【话匣子英语】采访裴拉

 今天安德鲁采访的是裴拉，裴拉今天给我们介绍了一本书......

Andrew: Today we are very happy to have Paula Massadas Pereira here with us on Culips. Today we’ll talk with Paula about her book, How I Learned¹ English: The Story of a Brave Mexican Girl.

Paula, hello. Welcome to the Culips podcast.

Paula: Hello, Andrew. How are you?

Andrew: I’m very good. How are you?

Paula: I’m fine. I’m very happy to be interviewed by you today.

Andrew: Awesome², thanks. Well, we’ll get right to the interview and my first questions is, could you please tell us about your book, your new book? What is the story about?

Paula: Sure. Well, the book is about a Mexican girl who moves to the United States searching for a better life. It describes the challenges that she faces not only to learn English, but also to adjust to a new culture, new housing³, new friends, new school, and so many other things that immigrants⁵ usually go through when they go to another country.

Andrew: OK, very interesting. So who is the target audience? Is this a book for everybody? Is it a book for kids, teenagers?

Paula: Well, it’s funny because the book was written with the adult ESL students in mind, but I was surprised when I realized that other schools are interested in reading my book as well. There are several parents who also want to read the book with their children, because the book talks about issues related⁶ to immigration. So it looks like the parents also want to educate their children with issue related to immigration in general.

Andrew: Hmm, yeah, that would make sense. I guess if you were an immigrant⁴ and you had children, you would want to teach them about that immigrant experience. Maybe it’s something that the children couldn’t relate to, but is very important in the parents’ life.

Paula: That’s right.

Andrew: Hmm, cool. So, the reason why I wanted to get you on the Culips podcast is because this book is specifically⁷ written for English-language learners. How can people use this to learn English?

Paula: Well, I believe that the book was written with very basic English structure. That was the idea when I wrote it. I didn’t want to overwhelm⁸ the reader with words that they did not understand, so I was very cautious⁹ with that. And there are reading comprehension questions at the end of the book that gets the readers engaged with what happened with the main character of the book—her name is Claudia Sanchez—and they also think about their own journeys as immigrants. So that’s a very interesting aspect of the book. There are vocabulary questions at the end, so it kind of forces the readers to investigate words that they don’t know, so they can expand their vocabulary more.

Andrew: Very nice. Yeah, I like this way of studying with a book, right. It’s not just read the book and close it and move on but when there’s comprehension questions and some vocabulary activities, you can really make the most out of your reading experience.

Paula: That is true, and in many schools, students are writing essays about their own lives or sometimes they’re doing presentations about their own journeys in front of the entire class. And that’s a way to get the students to read a book and also practice their writing skills and their speaking skills at the same time.

1 learned   

adj.有学问的，博学的；learn的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• He went into a rage when he learned about it.他听到这事后勃然大怒。
• In this little village,he passed for a learned man.在这个小村子里，他被视为有学问的人。

2 awesome   

adj.令人惊叹的，难得吓人的，很好的

参考例句：

• The church in Ireland has always exercised an awesome power.爱尔兰的教堂一直掌握着令人敬畏的权力。
• That new white convertible is totally awesome.那辆新的白色折篷汽车简直棒极了.

3 housing   

n.房屋，住宅；住房建筑；外壳，外罩

参考例句：

• Do you think our housing sales will turn around during this year?你认为今年我们的住宅销路会好转吗？
• The housing sales have been turning down since the summer.入夏以来，房屋的销售量日趋减少。

4 immigrant   

adj.(从国外)移来的，移民的；n.移民，侨民

参考例句：

• Life in the USA was very hard for almost every new immigrant.美国的生活几乎对每一个新移民都很艰难。
• I'd like to obtain some information about applying for an immigrant visa.我想取一些申请移民签证的资料。

5 immigrants   

n.移民( immigrant的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Illegal immigrants were given the opportunity to regularize their position. 非法移民得到了使其身份合法化的机会。
• Immigrants from all over the world populate this city. 这个城市里生活着来自世界各地的移民。 来自《简明英汉词典》

6 related   

adj.有关系的，有关联的，叙述的，讲述的

参考例句：

• I am not related to him in any way.我和他无任何关系。
• We spent days going through all related reference material.我们花了好多天功夫查阅所有有关的参考资料。

7 specifically   

adv.明确地，具体地；特别地，特意

参考例句：

• The book was written specifically for children.这本书是特地为儿童编写的。
• I told you specifically not to do that.我明确地告诉你不要那样做。

8 overwhelm   

vt.使受不了，使不知所措，征服，制服

参考例句：

• No difficulty can overwhelm us.困难压不倒我们。
• After my lecture,the students began to overwhelm me with questions.讲课之后，学生们开始问一系列问题，使我不知所措。

9 cautious   

adj.十分小心的，谨慎的

参考例句：

• We should not only be bold,but also be cautious.我们不仅要大胆，而且要谨慎。
• He was cautious about his work.他对工作非常谨慎。