Reading, listening, speaking and writing sessions

Reading section

Part 1:

Are we losing the art of conversation?

We asked four people who watched an online talk on technology and communication by Sherry Turkle for their opinions.

The talk certainly gave me plenty of food for thought about the way we communicate these days and how technology is changing our behavior. People are constantly multitasking, whether it be emailing during meetings or texting in the checkout queue. I really believe it’s affecting the way we relate to each other and it’s not just in the workplace. Kids fade into the background as a parent’s messages at the dinner table or post on social networks during the school run. It’s as if we can’t bear to miss out on what our online buddies are up to, so we juggle the real and online world. My greatest concern is that we don’t give our brains a chance to switch off. It’s these precious moments when we actually process information that helps us make important decisions.

It was a fascinating talk and the speaker really hit the nail on the head with a couple of things. Take parental influence, for instance. How can we expect teenagers not to text while doing their homework when they witness their parents posting on social media while cooking the evening meal or waiting at a red light? She also made a valid point about people wanting to be in two or several places at once. So they switch back and forth between their real-life and online conversations. I see it all the time with my teenage daughter and her friends. They arrange to meet and then sit together in silence while each one engages in a different conversation online.

So much of what the speaker said rang true. I honestly believe there’s a danger that the more connected we are, the more isolated we feel. I don’t think this is such an issue for my generation who’ve lived without technology for so long. We know how to be alone and, more importantly, we know that it’s OK to be alone. But the under the 20s are another kettle of fish. They’re so busy communicating that they never experience the feeling of solitude and run the risk of not learning how to enjoy their own company. In addition, they’re learning conversation through messages that can be edited and changed at the expense of learning the art of real conversation in real-time with the person in front of you.

I’m not sure to what extent I agree that people are more alone, but the way we communicate has certainly evolved. We send tiny snippets of conversation or emoticons to each other and I wonder how much this actually allows us to really understand one another. This superficial conversation is replacing in-depth face-to-face interaction with its pauses, intonation, and sentiment. The speaker makes a good point about how we’re getting used to conversing with machines like Siri or robots, which are totally devoid of any experience of human life. But despite such limitations, we seem to be expecting more from technology and less from each other.

_____________________________________

Part 2:

Do you have the right mindset?

Think back to when you were in a classroom, maybe a maths classroom, and the teacher set a difficult problem. (That could have been any time between this morning and a few years ago.) Which of the two following responses is closer to the way you reacted?

A: Oh no, this is too hard for me. I’m not even going to seriously try and work it out.

B: Ah, this is quite tricky but I like to push myself. Even if I don’t get the answer right, maybe I’ll learn something in the attempt.

Early in her career, the psychologist Carol Dweck of Stanford University gave a group of ten-year-olds problems that were slightly too hard for them. One group reacted positively, said they loved a challenge and understood that their abilities could be developed. She says they had a ‘growth mindset’ and are focused on what they can achieve in the future. But another group of children felt that their intelligence was being judged and they had failed. They had a ‘fixed mindset’ and were unable to imagine improving. Some of these children said they might cheat in the future; others looked for someone who had done worse than them to boost their self-esteem.

Professor Dweck believes that there is a problem in education at the moment. For years, children have been praised for their intelligence or talent, but this makes them vulnerable to failure. They become performance-oriented, wanting to please by getting high grades, but they are not necessarily interested in learning for its own sake. The solution, according to Dweck, is to praise the process that children are engaged in: making an effort, using learning strategies, persevering and improving. This way they will become mastery-oriented (i.e. interested in getting better at something) and will achieve more.

She contends that sustained effort over time is the key to outstanding achievement.

Psychologists have been testing these theories. Students were taught that if they left their comfort zone and learned something new and difficult, the neurons in their brains would form stronger connections, making them more intelligent. These students made faster progress than a control group.

In another study, underperforming school children on a Native American reservation were exposed to growth mindset techniques for a year. The results were nothing less than staggering. They came top in regional tests, beating children from much more privileged backgrounds. These children had previously felt that making an effort was a sign of stupidity, but they came to see it as the key to learning.

