新编大学英语4口语话题

第一单元:

Discussion:

1.How do College Students Spend Their Leisure Time?

2.What are the most active and most passive activities people do?

3.My Favorite Pastime

Questions:

1.What is your favorite film?

2.What kind of role does humor play in our daily life?

3.How do people spend their holidays nowadays?

4.What’s your plan for the coming summer holiday?

5.Do you think humor is a key to getting along with others? Explain your answer.

6.Talk about the book you read recently.

第二单元：

Discussion:

1.Is writing better than calling? Give your reasons.

2.Words I will never forget. (Power of words)

Questions:

1.Talk about the sentence that moved you the most.

2.Talk about the sentence that encouraged you the most.

3.What is the function of dialect? Should dialect be replaced by Mandarin?

I think Mandarin is more useful. There are around 80 completely different dialects in China. If we don’t learn Mandarin, we may find it hard or even impossible to communicate with people from different parts of China. For example, last semester most of our classmates had a hard time in math class because the math teacher had so strong an accent that it prevented us from understanding his lecture. To some of us, his strong accent not only meant a lot of inconvenience but also led to our failure in the final.

4.Talk about the power of words of encouragement.

5.Do you think people need encouragement and praise? Why or why not?

6.Do you often send or receive from your friends letters or notes? How do you feel when you

send or receive them?

Sample 1：I usually send or receive letters to or from my parents once a month. I have many friends and classmates and we write each other letters. I am very happy when I receive their letters, and can’t wait to read them. Sometimes I can’t help laughing while reading because they tell me a joke or describe something interesting in the letter. After I send a letter, I will wait anxiously for a reply. I hope they enjoy my letters too, for I want to make them feel good.

Sample2：There is no doubt that people need encouragement and praise. All of us would like to feel needed and admired. If we didn’t hear any words of encouragement or praise, how could we know that we were valued by people close to us? Besides, when I fail to do something successfully, I’ll feel depressed. If someone can comfort or console me at this moment, and give

me encouragement, they’ll probably make a big difference in my life. On the other hand, if I can encourage or cheer my friend. I’ll feel good about myself. So encouragement actually benefits people on both sides.

第三单元：

讨论话题同网络课堂布置的

Questions:

1.Is it true with Chinese students that boys do better in math and science, while girls have

better verbal and reading skills? Expain your answer.

Sample 1

Yes, I think so. As far as I know, most boy students in China do better in math and science. It is fully demonstrated by the number of boy students who have won prizes in the Olympic Science Contests and by the ratio of boy students to girl students in science departments in colleges and universities.

Sample 2

I don’t think I can answer the question by a simple “yes”or “no”.

With more girls receiving higher education and going to graduate school, it won’t be difficult to find girls who are really good in math and science courses. As we can see in our university, there are quite a few female math professors and also female professors specialized in science and engineering. Besides, many boys are found to have developed excellent language and reading skills.

2.Can you think of any ways in which Chinese culture affects gender roles?

Chinese culture also has stereotyped gender roles. Boys and girls are taught and expected to behave differently from each other both at home and at school. If they don’t fit into traditional gender mold, girls are said to be like boys and boys like girls. The following are the ways that culture or education affects gender roles.

Sample

Boys and girls are provided with different kinds of toys to play with: dolls and pretty things are for girls while toy cars and guns are for boys.

Sample

Boys are expected to play outdoors and girls, in most cases, indoors.

Sample

Girls are expected to be clean and neat, and well dressed and boys should be strong and tough, and can deal with difficulties

Sample

Males, especially in the country, are expected to be better educated than females and they should be more career-oriented to support the family and females are expected to support their husbands. There’s an old saying “having no skills and intelligence is a good virtue of women.”

Sample

Women are expected to be quiet and shy while men are expected to be powerful and more aggressive.

Sample

Women are expected to take good care of their children and do most of the housework while men are expected to be successful in their careers

Sample

Women are expected to go home immediately after work while men may get back late in the evening after having dinner with their friends or colleagues.

3.If you had to choose between a single-sex class and a co-educational one, which one would

you prefer to be taught in?

A single-sex class is more preferable because 1) when boys are not around, we can have more opportunities to express ourselves / when girls are around, there are too many distractions;

2) there wouldn't be sex-biased education;

3) each gender’s strength and weakness can be considered accordingly.

