Руководство для студентов 3 курса специальностей 1 02 03 06 01 Английский язык. Немецкий язык
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Ex. 2 Work in pairs. Find a partner from the other group. Summarize for each other the content of your texts. Dr Spock was speaking in 1973. Which war was he referring to? What would the writer of the letter have to say to Dr Spock, if the two ever met? Text 6 Ex. 1 Pre-reading task Read the first paragraph of the article. Why do present-day Americans disagree with Dr Spock. Now read the article. As you read, underline anything that surprises you in Glenn Doman's thinking. Can you find any flaws in his arguments? Bringing up a better baby (and goodbye Dr Spock) Dr. Benjamin Spock, the famous American pediatrician, reassured several generations of anxious parents in his best selling Baby and Child Care. He wrote 'Your baby is born to be a reasonable friendly human being'. Today's parents are not sure this is enough. There is a growing number of American professional parents with obsessive ambitions for their children. They are dedicating their lives to creating brilliant children. The Age of Spock is over! Why have a merely 'normal' baby when you can have an improved model, a Better Baby? In the world of baby care, common sense has given way to competition and connoisseurship. The Better Baby Institute This was founded by an American called Glenn Doman. Four to six times a year the Institute opens its doors to a group of about eighty parents who have paid $490 each for a seven-day seminar entitled 'How to multiply your baby's intelligence'. After studying children for over forty years, Doman has developed an apparently brilliant, internally consistent, and completely idiosyncratic brand of science that commingles developmental psychology, neurology and anthropology. He introduces the parents to his '89 Cardinal Facts for Making Any Baby into a Superb Human Being'. Cardinal Fact No. 6: 'Our individual genetic potential is that of Leonardo da Vinci, Mozart, Michelangelo, Edison and Einstein.' Show the cards to your infant five or six times a day, simultaneously reciting the word written on each one. With his extraordinary retentive powers he'll soon be learning hundreds of words, then phrases. The idea is to try to treat the baby's mind as a sponge. By the age of three, Doman guarantees, your child will be entertaining himself and amazing your friends by reading 'everything in sight'. In like manner he can learn to perform staggering mathematical stunts, or to distinguish and thoughtfully analyze the works of the Great Masters or the classical composers. (adapted from an article in Harper's and Queen March 1986) Doman claims that up until the age of six, when brain growth slows, a child's intellectual and physical abilities will increase in direct proportion to stimulation. Thus any child, given the proper stimuli, can become the next Leonardo. Cardinal Fact No. 26: 'Tiny kids would rather learn than eat.' Doman claims that they'd rather learn Greek than baby talk, since higher orders of complexity offer more stimulation. He makes the average adult seem like a tree sloth in comparison with a two-year-old. 'Every kid,' he asserts, 'learns better than every adult'. Parents at the Better Baby Institute learn to regard their mewling puking infants not so much with respect as awe. So the question is now one of technique. How can parents create the kind of brain growth that leads to expertise in reading, math, gymnastics, and the like? Say you want to teach your six-month-old how to read. Write down a series of short, familiar words in large, clear letters on flashcards. Doman declines to prove his claims to the scientific community; he's happy, he says, as long as parents are convinced. These Professional Mothers (it is usually the mother) turn out to be paragons. Attractive young Mrs. DiBattista printed up 9,000 flashcards for five-year-old Michael. Stout, solemn Mrs. Pereira patiently explained that she 'took time off from her all-day routine of teaching eleven-year-old Josh to devote several weeks exclusively to making Josh's French and Spanish flashcards for the coming year. Wasn't Josh lonely? 'No', his proud mother replied. He was 'socially excellent'. What does Dr Benjamin Spock think of the better baby phenomenon? Like most octogenarians he thinks the world has gone to hell; he argues that competitive pressures are taking a psychic toll on most Americans, especially young people, and blames 'excessive competitiveness' for the extraordinary rise in teenage suicide over the last twenty years. Efforts to improve infants' cognitive abilities only prove to him that the scramble for success has finally invaded the cradle. Ex. 2 Comprehension check Are the following statements true or false? 1 Dr Spock reassured generations of parents that their babies were instinctively sociable. 