EC044_Guide.pdf

English as a Second Language Podcast

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ENGLISH CAFÉ – 44

TOPICS

United States Postal Service, summer camp, whereas vs. but, RSVP (again), to

not be able to make heads or tails of something

_____________

GLOSSARY

mail carrier – a person who collects and delivers mail and packages

* I’ve been waiting for an important letter, but the mail carrier hasn’t come by yet

today.

mailbox – a box or container at a home or business where mail is delivered

* There was a lot of mail in the mailbox when we returned from our vacation.

FedEx – short for Federal Express; a company that delivers packages and can

often do so in one day

* This contract needs to be signed by tomorrow. Make sure you send it by

FedEx today.

parcel – package; often a box that is mailed

* Are you planning on going to the post office to mail that parcel?

summer camp – a program where children or teenagers go to learn or to do fun

activities during the summer months

* Which summer camp do you think Marina will like? A sports camp or an art

camp?

camper – a person who attends summer camp; or someone who spends a

vacation living in a tent

* After a long day outdoors, the campers were tired and asleep by 9 PM.

campfire – an outdoor fire used for cooking or for social activity

* We built a campfire after dark and played music and talked all night.

to roast – to cook using a fire or using high heat in an oven

* I’m hungry. Let’s roast some hot dogs over the fire.

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English as a Second Language Podcast

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ENGLISH CAFÉ – 44

marshmallows – a food (candy) that is soft, sweet, and usually white in color

* I like melting and eating warm marshmallows with crackers.

camp counselor – a person who works at a summer camp for children or

teenagers and who organizes activities and takes care of the campers

* When she was in high school, she worked as a camp counselor for two

summers.

whereas – a conjunction used to show the difference, or contrast, between two

things

* I like Brazilian food, whereas my wife prefers Chilean food.

to not be able to make heads or tails of (something) – to not understand

something

* We couldn’t make heads of tails of the letter we got from the government about

the new health plan.

These materials are copyrighted by the Center for Educational Development (2006). Posting of

these materials on another website or distributing them in any way is prohibited.

English as a Second Language Podcast

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ENGLISH CAFÉ – 44

ENGLISH LEARNING TIPS

There are two different ways you can “know” a language. One way is “learning.”

Learning is conscious knowledge of a language. This includes knowing the

formal rules of grammar, for example, such as the rules for using the present

progressive or knowing the difference between a prefix and a suffix. This kind of

knowledge is what you usually get from studying in a class or from a grammar

book.

The other way to know a language is “acquisition.” Acquisition is unconscious

(or subconscious) knowledge of language, the sort of knowledge you don’t have

to memorize or even think about. (The verb is “to acquire.”) Babies and children

acquire their first or native language without having to think about it. They don’t

study grammar books or memorize vocabulary; they just listen and watch, and

the rest comes naturally.

You can acquire a language without learning it, and you can learn much about a

language without acquiring it. Babies acquire language but don’t learn it. Many

adults study hard in school to learn a language, but never are able to acquire it

very well. Part of the reason is that many older students confuse learning with

acquisition. They believe that if they learn a language – study all of the rule of

grammar– that they will be able to speak and write fluently. But that isn’t true.

Just learning a language isn’t enough.

The reason learning isn’t enough is because most of the time when we listen,

talk, read, and write, we are using our unconscious knowledge, our acquisition.

We don’t even have to think about it. Learning can sometimes help us, but the

most important type of knowledge to focus on is still acquisition. If you want to

become fluent in a language, you must acquire it.

These materials are copyrighted by the Center for Educational Development (2006). Posting of

these materials on another website or distributing them in any way is prohibited.

English as a Second Language Podcast

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ENGLISH CAFÉ – 44

COMPLETE TRANSCRIPT

You’re listening to ESL Podcast’s English Café number 44.

This is English as a Second Language Podcast’s English Café episode 44. I’m

your host, Dr. Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational

Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California. On today’s Café, we’re going

to talk about the United States Postal Service: how it works, how much it costs to

send a letter, and other information. We will also look at a very popular custom,

or a popular tradition in the United States, and that is summer camp. And as

always, we’ll answer a few questions. Now let’s get started.

