Text one
Teaching Is "One of the Least Popular Jobs in the UK"
(1) The UK government has just published a report on the future of secondary-school teaching (pupils aged 11-16), and the conclusion of the report is that many secondary schools now face great difficulties in finding people who want to be teachers, Since the 1980s, the number of graduates who say they would "seriously consider" teaching as a career has fallen sharply,from 64% in 1982 to just 17% today. The report suggests that urgent action needs to be taken in order to encourage more intelligent young graduates into teaching.
(2) The main drawback of secondary teaching according to the report, is the low salary. Earnings in teaching are much lower than in many other jobs, and this means that fewer and fewer young people decide to be teachers. Joanne Manners,24, is a good example: "I graduated in maths last year, and I was thinking of doing a teacher-training course to become a maths teacher -- but when I looked into the details, it became clear that teaching isn't very lucrative(賺錢的) job these days. I saw I could earn twice as much if I worked in marketing or advertising, and so I decided not to become a teacher."
(3) It's not just about the money, however. The survey concluded that another reason why people don't want to be teachers is that some teenagers behave very badly in school. A lot of schools have problems with discipline, and it seems clear that children do not have the same respect for teachers as in the past. Here's the view of Dave Hallam, an account from London, "I think parents are to blame. They should have stricter rules with their children at home and also teach their children to have more respect for teachers,"
(4)"I love teaching; it's my passion. I've been a secondary-school teacher of Spanish for ten years now, and although it's a very demanding job, it's very satisfying. When I see my students passing their Spanish exams, or singing along to Spanish pop songs, it makes me feel so proud," says Brian Jones, who works in a secondary school in London. So what does he think the government should reduce the burden of work on teachers, "I find that I always have too much work to do."
(5) The report is clear that the problem of teacher shortage is a very serious one. It says that the government should raise teachers' pay significantly, to catch up with workers in other professions. It also suggests that the government could launch a nationwide publicity campaign, with some advertisements on TV and in the newspapers, to show the positive sides of teaching to young people. Another solution could be set a maximum number hours per week that teachers can work, in order to reduce stress on teachers. "Hopefully," the report concludes, "these solutions can improve the poor image of secondary teaching, and increase the number of young people who want to become teachers in the future."
23. Paragraph 1 __________
24. Paragraph 2__________
25. Paragraph 3 __________
26. Paragraph 4 __________
A. Students' bad behavior and lack of discipline
B. Improvement of children behavior
C. Heavy workload on teachers
D. The problem of low salary
E. A report on teacher shortage
F. A nationwide publicity campaign
27. More and more young people are held back from teaching __________.
28. Parents are encouraged to back the teacher up when there are ___________.
29. The government should reduce the workload on teachers to ease__________.
30. The government should promote teaching as a career by advertising __________.
A. its benefits
B. their childhood memories
C. their stress
D. more training
E. discipline problems
F. because oflow pay
Text two
The Storyteller
(1) Steven Spielberg has always had one goal: to tell as many great stories to as many people as will listen. And that's what he has always been about. The son of a computer scientist and a pianist, Spielberg spent his early childhood in New Jersey and, later, Arizona. From the very beginning, his fertile imagination filled his young mind with images that would later inspire his filmmaking.
(2) Even decades later, Spielberg says he has clear memories of his earliest years, which are the origins of some of his biggest hits. He believes that E.T. is the result of the difficult years leading up to his parent's 1966 divorce, "It is really about a young boy who was in search of some stability in his life." "He was scared of just about everything," recalls his mother, Leah Adler. "When trees brushed against the house, he would head into my bed. And that's just the kind of scary stuff he would put in films like Poltergeist."
(3)Spielberg was 11 when he first got his hands on his dad's movie camera and began shooting short flicks about flying saucers and World War II battles. Spielberg's talent for scary storytelling enabled him to make friends. On Boy Scout camping trips, when night fell, Spielberg became the center of attention. "Steven would start telling his ghost stories," says Richard Y. Hoffman Jr.,leader of Troop 294, "and everyone would suddenly get quiet so that they could all hear it."
(4) Spielberg moved to California with his father and went to high school there, but his grades were so bad that he barely graduated. Both UCLA and USC film schools rejected him, so he entered California State University at Long Beach because it was close to Hollywood.
Spielberg was determined to make movies, and he managed to get an unpaid, non-credit internship (實習) in Hollywood. Soon he was given a contract, and he dropped out of college. He never looked back.
(5) Now, many years later, Spielberg is still telling stories with as much passion as the kid in the tent. Ask him where he gets his ideas, Spielberg shrugs. "The process for me is mostly intuitive(憑直覺的 ) ," he says. "There are films that I feel I need to make, for a variety of reasons, for personal reasons, for reasons that I want to have fun, that the subject matter is cool, that I think my kids will like it. And sometimes I just think that it will make a lot of money, like the sequel (續集) to Jurassic Park."
