ESL Podcast: Merry Christmas and happy new year everyone! In this ESL podcast we talk about classical conditioning. Learn about psychology while learning great terms and phrases in English.
Discussion forum
Classical Conditioning:
ESL Reading
| Classical conditioning was first demonstrated by Ivan Pavlov. To demonstrate this, he would take a neutral stimulus, one that elicits no behavioral response from the animal under investigation, and present it together with a “significant” stimulus, one that does elicit a natural response. He hypothesized that if the two stimuli were presented together enough times, the animal would learn to respond to the “neutral” stimulus in the same way it did naturally to the “significant stimulus. This is exactly what he observed. In his most famous experiment, he rang a bell and gave a dog meat powder at the same time. The meat powder would naturally make the dog salivate. The bell originally did nothing. After enough trials, the dog learned to associate the bell with the meat powder. The dog would start to salivate every time he heard the bell ring, even if no meat powder was present. |
Phrases and Vocabulary used:
Neutral: Neutral has many meanings, but here it means, “not causing a reaction”. Generally things that are neutral don’t effect the surrounding environment. In chemistry, things that are neutral don’t react with other things. If you are “neutral” on some topic, it means you don’t feel strongly either way and have no real opinion about it.
Stimulus: Anything that causes a response.
Music can be used a stimulus to get someone to feel like dancing.
Elicit: to get or obtain something. If you elicit a response from an animal it means you get the animal to respond.
Hypothesized: An educated guess. This word is used a lot by scientists when they try to guess the outcome of their experiment. It is basically a prediction as to what will happen.
Salivate: Mouth watering. When animals, including people, smell food, their mouth starts to water to prepare them for eating. This is called salivating.
Trials: each time you perform the activity in an experiment is called a trial. In our example, each time the experimenter gave the dog meat powder while ringing the bell would be considered one trial.
December 31st, 2008 at 3:24 pm
hi addison and andry , happy new year , i wish you a good time guys , i thank you so much for this fabulous website , i have learned a lot from your lessons ,and i really loved english more because of your wonderful lessons , i have downloaded all of your 112 old lessons and when i saw your new lesson113 i was so happy . i wish you will continue doing this and you will not give up , i am abu mary from yemen , and i tried to subscribe in your website but i failed i do not know why , any way thank you so much friends
December 31st, 2008 at 4:06 pm
hey guys!
happy new year! just wanna drop a short line telling you that you are a great help with my lesson planning. i am an english teacher in china. thank you that the wonderful website you guys have been working on shed much light on my teaching. keep working on it my friends!
cheers!
January 1st, 2009 at 1:17 am
Hi guys,I would sincerely say thousands thanks for 2008 and thanks for having helped me in English language and can cope with your ingenious light shine over my next year. Take care.
January 1st, 2009 at 1:18 am
I would sincerely say thousands thanks for 2008 and thanks for having helped me in English language and can cope with your ingenious light shine over my next year.Take care.
January 1st, 2009 at 1:23 am
Hi guys,I would sincerely say thousands thanks for 2008 and thanks for having helped me in English language and can cope with your ingenious light shine over my next year,happy 2009,take care.
January 1st, 2009 at 4:27 pm
Hi guys:
Happy new year, I wish you all happiness and success, and great lesson ,I like it , actually ,it remind me with what I learned in physiology years ago , thank you .
Best regards.
January 1st, 2009 at 5:38 pm
Hi guys, thanks for your priceless help in 2008. I hope you keep this good work for 2009. By the way, one of my new year resolutions is to improve my English which I expect to accomplish with your help. What are your new year resolutions?
Regards.
January 1st, 2009 at 9:48 pm
Hi guys!
Happy new year. Wish you peace, good health and prosperity for this year and the next one. Thanks for your lessons. They’re great lessons and very informative and interesting. Wish you good luck and everything good for you guys. Keep up the good work!
January 2nd, 2009 at 12:48 am
Happy new year!
In comparison with your previous lessons this one has a higher level as you stated. I like it.
Maybe you are concerned that some learners would not understand more difficult language. Probably, including me. But that’s the idea. In the beginning of your podcasts you read a text and we are thinking “I get some main facts but there are words or sentences that need to be explained”, for what we just have to listen to the ending of each lesson.
January 2nd, 2009 at 12:53 pm
Hi Andrew and Addison,
Happy ( belated ) new year and much beautiful things and fun in 2009!
Yes your last lesson- Famous experiment - is more dificult than the other ones but it is a good challange, so please go on in this line!
I am happy I found your lessons last year and always pleased when a new one is made!
Take care!
