Maia: So, Daniel, shall we compare a few ideas for

our assignment on how babies and children learn?

Daniel: Good idea, I’ve started the reading. One thing
I read about was these ‘learning videos’.
Maia: Oh yeah, I read about learning videos. The baby
watches a short film with some basic vocabulary,
maths and science, and they learn as they watch –
that’s the idea. Certainly, babies will pay attention to
videos for long periods of time.

Daniel: Yeah, but there’s been research to show that
babies don’t learn effectively from screens. Actually,
they learn by interacting with their parents and other
caregivers – that’s the best approach.
Maia: Mmm, it’s interesting. Another issue with
learning videos is that babies ought to have play
time.
Daniel: You mean in a group?
Maia: Not necessarily, it can be alone, actually. But
what’s important is that they investigate their own
environment. They should examine the objects
around them and experiment. So they discover
information for themselves. And they don’t get that
sitting in front of a film.
Daniel: That’s a good point. Then, I also thought I’d
write about the ‘present research’ in my assignment.
Maia: Oh yeah, I read a bit about the present
research. And it’s true, isn’t it? When you give a baby
a present or gift, some of them are more interested in
the wrapping paper than the present itself.
Daniel: But it’s not some of them. The research shows
that pretty much every baby prefers the paper to the
present, whether male or female – it’s just a human
characteristic.
Maia: Really? I’d thought there’d be more
exceptions.
Daniel: Apparently not. It seems that playing with the
paper, or ribbons, or box, stimulates the baby’s
senses. They touch everything, climb into the box,
put the ribbon into their mouths. And brain scans
have shown that sight, sound, touch, smell and taste
are all stimulated in this way.
Maia: It’s amazing the research has produced so
much specific information, just from studying
presents! I hadn’t expected that. The results cover
so many different aspects of baby behaviour.

IELTS thầy Kiên – iFIGHT – Nhanh nhất, dễ dàng nhất 45

Daniel: Yeah, exactly. But it shows us that babies
learn by playing.
Maia: So we shouldn’t stop wrapping up babies’
presents.
Daniel: No, definitely not!
Maia: Then I also read about babies and second
languages. There was a really interesting bilingual
experiment in Spain. They tried teaching English to a
group of 280 Spanish children in different preschools.
Daniel: So the research subjects were in different
schools?
Maia: Yes, but the researchers deliberately selected
teachers who all had the same education. They’d been
trained to use a style that focused on play and social
interaction. So because of that, the experiment was
standardised across all the schools, that’s really
important.
Daniel: Yeah, I agree, that was a great idea.
Maia: The subjects were aged between 7 months and 3
years old. And the children were given a one-hour
English lesson for 18 weeks.
Daniel: Did they seem to enjoy the lessons?
Maia: I don’t have any information on that. But at the end
of the experiment, each child could produce an average
of 74 English words or phrases.
Daniel: But did they remember them?
Maia: Well, follow up testing showed that the classes
had a long-term benefit, yes.
Daniel: Wow, that’s remarkable, especially
considering some of the children were so young.
Maia: I think so too. It really shows how babies and
small children can learn through playing.
Daniel: Yeah, I wonder if other schools will try the same
thing in future.
Maia: It’ll be interesting to see what happens.

Now listen and answer questions 27 to 30.

Daniel: So, Maia, let’s discuss some more ideas about
how babies learn. What other research have you read
about?

Maia: Well, I read about Dr Pritchard’s study. In her

experiment, babies were given toys to play with. And
their caregivers sometimes repeated the same
movements as the baby, and sometimes did