2 The main ambition of many American professional parents these days is for their children to become integrated members of society. 3 The Better Baby Institute runs courses for especially gifted children. 4 Doman believes that any individual could be a genius as great as Shakespeare as long as training is started early enough. 5 Doman believes that a baby would prefer to learn Greek to its mother tongue because Greek is more challenging. 6 Doman maintains that babies can learn to read hundreds of new words and phrases every day. 7 Scientists have proof that Glenn Doman's theory is correct. 8 It is a full-time job for parents if they embark on the training programme. 9 Josh Pereira has difficulty getting on with other children. 10 Dr Spock believes it is desirable that parents make every effort to increase their baby's cognitive abilities. Ex. 3 Points for discussion 1 How do you feel you would have responded as a baby or child if you had been trained in the manner described in the article? 2 Would you want your children to be trained like this? Why? Why not? 3 What is the difference between 'learning' and 'playing' for a baby? 4 Do you think that an institute like Glenn Doman's would be popular in your country? Why? Why not? What kind of people do you think it might be popular with? 5 Can you envisage any problems that might result for both parents and children who embark on such a programme of training? Ex. 4 Speaking Roleplay Imagine that you are a group of parents and you have just listened to a talk given by Glenn Doman in which he has described the Better Baby Institute. It is now question time. In pairs prepare at least six questions that you would like Doman to answer about his ideas. Another member of the class will try to respond to your questions as they feel Doman might do. Ex. 5 Writing Write an essay on one of the following topics. Present both sides of the argument, and then give your own views with reasons. – Should parents try to teach their children before they go to school? – Who is mainly responsible for a child's academic success, the parents or the teachers? – A competitive society brings out the best in every individual. UNIT 3 ADOLESCENCE Text 7 Ex. 1 Read the text. From 12 to 25 years: Puberty and Adolescence The adolescent has to face the physiological changes in his own body on the one hand and his family's and society's altered expectations of him on the other. The biological changes and the arousal of sexual feelings lead to a re-awakening of many experiences of earlier stages. Unresolved conflicts surface once more; and because of this return of earlier experience, adolescence is commonly thought of as offering the individual a second chance to solve unsettled problems remaining from previous stages of development. We all know of teenagers who refuse to wash and whose bedrooms are islands of chaos in an otherwise orderly household. This is the time when 'puppy fat' can turn into obesity because solace is sought in food. Erikson describes the main task to be completed as identity formation. This has four components: (1) The definition of a working role; (2) The acquisition of social attitudes and opinions; (3) Separation from parents emotionally and in fact; and (4) The definition of a sexual role. In all these areas final choices are not made at once. The adolescent experiments with jobs; with ideologists and allegiances to different groups and movements; and with different sexual partners. Clothes and specifically teenage activities help both adolescents and their parents towards a changed way of relating to each other. Mutual turning away from each other may be a necessary step towards independence and maturity. Adolescent rebellion against parents is often exaggerated in children with excessive dependency needs stemming from much earlier feelings of insecurity. Parents who are inadequate and unsure of themselves are threatened by any independent views on the part of their children and often try to insist on continued conformity to their own standards. The children of such parents are frequently driven into extremes of adolescent rebellion. All day long adults tell them things, teach them, demonstrate their own adult superiority. In the streets, in shops, everywhere they are regarded more or less common property for telling off, putting down, to go last though doors and at the end of queues. Text 8 Ex. 1 Read the text. Sharon Sharon Dole, 19, lives in Essex in a new town just outside Chelmsford. She left her North London comprehensive at the age of 16 with two О levels and now works as a hairdresser earning an average of £70 a week. “When I was 12 my biggest ambition was to leave home by the time I was 16 and to have a Porsche by the time I was 17. From the age of 14 I knew I wanted to be a hairdresser”. Sharon's biggest ambition now is to have her own chain of hairdressing salons. Going to university was never high up on Sharon's list of priorities. "I used to think that school