40. Things to do a. Individual Work

1. Use the following proverbs in situations of your own. (Give Russian equivalents if possible.)

1) Knowledge is power.

2) Live and learn.

3)It's never late to learn.

4) There is no royal road to learning.

5) Learn to walk before you run.

6) Never do things by halves.

7) Experience is the teacher of fools.

8) Well begun is halfdone.

9) Where there's a will there's a way.

10) Zeal without knowledge is a runaway rose.

11) Jack of all trades is master of none.

12) To know everything is to know nothing.

13) A tree is known by its fruit.

14) Too many cooks spoil the broth.

15) Every oak must be an acorn.

16) Children should be seen and not heard.

17) Spare the rod and spoil the child.

18) Don't teach your grandmother to suck eggs.

2. Comment on the following quotations. (Say whether you agree or not and why.)

I)" It is only the ignorant who despise education." (Syrus)

2)"0nly the educated are free." (Epictetus)

3) "The secret of education lies in respecting the pupil." (Emerson)

4) "Self-conquest is the greatest of victories." (Plato)

5) "Everybody is ignorant, only on different subjects." (W. Rogers)

6) "As for me, all I know is that I know nothing." (Socrates)

7) "Knowledge is like money, the more he gets, the mote he craves." (J. Billings)

8) "A little learning is dangerous thing." (A. Pope)

9) "When children are doing nothing, they are doing mischiefs." (H. Fielding)

10) "Let the child's first lesson be obedience, and the second will be what thou wilt (you will)." (B. Franklin)

11) "People seldom improve when they have no other model but themselves."

(0. Goldsmith)

12) "Men learn while they teach."

"Difficulties strengthen the mind, as labour does the body." (Seneca)

3. Speak on the "typical" kind of school in your country.

4. If you could be any age, what age would you be? Why?

5. Compare two of your teachers.

6. Compare education in your country with education in Great Britain/the USA.

7. Talk about your last year in school.

8. Do you (dis)agree that private schools are better than public schools?

9. Explain how to study for a test.

10. Here are some decisions that British students have to make:

at 16 – stay on at school? look for a job? apply for a place on a Youth Training Scheme? go to the Sixth Form College?

at 18 – go to university? get a job? start a training course? do voluntary work? travel and work abroad? move away from home?

Make a list of decisions that students have to make in your education system.

11. Number these reasons in their order of importance from I (most important reason) to 12 (least important reason).

to acquire general knowledge

to prepare for a job to meet other young people

to train one's memory

to learn something about subjects one will not deal with again

later

to find out what one is really interested in

to give one's parents some peace and quiet

to test one's intelligence

to learn how to study and work with books

to have a good time

to be kept dependent

to learn discipline and order