シャドーイング練習: Luyện nghe tiếng anh_part 3 The dingo debate - 動画で英語スピーキングを学ぶ
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the dingo debate.
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Graziers see them as pests, and poisoning is common.
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But some biologists think Australia's dingoes are the best weapon in a war against imported cats and foxes.
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A plane flies a slow pattern over Carleton Hill Station, a 3 ,600 square kilometer ranch in the Kimberley region in northwest Australia.
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As the plane circles, those aboard drop a thousand small pieces of meat one by one, onto the scrubland below.
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each piece laced with poison.
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This practice is known as baiting.
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Besides 50 ,000 head of cattle, Carlton Hill is home to the dingo.
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Australia's largest mammalian predator, and the bane of a grazier's—cattle farmer's life.
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Stuart McKechnie, manager of Carleton Hill, complains that graziers' livelihoods are threatened when dingoes prey on cattle.
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But one man wants the baiting to end and for dingoes to once again roam Australia's wide open spaces.
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According to Chris Johnson of James Cook University, Australia needs more dingoes to protect our biodiversity.
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About 4 ,000 years ago, Asian sailors introduced dingoes to Australia.
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Throughout the ensuing millennia, these descendants of the wolf spread across the continent,
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and as the Tasmanian tiger disappeared completely from Australia, dingoes became Australia's top predators.
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As agricultural development took place, the European settlers found that they could not safely keep their livestock where dingoes roamed.
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So began one of the most sustained efforts at pest control in Australia's history.
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Over the last 150 years, dingoes have been shot and poisoned, and fences have been used in an attempt to keep them away from livestock.
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But at the same time, as the European settlers tried to eliminate one native pest from Australia, they introduced more of their own.
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In 1860, the rabbit was unleashed on Australia by a wealthy landowner.
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And by 1980, rabbits had covered most of the mainland,
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Rabbits provide huge prey base for two other introduced species: the feral or wild cat and the red fox.
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The interaction between foxes, cats, and rabbits is a huge problem for native mammals.
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In good years, rabbit numbers increase dramatically, and fox and cat populations grow quickly in response to the abundance of this prey.
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When bad seasons follow, rabbit numbers are significantly reduced,
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and the dwindling but still large fox and cat populations are left with little to eat besides native mammals.
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Australian mammals generally reproduce much more slowly than rabbits,
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cats, and foxes, an adaption to prevent overpopulation in the arid environment, where food can be scarce and unreliable.
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And populations decline because they can't grow fast enough to replace animals killed by the predators.
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Johnson says dingoes are the solution to this problem because they keep cat and fox populations under control.
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Besides regularly eating the smaller predators, dingoes will kill them simply to lessen competition.
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Dingo packs live in large, stable territories, and generally have only one fertile, which limits their rate of increase.
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In the 4 ,000 years that dingoes have been Australia, they have contributed to few, if any, extinctions, Johnson says.
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Reaching out from a desolate spot where three states meet, for 2 ,500 kilometers in either direction,
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is the world's longest fence, two meters high and stretching from the coast in Queensland to the Great Australian Bight in South Australia.
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It is there to keep dingoes out.
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The fence separates the main types of livestock found in Australia.
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To the northwest of the fence, cattle predominate.
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To the southwest, sheep fill the landscape.
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In fact, Australia is a land dominated by these animals: 25 million cattle,
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100 million sheep, and just over 20 million people.
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While there is no argument that dingoes will prey on sheep if given the chance, they don't hunt cattle once the calves are much past two or three weeks old,
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according to Makichi.
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And a study in Queensland suggests that dingoes don't even prey heavily on the newborn calves,
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unless their staple prey disappears due to deteriorating conditions like drought.
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This study, co -authored by Lee Allen of the Robert Wicks Research Center in Queensland,
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suggests that the aggressive baiting programs used against dingoes may actually be counterproductive for graziers.
