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With this faith we will be able to _54___________ the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to _55__________ together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day. And this will be the day, this will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning, "My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring!" And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true. And so
let freedom ring -- from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring -- from the mighty _56__________ of New York. Let freedom ring -- from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania. Let freedom ring -- from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado. Let freedom ring -- from the curvaceous slopes of California. But not only that. Let freedom ring -- from Stone Mountain of Georgia. Let freedom ring -- from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee. Let freedom ring -- from every hill and molehill of Mississippi, from every mountainside, let _57__________ ring! And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to _58__________ that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro _59__________ "Free at last, free at last. Thank God Almighty, we are free at last." Delivered 28 August 1963, at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington D.C. 
Chapter 82 Presents Rosa Parks with Congressional Medal Honor  WHILE LISTENING
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15 June 1999 Washington, D.C. William Jefferson Clinton 
Chapter 83 Commencement Address at the College of William & Mary WHILE LISTENING
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"College is something you complete; life is something you experience" 21 May 2004 Jon Stewart Answer Key chapter 1 Got Mılk? Why Not Bank It? a.
b.
TEXT This is the VOA Special English Health Report. Money, jewels and important documents may not be the only valuables placed in banks these days. Some mothers are making deposits, or really, donations, to breast milk banks. There are ten breast milk banks across the United States. However, there are many more stations set up where mothers can donate their extra milk for other women's babies. Experts say breast milk is the best food for babies. In fact, the World Health Organization says it is the only food babies should get during the first six months of life, in most cases. Breast milk is especially important for babies born too early. Sometimes these premature babies must stay in the hospital for many weeks. 05 August 2008 chapter 2 Project Seeks Free E-Books for Colleges in DevelopIng NatIons
TEXT This is the VOA Special English Development Report. Books are a high cost of higher education. But the Global Text Project hopes to create a free library of one thousand electronic textbooks for students in developing countries. The aim is to offer subjects that students may take in their first few years at a university. The books could be printed or read on a computer or copied onto a CD or DVD. Two professors in the United States are leading the Global Text Project. Richard Watson is the acting head of the department of management information systems at the University of Georgia. And Donald McCubbrey is a professor of information technology and electronic commerce at the University of Denver, in Colorado. 16 December 2007
TEXT This is the VOA Special English Development Report. Slums are densely populated areas of housing where people live in poverty and dirty conditions. The United Nations Population Fund estimates that by two thousand twenty, a billion and a half people will live in slums. These are among the people that a group called Architecture for Humanity wants to help. Architecture for Humanity is a nonprofit organization based in California. The group provides free design and architectural services to poor communities. Cameron Sinclair is the executive director. He says Architecture for Humanity has developed a network of about four thousand architects in one hundred countries. They partner with local communities to work on projects. Cameron Sinclair says a "community design" process gives everyone an equal share in the project.
TEXT This is the VOA Special English Health Report. A panic attack is a sudden feeling of terror. Usually it does not last long, but it may feel like forever. The cause can be something as normally uneventful as driving over a bridge or flying in an airplane. And it can happen even if the person has driven over many bridges or flown many times before. A fast heartbeat. Sweaty hands. Difficulty breathing. A lightheaded feeling. At first a person may have no idea what is wrong. But these can all be signs of what is known as panic disorder. The first appearance usually is between the ages of eighteen and twenty-four. In some cases it develops after a tragedy, like the death of a loved one, or some other difficult situation. In the United States, the National Institute of Mental Health says more than two million people are affected in any one-year period. The American Psychological Association says panic disorder is two times more likely in women than men. And it can last anywhere from a few months to a lifetime. Chapter 5 Jessica Tandy, 1909-1994
TEXT VOICE ONE: I'm Shirley Griffith. VOICE TWO: And I'm Rich Kleinfeldt with the Special English program, People in America. Today, we tell the story of Jessica Tandy who died in nineteen ninety-four. She won many awards for her acting during the almost seventy years she performed. VOICE ONE: Jessica Tandy in "Driving Miss Daisy" Jessica Tandy probably is best known for winning an Academy Award in nineteen eighty-nine for the movie "Driving Miss Daisy. " She was the oldest person to have won the award. But for many years, she had received praise for her great performances. Tandy appeared in more than one hundred stage shows, twenty-five movies and on many television programs during her sixty-seven years of acting. Most of her performances were in the United States, although she did not become an American citizen until nineteen fifty-four. VOICE TWO: When did she win the Academy Award? Jessica Tandy was born in London, England in nineteen-oh-nine. Her father died when she was twelve years old. Her mother taught and took other jobs at night to make extra money for her three children. Jessica's older brothers showed an interest in the theater. They would put on shows in their London home. Jessica said later that she was terrible in all of them. But she said taking part in those plays as a child created a desire in her to be someone else. VOICE ONE: Jessica loved going to the theater. And she loved British writer William Shakespeare. Years later, she acted in many of Shakespeare's plays, with great actors like John Gielgud and Lawrence Olivier. This love of the theater led her to attend an acting school in nineteen twenty-four. When she was eighteen years old, she performed in her first play. It was called "The Manderson Girls." She did not earn enough money to pay for the five different dresses she had to wear in the play. She solved the problem by sewing them herself. chapter 6 Norway Plans to Store Seeds of ALL the World's Crops
