FOREIGN LANGUAGE TEACHING AND RESEARCH PRESS AIR FORCE ENGINEERING UNIVERSITY,2,UNIT,Section A,2,The humanities: Out of date?,Objectives,College The ladder to success?,Contents,Warming-up activities,Text study,Language application,Summary,Warming-up activities,Lead-in,Pre-reading activities,Cultural background,1. How do you think of your current major? If you were given a second chance to choose your major, what would you select and why?,If I were given a second chance to choose my major, I would choose / I think being a is accounting, computer science, psychology, civil engineering, philosophy, medical technology popular, interesting, enjoyable, promising, practical, meaningful, beneficial, well-paid ,2. What liberal arts / humanities courses do you learn in college? Do you think they are necessary for your education?,I learn Chinese, English, philosophy, psychology, history in college. I think they are an essential part of the college education and benefit me a lot., gain more insight in life and society better understand and predict human behavior realize different interpretations of life and history understand the past which has created the present be aware of cultural and religious differences,A Technical school. B Modern arts college. C Liberal arts college.,3. How did the speaker benefit through learning the Spanish language?A He became a more competent communicator.B He satisfied the requirements of a foreign language.C He learned how to speak Spanish fluently.,1. Do you think your high school education was very much like attending a liberal arts college? Why or why not?,Yes, because we took many liberal arts courses in addition to science courses. No, because our high school laid more emphasis on sciences and we often competed with other schools in sciences such as math and physics.,Listen to the talk again and answer the two questions,2. What are the most important skills you learned in high school?,Learned how to communicate with my teachers and classmates. Improved my critical thinking and analytical skills. Boosted my confidence in dealing with difficulties and challenges.,Listen to the talk again and answer the two questions,The justification for a university is that it preserves the connection between knowledge and the zest of life, by 1 the young and the old in the imaginative consideration of learning. The university imparts information, but it imparts it imaginatively. At least, this is the 2 which it should perform for society. A university which fails in this respect has no reason for 3 .,Listen to a short passage concerning the function of the university and fill in the missing information.,uniting,function,To be continued,existence,This atmosphere of excitement, arising from imaginative consideration, transforms knowledge. A fact is no longer a bare fact: it is _4_ all its possibilities. It is no longer a burden on the memory: it is energising as the poet of our dreams, and as the architect of our purposes. Imagination is not to be _5_ the facts: it is a way of illuminating the facts.,Listen to a short passage concerning the function of the university and fill in the missing information.,invested with,divoced from,To be continued,It works by drawing the general principles which _6_ the facts, as they exist, and then by an intellectual survey of alternative possibilities which are _7_ those principles. It enables men to construct an intellectual vision of a new world, and it preserves the zest of life by the suggestion of satisfying purposes. Youth is imaginative, and if the imagination be _8_ by discipline this energy of imagination can in great measure be preserved through life.,Listen to a short passage concerning the function of the university and fill in the missing information.,apply to,consistent with,To be continued,strengthened,The tragedy of the world is that those who are _9 _ have but slight experience, and those who are experienced have feeble imaginations. Fools act on imagination without knowledge; pedants act on knowledge without imagination. The task of a university is to _10_ imagination and experience.,Listen to a short passage concerning the function of the university and fill in the missing information.,imaginative,weld together,The humanities,Cultural background,1. What are the humanities?,Humanities,The humanities are a group of academic disciplines that study the human condition, using methods that are primarily analytical, critical, or speculative. Therefore, they are distinguished from the approaches of the natural sciences. The humanities, called social sciences, include history, anthropology, communication studies, cultural studies, law, language, literature, philosophy, religion, music and theater, etc.,Cultural background,2. Why are the humanities important?,Through exploration of the humanities, students learn how to think creatively and critically, to reason, and to ask questions. Because these skills allow students to gain new insights into everything from poetry and paintings to business models and politics, humanistic subjects have been at the heart of a liberal arts education. Today, humanistic knowledge continues to provide the ideal foundation for exploring and understanding the human experience.,