Consumer society in the contemporary world

Nowadays the issue of the so-called “consumer society” is one of the most urgent problems in the world. Many linguists use this term in their research works to trace out this phenomenon, its needs and objectives on the bases of modern literature.

A term “consumer society“ is sometimes applied to modern Western societies, which suggests that they are increasingly organized around consumption. Formerly the most important features of goods were materiality, benefit and function. At present these features are driven into the background. According to Jean Baudrillard’s theory goods create a coherent system of signs and in such a way gain sign value. People buy a great number of different things which don’t satisfy their requirements any more. Consuming the so-called sign value people are eager to reach status, prestige and significance in the society. Mankind is not interested in conversation now, they tend to material welfare. New generations consider themselves the heirs of not only natural and social wealth, but rights to prosperity. Signs, images, advertising gradually become the products of consummation which promise comfort, peace of mind and new reality. Advertising message is absorbed by people with admiration and pleasure. These ideas are skillfully manifested in the novels “Generation X” and “Shampoo Planet” written by Douglas Coupland.

Nevertheless there are many critical estimations and expressions concerning relevance of this society and its perspectives for existence. Consumer society is trained and tamed how to consume. However any kind of training somehow or other deprives people of their moral motivation to consume this or that thing. Today they don’t feel the joy of consummation, they only play with their “toys” in low spirits and disappointment.

We cannot assert that the phenomenon of “consumer society” is something good or bad. We are not sure whether people consume to live or live to consume but we know exactly that this phenomenon covers all fields of social life and we are a part of it if not its foundation.

1. Grishchenko

(Vinnytsia)

Types of learning and teaching activities

Among the main techniques used for the introduction of the new lexical items in the audio-lingual approach are demonstration, dramatization, miming, verbal or pictorial illustration [1, 61].

The role of pupils in the learning process is reproductive. They respond to incentives and have little control over the content or methods of learning styles, as it may cause mistakes.

The role of the teacher is active and central. The teacher forms goals, controls the direction and pace of learning, monitors and corrects the pupils’ performance. The task of the teacher is to maintain pupils' attention by means of various drills and tasks. He also chooses and models the appropriate situations for training structures. The teacher is in constant, direct communication with each student. Instructional materials, such as visual, audio-lingual and audio-visual means, are also prepared the teacher [3, 81].

The textbook is often not used at the elementary phases of the course.  However, the teacher has an access to the teacher`s book, which represents a structured sequence of lessons to be followed and the dialogues, drills and some exercises necessary for training. As a rule at first a dialogue is presented, which the pupils repeat line by line, thus providing training grammar and pronunciation . As an example of a textbook structured on the basis of the audiolingual approach may be presented «English in Focus». This book is built according to the following structure:

• a thematic text with questions to it to think over while reading;

• practice in the textual links;

• exploring of the connections between the statements;

• a review of the general structure of the text;

• focus on the grammatical aspect of the text with an emphasis on the usage of the specific forms in context and functions they perform;

• practice of the communication;

• reading of the similar text [2, 9].

The teacher should have a clear and rapid speech. Since the usage of mother tongue is excluded, all the instructions and explanations are provided in the language that is studied. The optimal number of the students in the class is less than ten.

The main stages of a typical audiolingual lesson are the following :

1. At first students listen to a dialogue that includes key structures, which are the focus of the lesson. They repeat each line of the dialogue individually and in chorus. The teacher pays attention to intonation, pronunciation and fluency, and the correction of mistakes is immediate. The dialogue is reproduced without reliance on the textbook so that one half of the class say the words of one speaker and the other respond.

2. Students adapt the dialogue, according to their interests or situation, through changing key words and phrases.

3. Certain key structures from the dialogue are selected and used as the basis for pattern drills of different kinds. At first they are practiced in chorus and then individually. At this stage some grammatical explanation may appear, but it is minimized.

4. Students may refer to their books, and perform follow-up reading, writing, or vocabulary activities based on the dialogues. At the beginning level, writing is purely imitative, based on copying sentences that are being trained. Later, students may write out various forms of the studied structures, or write short compositions on the given topics.

5. Follow-up activities may take place in the language laboratory, where further dialogue and drill work is carried out [1, 65].

Bibliography

1. J. C. Richards, Th. St. Rodgers Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching.- Cambridge University Press.- 2001.- P.50-67.

2. J.Flowerdew, L.Miller. Second Language Listening: Theory and Practice.- Cambridge University Press. - 2005.- P.8-10.

3. Joseph C. Mukalel Approaches To English Language Teaching.- Discovery Publishing House.-2005.- P.78-84.

Holovatiuk D.

(Vinnytsia)