IELTS thầy Kiên – iFIGHT – Nhanh nhất, dễ dàng nhất 46

something different. And Dr Pritchard monitored the
baby’s electrical brain activity. The results showed that
babies were happiest when parents or caregivers
imitated their behaviour.
Daniel: Maybe that could be used as a teaching
tool?
Maia: Yeah, absolutely.
Daniel: Then I read about a study of 3-year-olds.
This was interesting. The researchers
experimented by doing things like dropping a pen or
knocking something off a desk.
Maia: And did the children do the same thing?
Daniel: No, what they often did though, was pick up
the pen. They wanted to give someone assistance if
they could, if they thought someone else had a
problem. So I think that shows how babies are more
likely to learn by working with caregivers and
teachers, rather than in isolation.
Maia: Then have you heard of Professor Michelson?
Daniel: Is he a linguist?
Maia: You’re thinking of someone else. Professor
Michelson did a study where babies had to push
buttons. Some buttons switched on a light and some
didn’t. And after a little experimentation, the babies
nearly always pushed a button that switched on a
light.
Daniel: You mean, they knew the light would come
on?
Maia: Professor Michelson thinks so. He believes they
recognised that a certain thing would happen, as a
result of a certain action. So maybe that has
implications for learning.
Daniel: Interesting. I also looked at a study in the
United States. This showed that babies as young as
16 months have some knowledge of how language is
structured. In a simple sense, they seemed to know the
function of nouns and verbs. And the researchers
believe this is linked to the way they learn the meaning
of new words.
Maia: Oh, really? Amazing they start so young. I’d
like to read about that…

IELTS thầy Kiên – iFIGHT – Nhanh nhất, dễ dàng nhất 47

Student: Well, hi everyone. In my presentation today
I’m going to be talking about Sarah Guppy, a female
engineer in Britain in the 19th century.
So, first some background. Um, so in Britain at that
time, there weren’t many women engineers. But the
19th century was a time of great change in Britain and
women were becoming increasingly active in many
aspects of society. So one example would be Jane
Harrison, who was a linguist and an expert on ancient
civilisations. Jane Harrison is credited with being the
first woman to be employed as an academic at a British
university. And slowly women were being employed in
more fields during this period. Let me just give you a few
statistics to illustrate. Um, so, by the end of the 19th
century, there were thousands of female musicians and
actors and more than half in each group were women.
When it came to the professions, the numbers were
much lower. So dentists – there were 140 women, and
there were 212 women who were employed as doctors
at the end of the century.
OK, so moving onto Sarah Guppy herself. Sarah was
born in 1770 in the city of Birmingham into a family of
merchants. Aged 25 she married Samuel Guppy and
moved to the city of Bristol. Then in 1811, she
patented her first invention. This was a method of
building bridges that were so strong they could
withstand even severe floods, which might otherwise
have destroyed the bridge. Her idea was used by the
engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel when he built the
famous Clifton Suspension bridge. Sarah was not
directly involved in this project as an engineer. However,
she is known to have constructed models representing
the entire structure, and these were of great assistance
to Brunel when he built the Clifton Suspension bridge.
What’s more, Sarah was involved in the project to build
the Clifton Suspension bridge in another way, too.
Together with her husband, Sarah was an important
investor in the project, and did well out of it financially.

Now listen and answer questions 36 to 40.

Student: However, Sarah’s talents as an engineer and
designer went beyond bridges. One of her inventions
was the so-called ‘barnacle buster’. This was a device
that increased the speed at which ships could sail, by
preventing tiny creatures like barnacles growing on
them. Sarah also had an interest in railways. Now, the
19th century was a time when a huge number of railway
lines were being built across Britain. Frequently, this

IELTS thầy Kiên – iFIGHT – Nhanh nhất, dễ dàng nhất 51

involved digging ‘cuttings’, where the railway line was
cut into a hill. And Sarah encouraged trees and
vegetation to be planted in cuttings to reduce the
problem of erosion – a technique that is still commonly
used today.
I’d also like to mention that some of Sarah Guppy’s
machines are quite amusing when we look back at
them today. One that stood out for me was a machine
that made tea, kept toast warm and boiled an egg all at
the same time, so you could sit down for a typical
British breakfast without waiting for anything. It’s quite
strange to look at but I guess it might have been
convenient! Then there was one area where Sarah
was really ahead of her time because she designed an
early type of equipment that’s very common today.
This was a sort of gym machine that you could keep at
home. And in the last 150 years or so that’s an industry
that has really taken off.
OK, so in conclusion, what can we say about the
career of Sarah Guppy? She certainly wasn’t the only
woman engineer in 19th century Britain. I mean, for
example there was Ada Lovelace, who is sometimes
described as the first computer programmer and
Hertha Marks Ayrton, a mathematician and electrical
engineer. But still, Sarah’s contribution was highly
unusual. Just by way of illustration, it’s worth noting
that it wasn’t until 1906 – 54 years after Sarah’s death –
that a woman studied
engineering at university and graduated as an engineer
for the first time. Now one other thing…

IELTS thầy Kiên – iFIGHT – Nhanh nhất, dễ dàng nhất 52