大学英语精读听力第二册 2_un04

[00:00.00]Unit Four  Text A
[00:24.29] Trying to make some money before entering university,
[00:29.34]the author applies for a teaching job.
[00:33.80]But the interview goes from bad to worse...
[00:38.66]MY FIRST JOB Robert Best
[00:43.42]While I was waiting to enter university,
[00:47.86]I saw advertised in a local newspaper a teaching post at a school
[00:54.52]in a suburb of London about ten miles from where I lived.
[01:00.08]Being very short of money and wanting to do something useful,
[01:05.36]I applied, fearing as I did so,
[01:10.40]that without a degree and with no experience in teaching
[01:16.07]my chances of getting the job were slim.
[01:20.51]However,three days later a letter arrived,
[01:25.37]asking me to go to Croydon for an interview.
[01:30.12]It proved an awkward journey:a train to Croydon station;
[01:35.76]a ten-minute bus ride and then a walk of at least a quarter of a mile.
[01:42.03] As a result I arrived on a hot June morning too depressed to feel nervous.
[01:48.88]The school was a red brick house with big windows.
[01:53.92]The front garden was a gravel square;
[01:58.28]four evergreen shrubs stood at each corner,
[02:02.64]where they struggled to survive the dust and fumes from a busy main road.
[02:09.20] It was clearly the headmaster himself that opened the door.
[02:14.56]He was short and fat.
[02:17.90]He had a sandy coloured moustache,a wrinkled forehead and hardly any hair.
[02:24.98] He looked at me with an air of surprised disapproval,
[02:29.94] as a colonel might look at a private whose bootlaces were undone.
[02:35.72] 'Ah yes,'he grunted. 'You'd better come inside.'
[02:41.18]The narrow,sunless hall smelled unpleasantly of stale cabbage;
[02:47.11] the walls were all silent.
[02:51.15] His study,judging by the crumbs on the carpet,was also his dining-room.
[03:00.30] 'You'd better sit down,' he said,
[03:04.06]and proceeded to ask me a number of questions:
[03:08.50] what subjects I had taken in my General School Certificate;
[03:13.78] how old I was;what games I played;
[03:19.03] then fixing me suddenly with his bloodshot eyes,
[03:23.76] he asked me whether I thought games were a vital part of a boy's education.
[03:30.02] I mumbled something about not attaching too much importance to them.
[03:35.48] He grunted.I had said the wrong thing.
[03:40.84] The headmaster and I obviously had very little in common.
[03:45.70] The school,he said,consisted of one class of twenty-four boys,
[03:51.76] ranging in age from seven to thirteen.
[03:56.20] I should have to teach all subjects except art,which he taught himself.
[04:02.86]Football and cricket were played in the Park,
[04:07.01]a mile away on Wednesday and Saturday afternoons.
[04:12.06]The teaching set up filled me with fear.
[04:16.21]I should have to divide the class into three groups
[04:21.07]and teach them in turn at three different levels;
[04:25.82]and I was dismayed at the thought of teaching algebra and geometry
[04:31.46]two subjects at which I had been completely incompetent at school.
[04:37.32]Worse perhaps was the idea of Saturday afternoon cricket;
[04:42.98]most of my friends would be enjoying leisure at that time.
[04:48.24] I said shyly,'What would my salary be?'
[04:53.51]'Twelve pounds a week plus lunch.'Before I could protest he got to his feet.
[05:00.96]'Now' he said,'you'd better meet my wife.
[05:05.53]She's the one who really runs this school.'This was the last straw.
[05:12.79]I was very young:
[05:15.95]the prospect of working under a woman constituted the ultimate indignity.