TEXT This is Shep O’Neal with the VOA Special English Agriculture Report. The government of Norway is planning to build an unusual storage center on an island in the Arctic Ocean. The place would be large enough to hold about two million seeds. The goal is to represent all crops known to scientists. The British magazine New Scientist published details of the plan last month. The structure will be designed to protect the world’s food supply against nuclear war, climate change and other possible threats. It will be built in a mountain on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen. The mountain is less than one thousand kilometers from the North Pole, the northernmost position on Earth. An international group called the Global Crop Diversity Trust is working on the project. The director of the group, Cary Fowler, spoke to New Scientist. He said the project would let the world rebuild agriculture if, in his words, "the worst came to the worst." Norway is expected to start work next year. The project is expected to cost three million dollars. Workers will drill deep in the side of a sandstone mountain. Temperatures in the area never rise above zero degrees Celsius. The seeds will be protected behind concrete walls a meter thick and high-security doors. Chapter 7 Alcatraz Island
TEXT Alcatraz was a military prison from the late eighteen fifties until the nineteen thirties. Then it became a federal prison for the country’s worst criminals. These included murderers, bank robbers and kidnappers. One of the main reasons federal officials chose Alcatraz Island to detain these prisoners was because they thought it would be impossible for prisoners to escape. Cold, deep and dangerous waters surround the island. Also, the distance between the island and San Francisco is too far for most humans to swim. No prisoner was ever officially reported to have successfully escaped. However, in nineteen sixty-two, three men broke out of the prison. Each man worked very hard at night for many months to cut through the stone wall of his cell. They made false heads out of paper, paint and hair. On the night of June eleventh, the men placed the heads in their beds to make it look as if they were sleeping. Then, the prisoners escaped through the holes in their cells to get to the water. The men were never seen or heard from again. It is believed that they drowned while trying to swim to San Francisco. The prison closed in nineteen sixty-three because of the high cost of keeping prisoners there and the need for major repairs. The last prisoners were moved to other jails. In nineteen seventy-two, the United States Congress passed a bill creating the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Alcatraz Island and the old prison are part of this area. Each year, more than one million people visit Alcatraz to see the prisoners’ cells and listen to stories about the jail’s history. But unlike the prisoners who once lived there, visitors can escape from the prison whenever they want and return back across the harbor to San Francisco. Chapter 8 Pollution in China’s Air Creates Concern About Beijing Olympic Games
TEXT VOICE ONE: Chinese officials are making final preparations for the Beijing Olympic Games. The games will officially open on August eighth. Recently, news agencies reported about air quality problems in China's capital. Air pollution levels rose sharply in Beijing late last month. The pollution was so bad that the city's environmental protection agency warned people with breathing problems to avoid outdoor activities. Officials blamed a sandstorm for the poor air quality. VOICE TWO: Air pollution can be a serious issue for people who compete in athletic events. Some doctors have urged Olympic athletes not to train in China because it could be harmful to their health. For example, Ethiopian runner Haile Gebrselassie has the breathing disorder asthma. He has chosen not to take part in the marathon at the Beijing Olympics for health reasons. The International Olympic Committee has said it will cancel or postpone Olympic events, such as the marathon, if the air quality is too dangerous for athletes.
TEXT This is the VOA Special English Education Report. Fifty million public school children in America are starting a new school year. The number is a record high. Yet, at the same time, school systems in many areas are facing budget problems. The weak economy is not the only cause. Another reason has to do with increased prices for food and fuel. They mean higher costs for school meals and bus transportation. The United States will spend more than five hundred billion dollars on public education for the coming school year. The federal government helps pay, but the responsibility for education is mostly on state and local governments. Two major sources of money for public schools are property taxes and sales taxes. A slowdown in consumer spending, the engine of the economy, means fewer goods to tax. And the collapse of the housing market means less money to collect in property taxes. Chapter 10 Portable Music Players Linked to Hearing Loss
TEXT I’m Shep O’Neal with the VOA Special English Health Report. Electronic devices are changing the way people listen to music. But studies show the devices may be causing hearing loss in many people. Some experts say people may be playing them too loud and for too long. Researchers from Zogby International did a study for the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. It involved three hundred high school students and one thousand adults. They were asked about their use of portable music devices. Some of the most popular are Apple Computer’s iPod, C.D. players and portable laptop computers. Forty percent of students and adults said they set the sound levels, or volume, at high on their iPods.
