口語是一種利用語言表達思想、進行口頭交際的能力。《高等學校英語專業基礎階段英語教學大綱》要求加強培養及培訓學生語言知識的轉換能力。意思是學生通過讀和聽獲得知識、信息和語言，經過思維，在原有知識及語言的基礎上對所獲得的內容和語言加工和重組，賦予新的內容，然后輸出，從而完成交際的全過程。   《英語口語教程》（Oral Workshop）問世于20世紀90年代初，是由北京外國語大學吳禎福教授主持編寫，也是目前我國英語教學界具有相當的影響力的一套教材，至今已經累計銷售數百萬冊。這套優秀的教材哺育了一屆又一屆的英語學習者，為我們國家的改革開放培養了大量的英語專業人才，成為國內主要高等學校英語專業的指定口語教材。實踐證明，這是一套非常富有生命力的教材。

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BEC 中高級聽力口語訓練材料

001. Discrimination in the workplace 工作場合中的歧視

Listen to Mr Griffin, a Human Resources expert, talking about discrimination in the 

workplace. While you are listening, decide whether the following statements are true 

or false according to w hat Mr Griffin says. 

Statement True or False?

1. Although diversity is being dealt with, it is still an important 

concern for employers.

2. A growing number of people are suing employers because they 

feel discriminated against because of their age.

3. Insurance to cover discrimination claims is an enormous cost for 

companies.

4. Securit y firms sometimes discriminate against people because 

of their age.

5. Employers cannot discriminate against job applicants who 

have been convicted of any crime.

Radio interviewer Tell me, Mr. Griffin are diversity risks really still an issue? Aren ’ t 

companies these days dealing with diversity? 

Alan Griffin Oh yes they are very much an issue. ... We have come a long way since 

those days when employers were allowed to discriminate against job candidates just 

because of their race or their sex. The trouble is ... the boundaries of diversity and 

discrimination ...... are widening. Companies have a lot more to consider than a 

person ’ s skin colour or a person ’ s gender . 

Radio interviewer So ... can you give listeners an example of what kind of things you 

are referring to here? 

Alan Griffin Okay ... let ’ s see .... well, one growing area of discrimination is ageism. In 

1998, companies in the United States had to pay out more than fifty-five million dollars 

to employers who had filed age related discrimination complaints against their 

companies. That ’ s a lot of money.

Radio interviewer Phew ... … so how should companies protect themselves from this 

kind of thing? 

Alan Griffin Well, first of all they should think carefully about their recruitment policies 

and then they should take out insurance to cover themselves.

Radio interviewer Isn ’ t that expensive? ... for the companies, I mean.

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Alan Griffin No, not as expensive as you might think. These days most small and 

medium sized organisations take out EPLI ... that ’ s Employment Practices Liability 

Insurance. The cost of the insurance has fallen over the years and if a company isn ’ t 

covered and loses a discrimination case ... well, let ’ s just say this is the cheaper option! 

Radio interviewer You’ ve mentioned ageism as a growing concern ... but what other 

kinds of diversity should managers be aware of? 

Alan Griffin Well ... you ’ d probably be surprised to hear about some ... discrimination 

against single people against married parents, against people who are too tall, too 

short, too heavy ... 

Radio interviewer Really... 

Alan Griffin Oh yes. Security firms are a good example here. They typically state that 

their employees need to be over or under a certain height or weight, They claim it ’ s 

necessary for the job .... but there have been cases where people have claimed 

discrimination. 

Radio interviewer And won? 

Alan Griffin Sometimes yes. ........ Then there are people with a criminal background. 

Employers used to feel justified in turning away job applicants just because they ’ d 

been in trouble with the law. 

Radio interviewer Isn ’ t that still the case?

Alan Griffin No .... not exactly. The law states that employers can only r eject a job 

applicant with a criminal record ... if the crime bears a direct relation to the job in 

question. So .... somebody who has served a sentence for ... let ’ s say stealing cars ... 

would be alright in a job as a kitchen porter. 

Radio interviewer And Mr. Griffin, tell me .... how many people actually go through 

with their threats to sue a company for discrimination? 

