2026年10月31日 星期六
2026年10月30日 星期五
2026年10月29日 星期四
2.2
“I was actually walking by one day. I looked over and I see ping pong balls in the air. I said, ‘Wow. Tables.’”
“Welcome to Bryant Park.”
New York city. It’s one of the busiest cities in the world. And at Bryant Park, some New Yorkers have a new way to bond—over ping pong.
“See ya!”
“I take the bus to the train, and then the train to another train just to get here.”
“Bryant Park has a nice New York type of atmosphere. All walks of life, and all the ping pong players come from all over the world to play at this park.”
“Behind each individual, there’s a story. As I got to know these people, it was fascinating for me to find out what they went through, and everything led to this place. And it made me feel, like, I’m not the only one, you know?”
The tables at Bryant Park attract all kinds of interesting people. Who are some of them?
“Maybe Darren. He might be the funniest guy in the park. He always has something clever to say. “Darren’s a real open guy. He’ll laugh and joke with everybody. Always comes and feeds everybody, always goes to Jack’s, buys a bunch of sodas and stuff.”
“We have Tyrone, which we call him crazy. Sometimes he brings a wood paddle. Just a piece of wood, though.”
“I like to say when I’m playing really hard, I’m tough to beat… with my block of wood.”
“Wally Green? As far as I know, he’s a professional table tennis player.”
“When you think you’re good, you look at someone like Wally and realize… you have a far way to go.”
“There’s another character, his name is Sergio. He’s… I don’t know how old he is, but he’s got to be past 70. Sergio’s a real attack player. If you give him a high ball, he will smash it and smash it and smash it…”
“There’s a gentleman by the name of Gregory.”
“Gregory is the rock of the park. He’s always there. You can trust him to be here.”
“He’s kind of like the boss. You don’t really know it, but he’s kind of like the boss of the tables.”
“I’m kind of an undercover guy because I do play pro tour for the USA and a lot of times, I don’t want to tell anybody. It’s usually the other guys saying, ‘Yo, yo, yo. You see that guy right there? That guy’s a top player in the US.’”
Wally Green plays table tennis for the US. He owns the company that built the ping pong tables in Bryant park.
“Most people don’t know that I’m responsible, or my company is responsible for these tables. It makes me feel amazing. I mean, the fact that people are playing every day, people are loving it, there’s tournaments… So the whole point of bringing it here wasn’t in vain.”
2.1
2.1
Max Lowe is a National Geographic Explorer. He travels the world and tells the stories of the people he meets through photographs. But how did Max become an explorer? And did he always want to be a photographer?
“No, a long time ago actually, I wanted to be an airplane pilot. But in high school, I started writing and taking lots of photos. That’s when I fell in love with photography. At that time, I wanted to become a journalist. When I graduated from high school, my parents gave me my first digital camera.”
Family is very important to Max.
“My father was my hero during my childhood. He died when I was 12 years old, but he continues to inspire me. My mother is also my hero. She is the one who introduced me to the outdoors. My mother re-married, so my adopted father is also my hero. He’s always very supportive of me.”
Track 2.1
ERIC: Hi, Cassie! How was your vacation? I really missed you!
CASSIE: Me too. Mexico was amazing! And I met some great people there, too. Here, let me show you a photo.
ERIC: Are these the people you texted me about?
CASSIE: Yeah, they are. That’s Oscar on the left, in the striped shirt.
ERIC: Cool. And which one is Miguel?
CASSIE: He’s the one wearing a yellow sweater. He’s kind of quiet, but he’s always smiling.
ERIC:He looks nice. Which one is Veronica?
CASSIE:She’s the one who’s listening to music on her phone. The one in red. She’s super fun to be around.
ERIC: Ah, I see. And what about Christina, the one you met at the train station?
CASSIE: Oh, she’s the one who’s walking behind Miguel, in the long black boots. She’s really helpful! She helped me get my train ticket back to the airport.
ERIC: Nice. And who’s that in the gray sweater?
CASSIE: Oh, that's Bruno. I think he’s laughing at a joke Miguel just told. It was in Spanish, so I didn’t understand! He’s pretty easygoing.
2.1
2.1
Eric’s going to perform a few tricks for you and our volunteers. And while he works his magic, we want you to pay attention to his face, because it’ll be important later.
(Eric) “Do you guys like magic?”
(Volunteers) “Yeah.”
(Eric) “Watch this. Ready?”
