Федеральное агентство по образованию

______________

САНКТ-ПЕТЕРБУРГСКИЙ ГОСУДАРСТВЕННЫЙ ПОЛИТЕХНИЧЕСКИЙ УНИВЕРСИТЕТ

АНГЛИЙСКИЙ ЯЗЫК

Учебное пособие для магистрантов гуманитарного профиля

Санкт-Петербург

Издательство Политехнического университета

2010

Рецензент:

Доктор педагогических наук, проф. РГПУ им А.И.Герцена

Ю.В.Еремин

Алмазова Н.И., Никитенко О.А., Попова Н.В., Степанова М.М. Учебное пособие по английскому языку для магистрантов гуманитарного профиля. /Н.И. Алмазова [и др.]; под ред. Акоповой М.А. – СПб. : Изд-во Политехн. ун-та, 2010. – 190 с.

Пособие по английскому языку является авторским курсом по дисциплине «Иностранный язык» и включает дискуссионные тексты, освещающие различные гуманитарные проблемы, а также тексты для реферирования, посвященные междисциплинарным научным исследованиям. В пособие включены оригинальные материалы Интернет-ресурсов, коммуникативные упражнения, задания по письменной практике и межкультурному общению. Пособие снабжено заданиями по аудированию, веб-квестам и презентациям, выполняемым с помощью компьютера. В приложении представлены также правила реферирования и написания статей и грантовых предложений, тесты, глоссарий к текстам, ключи к упражнениям, описание проведения Интернет-конференции, пример дискурсивного анализа.

Предназначено для магистрантов гуманитарного профиля.

Авторы-составители выражают благодарность профессору Кораблеву В.В. за консультации по подбору текстов междисциплинарного направления, Коган М.С. за консультации по проведению Интернет-конференции, магистрантке 6 курса Эгамовой Г. Б. за помощь в составлении упражнений.

Печатается по решению редакционно-издательского совета СПбГПУ.

a) Fill in the gaps with the words and phrases from the box

Bachelor’s fresher’s Doctor of Philosophy prestigious term sandwich lecture science

1. Universities in the UK usually have three _________ in a year.

2. The first degree most students study at university is also known as a __________degree.

3. What does PhD mean? __________

4. If a degree course includes a one-year industry placement, it’s also known as a _________

course.

5. Imperial College in London is famous for its teaching and research in __________.

6. Oxford and Cambridge universities are two of the most ________ universities in the country.

7. The first week of your first year at university is called _______ Week.

8. A lesson at university which takes place in a big hall with lots of students and one teacher is called a __________.

Compare first educational week in Britain and in our country. Are there any differences? What do you think where it is easier to start an academic year?

Have you ever heard about Bologna Process? Can you describe this system?

Study information about Bologna Process and discuss it in pairs or in small groups

Answer the questions

1. What do you think about higher education priorities for the coming decade? How do you understand their meaning?

2. What priorities are the most difficult to achieve?

3. Are these priorities important for science?

4. What other higher education priorities can you add to the list?

Lifelong learning is one of the higher education priorities. is the "lifelong, lifewide, voluntary, and self-motivated" pursuit of knowledge for either personal or professional reasons. The term recognises that learning is not confined to childhood or the classroom, but takes place throughout life and in a range of situations. During the last fifty years, constant scientific and technological innovation and change has had a profound effect on learning

needs and styles. Learning can no longer be divided into a place and time to acquire knowledge (school) and a place and time to apply the knowledge acquired (the workplace). Instead, learning can be seen as something that takes place on an on-going basis from our daily interactions with others and with the world around us. Lifelong learning is necessary to face the challenges of competitiveness and the use of new technologies, and to improve social cohesion, equal opportunities and quality of life. 

b) Study the diagram of lifelong learning contexts and discuss it in pairs or in small groups

1. Do you think lifelong learning is important for scientist? Why? Why not? 2. Do you think lifelong learning contexts given above reflect the full notion «lifelong learning»? 3. What other contexts of lifelong learning can you name? 4. Is the lifelong learning an important thing for you?

1 . Have you ever heard about Bologna process? Can you describe this system?

2. What is the aim of joining the countries to this process?

3. What do you think what are advantages and disadvantages of Bologna process?

Bologna Process in Russia

The Bologna Process was a major reform created with the claimed goal of providing responses to issues such as the public responsibility for higher education and research, higher education governance, the social dimension of higher education and research, and the values and roles of higher education and research in modern, globalized, and increasingly complex societies with the most demanding qualification needs. The three priorities of the Bologna process are: introduction of the three cycle system (bachelor/master/doctorate), quality assurance and recognition of qualifications and periods of study.