TEXT This is the VOA Special English Agriculture Report. A United Nations conference on rising food prices ended with an agreement to invest more in agriculture. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said food production needs to increase fifty percent by two thousand thirty to meet rising demand. The cost, he said, could top fifteen to twenty billion dollars a year over a number of years. About one hundred eighty countries were represented at the three-day summit meeting last week in Rome. The final declaration called for immediate support for agricultural production, including seeds, fertilizer and other supplies. It also urged countries to reduce agricultural trade barriers. The delegates nearly failed to reach a final agreement. There were objections from Latin America on trade-related issues. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization says agriculture is the main support for seventy percent of the world's poor. Chapter 12 NEW GOVERNMENT in IRAQ
TEXT This is Steve Ember with In the News in VOA Special English. Iraq now has leaders in place to take power temporarily from the coalition administration on June thirtieth. Special United Nations diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi urged Iraqis this week to support their new temporary government. The government will replace the American-appointed Iraqi Governing Council. The council dismissed itself on Tuesday so the new government could start work immediately. The government is to lead Iraq until national elections take place by the end of January. One of its aims is to increase security. The new government will seek a security agreement with the United States. Iraqi officials, American administrators and Mister Brahimi struggled for weeks over who to include in the new government. The Governing Council members wanted a major part in the process. But the U-N diplomat and American officials wanted to include local, tribal and religious leaders not represented on the council. Mister Brahimi announced at a ceremony in Baghdad that Ghazi Ajil al-Yawer will be president in the new government. Mister Yawer is a Sunni tribal leader. He served on the Governing Council and had its support. But American officials and Mister Brahimi wanted Adnan Pachachi for president. Mister Pachachi is also a Sunni Muslim. He rejected the offer, however, because he lacked support from the council members. The presidency will be largely a ceremonial position. There will also be two vice presidents. The prime minister who will lead the temporary government is Iyad Allawi. He was appointed last week. Mister Allawi is a Shiite politician who served on the Governing Council. His party had been supported in exile by the United States Central Intelligence Agency. Mister Allawi has criticized the United States because of the security situation in Iraq. But he says his government will not ask the American-led troops to leave during the change of power. The thirty-two member cabinet has a mix of Shiites, Sunnis, Kurds and Assyrians. They represent the many ethnic and religious groups in Iraq. Several cabinet members are women. A one-hundred member assembly will have veto power over the decisions of the cabinet. The temporary government that takes power at the end of this month is to lead to an elected permanent government in Iraq. Members of the new government said they would try to influence the wording of a U-N Security Council resolution on terms for the change of power. Mister Yawer and others want to make sure they have full control of Iraqi security forces. They also want greater control over the activities of American troops. President Bush called the temporary government a major step toward a free Iraq. In the News, in VOA Special English, was written by Cynthia Kirk. This is Steve Ember.
TEXT This is Phoebe Zimmermann with the VOA Special English Economics Report. Russia is the largest economic power that is not a member of the World Trade Organization. But that may change. Last Friday, the European Union said it would support Russia’s effort to become a W.T.O. member. Representatives of the European Union met with Russian officials in Moscow. They signed a trade agreement that took six years to negotiate. Russia called the trade agreement balanced. Russia agreed to slowly increase fuel prices within the country. It agreed to permit competition in its communications industry and to remove some barriers to trade. Russia said it will continue total control of its main energy company Gazprom. Officials also reached agreements on banking, transportation and financial protection, or insurance. In exchange for European support to join the W.T.O., Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Russia would speed up the process to approve the Kyoto Protocol. That is an international environmental agreement to reduce the production of harmful industrial gases including carbon dioxide. These “greenhouse gases” trap heat in the atmosphere and are blamed for changing the world’s climate. Russia had signed the Kyoto Protocol, but has not approved it. A few months ago, Mister Putin had said that Russia would reject the Protocol. The agreement takes effect when it has been approved by nations that produce at least fifty-five percent of the world’s greenhouse gases. Currently, nations producing only forty-four percent have approved the Protocol. Russia produces about seventeen percent of the world’s greenhouse gases. The United States, the world’s biggest producer, withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol after President Bush took office in two-thousand-one. So, Russia’s approval is required to put the Kyoto Protocol into effect. To join the W.T.O, a country must reach trade agreements with major trading countries that are also W.T.O. members. Until now, Russia had reached agreement with only ten W.T.O. members. Russia must still reach agreements with China, Japan, South Korea and the UNITed States. Russia is the ninth largest economy in the world. The total value of all goods and services produced by the country last year was one-thousand-three-hundred-fifty-million dollars. This VOA Special English Economics Report was written by Mario Ritter. This is Phoebe Zimmermann. By Mario Ritter Broadcast: May 28, 2004 Chapter 14 WORLD WEALTH REPORT
