20版人教新教材选择性必修一Unit 1（英语）.pptVIP

Unit 1　People of Achievement The Firm Helen Keller 　　In 1882 a baby girl caught a fever that was so fierce she nearly died. She survived but the fever left its mark—she could no longer see or hear. Because she could not hear she also found it very difficult to speak. 　　So how did this child, blinded and deafened at 19 months old, grow up to become a world-famous author and public speaker? 　　The fever cut her off from the outside world, depriving her of sight and sound. It was as if she had been thrown into a dark prison cell from which there could be no release. 　　Before her seventh birthday, the family hired a private tutor—Anne Sullivan. Anne was careful to teach Helen especially those subjects in which she was interested. As a result Helen became gentler and she soon learnt to read and write in Braille. She also learnt to read people’s lips by pressing her finger-tips against them and feeling the movement and vibrations. This method is called Tadoma and it is a skill that very, very few people manage to acquire. She also learnt to speak, a major achievement for someone who could not hear at all. 　 Helen proved to be a remarkable scholar. While she was still at college she wrote ‘The Story of My Life’. This was an immediate success and earned her enough money to buy her own house. 　　She toured the country, giving lecture after lecture. Many books were written about her and several plays and films were made about her life. Eventually she became so famous that she was invited abroad and received many honors from foreign universities and monarchs. In 1932 she became a vice-president of the Royal National Institute for the Blind in the United Kingdom. 　　After her death in 1968 an organization was set up in her name to combat blindness in the developing world. Today that agency, Helen Keller International, is one of the biggest organizations working with blind people overseas. 　　As a matter of fact, Helen is an outstanding person who defeated v