Understanding an explanation

Listen to a professor's explanation to practise and improve your listening skills.

Do the preparation task first. Then listen to the audio and do the exercises.

Preparation

Transcript

Professor: OK, before we continue, does anybody have a question? Oh, lots of questions, I see. OK, we'll go one at a time. Yes?

Student: Thank you. You talked about Fibonacci numbers in the lecture. Sorry, I don't understand. Can you explain?

Professor: Of course. What do you want to know?

Student: OK … I hope this isn't a silly question, but what does Fibonacci actually mean?

Professor: No question is ever silly – it's always good to ask. OK, it's the name of a person. Fibonacci was a European mathematician in the Middle Ages.

Student: Ah, OK. Thanks. So, we know he was a person, but what are the Fibonacci numbers? I don't get it.

Professor: The Fibonacci numbers are a sequence of numbers. They go 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8 and so on. Do you see the sequence? Do you see how it works?

Student: I'm not sure.

Professor: OK. This is how it works. The first number is 1, then 1 again, then 2. The third number is the first number plus the second number. The fourth number is the second number plus the third number: 1 plus 2 is 3. The fifth number is the third number, 2, plus the fourth number, 3. So the fifth number in a Fibonacci sequence is 5.

Student: Ah! I think I understand now. But what about their importance? You said these were very important.

Professor: Yes, let me explain. This sequence of numbers is important because we see it in many things. Fibonacci numbers are common in geometry, they are common in nature, for example in plants. We see the sequence everywhere.

Student: Could you give us some more examples?

Professor: OK ... well, we don't have time right now but I can bring more examples in for next class, OK?

Task 1

MultipleChoice_MjMzMzI=.xml

Task 2

ReorderingHorizontal_MjMzMzM=.xml

Discussion

What was the last lecture you went to about? Did the professor explain it clearly?

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Language level

A2 Pre-intermediate

The last lecture i went to about a new life outside society. It taught me a lot of things, taught me how to live healthily and live better in a new environment

I didn't have any lectures recently, but it was last year that we had a nice conference and a person who works for Afghan Electoral Commission, explained us some important points about the importance of justice and equity in electoral process. He also precisely demonstrated the ways of cheating in the process of election. Some examples and statistics were from USA and many other countries. I learned a lot in that day. Best wishes, Tayyebi

Respected Sharif, oh your poor land...wishin' ya good studies and continuing ya studies in Mumbai/more excellent place! :))

Hello Pevelchinsky Alexander Alexandrovich

Could you please put your username in Roman letters (i.e. the alphabet used in English and Spanish)? Some users are able to read Cyrillic, but many cannot.

Thanks in advance.

All the best

Kirk

The LearnEnglish Team

The last lecture that I went to was before three months. It was about teachers provisional development. Well, it was so boring, everybody was sleepy.

The last lecture that I had was online lecture with my lovely English tutor about keeping safe against coronavirus. she explained it clearly and the meeting was so helpful and informative for me.

The last lecture I went to was about mass spectrometry, and unfortunately my professor did'nt explain it clearly

My last lecture was awesome.It’s Great. I learned about microeconomics.Our professor explained clearly.But it is not sure to attend the class due to Corona virus. I wish my class was opened early .

The last lecture that is online is Japanese history lesson today.My teacher explained old burial mound.

Yes, last time was in my university.