TEXT This is Bob Doughty with the VOA Special English Economics Report. Two-thousand-three was a good year for wealthy people around the world. Merrill Lynch and Capgemini have released their yearly World Wealth Report. Merrill Lynch is an American financial services company. Capgemini is a French company that gives business advice. Seven-point-seven million people worldwide had one million dollars or more in wealth at the end of last year. The report says the number grew by seven and a half percent from two-thousand two. That year there were not many new millionaires. But last year the investments of the wealthy did well. Their wealth increased by almost eight percent. China, India, Spain and the United States were high performers in the creation of wealth. Wealthy people around the world bought more stock last year. The report shows that their stock holdings as a share of their wealth increased from twenty percent to thirty-five percent. Last year, an economist at the Federal Reserve Board compared stock ownership rates among Americans. That report said the wealthiest one percent owned more than half of all stock held by individuals or families as of two-thousand-one. The percentage was even higher for government-secured investments in bonds. The top one percent owned sixty-four percent of the bonds. Stocks and bonds are called liquid assets, just like money in the bank. Houses are less easy to sell. So the World Wealth Report does not include the value of a personal home in its measure of wealth. Last year, the number of millionaires increased at the highest rates in Africa, North America and the AsiaPacific areas. The United States had the largest increase in numbers of any country. But Europe with its larger population continued to have the most millionaires, followed by North America. Both areas have over two million millionaires. The study says most very wealthy people are at or near retirement age. Seventy percent are over fifty-five years old. All together, high-worth individuals had twenty-nine-million-million dollars in wealth last year. The World Wealth Report says that is expected to reach forty-million-million dollars by two-thousand-eight. And, the richest of the rich are doing the best of all. The report says a very small but fast growing group of seventy thousand people are worth more than thirty million dollars. This VOA Special English Economics Report was written by Mario Ritter. This is Bob Doughty. Broadcast: June 25, 2004 Chapter 15 RONALD REAGAN
TEXT VOICE ONE: I’m Gwen Outen. VOICE TWO: And I’m Steve Ember. On Friday, the United States buried its fortieth president, Ronald Reagan. We tell about the life of the former actor and politician today on the VOA Special English program, People in America. VOICE ONE: Experts say Ronald Reagan re-defined the American presidency during his two terms in the nineteen-eighties. He became president when he was sixty-nine years old. It was a far different place from that of his birth on February sixth, nineteen-eleven. Ronald Wilson Reagan was born in Tampico, Illinois. His mother Nelle, father Jack, and brother Neil lived above a bank in the town. Ronald Reagan’s family began calling the baby “Dutch.” The nickname remained for the rest of his life. Jack Reagan worked at a general store. The family was poor. Yet, in a book about his life, Ronald Reagan wrote that he never felt poor. He was good at sports, especially football. During the summers, he was a lifeguard at a local swimming pool. He reportedly rescued many people from drowning. Ronald Reagan said there was a feeling of security throughout his childhood. But it was not perfect. His father was dependent on alcohol. VOICE TWO: Ronald Reagan studied at Eureka College in Illinois. After seeing a play at college, he said, “More than anything in the world, I wanted to speak the actor’s words.” But Ronald Reagan did not have enough money to go to New York or Hollywood to become an actor. So, after college he found a job as a sports broadcaster for a radio station in Iowa. Later he moved to a bigger radio station in Chicago, Illinois. He announced the action of baseball games. This work took him on a trip to California. He took a screen test to become an actor. Warner Brothers Studios offered him a job. Ronald Reagan moved to Hollywood and became a movie star. He appeared in many movies. “Knute Rockne – All American,” is probably his most famous. It is where he got the nickname “The Gipper.” Mister Reagan played George Gipp, one of the greatest college football players ever. In the movie, he speaks of the school’s football team as he is dying. (SOUND) “...ask them to go in there with all they got, win just one for the Gipper.” VOICE ONE: Those words, “win one for the Gipper,” later became a political battle cry for Ronald Reagan. In nineteen-forty, he married actress Jane Wyman. They had two children, Maureen and Michael. But the marriage ended in nineteen-forty-nine. Ronald Reagan became president of the main labor group for movie actors in nineteen-forty-eight. He served six terms. He met actress Nancy Davis through the union. They married in nineteen-fifty-two. They later had two children, Patti and Ron. At this time, Ronald Reagan was a member of the Democratic party who described himself as a liberal. But, he became increasingly conservative as his worries about communism grew. He opposed anyone in the movie industry who supported communism. VOICE TWO: In the early nineteen-fifties, Ronald Reagan began to appear on television. He presented dramatic shows produced by the General Electric company. He became a spokesman for the company. Mister Reagan learned a