was like a prison". But what is high up on the list is boys. "I"ve been boy crazy since I was 12, when I started going out with my first boyfriend. Since then I've had hundreds of them, I've lost count". As for her actual views on boys, she doesn't rate them highly. "All blokes like to lie. They tell girls how they're beautiful and how madly in love they are. I think you should just have a laugh and then get rid of them". And as for marriage? "I'd like to get married when I'm about 25. If my last boyfriend had asked me, I'd have jumped at the chance. I'd like the engagement to last a long time and I wouldn't live with him before because then there's no point: it just becomes a piece of paper". For Sharon, an average night out is going to the disco. There are discos everywhere in Essex and on a Saturday night I always make sure I'm not in before 2 am. When I was younger my parents used to make me be in by 10.30 during the week". When Sharon's not down the disco, she spends a lot of her time cutting people's hair and trying to renovate her Fiat Super Mirafiori. "I'm not interested in current affairs, I think it's all boring and I'm not at all religious. I used to read The Sun but now if I want to know the news, I just listen to other people or watch the telly. On the whole I don't watch much telly. I prefer listening to records. As for fashion, I don't wear what everyone else wears. I dress for sexuality and what I feel comfortable in. When I go shopping I spend lots of money on leather. I love it. I paid £190 for one of my jackets". Sharon goes away on holiday once a year with a friend in August. "I usually go to Majorca but this year I'm going to Tenerife. I like a holiday with lots and lots of nightlife. If I had loads of money, I'd go to Malibu and get a house next door to Rob Lowe so that I could sit there and stare. The furthest I've been is Portugal." For the future, Sharon wants to avoid doing what her mother did... “I don't think she's lived her life to the full. I want to enjoy my life even more than I have already”. Ex. 2 Comprehension questions. 1 What was Sharon’s biggest ambition when she was 12? 2 What was high up on Sharon’s list of priorities? 3 What’s the girl’s opinion of boys? 4 What does Sharon think of marriage? 5 How does Sharon prefer to spend her free time? 6 What kind of a holiday does the girl like? 7 What are Sharon’s plans for the future? Ex.3 Enlarge on the following. 1 Sharon is fond of her job. 2 Sharon lives a very lively life. 3 Sharon has her own attitude to fashion. Ex.4 Look through the following text and discuss the questions below. Quiet, Secure Life is Goal for Children Teenagers want well-paid jobs, a cosy family life and good health, and would prefer to spend a quiet night at home in front of the television to going out in the town, according to a survey of 13,000 youngsters. Most boys — 25 per cent — wanted to become managers or businessmen, while the same number of girls looked forward to being nurses or teachers. Only eight per cent of the girls wanted to be engineers or scientists, and three per cent of males wanted to become teachers or nurses. The survey showed a majority of both sexes expected to be earning between £20,000 and £30,000 a year by the time they are 30. Asked about their choices for holidays, 65 per cent said they would rather relax on a Caribbean island than ski in the Alps, party in St. Tropez or in the Himalayas. The Australian soap opera Neighbours easily topped the teenage television ratings. For boys, the most popular way of spending an "ideal evening" — for 29 per cent — was a "quiet night by the telly with my partner" rather than an elegant dinner party, a visit to a disco or wine bar, or an outing to the cinema or theatre. Girls were keener to go out and watching television was the last thing they wanted to do. Swimming was the most popular sport for both sexes, although football was the favourite for boys. Skiing was the sport that both sexes would take up if they had the chance, with American football second choice for the boys and water skiing for the girls. From a choice of 20 "heroes", most boys said they would like to be Daley Thompson while the girls picked the pop star Madonna. A total of 67 per cent of the youngsters expected to be married and with children by the age of 30. However, more than a third did not want children at that age, and 20 per cent said they would stay single. The survey also showed that cruelty to animals, education and famine were the issues young teenagers cared most about. While 90 per cent of girls said they cared at least a little for equality for women, 24 per cent of boys said they did not care at all. 1 Are there any differences between the life Sharon leads and the life of the teenager in the previous text? Do you like Sharon's viewing of life? 2 Compare your priorities in life with those of an average teenager. Are they alike? What is it for you to live your