Учебное пособие English ad Verbum
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Higher education in RussiaHigher education in Russia is characterized by direct state administration and until 1990/91 was essentially controlled by the Communist Party. The schools of higher learning are divided into universities, where humanities and pure sciences are taught; institutes, where single fields are taught (e.g., law, medicine, and agriculture); and polytechnical institutes, where subjects similar to those in the institutes are taught but with a broader scientific foundation. Another distinction of the Russian system is that it greatly extends the educational network by offering a broad array of carefully prepared correspondence courses. These courses are supplemented by radio and television broadcasts and are further augmented by regional study centres. Many students are thus able to proceed part-time with their education while holding full- or part-time jobs. Students are admitted to higher-educational institutions on the basis of competitive examinations. The duration of studies for a first degree ranges from four to six years, with five years being the average. The curriculum consists of compulsory, alternative, and optional subjects. Candidates for a degree must take examinations in two or three basic disciplines related to a chosen specialty. At the conclusion of a first-degree course, all students receive the same diploma, but students with the best results are awarded a “distinction.” Most institutions organize graduate schools for postgraduate studies, which are likewise concluded by a set of examinations. Modern trends in higher education indicate a willingness worldwide to learn from the strengths of the various systems. Schools in North America frequently suffer from a lack of the uniformity of educational standards that European systems provide through centralized bureaucratic control. Coordinated national accrediting organizations solve much of this problem. European universities have moved toward greater autonomy in curriculum development, and steps have been taken so that broader segments of the population can benefit from higher education. Unit 7. Computers: History and DevelopmentNothing epitomizes modern life better than the computer. For better or worse, computers have infiltrated every aspect of our society. Today computers do much more than simply compute: supermarket scanners calculate our grocery bill while keeping store inventory; computerized telephone switching centers play traffic cop to millions of calls and keep lines of communication untangled, and automatic teller machines (ATM) let us conduct banking transactions from virtually anywhere in the world. But where did all this technology come from and where is it heading? To filly understand and appreciate the impact computers have on our lives and promises they hold for the future, it is important to understand their evolution. Early Computing Machines and Inventors The abacus, which emerged about 5,000 years ago in Asia Minor and is still in use today, may be considered the first computer. This device allows users to make computations using a system of sliding beads arranged on a rack Early merchants used the abacus to keep trading transactions. But as the use of paper and pencil spread, particularly in Europe, the abacus lost its importance. It took nearly 12 centuries, however, for the next significant advance in computing devices to emerge. In 1642, Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), the 18 old son of a French tax collector invented what he called a numerical wheel calculator to help his father with his duties. This bass rectangular box, also called a Pascaline, used eight movable dials to add sums up to eight figures long. Pascal’s device used a base often to accomplish this. For example, as one dial moved tar notches, or one complete revolution, it moved the next dial – which represented the ten’s column – one place. When the ten’s dial moved one revolution, the dial representing the hundred’s place moved one notch and so on. The drawback to the Pascaline of course, was its limitation to addition. In 1694, a German mathematician and philosopher, Gottfried Wilhem von Leibniz (1646-1716), improved the Pascaline by creating a machine that could also multiply. Like its predecessor, Leibniz’s mechanical multiplier worked by a system of gears and dials. Partly by studying Pascal’s original notes and drawings, Leibniz was able to refine his machine. The centerpiece of the machine was its stepped-drum gear design, which offered an elongated version of the simple flat gear. It wasn’t until 1820; however, that mechanical calculators gained widespread use. Charles Xavier Thomas de Colmar, a Frenchman, invented a machine that. could perform the four basic arithmetic functions. Colmar’s mechanical calculator, the arithometer, presented a more practical approach to computing because it could add, subtract, multiply and divide. With its enhanced versatility, the arithometer was widely used up until the First World War Although later inventors refined Colmar’s calculator, together with fellow inventors Pascal and Leibniz, he helped define the age of mechanical computation. The real beginnings of computers as we know them today, however, lay with an English mathematics professor, Charles Babbage (1791-1871). Frustrated at the many errors he found while examining calculations for the Royal Astronomical Society, Babbage declared, “I wish to God these calculations had been performed by steam!” With those words, the automation of computers had begun. By 1812, Babbage noticed a natural harmony between machines and mathematics: machines were best at performing tasks repeatedly without mistake, while mathematics, particularly the production of mathematic tables, often required the simple repetition of steps. The problem centered on applying the ability of machines to the needs of mathematics. Babbage’s first attempt at solving this problem was in 1822 when he proposed a machine to perform differential equations, called a Difference Engine. Powered by steam and large as a locomotive, the machine would have a stored program and could perform calculations and print the results