lot about public speaking. He began to campaign for Republican party political candidates a few years later. Reagan developed the ability to reach people through his speeches. He later became known as “The Great Communicator.” Nancy Reagan supported her husband’s political interests. Political experts say she was always his most important advisor. In nineteen-sixty-six, Ronald Reagan announced his own candidacy for governor of California. Democrats in the state did not think he was a serious candidate. However, Mister Reagan was elected governor by almost one-million votes. Ronald Reagan received mixed public opinion as governor of the nation’s most populated state. He was praised for lowering California’s debt, yet criticized for raising taxes. Voters re-elected him as governor in nineteen-seventy. VOICE ONE: Ronald Reagan was unsuccessful in his first two attempts to win the Republican nomination for president. Then, in nineteen-eighty, he became the Republican Party’s presidential candidate. His opponent was President Jimmy Carter. The two men debated on national television. Ronald Reagan spoke directly and simply to the American people and asked them some questions: (SOUND) “Are you better off than you were four years ago? Is it easier for you to go and buy things in the stores than it was four years ago? Is there more or less unemployment in the country than there was four years ago?” VOICE TWO: Ronald Reagan won the United States presidential election by a huge majority. He and his vice-president, George Herbert Walker Bush, were sworn into office in January, nineteen-eighty-one. Many people called the change in political power “The Reagan Revolution.” President Reagan immediately began to work to honor a major campaign promise. He called on Congress to lower taxes. But only two months later, tragedy struck. A mentally sick man shot the president and three other people outside a hotel in Washington. President Reagan and his press secretary, James Brady, were severely wounded. Mister Reagan had a bullet in his left lung, close to his heart. But, he showed his sense of humor at the hospital. As the president was taken into the operating room he said he hoped all the doctors were Republicans. Ronald Reagan recovered from the shooting and returned to work within two weeks. VOICE ONE: The President now began work on his main goal to reduce the size of the federal government. He had campaigned on the idea that the government was too costly and interfered too much in the lives of Americans. Mister Reagan and Congress reduced taxes and cut spending for social programs. The administration argued that these actions would create economic growth. Extremely high inflation rates did begin to fall. But, the United States’ debt rose sharply. This was partly from big increases in military spending. The Reagan economic policy became known as “Reaganomics.” It had, and still has, supporters and opponents. Some people argued that the cuts in social programs greatly hurt poor people. Others said the policy improved the economy. President Reagan sought re-election in nineteen-eighty-four. His Democratic opponent was former Vice-President Walter Mondale. Again Mister Reagan won the election by a large amount. VOICE TWO: President Reagan dealt with many serious foreign issues while in office. He sent American Marines to Lebanon to stop the fighting among several opposing groups. But more than two-hundred Marines were killed in an extremist bomb attack. The so-called “Reagan Doctrine” was the administration’s most famous foreign policy. That policy was to support anti-communist forces anywhere in the world. Under the policy, American forces invaded the Caribbean island nation of Grenada. The policy also led to secret United States support for rebels in Nicaragua. President Reagan met with Soviet Leader Mikhail Gorbachev several times in an effort to reduce nuclear weapons. He gave a famous speech at the Berlin Wall that divided Soviet-controlled East Germany from West Germany on June twelfth, nineteen-eighty-seven. (SOUND) “General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mister Gorbachev, open this gate! Mister Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” VOICE ONE: Some historians say Ronald Reagan helped cause the fall of the Soviet Union. They say his military spending forced the Soviets to spend more, too. They say this led to the Communist nation’s economic failure. President Reagan enjoyed very high public approval ratings throughout his presidency. Many Americans considered him a friendly leader, a “man of the people,” filled with hope for America. VOICE TWO: Ronald and Nancy Reagan returned to California after his second term ended in nineteen-eighty-nine. In nineteen-ninety-four, Mister Reagan wrote an open letter to the American people. He informed them that he had the brain disease Alzheimer’s. The former president expressed his love for the country and thanked Americans for letting him serve. And, he wrote, “I know that for America there will always be a bright dawn ahead.” Ronald Reagan died at his home in California on June fifth. He was ninety-three. VOICE ONE: This program was written by Caty Weaver. Mario Ritter was the producer. I’m Gwen Outen. VOICE TWO: And I’m Steve Ember. Listen again next week for another People in America in VOA Special English. By Caty Weaver Broadcast: June 13, 2004 
Chapter 16 PHILO FARNSWORTH
