Практика Shadowing: Cambridge IELTS 17 Test 4 Reading passage 1 - Изучайте разговорный английский по видео

Создание урока...
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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.

Лексика и советы по произношению к этому уроку

Этот урок разговорной практики уровня B2 построен на видео «Cambridge IELTS 17 Test 4 Reading passage 1». Чаще всего повторяются слова: bat, pest, Rocha, species, farmers. В этом видео 53 предложений и 881 слов для шедоуинга. Речь длится 5:18. Говорящий говорит в естественном темпе, около 166 слов в минуту, близком к повседневной речи. Только 71% слов входят в 3000 самых частых слов английского языка, поэтому лексика сложная.

Ключевая лексика этого видео

Самые сложные слова из видео (15), с произношением и значением:

СловоПроизношениеЗначение
pest существительное/pɛst/вреди́тель
farmer существительное/ˈfɑɹ.mɚ/крестья́нин, фе́рмер
insect существительное/ˈɪn.sɛkt/насеко́мое, бука́шка
crop существительное/kɹɑp/посе́в, сельскохозя́йственная культу́ра
deforestation существительное/dɪˌfɒɹɪsˈteɪʃən/обезле́сение, вы́рубка ле́са
roost существительное/ɹust/насе́ст
borer существительное/ˈbɔːɹɚ/бура́в, бур
conservationist существительноезащи́тник приро́ды
insectivorous прилагательное/ˌɪnsɛkˈtɪv(ə)ɹəs/насекомоя́дный
swarm существительное/swɔɹm/рой
paddy существительное/ˈpædi/ри́с-па́дди, необру́шенный ри́с
ecosystem существительное/ˈikoʊˌsɪstəm/экосисте́ма
prey существительное/pɹeɪ/добы́ча, еда́
ancestor существительное/ˈæn.sɛs.tɚ/пре́док, прароди́тель
biodiversity существительное/ˌbaɪoʊdəˈvɚsəti/биоразнообра́зие

Фразовые глаголы, которые вы услышите

СловоПроизношениеЗначение
point out глаголука́зывать, указа́ть
speed up глагол/spiːdˈʌp/ускоря́ться, уско́риться

Произношение, на которое стоит обратить внимание

  • Звуки «th»: thrive /θɹajv/, southeast /sawˈθɪjst/
  • Звуки «sh» и «zh»: deforestation /dɪˌfɒɹɪsˈteɪʃən/, echolocation /ˌɛkoʊloʊˈkeɪʃən/, infestation /ˌɪnfɛsˈteɪ̯ʃən/, preferentially /ˈpɹɛf.ɜː(ɹ)ˌɛn.ʃə.li/, implication /ˌɪmpləˈkeɪʃən/
  • Длинные слова — следите за ударением: deforestation /dɪˌfɒɹɪsˈteɪʃən/, insectivorous /ˌɪnsɛkˈtɪv(ə)ɹəs/, ecosystem /ˈikoʊˌsɪstəm/, biodiversity /ˌbaɪoʊdəˈvɚsəti/, caterpillar /ˈkætɚˌpɪlɚ/

Звуки, трудные для русскоязычных:

  • /w/ — губы округлены, это не /v/: swarm /swɔɹm/, quantify /ˈkwɑn.tɪˌfaɪ/, quantity /ˈkwɑn(t)ɪti/, southeast /sawˈθɪjst/
  • /h/ — лёгкий выдох, а не русское «х»: habitat /ˈhæb.ɪ.tæt/, livelihood /ˈlaɪvlihʊd/
  • Звонкие согласные в конце слова — не оглушайте их: farmland /ˈfɑːɹmlænd/, forage /ˈfoɹɪd͡ʒ/, livelihood /ˈlaɪvlihʊd/, comprise /kəmˈpɹaɪz/, maximize /ˈmæksəmaɪz/

Как заниматься с этим видео

  1. Прослушайте всё видео один раз молча и выпишите незнакомые слова.
  2. Начните со скорости 0,75×, повторяйте предложение за предложением и вернитесь к обычной скорости, когда станет легко.
  3. Запишите себя и сравните с оригиналом, обращая внимание на такие слова, как pest, farmer, insect.

Что такое техника Shadowing?

Shadowing — это научно обоснованная техника изучения языка, изначально разработанная для подготовки профессиональных переводчиков и популяризированная полиглотом доктором Александром Аргуэльесом. Метод прост, но эффективен: вы слушаете аудио на английском от носителей языка и немедленно повторяете вслух — как тень, следующая за говорящим с задержкой в 1–2 секунды. В отличие от пассивного прослушивания или грамматических упражнений, Shadowing заставляет мозг и мышцы рта одновременно обрабатывать и воспроизводить реальные речевые паттерны. Исследования показывают, что это значительно улучшает точность произношения, интонацию, ритм, связную речь, понимание на слух и беглость речи — что делает его одним из самых эффективных методов для подготовки к IELTS Speaking и реального общения на английском.

Техника шедоуинга: читать полное пошаговое руководство →