life "to the full"? What is you goal in life? Text 9 Ex. 1 Read the text. The happiest days of whose life? You can't perhaps expect school children to come up with radical alternatives to school. They have been so thoroughly conditioned and cocooned—that when interviewed they tend to fall into three stereotypes — the "responsible" voice, the "rebel" voice, and the dropout "I'm-going-to-be-a-hairdresser-so-what-do-I-want-with-school?" voice. It's best to look at childhood and school in retrospect, in the context of the outside world, about which school children know little. The best parts of autobiographies are nearly always descriptions of childhood and upbringing. For the purposes of this article I am talking now about "children" from the age of 13 upwards from the onset of puberty when they are not really children any more, but we continue to treat them as if they were. Most of my friends remember that period or their lives as time of pain, repression, longing for freedom and independence, full of deep memories of injustices done to them, and indignation at the absolute power that others wielded over them — and these are people who would not claim to have had a particularly unhappy or unusual childhood. Imagine a section of society living in conditions not unlike an open prison. (Prisoners often complain about being treated like children.) They have no source of income except an arbitrarily arranged handout yet are vigorously assaulted by commercial pressures to buy and own things — records, clothes, hamburgers, movies. They have no choice in how they spend most of their lives — school is compulsory. They are allowed to contribute nothing to society, but must receive everything, for which they are in some way supposed to be grateful. All day long adults tell them things, teach them, demonstrate their own adult superiority. In the streets, in shops and everywhere they are regarded as more or less common property for telling off, putting down, to go last through doors and at the end of queues. There is no role for the "good" and successful child but cheerful obedience. Even at work between 16 and 18 they are treated in much the same way as apprentices and juniors. What other section of society would we dare to treat like that? I am not saying that children don't have to learn. Clearly they do, somehow or other. But the notion that being taught in school is the only way for them to acquire understanding and knowledge should not go unquestioned. School is a remarkably uneconomic way of imparting information. How much of what we learned in school, even those of us who went on to higher education, really stuck? If you stopped an average group of twenty-five year olds in the street it is likely you would find that almost all their knowledge had been acquired outside school. I have always secretly admired school refusers. If you refuse to go to school for long enough eventually you get private tuition. I wonder whether it mightn't catch on. Life in an institution, herded together in competitive large groups, unable to escape the bullies and the enemies, isn't what many people ever opt for later in life. Prison and the army aren't popular. The idea that being pushed together in this unnatural environment is any kind of preparation for society seems to be especially odd. It was that thought that used to depress me most of all at school. "School is just a microcosm of society," teachers used to say. Thank God, it's not true. I wonder whether adolescence existed as a problem condition before people at puberty and afterwards were classified as children. In the old days most people were regarded as more or less adult from around 13. They were put to work, given a role to play in society. They were adult and they had work to do. All that disaffection, depressed idleness, grumbling, and directionless anger that we suffer as adolescents may be just the result of treating people who ought to be adults as children. Give them work and responsibility for their own actions and they might be ordinary adults. Put an ordinary adult back into childhood for a few weeks, and might he not start to display classic adolescent symptoms? I am surprised that schools are still such peaceable institutions. If ever there was a recipe for violence and insurrection it must be there. What keeps the children quiet is the rewards they are promised, the carrots dangled in front of them. But now it is becoming clearer that the rewards are not forthcoming. The good jobs are not there to be had for the passing of a few exams. High unemployment has meant that the standards have risen and the competition has got tougher. You need О level maths to be a bricklayer. More people passing more exams doesn't mean more people getting better jobs. It just means they've had their expectations pushed up. Schools can't create jobs. Nor can universities. They can't create a society that wants all chiefs and no Indians. |