TEXT VOICE ONE: I’m Phoebe Zimmermann. VOICE TWO: And I’m Steve Ember with People in America in VOA Special English. Today we tell about a man who made possible one of the most important communications devices ever created -- television. His name was Philo Farnsworth. VOICE ONE: In nineteen-sixty-nine, American astronaut Neil Armstrong climbed down the side of the space vehicle that had taken him to the moon. As his foot touched the surface of the moon, pictures of the event were sent back to televisions on Earth. The pictures were not very good. It was hard to see astronaut Armstrong clearly. The surface of the moon was extremely bright. And the moon lander vehicle created a very dark, black shadow. But the quality of the television pictures was not important. Every man, woman and child who saw the television pictures understood they were watching an important event. They were watching history take place as it was happening many hundreds of thousands of kilometers away. VOICE TWO: For a few minutes, the poor quality television pictures captured the imagination of millions of people throughout the world. Experts believe about six-hundred-million people around the world watched as Neil Armstrong stepped from the space vehicle to the surface of the moon. In the years since then, people around the world have shared in many events. Television has made it possible for people in distant places to share a single experience. VOICE ONE: A television system changes light and sound waves from a moving picture into electronic signals that travel through the air. The signals are changed back into sound and pictures in a television receiver. Scientists in Britain, Germany, France, Japan, the former Soviet Union and the United States all made important discoveries that led to the development of modern television. Yet it was a young boy living on an American farm who was the first person to invent and design what became television. He first thought of the idea of an electronic television when he was only fourteen years old. His name was Philo Taylor Farnsworth. VOICE TWO: Philo Farnsworth was born on August Nineteenth, Nineteen Oh-Six, near Indian Creek in the western state of Utah. The house he lived in for the first few years of his life had no electric power. But Philo read about electricity. He was very excited when his family moved to a new house in Idaho that had electric power. He quickly began to experiment with electricity. He built an electric motor when he was twelve. Then he built the first electric washing machine for clothes that his family had ever owned. Philo Farnsworth attended a very small school near his family’s farm. He did very well in school. He asked his teacher for special help in science. The teacher began helping Philo learn a great deal more than most young students could understand. VOICE ONE: One night, Philo read a magazine story about the idea of sending pictures and sound through the air. Anyone with a device that could receive this electronic information could watch the pictures. The magazine story said some of the world’s best scientists were working on the idea. It said these scientists were using special machines to try to make a kind of device to send pictures. The story made Philo think. Fourteen-year-old Philo decided these famous scientists were wrong. He decided that mechanical devices would never work. They could never be made to move fast enough to clearly capture and reproduce an electronic picture sent through the air. Philo decided that such a device would have to be electronic, not mechanical. Philo knew electrons could be made to move extremely fast. All he would have to do was find a way to make electrons do the work. Very quickly Philo had an idea for such a receiver. It would trap light in a container and send the light on a line of electrons. Philo called it “light in a bottle.” VOICE TWO: Several days later, Philo told his teacher about a device that could capture pictures. He drew a plan for it that he gave his teacher. Philo’s drawing seems very simple. But it still clearly shows the information needed to build a television. In fact, all television equipment today still uses Philo’s early idea. Philo’s teacher was Justin Tolman. Many years later Philo would say Mister Tolman guided his imagination and opened the doors of science for him. VOICE ONE: Philo Farnsworth had to solve several problems before he could produce a working television system. One was that he was only fourteen years old. He knew no one would listen to a child. In fact, experts say that probably only ten scientists in the world at that time could have understood his idea. Philo also had no money to develop his ideas. His idea for a working television would have to wait. After only two years of high school, Philo entered Brigham Young University in Utah. But he did not finish his education. He was forced to leave school when his father died. Philo did not give up his idea for creating a television. He began serious work on it when he moved to San Francisco, California a few years later. He was twenty-one years old. VOICE TWO: On September Seventh, Nineteen-Twenty-Seven, Philo turned on a device that was the first working television receiver. In another room was the first television camera. Philo had invented the special camera tube earlier that year. The image produced on the receiver was not very clear, but the device worked. Within a few months, Philo Farnsworth had found several people who wanted to invest money in his invention. In August, Nineteen-Thirty, the United States government gave Philo patent documents. These would protect his invention from being copied by others. Very soon, however, several other inventors claimed they had invented a television device. One of these inventors, Vladimir Zworykin, worked for the powerful Radio Corporation of America. The R-C-A company began legal action against Philo Farnsworth. It said Mister Zworykin had invented his device in the Nineteen-Twenties. The big and powerful R-C-A claimed that it, not the small Philo Farnsworth Television Company, had the right to produce, develop and market television. VOICE ONE: The legal action between R.C.A and the Farnsworth company continued for several years. R.C.A. proved that Mister Zworykin did make a mechanical television device. But it could not demonstrate that the device worked. At the same time, R.C.A. claimed that Mister Farnsworth had produced his television image tube after Mister Zworykin had developed his. When Mister Farnsworth said he had developed