(Eric) “For the next few tricks, I really want you to pay attention to my face—really memorize the features. Don’t let me distract you by doing things like this.”
Remember, pay attention to Eric's face. Don't let him distract you with his tricks.
(Eric) “You probably have a pretty good sense of what I look like. Now take one last look, because we're about to test you on how well you can describe my face by playing a little game.”
PART 2
2.2
We'll start with the eyes. Which pair do you think belongs to Eric? Would you say it’s A, B, C, or D? Got your answer? If you said D, you're correct.
What about his hair? Do you think the correct match is choice A, B, C, or D? If you said A, you got it right.
Now for the nose, can you tell which of these four choices belongs to Eric? Figured it out?
The correct answer is D. Okay lastly the mouth. Which smile do you think is Eric's? Got your answer? If you said B, you're correct.
How'd you do? Did you match all of the correct facial features?
UNIT 2 VIDEO GREAT FACIAL HAIR
2.3
Every year, men from all over the world take part in a competition to see who has the best facial hair.
At this competition, you can see all types of beards and moustaches – black beards, red beards, short beards with moustaches, and very long beards!
This is John. He has a beautiful thick brown beard. He had one of the best beards in the competition.
(John) “I won second place in the Alaska Grizzly Beard Competition for the Brownbear Category.”
The competition has many different categories for different styles of facial hair.
Leo has a long, curly black moustache. He travels to competitions all over the world.
This is the winner of this year’s competition—Jack Passion.
His long red beard has made him famous. He even wrote a book about it!
2026年10月20日 星期二
2026年10月19日 星期一
2026年10月14日 星期三
Video 1.2
1.2
(Kai) “I think that discipline, to me, means being able to work hard at something that you strive to achieve and staying focused on that goal, and never letting it go no matter what. You should always have that ambition and that drive to do the thing you love to do.”
(Kai) “My name is Kai Lightner and I'm 14 years old.”
(Kai’s mother) “I have no idea what got him so hooked on competition climbing.”
(Kai) “I've been competing forever. I competed at my first nationals in 2007.”
This is Kai's coach. He says Kai was placed fourth when he competed at his first world championship.
(Kai’s coach) “He has won anything you can win in America.”
In the morning, Kai practices before he goes to school. After school, he does homework and goes to the climbing gym. He doesn't have time after school to hang out with his friends.
(Kai) “There’s not much climbing in Fayetteville.”
(Kai’s mother) “He loves the people, he loves the environment, but it’s not the same as the competition walls, or even the competition-type routes that he climbs.”
So Kai goes to the Triangle Rock Club to climb once a week. It’s about an hour and a half away from his city.
Kai also likes to climb outdoors. When climbing outdoors, he pays attention to things around him, such as the weather. It’s different from climbing indoors because conditions indoors are always the same.
(Kai) “To me, climbing is climbing no matter where it is, whether it’s outside or inside
Video 1.2
1.2
“It’s a glimpse into the center of the Earth. It’s like listening to the heartbeat of the planet.”
This is Sam Cossman. He’s at the crater of an active volcano in the island nation of Vanuatu.
“All right, so let’s use the drone to…”
Sam Cossman is an explorer and filmmaker. He’s here to record the volcano in a way that’s never been done before. He’s using drones with cameras to capture amazing close-up footage of the volcano. The drones allow Sam to take thousands of great photographs. Sam uses these photos to create first-of-their-kind 3D models of the volcano, like this one. But things don’t always go perfectly. Because of the extreme heat above the volcano, many of the drones fall into the lava and get destroyed. Sam’s job is exciting, but it’s also dangerous. There are poisonous gases, and the heat is extreme—over 500 degrees Celsius!
Sam works closely with Jeffrey Marlow, a geo-biologist. Jeffrey is searching for life in the rocks near the volcano’s lava. The lava is way too hot for things to live in, but the rocks near the lava are cooler—below 120 degrees Celsius. Jeffrey is interested in the lifeforms that live in these hot rocks. By studying these tiny lifeforms, Jeffrey hopes to learn more about how life first formed on Earth. Sam’s cameras are very important in Jeffrey’s research. They allow Jeffrey to check his work more carefully. For example, he uses the footage to check exactly where he was when he collected a rock sample. Sam’s 3D models are also useful. They allow Jeffrey to study the different layers of the volcano in detail.
Sam believes that drone videos can be used in many other areas of research. He wants to bring together the worlds of exploration, video, and science to help push the limits of discovery farther.