With the Bologna Process implementation, higher education systems in European countries are to be organized in such a way that:

• i t is easy to move from one country to the other (within the European Higher Education Area) – for the purpose of further study or employment;

• the attractiveness of European higher education has increased, so that many people from non-European countries also come to study and/or work in Europe;

• the European Higher Education Area provides Europe with a broad, high-quality advanced knowledge base, and ensures the further development of Europe as a stable, peaceful and tolerant community benefiting from a cutting-edge European Research Area;

• there will also be a greater convergence between the U.S. and Europe as European higher education adopts aspects of the American system.

Russia co-signed the Bologna Declaration in 2003. Russia is in the process of migrating from its traditional tertiary education model, incompatible with existing Western academic degrees, to a modernized degree structure in line with Bologna Process model. In October 2007 Russia enacted a law that replaces the traditional five-year model of education with a new approach: a four-year bachelor degree followed by a two-year master's degree.

The move has been criticized for its merely formal approach: instead of reshaping their curriculum, universities would simply insert a BSc/BA accreditation in the middle of their standard five or six-year programs. The job market is generally unaware of the change and critics predict that a stand-alone BSc/BA diplomas will not be recognized as "real" university education in the foreseeable future, rendering the degree unnecessary and undesirable without further specialization. Some institutions have practiced two-tier breakdown of their specialist programs for decades and switched to Bologna process designations well in advance of the 2007 law, but an absolute majority of their students complete all six years of MSc/MA (formerly specialist) curriculum, regarding BSc/BA stage as useless in real life.

Student mobility among universities has been traditionally discouraged and thus kept at very low level; there are no signs that formal acceptance of Bologna process will help students seeking better education. Finally, while the five-year specialist training was previously free to all students, the new MSc/MA stage is not. The shift forces students to pay for what was free to the previous class; the cost is unavoidable because the BSc/BA degree alone is considered useless. Defenders of Bologna process argue that the final years of the specialist program were formal and useless: academic schedules were relaxed and undemanding, allowing students to work elsewhere. Cutting the five-year specialist program to a four-year BSc/BA will not decrease the actual academic content of most of these programs.

Starting from 2002 higher education communities are getting more interested in all aspects of the Bologna Process. The discussions devoted to the problem of Russian higher education system modernization resulted in the idea that it is essential to make this system more open and therefore comparable to university education system of other countries. The reason for such an idea was the necessity to provide easy access and competitiveness of higher education in Russia and the need for preventive reaction towards the problem of education which Russia will face during its transition to the market globalization process (including the market of educational services and market of professional labour).

1 . What are the three priorities of the Bologna Process?

2. How does the educational system work within the framework of the Bologna Process?

3. What are the differences between traditional educational system and educational system within the framework of Bologna Process in Russia?

a ) This text is from informational booklet about a college. Choose one of two variants in every case.

1. The College welcomes part-time students, whether they are working towards a qualification or attending a recreational education class.

a) Part-time students must choose between studying for a qualification and following a recreational course.

b) Courses both for qualifications and for recreation are offered at the college.

2. If you need any advice, your first point of contact is your tutor, and you can always access other people through him or her.

a) Your tutor can arrange for you to speak to other people if necessary.

b) Your tutor will be able to advise you on anything related to your studies.

3. The College café is open from 8.30 am to 4 pm and from 5 to 8 pm. Outside these hours, a range of food and drinks is available for purchase from vending outlets.

a) Food and drinks can be bought from machines at any time.

b) Food and drinks are only available when the café is open.

4. If you wish to attend a class in English for Speakers of Other Languages, you will need to take our test before you enroll.

a) Students can only attend ESOL classes if they wish to prepare for a test.

b) Students can only attend ESOL classes after they have taken a College test.

5. A senior member of staff is on duty each evening between 6.30 and 9.30, and may be contacted via Reception.

a) A senior member of staff can be found in Reception every evening.

b) If you wish to speak to a senior member of staff in the evening, you should go to Reception.

6. Students claiming concessions for tuition fee payments must still pay the registration fees in full.

a) Certain students are allowed to pay reduced tuition and registration fees.

b) No reduction is available on registration fees.

7. Examination entry fees are additional to the tuition fee paid at enrolment on a course.

a) The cost of taking a course does not include the cost of entering for the exam.

b) The cost of entering for an exam is included in the cost of taking a course.

b)* Look at the idioms below. Each one is connected to university life in some way. Match each idiom with its definition.