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When dingoes are removed from an area by baiting, the area is recolonized by younger, more solitary dingoes.
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These animals aren't capable of going after the large prey like kangaroos, so they turn to calves.
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In their study, some of the highest rates of calf predation occurred in areas that had been baited.
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Mark Clifford, general manager of a firm that manages over 200 ,000 head of cattle, is not convinced by Allen's assertion.
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Clifford says, "It's obvious if we drop or loosen control on dingoes,
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we are going to lose more calves." He doesn't believe that dingoes will go after kangaroos when calves are around.
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Nor is he persuaded of dingoes' supposed ecological benefits, saying he is not convinced that they manage to catch cats that often,
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believing they are more likely to catch small native animals instead.
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McKechnie agrees that dingoes kill the wallabies, small native animals, that compete with his cattle for food.
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but points out that in parts of Western Australia, there are no fixes, and not very many cats.
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He doesn't see how relaxing controls on dingoes in his area will improve the ecological balance.
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Johnson sees a need for a change in philosophy on the part of Graziers.
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There might be a number of different ways of thinking through dingo management in cattle country, he says.
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At the moment, though, that hasn't got through to graziers.
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they're still just on one prescription, and that is to bait as widely as possible.
なぜこのビデオで話す練習をするのか？
このビデオ「The dingo debate」では、オーストラリアの生態系に関する重要な議論が展開されており、英語スピーキング練習においても非常に有益です。特に、話すコンテキストが非常に多様で、農業や生態学に関連する用語が多数含まれているため、専門的な語彙力を高めるチャンスです。ビデオを通勤時間に聞き流したり、shadow speakの方法で練習することで、資料の内容を理解しながら自然な会話のスキルを身につけることができます。また、IELTS スピーキング対策にも役立つ情報が詰まっており、実際の試験で必要となる論理的思考力や意見表明のスキルを向上させることができます。
文法と表現の文脈
このビデオでは、以下のような重要な文法構造や表現が使用されています。
- 「need more dingoes to protect our biodiversity」 - これは、「〜する必要がある」という表現が強調されており、特に要求や提案を述べる際に便利です。
- 「As agricultural development took place」 - この構文は、過去の事象を説明する際に役立ちます。「〜が行われたとき」という形で、歴史的な背景を説明しています。
- 「the dingo packs live in large, stable territories」 - ここでは現在形が使われており、普遍的な真実を表現しています。この使い方は、一般的な事実や習慣を説明する際に非常に有用です。
これらの表現を使いこなすことで、英語スピーキング練習がより効果的になります。
一般的な発音の罠
このビデオには、発音が難しい単語やアクセントがあります。たとえば、dingo（ディンゴ）は発音が独特であり、特に日本人の英語学習者にとっては注意が必要です。また、predators（捕食者）やbiodiversity（生物多様性）といった単語も聞き取りにくい場合があります。これらの単語を使って気をつけることにより、実際の会話で自信を持つことができます。
このビデオをYouTubeで英語学習する際のポイントは、口に出して繰り返すことで、U音やアクセントをマスターすることです。shadowspeaksの練習を取り入れることで、これらの発音に慣れることができます。
シャドーイングとは？英語上達に効果的な理由
シャドーイング（Shadowing）は、もともとプロの通訳者養成プログラムで開発された言語学習法で、多言語習得者として知られるDr. Alexander Arguelles によって広く普及されました。方法はシンプルですが非常に効果的：ネイティブスピーカーの英語を聞きながら、1〜2秒の遅延で声に出してすぐに繰り返す——まるで「影（shadow）」のように話者を追いかけます。文法ドリルや受動的なリスニングと異なり、シャドーイングは脳と口の筋肉が同時にリアルタイムで英語を処理・再現することを強制します。研究により、発音精度、抑揚、リズム、連音、リスニング力、そして会話の流暢さが大幅に向上することが確認されています。IELTSスピーキング対策や自然な英語コミュニケーションを目指す方に特におすすめです。