Vocabulary Challenge 5: https://tw.voicetube.com/everyday/20190417
心智圖詞彙攻略: ericvocab.com
Script:
Hello, VoiceTubers! Welcome to today’s pronunciation and academic vocab challenge! My name is Eric, your resident English teacher, and I am here to discuss how social media is changing your brains.
Now, what exactly is social media? 究竟社交媒體是什麼？
Social media is defined as websites and applications that enable users to create and share content or to participate in social networking online.
就是用戶可以在線創建和共享內容或參與社交活動的網站和應用程序。
Some examples are Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp, WeChat, Instagram.
Do you think the advantages of social media outweigh the disadvantages?
您認為社交媒體的利大於弊嗎？
Could you imagine living life without Facebook? How about without smartphones? Hmm…it might not be so bad. Social media has transformed the way we live, and for better or worse, it’s here to stay, at least for the time being. For me, it’s like any tool or piece of technology. It can be extremely useful if you are careful and use it in moderation.
What are some words when you think of social media?
Communication? lots of information? fake news?
溝通？很多信息？假新聞？
So, let’s jump into our sentence of the day:
Increased multi-tasking online reduces your brain’s ability to filter out interferences, and can even make it harder for your brain to commit information to memory.
增加的線上作業會阻礙大腦過濾干擾資訊，甚至難以記住重要訊息。
So let’s read that a bit slower:
Increased multi-tasking online / reduces your brain’s ability to filter out interferences, / and can even make it harder for your brain / to commit information to memory.
Faster
Increased multi-tasking online / reduces your brain’s ability to filter out interferences, / and can even make it harder for your brain / to commit information to memory.
So we talked about sentence stress, word stress, and stress-timing and the rhythm of English (Rhythm is the relationship between stressed and unstressed syllables).
所以我們談到了句子重音，單詞重音，重音計時語言和英語的節奏（節奏是重音音節和非重音音節之間的關係）。
Today’s let’s talk about thought groups (英語句子意群/字組).
A thought group is a group of approximately two to five words that form a unit of meaning. A thought group could also be called a phrase. The following sentence has three thought groups:
The English language uses thought groups / for clear communication.
How can we separate thought groups in long sentences?
In writing, punctuation marks tell us where to pause (comma, period, semicolon, colon). We also pause when there are (). Commas are short pauses, periods indicate a full stop.
Grammar also tells us when to pause. You can pause after grammatical units like noun phrases (the outstanding student), verb phrases (study diligently, has been studying), prepositional phrases (with his friends), clauses (after school ends each day, who is Eric’s student).
These are guidelines, thought groups are just groups of words that express one idea.
After school ends each day,/ the outstanding student/ studies diligently with his friends/ in the library.
So let’s try this with our sentence. 所以用我們的句子試試看
If you pause after every word, it would be like this
Increased / multi-tasking / online / reduces / your brain’s ability / to filter / out interferences, / and / can even make it harder for your brain / to commit information to memory.
You should break up your speech into chunks and collocation and knowledge of grammar can help you do this. Next time, we will work on thought groups and then talk about intonation (語調), the rise and falls in your speech, or the music of language.
Increased multi-tasking online / reduces your brain’s ability to filter out interferences, / and can even make it harder for your brain / to commit information to memory.
Now you can pause at appropriate places but what you do not want to do in speaking assessments is paused after every word to search for language/vocabulary. It is fine to search for topic related content as long as you do NOT search for too long.
心智圖詞彙攻略: ericvocab.com
Hmm…so last week, we talked about how to think critically and tell the difference between real and fake news.
This week, let’s talk about social media.
The rise of (…的興起) social media has removed the physical barrier (物理障礙; 消除距離的障礙) between individuals of similar interests and allow them to have a common ground (共同點) for interaction.
Social media also serves to reinforce confirmation bias (加強確認偏誤). Once you’ve found your friends on Facebook, they share their news, gossip, and discoveries with you. This can be a source of serendipitous discovery (意外的發現) but it can serve as an echo chamber (回聲室; 回音室), slowly persuading you that everyone views the world the way you do, because the people you know on Facebook share your prejudices and views (偏見和看法). Hence, it should be the aim of social networks such as Facebook to help users broaden their perspectives by listening to a different set of (另外一組; 不同的) views than what they typically encounter in their daily lives.
So, what do you think? Do you think social media reinforces confirmation bias?
您認為社交媒體加強了確認偏見嗎？利大於弊嗎？
Do the advantages outweigh the disadvantages? Please do discuss. One way that we might reduce confirmation bias is to step out of our comfort zone and receive information that does not always agree with us. In the vocab and academic knowledge class I hope to open up with VT, I aim to provide you with diverse knowledge across a wide variety of domains that you might or might not agree with. Feel free to join!
OK, now, let’s go back to English learning and over some additional words:
| Word | Form |
| 1. psychological
relating to the human mind and feelings 心理的；心理學的 psychological problems 心理問題 We are concerned with the physical and psychological well-being of our employees. 我們關心員工的身心健康。 |
(adj.) |
| 2. addiction
a strong desire to do or have something regularly the need to take a harmful drug regularly, without being able to stop 沉溺；成癮；上癮；入迷 drug /alcohol addiction have an addiction to alcohol be addicted to many people are addicted (adj) to Experts fear the game could lead to gambling addiction. 專家擔心這場比賽可能導致賭博成癮。 |
(n.) |
| 3. stimulation
an action or thing that causes someone or something to become more active or enthusiastic, or to develop or operate 刺激；激勵；興奮作用 intellectual stimulation 智力激發 intense stimulation 強烈的刺激 You don’t get any intellectual stimulation in this boring job. |
(n.) |
| 4. multitasking
good at multitasking He is very good at multitasking so he can finish a lot of work quickly. 他非常擅長同時兼顧多件事情，所以他可以迅速地成很多工作。 |
(n.) |
| 5. phenomenon
something that exists and can be seen, felt, tasted, etc., especially something unusual or interesting （尤指不尋常的或有趣的）現象 natural/historical/social phenomenon 自然/歷史/社會現象 Gravity is a natural phenomenon. 重力是一種自然現象。 |
(n.) |