Another session behind the microphone today.
One of the dispiriting things about this work (one of the many) is how many glimpses it gives you of the relentless indoctrination that goes on in teaching materials here.
Today I was struck by one of the simplest - and perhaps most benign, but still a tad discomfiting - examples.
It is very common, especially in the lower-level texts such as the one we were reading today, to set up a simple antithesis in a two-line dialogue, or even a single sentence, in order to spoonfeed a straightforward answer to a listening comprehension question.
Hence:
"I like hamburgers. Susan likes dumplings."
"David is good at football. Tom prefers to play basketball."
Prompting gimme questions like "Who likes basketball?" or "Does Susan like hamburgers?"
But today we got one that went:
"Jill likes China. Judy likes China too."
I can't work out what the question would have been!
4 comments:
Well, no, I suppose it must have been something like:
Q: "Do they both like China?"
A: "Of course they do! Who doesn't like China?!"
Unless of course that line could be read (heard) as "Judy likes China 2." A coded reference to the ROC??
Have I been involved in an anti-harmonious recording without even realising it??!!
I'm going with option 2. ;)
Yes, Judy has now been taken into custody, and is undergoing re-education for her 'splittist' and unpatriotic tendencies.
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