BSU Series

“English For Special Purposes”

English for Sociologists

Contents

Unit	Thinking critically	Writing	Reading	Speaking	Interactive activities
1. Family: Father, Mother and Me? p 5	What constitutes a family? Understanding family diversity (interethnic families); Father’s role in a family;	Writing interview questions (using the method of heuristic questions)	-“Perspectives on the Problem of Family”; -“Interethnic Families”; -“Father’s role in a family”;	Ask for people’s opinion Check your understanding of people’s point of view	Presenting “a sample” of the interview
2.Sociology of Religion: Spirited Away? p 16	Defining religion; Traditional vs. alternative religion; The New Age religion	Survey report (presenting information)	-“God and Shopping”; -“The Secularisation Debate”;	Presentation of survey	Tips for successful presentation Evaluation of presentations
3.Learning for Life: Sociology of Education p 29	Functions of education; Schools as a society mirror; Gender and school types: do differences really exist? Future of faith schools;	“For” and “Against” essay	- “Functionalist and Conflict perspectives”; - “Changing Education, Changing times”; - “Coeducation and Single-sex schools”; - “Faith Schools”;	Introducing points in an argument	Role-play Decoding interview questions, making recommendations
4.Who “We” Are and Who “They” Are: Social Stratification p 47	Open and closed systems; How do strata shape the individual’s behaviour? Characteristics of different classes (middle and upper);	Opinion essay	- “Patterns of Social Stratification”; - “Nobody Loves the Middle Class” - “Toffs and Snobs?”	Presenting group opinion	Read the graphs, bar and pie charts, Developing skills of generalising: creating a “time capsule”
5.On the Way to Welfare State: Social Policy and Poverty p 65	Value judgements in conducting research; Suggestions to the problem of poverty;	Essay suggesting solutions to problems Notes taking	- “Values and Study of Poverty”; - “Ageing and Social Policy”; - “Family life and poverty”;	Express agreement/ disagreement;	Brainstorming, criticizing and finding “the balance”; Developing analytical skills, stating links, giving recommendations; Creating leaflets
6.Have the Right to be Healthy? p 77	Medicine and inequality; Sociological aspects of smoking;	Describing a typical smoker (sociological aspects)	- “Functionalist and Conflict Perspective on Medicine” - “Smoking and Society”	Explaining reasons, Reporting data and stating calls for action	Describing changes in graphs; Designing interview questions for a mini-survey
7.No Man is an Island p 85	Student’s self-evaluation	Summary of student’s personal learning outcomes	‘No Man is an Island’ (extract from the article)	--	--

Introduction

This manual is designed in the framework of the discipline “English for Specific Purposes” and is aimed at pre-intermediate/intermediate University students of Sociology department. It gives the learners an opportunity to practise English within future professional sphere, getting acquainted with approaches to different sociological issues in modern world science and comparing them with the situation in their country.

So, the material of the manual is organized in a way that students are encouraged to develop their critical thinking skills, they are exposed to a variety of challenging textual and graphical materials to analyse. Students are also invited to bring their own experience, feelings and understanding of the issues under discussion. The methodological basis of the manual was created through the combination of communicative approach and active methods of studying within contextual approach.

The manual provides approximately 68 hours of in-class work. There are 7 units in the manual covering different problematic blocks discussed in modern sociology: Sociology of Family, Sociology of Religion, Sociology of Education, Social Stratification, Welfare and Poverty, Sociology of Medicine, Sociology of Individual.

It is common knowledge that few academic disciplines touch us as closely as does sociology. On the one hand, we all feel the impact of the society, it enters our life from the very moment we see the light. On the other hand, under such an influence we create and develop own individuality, re-work all we experience into our understanding and use it to build our personal life paths. So, we put the natural sequence of spheres an individual acts within to organize the sequence of topics in our manual. Thus, the final topic – “Sociology of Individual” – is logically understood as a moment of reflection, as a final attempt to answer the question “What have I attained in the process of studing?”

Each unit of the manual has the following sections:

1. Learning outcomes: includes a list of practical results in four language skills that a student is supposed to obtain after working effectively at the unit;

2. Warming-up: a moment where a central problem of the unit is launched by means of a speaking activity on the base of critical thinking process. The practical aim of this section is the use of the target language;

3. Vocabulary: a list of the words a student will need for the effective discussion of the problem (vocabulary is presented in the body of the text or a number of exercises a student performs);

4. Reading activity: where various reading skills are practised with the help of recent articles taken from sociological magazines or Internet;

5. Writing activity: each activity presented in the unit is focused on one aspect of writing skills: mostly different types of essays useful for developing mental skills necessary for a future sociologist. Students are provided with an essay plan and special language tips;

6. Professional simulation tasks: suggest dealing with a task imitating a future professional activity or developing skills necessary for a specialist in sociology;

7. Useful language block: vocabulary given to help the students perform certain communication roles practised in the context of the problem tackled in the unit;

8. Sociologist’s Vocabulary: a list of special terminology or relevant words and word combinations used in the unit (plus their definitions and translation);

9. Revision Unit “Do you remember?”: giving the students a chance to systematize the information from the unit/previous units.

We hope that while studying English with our book the students of Sociology department will broaden their horizons, having various practice in thinking not only critically but also sociologically and, thus, contributing to the development of their assurance in the choice of the profession of sociologist.