I'm Alex Villarreal with the VOA Special English Economics Report, from http://voaspecialenglish.com | http://facebook.com/voalearningenglish
Facebook is the world's biggest social network -- and the subject of the movie "The Social Network."The real Mark Zuckerberg and his friends at Harvard University launched the site in two thousand four. Facebook says it reached five hundred million users last July.Now, the American bank Goldman Sachs and the Russian company Digital Sky Technologies have friended Facebook. They are investing a total of five hundred million dollars in the company. The deal values Facebook at fifty billion dollars -- more than many publicly traded Internet companies. Goldman Sachs is expected to raise a billion and a half dollars more by selling shares of ownership in Facebook to rich investors. The plan does not include a public stock offering -- at least not right now. For now, Facebook would remain a private company -- meaning a company that does not sell shares to the public. The plan has brought new attention to the largely secretive world of private financing and the rules for private companies in the United States.The idea is that investors in public companies have protections that investors in private companies do not. The Securities and Exchange Commission says a private company must report financial information if it has more than five hundred shareholders. A new business, a startup company, is usually considered too risky for average investors. But a promising startup may find a small number of private investors, often known as "angels." These investors are willing to lose everything for a chance at big returns.Rikki Tahta has been involved in raising money for startups. He is now chairman of his own investment company, Covestor, with offices in New York and London.Mister Tahta compares the difference between public and private companies to the difference between marriage and dating. When people are dating, he says, there are understandings but few rules. In marriage, the rules are more clear and well-defined.In his opinion, the only real benefit for a private company is lower administrative and record-keeping costs. Yet he tells us Covestor remains a private company after a few years because it is still too risky for most investors.For VOA Special English I'm Alex Villarreal. You can comment on our programs and find transcripts and MP3s at voaspecialenglish.com. We're on Facebook and Twitter at VOA Learning English.
(Adapted from a radio program broadcast 07Jan2011)
The International Primary Curriculum is an idea that began in Britain eight years ago. Today this curriculum is taught in more than one thousand primary schools in fifty-eight countries, including the United States.Educator Martin Skelton co-wrote the International Primary Curriculum, or IPC. He says for children to learn and succeed, they need a program that permits them to learn individually. He says the idea with the curriculum is to help today's children become good citizens of the world and twenty-first century leaders. He says most of world problems are going to be solved internationally. No single country is going to solve the environment or terrorism. Mr. Skelton says the curriculum has activities built around the development of "international mindedness" starting from the age of five. The British American School of Los Angeles is one of a few American private schools that teach the International Primary Curriculum. Second grade teacher Alison Kerr says the main goal is to engage children in the learning process. This term, for example, her class is learning about people important in history. She says the children dressed like famous people. They had to research and bring ten written clues and the rest of the class had to guess who the people were.The British School in Boston held a fair for students and parents called Around the World in a Day. Emma Northey, head of primary learning at the school, says fifty-one nationalities were represented. She described one activity designed to teach about similarities among different cultures. She says the children were each given a passport. They knew that they were going around the world in a day. Ms. Northey said: "We told them 'You have to come back with two similarities that you had seen between the different cultures.' Even the three-year-olds came back to me saying 'Gosh, you know everybody writes. Some people write going down. Some people write from left to right, some from right to left.'"Another educator, Kate Foy of the British School in Washington, says the teacher's role is to enable students to discover for themselves. For VOA Special English, I'm Carolyn Presutti. Tell us if you have experience with the International Primary Curriculum and what you think of it. Share your comments at voaspecialenglish.com or on Facebook and Twitter at VOA Learning English.
本城市首頁
看回應文章
等級：8
