词汇大师-- When Conflicts Follow Young Immigrants

　　AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on Wordmaster: politics in the classroom. What an English teacher in the American South has learned from her international students.
RS: Yvette Drew was born in the U.S. Virgin¹ Islands. She has taught English as a second language in the metropolitan³ Atlanta area for about fifteen years. Teaching young newcomers from around the world has taught her some things about the similarities and differences in human behavior.
AA: But something else Yvette Drew has learned from her high school students is to pay more attention to politics.

　　YVETTE DREW: "Prior to working with them, I was sort of apolitical. But then, as I worked with them, I noticed that they paid close attention to politics in their country and in the United States. And I came to understand that they were really responsive to political things, particularly to the leaders in countries, because they believed their situation came about because of some poor decision -- they believe -- on a leader's part. So they have very strong opinions about politics. They pay attention to history. They believe their success or their failures will depend on the leaders in the place where they're at."
RS: Yet even a new country and a new school may offer no escape from failures they had hoped to leave behind. Yvette Drew describes two examples at her school -- with two different outcomes⁴.
YVETTE DREW: "When Yugoslavia was breaking up, we had students that were Serbs, Croats, Bosnians, and we were having a great deal of difficulty getting the students to get along in this new place. It became so difficult to control the fights among Serbs and Bosnians that we actually had to send one group to the neighboring high school.
"In contrast to that, during the time when Ethiopia and Eritrea were having their fight, we had Ethiopians and Eritrean students that were fighting at first. And then, at some point, they decided⁵ that [they] could not mirror what is going on. So they approached certain teachers to facilitate⁶ mediation⁷ among them. They all raised money to send to help people that were hurt or displaced⁸. It was very memorable⁹ to us as the teachers that were facilitating¹⁰ this group."
AA: Another story that Yvette Drew likes to tell goes back to the early nineteen nineties, when she received some Kurdish students from northern Iraq.
YVETTE DREW: "And one of the girls actually was very ill. We later found out she had neurological problems, and later found out about the gas that was sprayed on certain segments¹¹ of the population. But at that time I never did understand why one of my little boys said to me: 'Teacher, if America would take care of my family, I'd go back and kill Saddam.'
"Well, fast forward about three years ago, I was in a store in one of the very ethnic[ally diverse] communities in metro² Atlanta and a young man walked in, dressed in a military uniform, looking very handsome. And I'm buying something. He came over to me and I stood looking at him, and he gave me a hug and started talking. And it turned out he was that kid from ten years before.
"He was now in the military, he was a translator, he had been on several tours in Iraq. And I thought, 'Oh my gosh.' Originally he was this kid with a lot of angst and really anxious, and now ten, twelve years later, he's a grown man, trained, educated and is now an officer in the military."
RS: Yvette Drew says she and her fellow teachers try to encourage students to keep as much of their culture as they can.
YVETTE DREW: "Every Friday in my classroom, part of our classroom routine is to get online and go to your country's Web site and read the news for the week and then share it with the class. Also we have international clubs that give students opportunities to share their culture with the larger student body and the faculty¹². We celebrate with them, and we remind them constantly that part of being a responsible American citizen is that you be yourself, but you also respect others."
AA: Yvette Drew teaches in the DeKalb County School System in Decatur, Georgia. She spoke¹³ with us at the recent Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages convention¹⁴ in Seattle.
RS: And that's Wordmaster for this week. You can hear from other English teachers at our Web site, voanews.com/wordmaster. And our e-mail address is [email protected]. With Avi Arditti, I'm Rosanne Skirble.

1 virgin   

n.处女，未婚女子；adj.未经使用的；未经开发的

参考例句：

• Have you ever been to a virgin forest?你去过原始森林吗？
• There are vast expanses of virgin land in the remote regions.在边远地区有大片大片未开垦的土地。

2 metro   

n.地铁；adj.大都市的；(METRO)麦德隆(财富500强公司之一总部所在地德国，主要经营零售)

参考例句：

• Can you reach the park by metro?你可以乘地铁到达那个公园吗？
• The metro flood gate system is a disaster prevention equipment.地铁防淹门系统是一种防灾设备。

3 metropolitan   

adj.大城市的，大都会的

参考例句：

• Metropolitan buildings become taller than ever.大城市的建筑变得比以前更高。
• Metropolitan residents are used to fast rhythm.大都市的居民习惯于快节奏。

4 outcomes   

结果( outcome的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The two scenarios provide illustrations of consistent set of outcomes for range of possible policies. 这两个方案说明某一套可能采取的政策将会产生的一系列后果。
• We analyzed all the possible outcomes of your mission, Commander. 我们分析过所有可能的结果，指挥官。

5 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

6 facilitate   

vt.使容易（便利）推进，促进

参考例句：

• Modern inventions facilitate housework.许多现代发明便利了家务劳动。
• The new airport will facilitate the development of tourism.新机场将促进旅游业的发展。

7 mediation   

n.调解

参考例句：

• The dispute was settled by mediation of the third country. 这场争端通过第三国的斡旋而得以解决。
• The dispute was settled by mediation. 经调解使争端得以解决。

8 displaced   

移动( displace的过去式和过去分词 )； 替换； 移走； 撤职

参考例句：

• Gradually factory workers have been displaced by machines. 工厂的工人已逐渐被机器取代。
• He was displaced by another young man. 他已被另一个年轻人顶替。

9 memorable   

adj.值得回忆的，难忘的，特别的，显著的

参考例句：

• This was indeed the most memorable day of my life.这的确是我一生中最值得怀念的日子。
• The veteran soldier has fought many memorable battles.这个老兵参加过许多难忘的战斗。

10 facilitating   

促进( facilitate的现在分词 )； 使便利； 推进； 帮助（某人）进步

参考例句：

• Ironically, much of the labor-facilitating industrialization came from the rural areas themselves. 出人意外的是，这些节省劳力的工业化，多数是从农区本身开始的。
• Combining the maintenance of the economic order with facilitating commodity circulation. 维护经济秩序和便利商品流通相结合。

11 segments   

部分( segment的名词复数 )； 瓣； [计算机]（字符等的）分段； [动物学]节片

参考例句：

• He is eating oranges in segments. 他正在一瓣瓣地吃橘子。
• Gene cloning provides a means of purifying and propagating specific DNA segments. 基因克隆化提供了一种纯化和扩增特定DNA片段的方法。

12 faculty   

n.才能；学院，系；(学院或系的)全体教学人员

参考例句：

• He has a great faculty for learning foreign languages.他有学习外语的天赋。
• He has the faculty of saying the right thing at the right time.他有在恰当的时候说恰当的话的才智。

13 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

14 convention   

n.惯例，习俗，常规，会议，大会

参考例句：

• How many delegates have checked in at the convention?大会已有多少代表报到？
• He sets at naught every convention of society.他轻视所有的社会习俗。