CHAPTER 10 History 2 Listening Practice B Listening for Main Ideas (p.

80)
A: Hi.
B: Hi.
A: Are you working on something?
B: Yeah, preparing a presentation for my History class.
A: What’s it about?
B: It’s about the different people that “discovered” America.
A: I thought Christopher Columbus discovered America.
B: Well, not…
A: “In fourteen hundred and ninety two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue.”
B: Yeah, well, he did. But it turns out that Columbus wasn’t the first person to get to the New World at all.
A: Was he the first European?
B: No, not even that.
A: Really? Sorry, I don’t mean to disturb you. Do you want to work? I’ll go.
B: No, actually it’s OK! Actually, do you mind if I go over the presentation with you? It would help a lot.
A: Oh, sure. No problem. Sounds really interesting.
B: Well, my first point is that the Europeans didn’t really “discover” America anyway. The Native Americans were already
here, so if anyone really discovered America, it was them.
A: But then where did they come from?
B: I’ll explain. It seems that the very first people to come to the American continent came from Asia, across the Bering
Strait. They came in from the North and moved down the American continent, all the way down to South America.
Those people became the Native Americans, the Aztecs, the Mayans and the Incas.
A: Really? I didn’t know that.
B: Well that was in pre-history, a long, long time ago. But, then I’m going to talk about some of the other explorers who
reached the New World before Columbus did.
A: I see.
B: I’m going to talk about two of them in particular.
A: OK.
B: Well, Leif Erickson was the most famous. He was a Viking, probably from Norway. He colonized Greenland. And then
sometime in the 10th century, he sailed from the southern tip of Greenland to Newfoundland, five hundred years
before Columbus. There are remains of a Viking settlement there—in Newfoundland I mean.
B: And what’s interesting is, Leif Erikson went to the New World because he’d heard stories about it. So it seems like
people did know, or at least they suspected, that there was land there, even as early as the tenth century. In all of the
Western European countries, there were lots of myths and stories about land in the West. It’s understandable really,
because, take Newfoundland, for example. It’s not all that far from Western Europe.
A: I never realized that, but it makes sense.
B: But then apart from the Western Europeans, there was the Chinese.
A: The Chinese? Really?
B: Yeah. The most famous Chinese explorer was Zheng He. He was a very powerful commander in the Chinese army,
during the Ming dynasty. It was the golden age of Chinese exploration—the early fourteen-hundreds. The Chinese had
these beautiful, treasure ships. They were huge, much larger and way more sophisticated than anything in Europe at
that time, about ten times the size of Columbus’s ships. In one expedition they had like three hundred ships and
twenty eight thousand men. Zheng He was in charge. He went all over the Pacific, the Indian Ocean, the Persian Gulf,
Africa, opening up trade and taking treasure from different places.
Really?
Yeah. It seems that he might have reached Australia as well. And, well, some people believe that he got to America in
1421, well before Columbus.
Wow! That’s really interesting. Sounds like a good presentation.
Thank you. I need to get some pictures…
4 Listening Practice B Listening for Main Ideas (p. 84)
A: Our presentation is about Ellis Island. We went there last week and took a tour, and we’re going to describe some of
the things that we found out. First, Grace and I’ll talk about the process—what it was like for immigrants to go through
Ellis Island—and then Melissa’s going to talk about her family’s experience doing research into her background. OK?
So, let’s go to Grace first.
B: Hi. I’m going to talk about the first part of the process of going through Ellis Island, the different stages that the
immigrants had to go through. OK. First, one important thing to remember is that Ellis Island was only used for the
poorest immigrants: the third class passengers. The first and second class passengers were processed on the ship. Then
they were taken to the docks, where they got off, and then the ship would sail on to Ellis Island, with the third class
passengers still on board.
When they finally landed at Ellis Island, they’d put on all the clothes they owned, because they were allowed to bring in
only one bag with their possessions from the old country. People brought in all kinds of things! Like, you would see
musical instruments, or samovars—pots for making tea. Some people brought earth from the old country too, or plants—
vines for example, for growing grapes.
Then the first place they got to was the dining hall, where they were givena meal that…it was paid for by the steamship
companies. People who came through Ellis Island always remember the meal. The food was apparently quite good, but it
was also strange for many of them. Some people had never tasted ice cream, or seen an orange or a banana for example.
And then after that, the inspections began. And Arnie is going to tell you about that part. Arnie?
A: Thank you. OK. After the meal, the passengers would leave their bags and go up a staircase to the Great Hall and, as
they walked past, inspectors would watch them carefully to see if they were weak or sick. If someone was sick, they
would send them to the hospital—there was a hospital on Ellis Island as well—until they got better. They also detained
children, young women and old people traveling alone. About twenty percent of people were held back, often for health
reasons, but most were released after a day or two, or when someone came to pick them up.
In the Great Hall they waited in line for hours, sometimes as long as five hours. They were crowded together, and it was
often very hot and very loud—you can imagine—as many as two thousand people, all talking in so many languages.
Then when they finally got to the top of the line, the inspectors asked them questions like, “Where do you come from?”
and “Where are you going?” “Is somebody waiting for you?” That kind of thing.
And there were social workers and interpreters waiting with the inspectors, like, helping people who needed to locate
relatives, or whatever.
Once they got past that part—the questions—people would go into one of three lanes behind the inspectors. The first
lane was for the detention center, if you were being held back.
The second lane was for the railroad ticket office, for the train station. And the third lane was down the stairs to the area
where people were waiting. There was a post there that was called “The Kissing Post” because that was the scene of so
many reunions. Husbands met their wives, and fathers met their children they hadn’t seen in years. And then the
immigrants went off to start a new life.
So now I’m going to let Melissa talk about her family’s experience tracing their ancestors.
C: Well, my great-grandfather came in from Ireland, and my aunt Joan actually used Ellis Island records to do research
and find out where he came from. So, I’m going to talk a bit about that.
Basically what they have at Ellis Island is the ship’s records and the immigration information of every arriving passenger,
with like, the date that they came in, their age, and the town they came from. So, if you know, for example, your
ancestor’s name, the year they arrived, and where he or she came from, you can look them up.
So that’s what we did. My aunt Joan wanted to know more about her grandfather—my great grandfather. He died
before I was born, but, apparently, he was a great musician. He’d play the fiddle and sing at family events. Well, Joan
knew that he’d come from Cork, in Ireland, but she didn’t know where in Cork, because he never spoke about it.
So Joan went to the Ellis Island records, and she found my great grandfather’s name, and it gave the name of the town
that he came from. So she went to Ireland and visited the town a couple of years ago.
She got more information when she was there, and eventually she found a living relative—a cousin—that she didn’t know
she had. It was great because she had always wanted to know more about where their grandfather had come from.
B: So, that’s all we have time for, but we hope that you enjoyed our presentation. Thank you.