the idea much earlier, R.C.A. said it was impossible for a fourteen-year-old boy to produce the idea for a television device. Company representatives said Mister Farnsworth was not even a scientist. He had never finished college. .C.A. said Philo Farnsworth should be forced to prove he had invented the television image tube. Philo could not prove he invented it. But his high school teacher could. In court, Justin Tolman produced the drawing that Philo had made for him many years before as a student. At that moment, the legal experts for R.C.A. knew they had lost. Philo Farnsworth won the legal action and the right to own the invention of television. However, he did not have the money or support to build a television industry. It was the Nineteen-Fifties before television became a major force in American life. Vladimir Zworykin and David Sarnoff, the head of R.C.A., became the names connected with the new industry. VOICE TWO: Philo Farnsworth continued to invent more than one-hundred devices that helped make modern television possible. He also developed early radar, invented the first electronic microscope, and worked on developing peaceful uses of atomic energy. In his last years, Mister Farnsworth became a strong critic of television. He did not like most of the programs shown on television. Yet, as he watched Neil Armstrong’s first step on the moon, Mister Farnsworth knew the event clearly showed the power of his invention. Philo Farnsworth died in March, Nineteen-Seventy-One. Today, a statue of him stands in the United States Capitol. He is considered one of the most important inventors of the twentieth century. VOICE ONE: This program was written by Paul Thompson. It was produced by Lawan Davis. I’m Phoebe Zimmermann. VOICE TWO: And I’m Steve Ember. Listen again next week for People in America in VOA Special English. By Paul Thompson Broadcast: June 6, 2004
Chapter 17 TEENAGERS PLAN for the FUTURE
TEXT In high schools across America these are the last few days of the school year. Students are finishing up final exams and turning in projects, searching for overdue library books, cleaning out their lockers, signing each other’s yearbooks. We visited Montgomery Blair High School in a suburb of Washington, D. C. and talked with a group of foreign-born students about their plans for the summer, and beyond. Out of the three thousand students who attended Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring, Maryland, this year, one thousand were born in other countries. Understandably, the English-for-speakers-of other-languages, or ESOL, classes at Blair are well attended. The director of the ESOL program, Joe Bellino, says he has students from 52 countries, speaking 36 languages. By and large, he says, they are model students. “Students who don’t speak English well know that English is important to be successful in this country, so the motivation to learn English and to succeed is very high. So as a rule, they are very motivated, very hard-working. They have a lot to learn, and the stakes are very high, the standards are very high – and we are successful in getting kids to get out and make something of themselves.” One of Mr. Bellino’s students is fifteen-year-old Quyhn Nguyen, who came with her family from Vietnam six years ago. She is looking forward to a busy summer. “I’m going to go work, you know, I need to get myself a little money. And I’m going to do volunteer work to get my community service hours, I’m trying to get like two or three hundred community service hours, so that when I graduate I get a special award.” Like many area high schools, Montgomery Blair has a program that combines service with learning, and requires students to do volunteer work in their communities. Quynh Nguyen plans to continue working in a social service agency that helps immigrants overcome the small obstacles of everyday life. “I used to work for this community next to my house, it’s sort of like social work, like where you help people to translate letters, or help people to apply for food stamps or welfare, like that stuff. I go there to help them organize their papers and documents, and update information.” Quynh has one more year of high school to go. She is very clear about what she wants to do next. “I want to go to college, definitely. Right now, I want to study international business, because I want to travel around the world, like, to meet new people, and, like, go back to my country and open a little business there. I’m going to live here and travel back and forth.” Another student, Balla Kaba, came from Guinea in West Africa only nine months ago. At the time he spoke no English, but thanks to Blair’s ESOL classes, he can now communicate quite well. He plans to spend the summer improving his English even further. “I want to go to summer school to catch up on my English, because next year I will be going to ESOL Two.” Since he has only just begun his American education, and still has two years to go before he graduates from high school, Balla Kaba is uncertain aboutwhat he wants to be when he grows up. “Maybe a chef, or maybe I’ll join the army. Maybe a chef-cook for the army. I don’t know. I’m waiting to know English very well before I decide.” On the other hand, senior Solange Francois, who immigrated from Haiti four years ago, knows precisely what she wants to do with her life. “Actually, I have two goals, and I want to be a gynecologist and I want to be a model. I just want both, and hopefully I’ll get to be both of them, because I like the two of them.” After graduation this summer, Solange will be working in a local movie theatre, earning money for college. In the fall she will enroll in North Carolina’s Wesslyan College to study biology, after which she hopes to go to medical school. She can hardly wait to graduate and start the next phase of her life. “I’m really looking forward to it, because now I’m going to be in the real world, and I’m going to be doing everything on my own, because I’m