Back to our original question. If you answered B, well done – you already have a growth mindset. If A, don’t worry; everyone is capable of becoming mastery-oriented with a little effort and self-awareness.

____________________

Part 3

How to be happy?

What can we do to be happy in life? How can we avoid being unhappy? Four psychologists give their advice.

A
There has been a lot of research which shows the importance of physical health in avoiding anxiety and depression. The mind and the body are highly interconnected. We can all make fairly easy changes in our lifestyle to include more exercise, healthier eating, getting enough sleep, being exposed to sunlight and so on. Research into exercise has found that it has a positive impact on mood. Physical activity stimulates the release of endorphins in the brain to produce the feel-good factor. Sleep is vitally important for children and adolescents to help concentration levels. A good night’s sleep also stops people from being bad-tempered and flying off the handle.

B
Having good relationships is a big part of being happy. In one study, most happy people were found to have strong ties to friends and family and they made sure they spent time with them regularly. You also need at least one person who you discuss personal feelings with – called ‘self-disclosure’. Just one person for a heart-to-heart is enough, together with a network of other relationships. It’s not enough to have lots of friends just to do things with or chat with about music or football. That deeper connection is all-important. Some people need to learn how to listen effectively to others in order to develop stronger relationships.

C
I would recommend being completely immersed in a pleasurable activity, sometimes called experiencing ‘flow’. The activity could be anything from doing judo to painting a picture to playing chess. Typically, the activities require a certain amount of skill and are challenging but not too challenging. If you are experiencing flow, you lose track of time and are immersed in the present moment. You find the activity rewarding for its own sake. People who spend time doing ‘high-flow’ activities feel more long-term happiness than those doing things like just lounging around or chatting online.

D
Make like Superman! Discover what your unique strengths and virtues are and then use them for a purpose that benefits other people or your community. People who play to their strengths (e.g. curiosity or persistence) or virtues (e.g. justice or humanity) and use them in different ways and in different situations are happier than those who focus more on their weaknesses. In other words, focus on the positive, not the negative, and be true to yourself. Studies in different countries have shown that people who do this report higher levels of well-being.

_______________________

Part 4

What do you know about spiders?

Spiders can be found on every continent of the planet except Antarctica. They are both hunters and hunted. They capture their prey in a variety of ways, either by spinning a web and waiting for their unsuspecting prey to fall into the trap, or jumping out of a hiding place onto a passing meal. Except for the plant-eating Bagheera Kipling, these eight-legged invertebrates are serial carnivores: most love to snack on insects while others are tempted by lizards, birds, frogs, fish, and the occasional snake. There are spiders that eat other spiders, and some female widow spiders eat their mates, even while they are mating. In turn, spiders are preyed on by lizards, birds, snakes, and scorpions as well as some insects such as the mantis and a type of wasp that buries the arachnid alive! Spiders are also eaten by humans; they are a delicacy in some cultures of the South Pacific and popular street food in South East Asia.

Spider venom is present in most species and serves the purpose of stunning or killing their prey rather than attacking humans. In fact, only 25 of the known spider species produce venom which can actually harm humans, and although spider bites can be painful, they are rarely deadly. Australia’s notorious Sydney funnel-web spider has not produced any fatalities since anti-venom was developed in 1981. However, take care not to rub hairy spiders like tarantulas up the wrong way. When they feel in danger, they defend themselves by ejecting a cloud of urticating hairs. These irritating hairs then embed themselves in the skin or eyes of the attacker.

Despite having adapted to a range of habitats and temperatures, spiders rarely stray far from their home environment. Ballooning spiders are an exception as they can migrate fairly long distances by drifting through the air with air-filled balls of silk. Spiders tend not to favor significant changes in temperature, and tropical spiders such as tarantulas prefer warm surroundings and find many European climates a little nippy. Even the ones who hitch a ride to Britain by boat or plane from the tropics don’t survive long.