automatically. After working on the Difference Engine for 10 years, Babbage was suddenly inspired to begin work on the first general-purpose computer, which he called the Analytical Engine. Babbage’s assistant, Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace 1 and daughter of English poet Lord Byron, was instrumental in the machine’s design. One of the few people who understood the Engine’s design as well as Babbage, she helped revise plans, secure funding front the British government, and communicate the specifics of the Analytical Engine to the public. Also, Lady Lovelace’s fine understanding of the machine allowed her to create the instruction routines to be fed into the computer, making her the first female computer programmer. In the 1980’s, the U.S. Defense Department named a programming language ADA in her honor. Babbage’s steam-powered Engine, although ultimately never constructed, may seem primitive by today’s standards. However, it outlined the basic elements of a modern general-purpose computer and was a breakthrough concept. Consisting of over 50,000 components, the basic design of the Analytical Engine included input devices in the form of perforated cards containing operating instructions and a “store” for memory of 1,000 numbers of up to 50 decimal digits long. It also contained a “mill” with a control unit that allowed processing instructions in any sequence, and output devices to produce printed results, Babbage borrowed the idea of punch cards to encode the machine’s instructions from the Jacquard loom. The loom, produced in 1820 and named after its inventor, Joseph- Marie Jacquard, used punched boards that controlled the patterns to be woven. In 1889, an American inventor, Herman Hollerith (1860-1929), also applied the Jacquard loom concept to computing. His first task was to find a faster way to compute the U.S. census. The previous census in 1880 had taken nearly seven years to count and with an expanding population, the bureau feared it would take 10 years to count the latest census. Unlike Babbage’s idea of using perforated cards to instruct the machine, Hollerith’s method used cards to store data information which he fed into a machine that compiled the results mechanically. Each punch on a card represented one number, and combinations of two punches represented one letter. As many as 80 variables could be stored on a single card. Instead of ten years, census takers compiled their results in just six weeks with Hollerith’s machine. In addition to their speed, the punch cards served as a storage method for data and they helped reduce computational errors. Hollerith brought his punch card reader into the business world, founding Tabulating Machine Company in 18%, later to become International Business Machines (IBM) in 1924 after a series of mergers. Other companies such as Remington Rand and Burroghs also manufactured punch readers for business use. Both business and govermnent used punch cards for data processing until the 1960’s. In the ensuing years, several engineers made other significant advances. Vannevar Bush (1890-1974). developed a calculator for solving differential equations in 1931. The machine could solve complex differential equations that had long left scientists and mathematicians baffled. The machine was cumbersome because hundreds of gears and shafts were required to represent numbers and their various relationships to each other To eliminate this bulkiness, John V. Atanasoff (1903), a professor at Iowa State College (now called Iowa State University) and his graduate student, Clifford Berry, envisioned an all-electronic computer that applied Boolean algebra to computer circuitry. This approach was based on the mid-I 9th century work of George Boole (1815-1864) who clarified the binary system of algebra, which stated that any mathematical equations could be stated simply as either true or false. By extending this concept to electronic circuits in the form of on or off, Atanasoff and Berry had developed the first all-electronic computer by 1940. Their project, however, lost its funding and their work was overshadowed by similar developments by other scientists. Key Developments of the Information Age The first communication between humans took place in face-to-face interaction, but they soon began to create ways of sending messages long distances and recording information for use over time by others. Many of the methods were not very convenient, but man’s creative spirit kept on creating. Now man has invented the technology for communicating face-to-face over long distances and for storing and transmitting massive amounts of information through the use of electricity and light waves. This article is a short history of key events in man’s continuous search for better ways of storing information and communicating ideas. In 3500 B.C. Sumerians developed a system of writing. In 3200 B.C. Egyptians first used ink. Paper was invented in China in about A.D.105 by Cai Lun (Ts’ai Lun). The Chinese probably invented the process of block printing using wooden blocks. Later in about 1045 Bi Sheng (Pi Sheng) made the first moveable type. In the meantime, in Europe most books were still being written by hand and later using block prints. Gutenburg’s invention in 1440 of the printing press allowed the general population to have access to books. In 1729 electric pulses were first sent over a wire; 100 years later in 1831 the telegraph was invented, allowing information to be transmitted by code of long and short electrical signals. In 1866 these signals were first carried by cables under t Atlantic Ocean. In 1892 Bell’s invention of the telephone led to the development of a system that enabled people to have instantaneous voice communication with each other. Television was invented in the 1920s, making it possible for people to see what is happening around the world. Usually what we see is selected and edited first; however, more recently, and more frequently, there is direct, live broadcasting of actual events. Thus, we have been able to watch important ceremonies, military operations, and other historical events as they occur. Many ideas and inventions led to the development of the computer; one was Babbage’s analytic engine in 1834. The