We remind you, as always, to go to our website at eslpod.com. You can get the

Learning Guide for this podcast, which includes the complete transcript as well

as vocabulary and tips on improving your English.

Our first topic today is the United States Postal Service, what most people in the

United States simply call the “post office,” where you send messages, or rather

send letters and packages. The United States Post Office is a government

organization, like most countries, and it is a very large organization. In fact, it is

the third largest employer in the United States. So if it were a company, it would

be the third largest company in the United States. The number one employer, in

case you’re interested, in the U.S, is the United States Department of Defense:

the army, the navy, the marine corps, the air force, and the other, what we would

call Armed Services or parts, of the Defense Department. And the second largest

employer, interestingly, is “Wal-Mart.” Wal-Mart is, you may know, a large store.

They sell all sorts of things: they sell food, clothing, many other things, and

they’re very popular in many cities. We don’t have a lot of Wal-Marts here in Los

Angeles, at least not near to where I live.

Well, getting back to the post office, the people who work for the post office, we

used to call the “postman.” This was when most of the workers at the post office

were men. Nowadays, we usually say “postal carrier.” A “carrier” is the person

who delivers the mail to your house. Now, in most U.S. cities, there’s only one

mail delivery a day. And it depends on where you live, what time that will come. It

could come in the morning; it could come in the afternoon. We usually get our

mail here about 11 AM, but sometimes we get it at 5 PM. It depends on who’s

working I guess, and how busy they are. Now, Americans love to complain about

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ENGLISH CAFÉ – 44

the post office, and how slow it is, and that’s probably true in many countries.

You complain about the postal service, or the amount of time it takes to get a

letter delivered. But in fact, the U.S. postal service is probably pretty good for the

price that you pay to mail a letter. In the United States, most letters cost about 39

cents. 39 cents. So, it’s less than a half of a dollar, and that’s anywhere in the

United States, including Hawaii and Alaska, Puerto Rico - any territory, we would

say, any possession of the United States, it’s 39 cents. And that’s for a typical

letter. A letter has to weigh less than, I think, one ounce for 39 cents, to put a 39

cent stamp. Now if it’s a heavy package, it will cost you more money. I’m not

sure exactly how much it is, but it’s more if you have a very heavy package. But if

you’re mailing a letter, a simple letter, a couple of pages, that will be 39 cents.

I was saying that the people who work at the post office to deliver your mail are

called the “mail carriers.” The mail carriers in the U.S., most of them drive a very

interesting type of car. It’s not a car, it’s a truck. It’s a small truck, however, and

it’s one of the few types of cars or trucks in the U.S. where the driver is on the

right side of the mail truck. In the U.S., you probably know, we drive on the right

side of the road, or the right hand side, and we sit on the left side of the car. But

mail trucks have the driver sitting on the right side of the car. Though they do not

drive on the left side of the road, I hope. And the reason is that many, in many

places the mailbox - and a “mailbox” is a container where you can put the letters

that are delivered. When the postal carrier comes to your house, he puts your

letters in a mailbox, and these mailboxes are sometimes on the road. They’re

located not on the house, but next to the road. This is true for people who live

outside of the big cities. Although some cities like Phoenix, Arizona, where I

lived, also used these boxes. And if the driver of the truck is on the right side of

the car, he or she doesn’t have to get out of their truck, their mail truck, to deliver

the mail, to put it into your mailbox.

I said Americans like to complain about how slow the mail is, and because of

that, there have been some companies that have started, that also will deliver

letters and packages for you at a much faster rate, at…much more quickly.

However, these cost more money. If you want to send a letter to New York City

from Los Angeles, it would probably cost you 12 or 13 dollars to mail it with

Federal Express, and/or the United Parcel Service. Those are two of the biggest

companies. Most people just call them “FedEx,” that stands for Federal Express,

and that’s a private company that delivers packages all over the world, really.

The other popular company here is called the “United Parcel Service.” A “parcel,”

is another name for a package. And United Parcel Service delivery costs about

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these materials on another website or distributing them in any way is prohibited.

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