白话是一种利用语言表达思想、进行口头交际的能力。《高等学校英语专业基础阶段英语教学大纲》要求加强培养及培训学生语言知识的转换能力。意思是学生通过读和听获得知识、信息和语言，经过思维，在原有知识及语言的基础上对所获得的内容和语言加工和重组，赋予新的内容，然后输出，从而完成交际的全过程。   《英语白话教程》（Oral Workshop）问世于20世纪90年代初，是由北京外国语大学吴祯福教授主持编写，也是目前我国英语教学界具有相当的影响力的一套教材，至今已经累计销售数百万册。这套优秀的教材哺育了一届又一届的英语学习者，为我们国家的改革开放培养了大量的英语专业人才，成为国内主要高等学校英语专业的指定白话教材。实践证明，这是一套非常富有生命力的教材。

 BEC 中高级听力白话训练

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BEC 中高级听力白话训练材料

001. Discrimination in the workplace 工作场合中的歧视

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.

 BEC 中高级听力白话训练

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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 

 BEC 中高级听力白话训练

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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 市场营销讲演

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 中高级听力白话训练

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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 

 BEC 中高级听力白话训练

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