2. Teaching is an amusing job!

Jack: Hello, Barbara!

Barbara: Hello, Jack!

Jack: I know you’ve just graduated from the college, haven’t you?

Barbara: Yes, I have.

Jack: What are you going to do?

Barbara: I’m going to teach children.

Jack: Oh, but don’t you think you will get bored with the same routine year after year, teaching and teaching …

Barbara: Well, you are completely wrong. Teaching is terribly stimulating. Children like to play, investigate the world. They are full of energy and amusement. Try and find some other job in which you can play and entertain yourself.

Jack: Do you intend to play with them?

Barbara: Just to the point. Each lesson can be a game in which children are taught to discover something interesting and new for them. They are playful by nature that is why I’ll be involved in play too. And it’ll give me a real joy for all my working life.

Jack: Well, it sounds nice. Good luck in your future career.

XX. Make up your own dialogues in which you express your agreement or disagreement on one of the following points:

1. We need to value our teachers more. There is something to value in almost every teacher.

2. Schools often get the teachers they deserve. Teachers who are devalued become bad teachers.

3. Teaching is difficult.

4. To be a good teacher you must be genuinely interested in what you are doing.

5. Like teacher, like pupils.

6. A professional teacher is one who learns all the time from life, from colleagues and children.

7. Teaching as a professional activity requires special training.

8. An impact of a teacher on people’s lives.

9. Every person has the potential to be a teacher.

10. You know that very much depends on your first teacher.

11. The relations with the head and colleagues making teacher’s work easier.

12. It’s not an easy way to become a good teacher. What qualities make a good teacher?

13. The purpose of education is to prepare children for working life.

14. Should there be different schools for bright children and less intelligent ones?

15. Should homework be compulsory?

16. Should examinations be abolished?

17. Educational opportunities for school-leavers in Russia.

18. Teaching practice as one of the most valuable parts of the teacher’s education.

19. How are you going to widen your experience as a teacher?

21. Make up a dialogue (a polylogue) on one of the following topics:

1. Imagine that you are headmaster of a school. You have come to a teachers training college to meet a group of undergraduates wishing to find out as much as possible about their future work. What recommendations would you give them?

2. You are a participant of an international conference, which considers different problems of teaching. You are to make a report on the work of Russian teachers. You should be also ready to answer all kinds of questions.

XXII. Role-playing:

Imagine you are members of an international conference devoted to training of teachers in the USA and Russia. Discuss the problems of teacher training in these countries.

23. Write a composition on one of two topics (not less than 20 sentences) (See Appendix 2):

    1. My first teacher.

    2. My best teacher.

    3. Why I have chosen a teacher’s profession.

    4. My intentions as to my teaching career.

    5. Some traits of character which a perfect teacher must obtain.

    6. Educational opportunities for the Russian school-leavers who have chosen teaching as their future job.