如何“步步为营”，拆解地点类话题

雅思口语第二部分地点类话题总体上可以界定为大、小地点两类。前者在论述维度上相对较容易，例如描述某个城市，可以从历史文化、交通、饮食等多角度阐述；小地点类话题的构思缺乏了宏观层面的多维支持，难度陡然增加。本文将以本季度“乡村一隅”为例，分析如何抽丝剥茧，攻克这一类话题。

话题：

Describe a place in a village that you visited.

You should say:

Where it is

When you visited this place

What you did there

And how you feel about this place

难点一：审题

雅思口语第二部分审题时，首先需要厘定话题主体信息，然后结合话题限制成分，进行主旨构建。以本题为例，题目主体描述对象为“place”，修饰成分为“in a village that you visited”。信息整合完毕后，即为“拜访过的乡村一隅”而非“拜访过的一个乡村”。

难点二：选材

题材的选定一般基于以下两点：真实性和易操作性。真实性指的是尽量从自身经历出发，进行素材筛选；易操作性指的是选定的素材要便于接下来短时间内的话题框架和细节构建。鉴于此，本题的选材可以选择一个熟悉的乡村场景进行描述，亦可描述一个具有一定难度的场景，例如例题选择的果园。

难点三：谋篇布局

完成审题和选材后，接下来的行文布局可以遵循如下三步：开篇构建、主体分层以及收尾。

—开篇：利用5Ws(when/where/who/why/what)原则切入。

It was about one year ago during the pandemic, I spent my whole summer vacation in my grandparents’ bungalow in the countryside. One afternoon after stacking the firewood in the yard, I went out strolling along the river which was mainly used for irrigation and happened to find an orchard at the far end of the village.

—主体分层：该部分一般需要分点阐述，以便于细节延展与时间控制。

Out of curiosity, I tiptoed by the bamboo fence to check whether someone was working there, and luckily, a man, with a swarthy face, was plucking the peaches. Noticing that I might be an interested visitor, he trotted toward me along the pebble-paved path and unlatched the door. After a quick chat, the orchard owner hospitably offered to help me tour around.

I found it was indeed a very large grove with patches of land where different fruit trees, like plums and tangerines, were planted. While roaming around, he told me a lot about how to cultivate all these fruit trees. For example, in order to boost the acre yield, it was important to choose the proper techniques like grafting instead of using pesticides and farmyard manures. He also told me that creating a good ecosystem in the grove equally mattered. Therefore, he must design a proper planting space for the trees to make sure they would not compete for resources like sunshine and water. Details during the harvest must be handled meticulously, too. When the casual laborers were hired to pluck the fruits, according to him, they would always be told to twist the fruit first so as to protect the branches.

—收尾：文章结尾可以用个人感受和展望未来的方法，亦可结合文章主体内容，进行反思，拔高话题，揭示出一个普世性问题。

✹个人感受：

I didn’t leave the orchard until the sunset, and it was really an unexpected and fruitful visit for me.

✹展望未来：

I didn’t leave the orchard until the sunset, and I did hope, someday in the future, I could pay another visit to it.

✹反思：

I didn’t leave the orchard until the sunset. On the way back home, I couldn’t help thinking to myself that what the orchard owner had gone through was really typical during the pandemic: keeping our nose to the grindstone while bearing the heebie-jeebies brought by COVID-19.