first fully electronic digital computer was built by two engineers, Eckert and Mauchly in 1946, and occupied a whole room. Miniaturization of electronic equipment has led to high-speed computers with very large memories as well as pocket-size computers. Affordable prices have also led to widespread use of computers even outside of businesses in some countries. The development of Internet, an international electronic communications network of thousands of networks linking computers, began with one network, ARPANET, a U.S. government experiment in 1969. Now Internet is only one of many systems. Expansion has been extremely rapid in recent years. In 1983 the first inter-city fiber-optic phone system was installed, adding to the capacity of networks. They have become so complex that users need electronic tools to search the services and databases. In 1993 the annual growth rate for the traffic using one of these tools, gopher, was 997%, and for another tool, World-Wide Web, 341,634%! Internet and other network systems allow “people in geographically distant lands to communicate across time zones without seeing each other information is available 24 hours a day from thousands of places. There is no “middleman.” It can be real-time or delayed-time interaction. People are not restricted to direct communication with just a few people at a time. Electronic communication is a mixture of oral and written communication. One person can communicate with hundreds of people at the same time that someone else is also doing the same thing. For example, on USENET (only one of the many systems), on a typical day in February, 1993, 80,000 users posted information from 25,000 sites. These systems also allow a person to find information that has been stored in many different places. From a computer in one’s home or office, a person can search a database (a library catalog, telephone directory, encyclopedia) in a distant or even foreign location. Individuals can also become news reporters of local news events. For example, during the coup attempt that spelled the beginning of the end for the Soviet Union a small e-mail company, Relcom, was the only communication link available. It is predicted that these electronic networks will become the key international infrastructure of the 21st Century. In the United States this infrastructure is now being called the Information Superhighway (IS). The IS exists in what some people call Cyberspace. So much has happened since the invention of paper about 5,500 years ago! TEACHER’S CORNER 1. Tongue twisters Procedure: Pronunciation. Write a tongue twister on the board, and read it with the students slowly at first, then faster. Make sure the students’ pronunciation is acceptable. Then individual volunteers try to say it quickly three times. Examples: 1. She sells sea shells on the sea shore. 2. Mixed biscuits, mixed biscuits. 3. Red leather, yellow leather, red leather, yellow leather. 4. A proper copper coffee pot. 5. Three gray geese in a green field grazing. 6. Swan swam over the pond, swim swan swim; swan swam back again – well swum swan! 7. Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled pepper. Did Peter Piper pick a peck of pickled pepper? If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled pepper, Where’s the peck of pickled pepper Peter Piper picked? 2. Associations Procedure: Vocabulary review and enrichment through imaginative association. Start by suggesting an evocative word: «storm», for example. A student says what the word suggests to him or her – it might be ‘dark’, and so on round the class. Other words you might start with: sea, fire, tired, holiday, morning, English, family, home, angry. Or use an item of vocabulary the class has recently learnt. If there is time, after you have completed a chain of about 15-25 associations, take the final word suggested, write it on the board, and, together with the group, try to reconstruct the entire chain back to the original idea. 3. Brainstorm round a word Procedure: Vocabulary review and enrichment. Take a word the class has recently learnt, and ask the students to suggest all the words they associate with it. Write each suggestion on the board with a line joining it to the original word, in a circle, so that you get a ‘sunray’ effect. If the original word was a ‘decision’, for example, you might get: The same activity can, of course, be done as individual or pairwork instead of in the full group. Take a central theme or concept of a story (or a technical text) you are planning to read with the group, and brainstorm association in order to open and direct students’ thinking towards the ideas that they will encounter in the text. Variation 1: Instead of inviting free association, limit it in some way. For example, invite only adjectives that can apply to the central noun, so ‘decision’ might get words like; free, final, acceptable, wrong, right. Or invite verbs that can apply to the noun, for example: you can take, make, agree with, cancel or confirm a decision.  Variation 2: A central adjective can be associated with nouns, for example, ‘warm’ could be linked with: day, food, hand, personality. Or a verb can be associated with adverbs, for example, ‘speak’ can lead to: angrily, softly, clearly, convincingly, sadly. 4. Damaged property Procedure: Guessing; using the past tense and passives. Present a brief description of a piece of property that is damaged: a watch that has stopped. You need to have in your mind the reason for the damage; the students try to guess what it is. Allow ‘narrowing-down’ questions (‘Did it happen because of carelessness?’) and give hints (‘It happened while I was cooking..’) to maintain pace and ensure the students’ ultimate success in guessing. The successful guesser can suggest the next damaged item. You may use the examples given below: 1. A watch that has stopped (dropped into the soup while I was cooking). 2. An umbrella with a hole in it (someone’s lighted cigarette fell on it). 3. Jeans that are torn and faded (done on purpose to be more fashionable). 4. A squashed cake at a picnic (the youngest member of the family sat on it). 5. Ahole in the roof (a small meteor fell through it). 6. A broken window (a tree fell onto it during a storm). |