Alan Griffin Well I haven ’ t got the latest figures for the UK but in the United States the 

Equal Opportunities Commission receive around eight y five thousand complaints 

every year ... and that figure is rising. Race and sex account for most of the complaints 

that are filed but age discrimination is on the increase too. 

Radio interviewer So ... any words of advice for risk managers? 

Alan Griffin Well ... first of all make sure that you have adequate insurance. Then 

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address the issues of diversity from within the organisation. Get the employees 

involved. Celebrate the differences and try to build up a reputation as a fair employer. 

And remember .... it is worth investing time and effort in addressing these issues 

because statistics have shown that ..... you ’ re much more likely to be sued by an 

employee than a third party. 

Answers:

Statement True or False?

1. Although diversity is being dealt with, it is still an important 

concern for employers.

True 

2. A growing number of people are suing employers because they 

feel discriminated against because of their age.

True 

3. Insurance to cover discrimination claims is an enormous cost for 

companies.

False 

4. Securit y firms sometimes discriminate against people because 

of their age.

False 

5. Employers cannot discriminate against job applicants who 

have been convicted of any crime.

True

002. A lecture in Marketing 市場營銷講演

Listen to a university lecturer introduce his course on Marketing. While you are 

listening, try to decide whether these sentences are true or false. 

Sentence True or false

1. There will be three marketing lectures a week until the end of 

term. 

2. Today ’s lecture looks at pricing. 

3. Marketing is about advertising. 

4. A customer focused organisation may not have a marketing 

department. 

5. In a customer focused organisation only marketing staff think 

about customers. 

6. Employees need to work as a team to deliver customer 

satisfaction. 

7. Everyone needs to know how satisfied customers are. 

Good morning everybody and welcome to this the first lecture on Marketing. I ’ ll 

be giving two lectures a week on this important business topic at this time on 

Tuesdays and Fridays until term ends. Right, well this morning I like to introduce ’d

you to some important concepts in marketing. As you know there are lots of 

different elements that go together to make up Marketing, we ’ ll look at the key 

 BEC 中高級聽力口語訓練

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elements during this course of lectures. I ’ d like to start with a general introduction 

today. 

In general terms marketing is all about making links or contacts between 

producers and consumers. To make these links it ’ s very important to find out and 

then deliver exactly what consumers want. What is a consumer? A consumer is a 

person or organisation that buys a product, it ’ s as simple as that. Once again 

marketing is all about finding out and then delivering what consumers want in a 

profitable way. ‘In a profitable way ’ –this is obvious you may think, a company 

won’ t last long if it delivers what customers want and loses money at the same 

time, well in fact it ’ s not quite as easy to achieve as you may think. We ’ ll be 

looking at the issue of pricing later in this series of lectures. 

A c ompany should aim to satisfy their customers needs, good marketing helps ’

the company to achieve this. I like to add an extra element now ’d –a company 

should aim to satisfy their customers better ’ needs than their competitors do. 

Again, we ’ ll look at the topic of competition, how to measure it and react to it 

later in this series of lectures. 

Today I want to introduce you to the concept of a customer focused organisation. 

A customer focused organisation is an organisation that takes the concerns of its 

customers seriously. There may be a marketing department in a customer focused 

organisation, if we ’ re talking about a small company there may not be one. One 

thing that all customer focused organisations have in common is that marketing, 

satisfying the needs of the organisation ’ s customers, is the concern of every 

employee. Everybody who works for this sort of company knows very well who 

their customers are and each employee works as a team to deliver a higher 

degree of customer satisfaction than their competitors. 

‘How do we measure customer satisfaction? ’ I hear you asking, well... 

Sentence True or false

1. There will be three marketing lectures a week until the end of 

term. 

False 

2. Today ’s lecture looks at pricing. False 

3. Marketing is about advertising. False 

4. A customer focused organisation may not have a marketing 

department. 

True 

5. In a customer focused organisation only marketing staff think 

about customers. 

False 

6. Employees need to work as a team to deliver customer 

satisfaction. 

True 

7. Everyone needs to know how satisfied customers are. True 

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