Tapescript

Right, everybody. Welcome to Central College library services. My name's Kathy Jenkins. I'll give you a brief introduction to the library. We have a well-stocked bank of resources which are in three main locations: the library itself, with books and periodicals; the self-access language centre, with audio and video material; and the micro-computer lab. I'll start with the micro-computer lab, or micro-lab as we call it. It is fitted with 24 personal computers.

If you are a member of the library, you may borrow CALL discs in French, German, Italian, Spanish and Russian as well as English. By the way, CALL stands for computer aided language learning: C A double L, "CALL", for short. You may also borrow a range of word processing and desktop¹ publishing packages. All disks are, of course, strictly² for use in the micro-lab only. If you wish to print anything you should use one of the five machines around the outside of the room. Four are connected to dot matrix printers, one is connected to the laser printer. If you want a top quality printout from the laser printer, come and see myself or any of the library staff. Dot-matrix printouts are free but there is a charge for using the laser printer.

There is always a queue to get to the terminals towards the end of term. Come in and get to know how to use the computers early in the term and use them regularly, rather than just before exams and essay deadlines, in order to avoid delay or disappointment. Training sessions are held on a regular basis, on the first and third Thursday of each month, and are free to full-time³ students of the college. See you there. Now, any questions?

You now have 30 seconds to check your answers to Questions 1 - 3.

Part CYou will hear a talk given by a university lecturer. As you listen, you must answer Questions 1 -10 by writing NO MORE THAN THREE words in the space provided on the right. You will hear the talk TWICE.You now have 60 seconds to read Questions 1 to 10.

1. What's the average annual increase of foreign student population in the period between 1985 and 1990 in terms of percentage?2. Which part of the world contributed to an increase between 94/95 and 95/96?3. When will the speaker talk about the economic and political changes?4. What will the speaker discuss first?5. Where do the three largest groups of students come from?6. What's the number of students from Malaysia?7. Which is the most popular field of study?8. What's the percentage of students in business and management?9. In terms of academic levels, in which level do we find the smallest number?10. In summary, what did the speaker talk about?

Tapescript

For those of you who are either already studying in the United States or plan to one day, it might be interesting to know something about the foreign student population in the United States. For the academic year 1995/96 there was a total of approximately 344,000 foreign students studying in the United States. This figure of 344,000 may seem like a very large number until you compare it with the total population of 241,000,000. The foreign student population has been growing for a number of years and is still growing, but the rate of increase has dropped sharply during the 1990s. During the 1980s, the population grew quite rapidly. For example, between 1985 and 1990, the average yearly increase was 12.5%. However, the picture in the 1990s is quite different. The rate of increase has declined quite noticeably. In fact, the rate of increase between 1994/95 and 1995/96 was only .5%, or one-half of one percent. Although the overall rate of increase has dropped to only .5%, the number of students from some parts of the world is increasing while the number of students from other areas is decreasing. For example, during this same time period, that is between the academic years 94/95 and 95/96, there was a decrease in the number of students from the Middle East, while the number of students from South and East Asia increased. These changes in the number of students coming from different parts of the world no doubt reflected changing economic and political situations. I'm sure you are aware of many of these changes, and perhaps we can discuss them at our next meeting. For today let's confine our talk to first, a discussion of the origin of these students, or, in other words, where they come from; second, the kinds of studies they pursue; and, finally, the academic levels they are found in. If we have a little time left, we might quickly discuss in which geographic⁴ areas most of them go to school.

Let's discuss the origins of the foreign student population in the United States for the academic year 1995/96. Let's discuss it in order from those areas sending the most students to those areas sending the fewest students. If we look at the figures provided by the annual census⁵ of foreign students in the United States for the year 1995/96, we see that most of the foreign students studying in the United States during this year were from South and East Asia. This is a rather large geographical⁶ area which includes such countries as China, Korea, Pakistan, India, Malaysia, and Indonesia. The total number of students from this area, South and East Asia was 156,830. In other words, roughly 2 out of every 5 foreign students come from South and East Asia. Almost 24,000 of this total were from China. Malaysia was close behind with just a little over 23,000 students. The