Pratica di Shadowing: Cambridge IELTS 17 Test 4 Reading passage 1 - Impara a parlare inglese con i video
Creazione lezione...
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Bats to the Rescue How Madagascar's bats are helping to save the rainforest.
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There are few places in the world where relations between agriculture and conservation are more strained.
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Madagascar's forests are being converted to agricultural land at a rate of 1% every year.
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Much of this destruction is fueled by the cultivation of the country's main staple crop, rice.
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And a key reason for this destruction is
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that insect pests are destroying vast quantities of what is grown by local subsistence farmers, leading them to clear forests to create new paddy fields.
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The result is devastating habitat and biodiversity loss on the island, but not all species are suffering.
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In fact, some of the island's insectivorous bats are currently thriving, and this has important implications for farmers and conservationists alike.
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Enter University of Cambridge zoologist Ricardo Rocha.
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He's passionate about conservation and bats.
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More specifically, he's interested in how bats are responding to human activity and deforestation in particular.
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Rocha's new study shows
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that several species of bats are giving Madagascar's rice farmers a vital pest control service by feasting on plagues of insects.
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And this, he believes, can ease the financial pressure on farmers to turn forest into fields.
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Bats comprise roughly one-fifth of all mammal species in Madagascar and 36 recorded bat species are native to the island,
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making it one of the most important regions for conservation of this animal group anywhere in the world.
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Co-leading an international team of scientists, Rocha found
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that several species of indigenous bats are taking advantage of habitat modification to hunt insects swarming above the country's rice fields.
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They include the Malagasy mouse-eared bat, Major's long-fingered bat, the Malagasy white-bellied free-tailed bat, and Peters' wrinkle-lipped bat.
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These winter species are providing a valuable free service to Madagascar as biological pest suppressors, says Rocha.
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We found that six species of bat are preying on rice pests, including the paddy-swarming caterpillar and grass webworm.
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The damage which these insects cause puts the island's farmers under huge financial pressure, and that encourages deforestation.
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The study, now published in the journal Agriculture, Ecosystems, and Environment, set out to investigate the feeding activity of insectivorous bats in
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the farmland bordering the Rana Mofana National Park in the southeast of the country.
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Rocha and his team used state-of-the-art ultrasonic recorders to record over a thousand bat-feeding buzzes, echolocation sequences used by bats to target their prey,
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at 54 sites, in order to identify the favorite feeding spots of the bats.
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They next used DNA barcoding techniques to analyze droppings collected from bats at the different sites.
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The recordings revealed that bat activity over rice fields was much higher than it was in continuous forest, seven times higher over rice fields which were on flat ground,
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and 16 times higher over fields on the sides of hills, leaving no doubt that the animals are preferentially foraging in these man-made ecosystems.
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The researchers suggest that the bats favor these fields
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because lack of water and nutrient runoff make these crops more susceptible to insect pest infestations.
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DNA analysis showed that all six species of bat had fed on economically important insect pests.
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While the findings indicated that rice farming benefits most from the bats, the scientists also found indications that the bats were consuming pests of other crops,
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including the black twig borer, which infests coffee plants, the sugarcane cicada, the macadamia nut borer, and the sober tabby,
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a pest of citrus fruits.
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The effectiveness of bats as pest controllers has already been proven in the USA and Catalonia, said co-author James Kemp from the University of Lisbon.
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But our study is the first to show this happening in Madagascar, where the stakes for both farmers and conservationists are so high,
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local people may have a further reason to be grateful to their bats.
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While the animal is often associated with spreading disease, Rocha and his team found evidence that Malagasy bats feed not just on crop pests,
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but also on mosquitoes, carriers of malaria, Rift Valley fever virus and elephantiasis, as well as blackflies, which spread river blindness.
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Rocha points out that the relationship is complicated.
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When food is scarce, bats become a crucial source of protein for local people.
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Even the children will hunt them.
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And as well as roosting in trees, the bats sometimes roost in buildings, but are not welcomed there because they make them unclean.
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At the same time, however, they are associated with sacred caves and their ancestors, so they can be viewed as beings between worlds,
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which makes them very significant in the culture of the people.
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And one potential problem is that while these bats are benefiting from farming, at the same time deforestation is reducing the places where they can roost,
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which could have long-term effects on their numbers.
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Rocha says, With the right help, we hope that farmers can promote this mutually beneficial relationship by installing bat houses.
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Rocha and his colleagues believe that maximizing bat populations can help to boost crop yields and promote sustainable livelihoods.
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The team is now calling for further research to quantify this contribution.
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I'm very optimistic, says Rocha.
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If we give nature a hand, we can speed up the process of regeneration.