A co-educational class is preferable because 1) some students become bolder in the company of students of the opposite sex;

2) it would be boring to have only boys or only girls in class;

3) the outside world consists of two genders and we should prepare ourselves for that.

4.What are the characteristics of the ideal wife and the ideal husband?

5.In what ways do people see women and men as different?

Sample:Most people think that women are more emotional and more compassionate than men. They are also viewed as better listeners and better able to do many things at once. Most of us believe women have better “people skills”.

We all think that men have a more aggressive nature. They are also more willing to take risks than women. All of the girls in our group believe that men are self-centered.

6.Work out for your teacher a list of suggestions for avoiding gender bias in the

classroom.

Use inclusive language. “Y ou guys”may be a popular way of addressing groups, but it’s an example of gender bias.

—Use examples that are gender balanced. If there are none in your textbooks, do some research to find some.

— Search books, posters and other instructional materials for gender balance.

— Try to put girls and boys in non-traditional situations, such as the placement of girls first in this sentence. Isn’t it normally boys, then girls?

Make the classroom atmosphere one where both girls and boys are

encouraged, questioned and reinforced.

—Actively integrate groups by not allowing self-segregation.

—Never use gender to group students.

第四单元

Discussion：

1.How can schools and parents encourage students’ creativity both at school and at home?

2.Try to compare the educational styles in China and America in terms of cultivating

creativity.

Questions:

1.What is creativity according to the text?

Creativity is the matter of using the resources one has to produce original ideas that are good for something. That is to say, one can think and solve problems in a new and original way based on his previous knowledge.

2.Which should be emphasized in education, knowledge or creativity?

Both are equally important, and no system should only emphasize one. Knowledge involves facts and information which are essential, but creativity allows you to do original things with your knowledge. If I had to emphasize one, I would choose creativity since it is more important than facts and figures which are useless if not to be applied to solve problems.

3.Did your parents ever let you make decisions when you were very young? What do you think of your parent’s practice?

No. They made the decision and I obeyed. If I did not obey, I would be punished. They meant well and wanted to teach me the right moral values and ways of behavior so that I wouldn’t make mistakes. But sometimes, I think they should have let me explore the world and discover things. I think that children are clever enough to think for themselves and should be encouraged to make their own decision. And they won’t feel uneasy or at a loss when their parents are not around.

Y es. My parents, especially my father, favor a more democratic style of parenting. They seldom try to impose their own opinions on me and most of the time they let me make decisions on my own. Sometimes I even make painful and important decisions. For instance, as for the university I should enter and the major I should choose, I discussed these with them several times.

I knew they’d like me to stay in my hometown, but they never told me this when they learned that I had decided to enter XX University. That’s why I’m here, in the university of my own choice.

4.Did your parents allow you to speak to guests who came to your house? How did you feel if you were not allowed to?

Y es. I could talk freely with the guests of our family, especially when the visitors were our relatives or close friends of my parents. It doesn’t mean I joined them all the time. I talked with them only about topics I knew about or I was interested in. If I had not been allowed to speak to them, I would have felt like a little child or an outsider even though I was not really young, and I would not have felt like part of the family.

No, they never did. They maintained that what adults were talking about was none of a child’s business. And they also thought it was impolite for a child “to interfere with” adults’ business. So I was never allowed to be involved in their conversation. I felt I was neglected. In order to capture their attention, I deliberately became mischievous. As you can imagine, this kind of behavior brought about even worse situations on me.

5. Do you agree with the author in saying “creativity is not something one is just born with, nor is it necessarily a characteristic of high intelligence”? Give your reasons.

Sample1:I quite agree. Creativity is never a personal quality inherited from one’s parents. Rather, it’s cultivated as one grows up. His accumulated life experiences help in this process, so does the flexibility his parents allow him in letting him do what he likes. Second, high intelligence by no means equals creativity. A person of high intelligence may have exceptionally good memorizing and understanding abilities, but he doesn’t necessarily have good thinking skills. He may think in a conventional way.

Sample 2:Sometimes I think creativity depends more on nature than on nurture. Most of us get the same education, yet we do not have the same level of creativity. I’d say some are really creative and others are not creative at all. How can we account for this phenomenon? Only nature is the answer.

第五单元：

Discussion

1.Do you consider star athletes good role models for young people? Give reasons.

2. The Athletes I Admire Most/ The sports I like most

Questions:

1.Nowadays, star athletes have not only acquired fame but also made a l ot of money. Do you think star athl etes really d eserve what they have got?

