step by step 1Lesson 14

Lesson 14 Part Ⅰ Warming-up Exercises

Lesson 14

Part Ⅰ Warming-up Exercises

A．Sentence Structure

Training Focus:

Recognizing meaningful segments: 1．prepositional phrases 2．nouns 3．verbs

Drill 1

Directions: Listen carefully. Write down the relevant segments according to the cues given. For example, if you hear “Jack went to school yesterday,” and, if the cue is “when,” just write down the word “yesterday.”

Key:

1．Harry Smith was in a department store. 2．The boy was looking for his mother. 3．He had been waiting for his mother for 10 minutes. 4．Kate and Bill went to the shop to buy a postcard. 5．They paid six pence for the stamp. 6．Peter got a postcard from Bill and Kate. 7．The small package contains 20 airmail stamps. 8．The postage rate was high in the early nineteenth century. 9．John wanted to send his letter by airmail. 10．Sometimes the mail was delayed because of bad weather.

Drill 2

Directions: Listen carefully. Write down the sentences you hear on the tape.

Key:

1． There's some milk in the fridge. 2． They're writing some letters. 3． Jack's going to see the new play next week. 4．Have they had their holiday ? 5．He went to France last year, but he hasn't been there this year.

B．Difficult Sentences

Directions: You are going to hear some sentences chosen from the comprehension material in this lesson. Complete the sentences with what you hear on the tape.(see tapescript) 

Part Ⅱ John At The Post Office

Lesson 14

Ex．

Directions: Decide whether the statements are true or false.

Key: 1．F 2．T 3．F 4．T 5．T

Tapescript:

John At The Post Office (43")

John: Do you happen to know the airmail rate to Venezuela ?

Clerk: I can easily look it up. Airmail to Venezuela is 15 cents a half ounce.

John: How long does it take a letter to get there by air-mail ?

Glerk: It shouldn't take more than two or three days at most.

If a letter is going to some small town in the interior of the country, it may take a little longer.

John: How long does regular mail take ?

Clerk: Regular mail to Venezuela will take anywhere from three to four weeks. It goes by boat and the sailings are irregular. Sometimes there are also other delays caused by weather conditions, etc. 

Part Ⅲ How Did Postage Stamps Come Into Use

Lesson 14

Ex．Ⅰ

Directions: Answer the questions.

Key: (see tapescript)

Ex．Ⅱ

Directions: Fill in the blanks with the words you hear on the tape.

Key: (see tapescript)

Tapescript:

How Did Postage Stamps Come Into Use  (1′44″)

When you send a letter or a postcard, you have to put stamps on the envelope or on the card. When did people first begin to use stamps ? Who was the first to think of this idea ?

In the early nineteenth century, people did not use stamps. They had to pay postage when they received letters. They were unhappy about this, especially when they paid for a letter which they did not wish to receive at all. The postage rate was high at that time, because the post offices had to send many people to collect the postage.

Rowland Hill, a schoolmaster in England, was the first to put forward a proposal to use stamps. He thought it would be much easier for people to use stamps to cover postage. They could go to the nearby post office to buy stamps and put them on envelopes before they sent the letters. The post office could simply put seals on the stamps so that people could not use the stamps again. In this way, the post office did not need to send postmen to collect postage. It only needed to send fewer postmen to deliver letters. That was a good idea and the government finally accepted it.

On May 6, 1840, post offices throughout England began to sell stamps----“One Penny” black stamps and “Two Pence” blue stamps.