Kims
January 2nd, 2009 at 12:55 pm
Happy New Year!
Circumstances has brought me here. Guess my luck was at it’s best. u people simply rock. never thought listening to study podcast can be interesting, until the i heard ur podcast.
just in case, I am sitting for my TOEFL exam soon, and I am totally relying on u people to make my english speaking power better.
Hope u both had spend a great new year, because I was simply holed up in my room listenng to ur podcasts.
keep up ur good work.
January 2nd, 2009 at 1:35 pm
Hi Guys,
Made some stupid mistakes in my last comment so I am really happy with your lessons!
The English corrector on your computer makes you a bit lazy but that is absolute not the case with your lessons, also fun to learn the slang words which you never learn in a normal class……thank you so much!
…;-)) Kims
January 3rd, 2009 at 6:05 am
hey guys, I think I\\\\\\\’d been very lucky when found your site. After few month listening your podcasts I really increased my understanding of fast speach. Thanks a lot for your great job!
January 9th, 2009 at 5:16 pm
Hello there gentlemen,
I’ve been meaning to drop you a line for ages - apologies for the delay. I hope you don’t mind me using your fantastic lessons with some of my upper-intermediate and advanced students!?!? I certainly enjoy them (not to mention the stuff I learn) and my students do too! Your voices are absolutely wonderful and I think you two must be really brilliant people!
A very Happy New Year to you both and please keep up the good work!
A big thank you!!!!!!!!!
Sheena
ESL Teacher - Rome, Italy
January 12th, 2009 at 11:27 am
Happy New Year!
I’m so lucky to find your podcast! it’s fun, it’s interesting, I like them very much. Your voices are clear, and the accent is very good! The speed is a little bit fast…however, I think it’s a good challenge for those who want to improve their listening with fast speed. thanks for your good work~ guys. we are expecting more interesting podcasts from you in 2009.
btw, The Chinese Spring Festival is coming, if you will stay in China during Spring Festival, I wish both of you have good time during the festival~
Best wishes from Jing
BeiJing China
January 12th, 2009 at 10:34 pm
Hi Thanks for great great podcasts!
Happy new year!
January 13th, 2009 at 7:41 am
Hello dear guys,
Happy new year.
Thank you for your helpful podcasts. listening to them really improved my listening.
I wish you more prosperity.
January 13th, 2009 at 10:51 am
Happy new year guys,
About the last podcast, I think it was a little more difficult but nothing really impossible. Maybe you guys should take the lessons to a new level this year.
best wishes
January 13th, 2009 at 3:17 pm
wooooooooow………………greattttttt lesson……i like it soooo much ……
maybe it is a bit more difficult than before……but extremly helpful…..
i think it is a proper time to change the level as some people say.then any one can get level he wants……..thx for your great job….
keep u the good work
shamou….
January 22nd, 2009 at 3:09 pm
Hi, guys. Big respect from Tashkent. I am a student and now I’m going to pass TOEFL iBT exams on the 24th of January. You are great, really great. Your dialogs helps me to improve my listening as this part of TOEFL is much difficult than the other ones. Thank you very much. I downloaded all your talks. Wish you more progress and all the best.
Warm Regards,
Mr. Bahtiyor Ahmedov
January 22nd, 2009 at 4:45 pm
You know sometimes the second one of you who doesn\’t speak much but sometimes kids about with giving an example using new words from the passage. I can understand the narrator pretty well but (sorry for my term) “joker’s” speech is seldom not understood and I have to make an effort to understand what he means and maybe you are using slang a little bit. But can you explain the slang expressions after you pronounce it. And both of your speech are perfectly excellent. But sometimes I can\’t understand difficult speeches of professors, for example, when I listen to the news about psychology, sociology, and topics like this stuff. If you can please talk about such hard lectures. I hope you understand me. Thanks, for your fantastic podcast. Good luck!
February 10th, 2009 at 5:16 am
Thank all the people who work for this website, this is a very good website. I am a chinese in shanhai, and work for a foreign company, english is the first language in our company, I looking for a learn english website a long time , finally this is my final one. Thank all the people who support this website also!
February 20th, 2009 at 7:02 am
Hi guys, nice lesson again. I have a question for both of you, why your site name is China232, what is the meaning with magic number 232 ?? Maybe you can discuss it, in your next podcast.
March 27th, 2009 at 11:25 pm
This is super duper great site.. I really love it.. It helps me a lot to improve my English speaking and writing skills..loveyah guys and MAy continue to bless you:)
April 14th, 2009 at 1:40 am
The outcome of my life experiment is nothing.. And from nothing into nothing, nothing can come. Egyptophile the romantic barbarian.