Set Work

I. Think of the best English equivalents to say:

Никак не хочет ходить в школу, телефон доверия, подавленный, прилежание, ясли, чуткий педагог, отличница, доступный, «проиграть» ситуацию, внушить уверенность в себе, держаться в сторонке, давать поручения, оградить себя от хулиганов, задиристые ребята, неброский костюм, слабое зрение / слух, склониться над тетрадью, головокружение, глазное дно, неприязнь к школе, перевести ребенка в другой класс, раскованный ребенок, настроить против кого-либо.

II. Render the given article into English. Make use of the words from the first task.

III. Points for discussion.

1. What problems do first-formers face at school?

2. Do you think it’s possible to enthuse pupils to study willingly?

Inspiration

I. Have you ever had a teacher who inspired you? We asked successful people to tell us about a teacher who had a great influence on them.

A) Benedict Allen (explorer)

I was so quiet at school. I was a dreamer and I had the romantic idea that I wanted to be an explorer. The trouble was that I thought all the exploring had been done.

Sam Hunt taught me French at school and he inspired me by accepting me. He was also my class teacher and he allowed me to be myself. I think he realized that my dreams weren’t complete nonsense. He gave me space to develop in my own way. By my final year I was much more confident. I was even given an award for my collection of plants.

Sam was noble and free-thinking. He was also quiet and reserved. He was, I think, concerned about how quiet I was – I remember him mentioning it on school reports – and worried that my dreams wouldn’t come to anything. However, he always made me feel that making a dream come true is special. I discovered he was right, when I became the first person to walk the whole Skeleton Coast in Africa.

B) Siobhan Redmond (actress with the Royal Shakespeare Company)

I went to the Park School from the age of five to eighteen. I’ve avoided any school reunions mainly because I was such a monster at school.

Y music teacher, Irene Di Ciacca, went some way to teaching me to calm down a little. She also taught me that you can persevere with something you might not be naturally great at and you can take pleasure in it for its own sake. She didn’t seem much older than us, she was good fun and also very patient with me, as I really didn’t think I was gifted in the slightest. Music is the one thing I’d be terrified to perform now as I know I wouldn’t be able to get it right.

Irene also encouraged me to sing. I loved it – I didn’t have a wonderful voice but I could sing with feeling. In my last year I was presented with a prize for music. I’ve benefited from the advice of a lot of wise people. But under Irene’s instruction I learned some of the most important lessons of my life.

II. You are going to read an article about how important certain teachers were in the lives of four people who have become very successful. Read the text quickly and find out which subjects the teachers taught.

C) Rory Bremner (comedian and impersonator)

My best teacher was my French teacher Derek Swift. What stuck out instantly was that he was unconventional – the type of teacher you didn’t expect to see in a school like ours in the south. He was a Northerner with a strong northern accent.

One of his responsibilities was looking after the school library. I read such things as Pushkin’s love poems and it was inspiring stuff. We were mad keen on Russia and he said he would teach us Russian in our spare time, which he did brilliantly. He was a genius at languages – he spoke about 10 or 12. Mr. Swift was also different from every other teacher. There was always a twinkle in his eye and he had a sense of humour. He used to put his feet on the desk and cover the blackboard with words during his lessons. You can tell how good he was because there were 24 in our class and in the French exam 21 got top grades.

Even at school, if I was inspired by someone, I would imitate them. He was the first person I did an impression of in public. We met again, years later, when he turned up at one of my shows. I was thrilled to bits.

D) Darcus Howe (journalist)

I went to school in Trinidad. I was in the top stream of the school in my first year and I was more or less average in terms of achievement, but I used to be very rebellious. I was often kept behind after class. At the end of the year they had decided to expel me. However, one teacher, Ralph Laltoo, said, ‘Howe can come into my class. I’ll take responsibility for him.’ I only learned that long afterwards.

He was a Trinidadian Indian. He used to wear a white linen suit, white shirt and black tie. On the first day I was set to continue in my old ways but he made me come and sit at the front of the class and then began to teach us English literature. From then on, it was wonderful. I was good at writing essays and he inspired me to do even better. To this day I am mad about English literature.

Later, when I was 21, I was back in Trinidad on holiday and found Laltoo had become principal of the school. He told me what he had done to defend me. He was a remarkable man.

E) Terry Franklin (English teacher)

Growing up in a single-parent household without a father can dramatically dictate the course of a child’s life, especially for a male child. A young child does not have the maturity to consciously know what they are lacking at home, to realize that they are lacking a role model. They just home in on that one person, who opens his or her heart to them. I know it perfectly well as it was just what happened to me.

It’s not everyday that someone walks into your life and leaves a lasting impression that changes it forever. I was fortunate enough to find that one teacher who very early in my childhood gave me the confidence to believe for the rest of my life that I could challenge the circumstances of my home life and change them. I was a 7^th grader when a new English teacher, John Bedes, came to our secondary school. Neat, shrewd and confident, he enjoyed tremendous respect and admiration. You would not see many teachers of the kind in our schools, that’s why he was immediately recognized by all of us as a “hard” teacher, and yet, he radiated so much energy and enthusiasm, that I instinctively knew that I had found my role model. The impact this extraordinary teacher has made on my life and lives of many others is truly amazing.

The teacher’s lessons were stimulating, inspiring, breath-taking and challenging.

Later on I turned to him for help when I needed tutoring in English. For those ten or eleven years we have known each other we have become more than just a teacher and a student. We have become friends. Now I’m dead sure that this teacher possesses excellent language skills and he definitely has a knack for instilling his love for learning into his students. Thanks to his efforts, I got interested in learning the English language, which now paves the way for a brighter future career for me. Yet, it is far from mere knowledge that he has given to me. John is a unique teacher who not only knows, but additionally demonstrates the heartfelt meaning and value behind teaching. My teacher and friend makes his students feel like their thoughts and ideas are important, it’s something that a lot of other teachers don’t take the time to do. Never before have I met another teacher with as much passion towards teaching and towards students as he has. He has shaped my thinking. I have become a self-motivated person with a keen sense of responsibility. He has a very distinct personality and a very inspiring impulse – the capacity to feed his students’ intellectual hunger by sheer brilliance and untiring zeal.

True, John has instilled the pride of accomplishment in me, the spirit of competition, not necessarily with others but within my own priorities and aspirations. He wanted me to attain the ultimate. Most importantly, he has given me the all-important belief – that I am personally responsible to make my dreams come true… and that I can.

/From “The Professional”,

№21, 2003/