Spiders can produce several different types of silk from their silk glands and nozzles, otherwise known as spinnerets. They range from stickier threads used to weave webs to capture their prey to incredibly strong threads that can support their own weight. The toughest spider silk is up to six times stronger than human bone, and that made by orb-weaver spiders is on a par with the strength of steel. In fact, some experts suggest that spider silk would be more effective than Kevlar in bulletproof vests. However, harvesting the thread on spider farms is complicated as these territorial creatures prefer their own company and could end up killing each other. Nevertheless, having studied the complex nature of spider silk, scientists have managed to replicate the resilient fibers, which has enormous potential for developing a range of things from synthetic muscle tissue to high-performance sports clothing.

Arachnophobia, or the irrational fear of spiders, is among the most common phobias in the Western world. It is thought to date back thousands of years and might be the result of an instinctive response displayed in early humans. For a long time throughout Europe, spiders were wrongly believed to spread diseases such as the plague. However, out of all the known spider species on the planet, only around 2% are actually harmful to humans. Other cultures such as Native Americans depict them in a more favorable light as they believe spiders are lucky and consider them symbols of wisdom.

__________________________________

Part 5:

Two remarkable people.

Can a person change the world? Find out about two people who have done some extraordinary things in their attempt to do just that.

Keeping an eye on the health of our seas.

You might be forgiven for thinking that Lewis Pugh is somewhat out of his mind, particularly since he once swam in water so cold at the North Pole that the cells in his fingers burst. The extreme swimmer then went on to almost drowning while swimming in a glacial lake on Mount Everest because of the thin air and more recently has become the first person to swim long distances across seven seas including the Mediterranean, the Red Sea, and the Black Sea. His motive is crystal clear: to draw the attention of politicians and leaders to the degradation of the environment, particularly our oceans, before it is too late. Lewis would like to see the number of marine protected areas in the world increased from 3 percent to 10 percent in an attempt to reverse the damage caused by human activity such as overfishing, polluting and littering. During his expeditions, Lewis has witnessed this environmental destruction first-hand. He’s swum over coral reefs bleached by the increase in water temperature, and observed underwater deserts beneath the shallow waters of the Red Sea, devoid of life and strewn with plastic. Pugh believes that nature can recover if it is given space to do so, but the clock is ticking. If we don’t start looking after our seas, we may soon have an unsolvable problem on our hands.

Hula-hooping for human rights

Wasfia Nazreen first came across a hula hoop as a young girl, when she saw a foreign child who was visiting her native Bangladesh playing with one. Wasfia reluctantly stood by and watched, as in her country it was believed that girls should not play with hula hoops or ride bikes. Now Wasfia is one of the few people in the world to have climbed the Seven Summits, including Everest and Kilimanjaro, and the first to have hula-hooped on each peak. Her reason for doing so: to empower women and girls in a country which discourages them from doing sport. Wasfia has dedicated her life to supporting human rights and has witnessed numerous international humanitarian projects in her homeland to educate and train women and girls, but once too often they have been left with nothing when such projects have stopped running. Wasfia saw that Bangladesh needed to stand up for itself and so she brought together two of her passions, mountaineering, and human rights, in order to try and change attitudes towards women in her country. She originally took up climbing while working on humanitarian campaigns in Tibet and Nepal, as in a coastal, primarily flat country like Bangladesh most people have never set eyes on a mountain. Her campaign seems to be doing the trick as fellow countrymen and women are sitting up and taking notice along with the rest of the world.

_______________________

Listening session

Part 1

Help others, help yourself

http://b779011024006a6071c1-5c160b94f727c0d27cbeccc854542bc6.r78.cf1.rackcdn.com/10_teens_-_listening_skills_practice_-_c1_-_help_others_help_yourself.mp3

___________________________

Part 2

How false information spreads?

http://b779011024006a6071c1-5c160b94f727c0d27cbeccc854542bc6.r78.cf1.rackcdn.com/10_teens_-_listening_skills_practice_-_c1_-_help_others_help_yourself.mp3

_____________________________

Part 3

How to break into the music industry?