moving out of state, so basically I have to do what I want to do, what’s safe for me, what’s better for my life, for my future, and everything. I want to change, I want to see other things besides just Maryland, I want to meet other people, new people. I want to travel, that’s what I want.” Having taught immigrant students like these for thirty years, Joe Bellino has a unique perspective on how their hopes and dreams in high school can be transformed into reality in the years that follow. “Many of my former students are… now I’m clients of them. For example, my dentist is one of my students, my mechanic is one of my students, one of my students is an architect, one is a journalist. So, they make it, and it’s because they push themselves. You know, for many of the students, their parents didn’t have the opportunities that they have here, so they want to take advantage of them. Seeing kids make it is a great satisfaction.” Veteran ESOL teacher Joe Bellino, and foreign-born students at Montgomery Blair High School preparing for summer – and for life. Oksana Dragan Washington, D.C. Chapter 18 YEAR-ROUND SCHOOL
TEXT This is Steve Ember with the VOA Special English Education Report. Many American schools have closed for the summer. Most children in the United States have a summer holiday of almost three months. This traditional school schedule was designed long ago when many Americans lived on farms. Children were needed at home during the summer to help their families with the crops and animals. Schools later continued the tradition, mostly because it was difficult to hold classes in the hot summer weather. American schools began to experiment with changing this system in the early nineteen-hundreds. One idea was for children to attend school all year round. But the idea did not become popular until about twenty-five years ago. Studies done at the time showed that American students were not performing as well as students in other countries. Students who attend year-round schools in the United States do not go to class every day of the year. They spend the same number of days in class as other students. But the time is organized differently. For example, some students attend school five days a week for nine weeks. Then they have three weeks off before going back to school for another nine weeks. In the summer they have about five weeks of holiday. Supporters of year-round schooling say it improves student learning. They say students in the traditional system often forget what they have learned during a long summer holiday. They say schools can offer special classes during the short holidays for students who need extra help. They also say it saves money because the school buildings are used throughout the year. People opposed to year-round schooling say the research has not proved that it improves learning. Families report problems organizing activities and travel when children in different schools have different holidays. Some parents want their children to have an extended summer away from the pressures of school. People who operate summer camps for children oppose the idea. So do businesses that employ teenagers in the summer. The National Association for Year-Round Education says that more than two-million American children, out of a total of fifty-two million, now attend school year-round. It says forty-seven American states have some schools that operate year-round. This VOA Special English Education Report was written by Nancy Steinbach. This is Steve Ember. By Nancy Steinbach Broadcast: June 24, 2004 Chapter 19 HAND WASHING 1.t
TEXT This is Phoebe Zimmermann with the VOA Special English Health Report. Medical experts say the most effective way to prevent the spread of disease is for people to wash their hands with soap and water. The World Bank, the United Nations, and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine carried out a study to urge hand- washing around the world. They say that programs to increase hand- washing with soap could be among the most effective ways to reduce infectious disease. They say that one-million lives could be saved each year if people washed their hands with soap often. Doctors say many diseases can be prevented from spreading by hand-washing. These include pinworms, influenza, the common cold, hepatitis A, meningitis and infectious diarrhea. Hand-washing destroys germs from other people, animals or objects a person has touched. When people get bacteria on their hands, they can infect themselves by touching their eyes, nose or mouth. Then these people can infect other people. The experts say the easiest way to catch a cold is to touch your nose or eyes after someone nearby has sneezed or coughed. Another way to become sick is to eat food prepared by someone whose hands were not clean. The experts say that hand-washing is especially important before and after preparing food, before eating and after using the toilet. People should wash their hands after handling animals or animal waste, and after cleaning a baby. The experts say it is also a good idea to wash your hands after handling money and after sneezing or coughing. And it is important to wash your hands often when someone in your home is sick. The experts say the most effective way to wash your hands is to rub them together after using soap and warm water. They say you do not have to use special anti-bacterial soap. Be sure to rub all areas of the hands for about ten to fifteen seconds. The soap and the rubbing action remove germs. Rinse the hands with water and dry them. Experts say that people using public bathrooms should dry their hands with a paper towel and use the towel to turn off the water. They also advise using the paper towel to open the bathroom door before throwing the towel away. This VOA Special English Health Report was written by Nancy Steinbach. This is Phoebe Zimmermann. Broadcast: January 7, 2004 Chapter 20 WONDERS of the WORLD a.
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