Athl etes train very hard. The intensity is beyond what we can imagine. They get up very early in the morning and have a very vigorous training regime no matter how col d or hot it is. Coaches can be very harsh. In fact, very few athl etes can get good results in worl d-class competitions. What’s more, their sports life is comparatively short compared with pop stars, who d on’t train as hard as athl etes, but earn more and are popular for a l onger period of time. I d on’t think that’s fair. So in my opinion, star athl etes d eserve what they get.

I d on’t think they d eserve what they get. Most jobs involve st rict t raining and are chall enging too, but few peopl e can make as much money as star athl etes d o. For exampl e, scientists spent time and money to get a good education, and they have to work very hard to be abl e to make achievements in different areas. Now think about what they get. They can never be as popular as star athl etes and their income means nothing as compared with athl etes. It’s really unfair.

2.What are the most important qualities an athlete needs?

●have great athletic skills;

●be honest;

●have strong willpower;

●be loyal to his team;

●be cooperative with his teammates;

●have a great sense of responsibility;

●be self-confident;

●be courageous;

●respect people, especially those who help him train

3.Do you participate in any sports in your spare time? If yes, what are they? And

how do you benefit from them? If not, what reasons would you give for not participating in any sports?

My favo rite sport is jogging, because it costs no money and needs no equipment. It’s very convenient and can be done anytime and anywhere. While jogging I can enjoy the fresh air outside, and it is good for my health. It is a great pleasure to jog around the West Lake.

Y es, I participate in quite a few sports activities. I love football and I am on the department team. I also enjoy rowing and have participated in several boat races on West Lake. I took part in the table tennis tournament last year and played a few matches. Jogging is my favorite sport. I jog as much as I can, and plan to enter a winter marathon race some day when I’m ready. I love competitions and enjoy competing with other students. Sports are fun and they make me feel better and keep me fit.

4.According to Malone, why do some athletes not want to be role models?

Some athletes don’t want to be role models because they’d like to have more privacy and freedom. They don’t want to be watched by the public all the time. Another reason is that people expect too much, and want perfection. But it is impossible to achieve that. So they don’t want to be role models, nor do they like too much pressure in their lives.

5.In your opinion, is it right for the public to watch star athletes constantly? Give reasons.

I don’t think it’s right, because athletes are humans, just like us. They, too, need privacy. They, too, will make mistakes. If they are constantly being watched by the public or exposed to the mass media, they will be driven crazy. Life will become hell. It is unfair to them. Star athletes are not saints, and will make mistakes sometimes. If the mass media expose everything they do, they will feel tense and pressured.

第六单元：

Discussions:

1.why people would like to take risks.

2.In a normal day, what are the three riskiest things you do?

1.What should we do to manage risk in ordinary life?

One way to manage risk in ordinary life is through rational planning. By considering alternatives and balancing the greatest or most likely risks against the greatest or most likely rewards, we can often make better decisions and give greater consideration to long-term outcomes. By always having a contingency plan in case our main plan fails, we can usually avoid catastrophes. But planning takes effort, and we must balance this effort against the pleasure of doing things spontaneously because they are not very important or not very risky, and plan other things carefully because they are very important or very risky.

2.What are some of the negative effects of technology on our health?

The negative effects of technology on health include: water/air/environmental pollution; more dangerous chemicals; increased amounts of garbage; increased rates of cancer and other deadly diseases; more stress and tension because the pace of life is faster.

3.Are environment risks worth taking? Explain your answer.

Y es, some risks are necessary to take for China to become more developed and to improve living conditions and material comfort for her people.

Do you think people have interfered too much in the environment?

Y es, Global warming is an example; the climate is changing all over the world; there have been many natural disasters; the oceans are polluted and fish populations have been affected; species of plants and animals are decreasing.

4.How can we balance economic development and environment protection?

There should be more regulations to control environmental damage. Foreign companies

should not be allowed to do things in China that they are not allowed to do in their own countries. Schools should have more courses on the environment so that young people become better informed. If the environment is seriously polluted, young people won’t be able to live long and contribute as much as they wish.

5.Why do most people fear airplane accidents more than car accidents?

Even though fewer people die in air crash than in car accidents, people feel far less secure in the air than on the ground, perhaps because airplane crashes are almost always fatal. If you are in an airplane crash, you will die most probably, but you might not be killed in a car accident. Besides we are still more used to cars than airplanes.