describe a good student or a bad student?

You know, sort of things what they do or don't do in the classroom?

Well, a good student is usually one who's not afraid to make mistake, I'd say.

Uh,hun,

And he's, er, eager to experiment with every new thing that he learns, whether it's be a structure or a function or a new word.

He immediately starts to trying to use it.

Yeah, all right.

And he's interested in mistakes he made, he's not afraid to make them.

So he is not simply interested in having it corrected and moving on?

no,no,no, He, he plays with the language.

A bad student, on the other hand, will perhaps say, "OK, I've done this chapter I know this", without trying to experiment at all, with really testing himself.

Aha,aha.

He's usually passive,he won't speak up much in the classroom and very rarely ask you why this and why not something else.

Just sort of accepts what you give him and doesn't doing anything more with it.

That's right. And in a test, he is the one person who is likely to suddenly realize that , er, Yes, he wasn't too sure about that after all.

Yeah.

And peep over at the, er, his neighbor's paper.

Oh ,yes, an alternative learning strategy.

Right. And he invariably decides that the other person is more likely to be right than themself.

I think that's ,the result of,er, this sort of, unwillingness to make mistakes and sticks his neck out.

Mm, Right, Yeah. Er, anything else?

Er? That characterizes the good or bad learner?

Er, mm, The bad learner is, wait a minute,er, the good learner is, er, well, I think he'll do more off his own bat as well, he won't rely entirely on the teacher.Mm,hm.

He'll read, He'll read books.

Mm, so work outside the classroom as well as in it.

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Students who make most progress are first of all those who experiment and secondly those who read books.