Greetings, students. Now that you’re in Year 3 of your American English studies, you will be able to read, and listen about one of VOA’s “Arts and Culture” articles, which explore music, pop culture, society, and life in the United States of America as well as in countries all over the world. You are encouraged to carefully read the article and the vocabulary words, as well as listen to the article. Finally, you are invited to share what you learned by discussing why this article is important and meaningful in the comments section below.
Directions: Read the article and study the vocabulary below.
Directions: Listen to the audio recording of the article.
Directions: Share your insights about why this article is meaningful and important by writing in the comments section below.
About the Author
Lesson 3.30.4: year 3
Art & Culture.
” Are American’s communities disappearing”?
I think, not in America but all over the world’s communities are facing the same problems. In my views, the main reason is latest electronic media technology. though, Islam, puts a deep emphasis on our individual duty to our neighborhood. But we are not preforming our duty religiously. Neighborhood cohesiveness is a really important social glue. It keeps us connected and supports our wellbeing in everyday life and during crises. There was a popular Televison show, named,” Neighborhood” in 2001 to teach American children the importance of kindness and understanding towards others. The idea was that strong communities need strong relationships between the people in them. But now fewer and fewer Americans seems to know their Neighbor, and that may be destroying American’s communities. A book,” The Vanishing Neighbor” written by Marc Dunk Elman, he mentioned in his book that Americans have three level relationships, family and close friends, Neighbour and people in community group, people who live far away but share a common interest and they get on touch via internet. In his book, he argued that people spend their family and close friends, but relationships with Neighbour is very important.
However, Americans may be losing what it means to be a good Neighbour, as Fred Rogers of” Mister Roger’s neighborhood taught, ” doing good for a Neighbour is healthy us and for Neighbour”.
Despite that today national problems are dominating.