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Vocabolario e note di pronuncia per questa lezione
Questa lezione di conversazione di livello B2 si basa sul video “Cambridge IELTS 17 Test 4 Reading passage 1”. Le parole che ritornano più spesso: bat, pest, Rocha, species, farmers. Questo video contiene 53 frasi e 881 parole da ripetere con lo shadowing. Il parlato dura 5:18. Chi parla ha un ritmo naturale di circa 166 parole al minuto, vicino a una conversazione quotidiana. Solo il 71% delle parole rientra nelle 3.000 più comuni dell’inglese, quindi il lessico è impegnativo.
Vocaboli chiave di questo video
Le 15 parole più avanzate del video, con pronuncia e significato:
| Parola | Pronuncia | Significato |
|---|---|---|
| pest sostantivo | /pɛst/ | parassita |
| farmer sostantivo | /ˈfɑɹ.mɚ/ | agricoltore, fattore |
| insect sostantivo | /ˈɪn.sɛkt/ | insetto |
| crop sostantivo | /kɹɑp/ | coltura, messe |
| deforestation sostantivo | /dɪˌfɒɹɪsˈteɪʃən/ | deforestazione |
| roost sostantivo | /ɹust/ | pollaio |
| borer sostantivo | /ˈbɔːɹɚ/ | alesatore |
| insectivorous aggettivo | /ˌɪnsɛkˈtɪv(ə)ɹəs/ | insettivoro |
| swarm sostantivo | /swɔɹm/ | sciame, nugolo |
| paddy sostantivo | /ˈpædi/ | risone, risaia |
| ecosystem sostantivo | /ˈikoʊˌsɪstəm/ | ecosistema |
| prey sostantivo | /pɹeɪ/ | preda |
| ancestor sostantivo | /ˈæn.sɛs.tɚ/ | antenato, ascendente |
| biodiversity sostantivo | /ˌbaɪoʊdəˈvɚsəti/ | biodiversità |
| blindness sostantivo | /ˈblaɪndnəs/ | cecità |
I phrasal verb che sentirai
| Parola | Pronuncia | Significato |
|---|---|---|
| point out verbo | additare | |
| speed up verbo | /spiːdˈʌp/ | stringere i tempi |
Pronuncia a cui fare attenzione
- I suoni “th”: thrive /θɹajv/, southeast /sawˈθɪjst/
- I suoni “sh” e “zh”: deforestation /dɪˌfɒɹɪsˈteɪʃən/, echolocation /ˌɛkoʊloʊˈkeɪʃən/, infestation /ˌɪnfɛsˈteɪ̯ʃən/, preferentially /ˈpɹɛf.ɜː(ɹ)ˌɛn.ʃə.li/, implication /ˌɪmpləˈkeɪʃən/
- Parole lunghe — attenzione all’accento: deforestation /dɪˌfɒɹɪsˈteɪʃən/, insectivorous /ˌɪnsɛkˈtɪv(ə)ɹəs/, ecosystem /ˈikoʊˌsɪstəm/, biodiversity /ˌbaɪoʊdəˈvɚsəti/, caterpillar /ˈkætɚˌpɪlɚ/
I suoni difficili per chi parla italiano:
- /h/ — va soffiata, non è muta: habitat /ˈhæb.ɪ.tæt/, livelihood /ˈlaɪvlihʊd/
- Consonante finale — senza aggiungere una vocale dopo: pest /pɛst/, insect /ˈɪn.sɛkt/, crop /kɹɑp/, roost /ɹust/, insectivorous /ˌɪnsɛkˈtɪv(ə)ɹəs/
- /æ/ — più aperta della “e”: paddy /ˈpædi/, habitat /ˈhæb.ɪ.tæt/, ancestor /ˈæn.sɛs.tɚ/, caterpillar /ˈkætɚˌpɪlɚ/, farmland /ˈfɑːɹmlænd/
Come esercitarsi con questo video
- Ascolta tutto il video una volta senza parlare e annota le parole che non conosci.
- Inizia a velocità 0,75×, fai shadowing frase per frase e torna alla velocità normale quando diventa facile.
- Registrati e confronta con l’originale, facendo attenzione a parole come pest, farmer, insect.
Cos'è la tecnica dello Shadowing?
Shadowing è una tecnica di apprendimento delle lingue supportata da studi scientifici, originariamente sviluppata per la formazione dei traduttori professionisti e resa popolare dal poliglotta Dr. Alexander Arguelles. Il metodo è semplice ma potente: ascolti un audio in inglese di madrelingua e lo ripeti immediatamente ad alta voce — come un'ombra che segue il parlante con un ritardo di solo 1–2 secondi. A differenza dell'ascolto passivo o degli esercizi di grammatica, lo shadowing costringe il tuo cervello e i muscoli della bocca a elaborare e riprodurre simultaneamente i modelli di discorso reale. La ricerca dimostra che migliora significativamente la precisione della pronuncia, l'intonazione, il ritmo, il discorso connesso, la comprensione dell'ascolto e la fluidità del parlato — rendendolo uno dei metodi più efficaci per la preparazione alla prova di speaking dell'IELTS e per la comunicazione reale in inglese.