新视野大学英语2 Unit8.doc

Unit 8Section APre-reading ActivitiesFirst ListeningPlease listen to a short passage carefully and prepare to answer some questions.Second ListeningListen to the tape again. Then answer the following questions with your own experiences.1) How do young students and older teachers see the role of education differently?2) What is quality of life and how can it be improved?3) According to the writer, what must educators prepare students for?Theres a Lot More to Life than a JobIt has often been remarked that the saddest thing about youth is that it is wasted on the young.Reading a survey report on first-year college students, I recalled the regret, If only I knew then what I know now.The survey revealed what I had already suspected from informal polls of students both in Macon and at the Robins Resident Center: if it (whatever it may be) wont compute and you cant drink it, smoke it or spend it, then it holds little value.According to the survey based on responses from over 188,000 students, todays college beginners are more consumeristic and less idealistic than at any time in the seventeen years of the poll.Not surprising in these hard times, the students major objective is to be financially well off. Less important than ever is developing a meaningful philosophy of life. Accordingly, today the most popular course is not literature or history but accounting.Interest in teaching, social service and the humanities is at a low, along with ethnic and womens studies. On the other hand, enrollment in business programs, engineering and computer science is way up.Thats no surprise either. A friend of mine (a sales representative for a chemical company) was making twice the salary of college instructors during her first year on the job — even before she completed her two-year associate degree.Ill tell them what they can do with their (music, history, literature, etc.), she was fond of saying. And that was four years ago; I tremble to think what shes earn