1 Match the beginnings and the ends of the sentences.

1 She really got into her	a) a technical university.
2 This summer I got	b) good progress in chemistry.
3 Helen is making	c) me from doing my homework.
4 I failed	d) my school-leaving certificate.
5 Martin has entered	e) school two weeks ago.
6 My sister always distracts	f) my English test.
7 Clare dropped out of	g) mathematics.

2A Read the article below without using a dictionary and match the subtitles to the parts.

• There is one extra subtitle.

	В
	С
	D
	E
	F
	G
	H
	I

Flexible is best Still more variety Distance learning Open learning

How shall we learn in the future? Learn while you work Limits on learning are disappearing People prefer to learn in a group Lifelong learning

For Your Info

I could even get As — In British and American schools students can get the following marks: A. B, C, D, E A is the highest mark and F is the lowest. Math — AmE Maths — BrE

THE LEARNING REVOLUTION

Learning is not confined to the classroom, as millions of people have recently discovered. It can happen at any time or in any place. It doesn’t matter how old you are either. “Open learning”, “lifelong learning” and “distance learning” have all become part of modern educational vocabulary. But what do these words mean exactly?

Any kind of education meant to make learning available to more people is often referred to as “open learning”. It means that people can decide for themselves what to learn, at what pace, who will teach them and when the results of their learning will be assessed.

When the tutor could be in Cambridge, in the UK, and the learner on a farm in Australia on the other side of the world, this is truly distance learning. Distance learning uses the postal system, television and the computer. E-mail and the Internet, which have been around for two decades now, offer exceptional new opportunities. The idea isn’t new, of course. In Soviet Russia distance learning, or correspondence courses, have been run for many years on a large scale. In UK the first Open University (OU) was started in 1969, although long before that at the end of the 19th century there were correspondence courses for people who wanted to learn shorthand and other practical subjects.

Distance learning is not always as easy as it might seem at first. It requires a lot of support for the practical aspects of how courses are organised. It is also important to remember that people

need a sense of community as much as they need food and clothing, which means they also need a kind of community for effective learning. That’s where new technology can play a key role. Many distance learning programmes include computer-based packages and require e-mail and Internet facilities. A lot of textbooks include a CD which is not just an electronic version of the textbook but provides access to a website so that learners can get more information and advice.

Although printed books and materials and face-to-face contact are definitely bound to survive as major ways of learning, it will not be long before multi-media resources and e-mail communication with tutors will become prevalent.

Large companies like Coca-Cola and IBM are already investing in distance learning. The advantage is obvious because the company does not need to find a substitute for a worker who is away on a course. Growing numbers of schools and colleges around the world are also offering courses by distance learning.

Normally courses like these take a year. Course work for assessment is sent out and returned by e-mail or by post. Quite a number of courses, however, are mixed and include a face-to-face component at the start or at the end. Meeting at the start of a course helps students to make friends with each other and keep in touch during and after the course, although some educators think it is more useful for students to make contact when they have completed the bulk of their work. By the time the students meet they have plenty of ideas to share and questions to ask, so they make better use of the time together.

More and more colleges and universities now offer courses with a mixture of traditional and open learning. Only twenty-five years ago distance learning would typically be the last choice for people who couldn’t attend college or university. Now it is slowly but surely becoming the first choice for people who want high quality education on flexible terms.