1.	To fly the nest	A	Not to be aware of the realities of everyday life
2.	Saved by the bell	B	Learning from daily life and work rather than going to university
3.	To live in an ivory tower	C	To leave your parents' home for the first time in order to live somewhere else
4.	The university of life	D	Something that you say when a difficult situation is ended suddenly before you have to do or say something that you do not want to

c) Complete the sentences below by using one of the idioms above. Some of them can be used more than once.

1. Now that the kids have _______________, I'm thinking about taking a job abroad.

2. My grandfather began to work in the print shop when he was fifteen and learned everything from _______________.

3. We were _______________ when the fire alarm went before we had to give a very badly-prepared presentation.

4. Like most professors, Jason seems ______________. He has no idea how ordinary people cope with life.

5. Parents give their children thousands of pounds to help them ______________ and get a foot on the property ladder.

B rain drain is a movement of highly skilled or professional people from their own country to a country where they can earn more money. Compose a short presentation about brain drain. You can use the website address given below to get more information.

http://www.jury.eu/brain_drain_en.html

Your presentation should include the following points:

• The history of the problem

• Current situation

• Reasons of brain drain;

• Brain drain in different countries

• Brain gain

• Your personal attitude to the problem. Are there any solutions?

Warm-up

fascinating (ideas, field of research); personal (story, viewpoint); reasonable (assumption, risk, agreement, approximation); self-evident (advantage, approach, conclusion; to discard a theory (hypothesis, etc.); to encounter difficulties; to face difficulties; to improve an apparatus (model, technique, etc.); to install equipment, an installation; to obtain results (evi­dence, etc.); to predict an effect (results, etc.); ever-growing population

Match types of humanitarian problems given below with their definitions

1. _______________ unfair treatment of people, or violence against them, because they belong to a different race from your own.

2. _______________ condition of not having the means to afford basic human needs such as clean water, nutrition, health care, clothing and shelter.

3. _______________ the use of violence such as bombing, shooting, or kidnapping to obtain political demands such as making a government do something.

4. _______________ a severe reduction in vitamin, nutrient and energy intake.

5. _______________ one of the basic rights which many societies think every person should have to be treated in a fair equal way without cruelty, for example by their government, or the right to vote.

6. ________________ the portion of a population unable to read, write and etc.

7. _______________ the condition of having more people than can live on Earth in comfort, happiness, and health and still leave the planet a fit place for future generations.

1 . What are the causes of these

humanitarian problems?

2. Do you think it is possible to solve

these problems?

3. Do you know any other humanitarian

problems?

4. What kind of consequences can these problems

resulted in?

a) Visit the website address given below and listen to the conversation about steps end poverty and answer the questions given there.

http://povertyunlocked.com/2009/09/11/pu-040-walking-with-the-poor-sep-11-2009/

b) Read a short article about the way of solving illiteracy in India

The congress-led government wants to extend affirmative action for the lowest members of India's hierarchical caste system to private universities. It wants the many independent business, technical and medical colleges to reserve places for students from the traditionally discriminated against and impoverished tribal communities and low castes, also known as Dalits or Untouchables. Government colleges already admit more than a fifth of their students from these groups.

To change the law, the government needs to amend India's constitution, where protection of the so-called scheduled castes and tribes is enshrined. It needs a two-thirds majority to do so, but the main opposition BJP Party, says it won't support the bill unless colleges run by religious minorities like the Muslims, are also included. Some private colleges are also opposed, saying they fear a drop in standards if the law is changed.

c) Are the following questions true or false? Circle the correct answer

1. The Indian government wants to help more poor people go to non-government universities.

a) True b) False

2. The government wants private universities and colleges to make places available for students who usually find it difficult to get into university because of their economic or social position.

a) True b) False

3. More than 50% of students in government colleges come from poor or disadvantaged backgrounds.

a) True b) False

4. There is an informal, unwritten agreement in India about how people in different casts should be treated and protected.

a) True b) False

5. The BJP Party says it will vote for the bill only if all private colleges are included in the new law.

a) True b) False

6. Some private colleges say that letting more poor people into higher education will mean that all students' grades will improve.

a) True b) False

d)* Match the following words and phrases with their definitions

1.	Hierarchical caste system	A	To be preserved and protected so that people will remember and respect it
2.	Run by	B	To be afraid that the quality of learning will become worse, or that more students will fail
3.	Fear a drop in standards	C	A system where people are divided into levels of importance
4.	To extend affirmative action	D	Controlled, supervised by someone
5.	To be enshrined	E	To make sure there are places available
6.	To reserve places	F	To make sure the positive plan also covers

1 . What do you think what are the problems of human population?

2. Why is demography important?

3. What do you think about causes of demographical crisis?

4. What can be the consequences of this crisis?

5. What should we do to increase birth rate?

6. Are there any demographical problems in our country?