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INTRODUCTION

A diverse and complicated world is around us nowadays. Living in countries with different social systems, different political and economic situations people are facing various but often similar problems. And it’s obvious that to better settle them one should be able to conduct a discussion, to set the conflict on a compromise and to make collective decisions. One of the ways to solution of the above-mentioned problems is to realize one’s place in a society, to assume the existence of different opinions, attitudes and goals, to try not to impose your personal views and ideas on the whole community.

Teaching Civics as an integral part of the education process assists in preparing students to live in a democratic and legal state by forming an adequate notion of the society, basic social relations and connections. Civic education is obviously a fundamental part of cross-cultural study as it teaches students to accept the variety of the national peculiarities, prevents cultural shocks that may affect people exposed to an alien culture and environment without adequate preparation. It’s quite natural that it becomes a part of the English language course as one of the components of the Basic English studies at the BSU, as it meets the requirements of the Academic program (the sphere of socio-political communication).

The manual “People and Society” is an attempt to contribute in teaching students to become good citizens of their country and realize the diversity of social groups, values and practices in the world.

This manual hopefully meets the needs of teachers and second-year students of journalism, philosophy, sociology, communication and other humanities in the course of the English language studies (Basic English) as regards the part of the curriculum devoted to the social and political studies. It is mainly focused on providing material for development and improvement of the learners’ skills in reading and speaking based on the authentic texts. The manual contains materials for reading, discussion, arguments, debates, conclusion making and other types of intellectual and speech activities in and outside the classroom.

Generally it is designed for about 50—60 hours of class activities. It is organized in such a way that it’s possible to work on it both as a class activity and as a self-studying.

The manual is organized into four units and is supplied with an appendix which includes supplementary texts for reading and a glossary.

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UNIT I

INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIETY

There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families.

Margaret Thatcher

It’s just impossible nowadays to imagine a person living totally isolated. Since early times people have realized that it’s much safer and easier to give and act in groups or communities sharing common interests, traditions, ways of life. Both an individual and society can’t but influence each other. And the more democratic a society is the more guaranteed the rights and freedoms of a person are.

The origins of democratic theory lie in ancient Greek political thought around the fifth century BC. Imagining a continuum running from rule by one person, through rule by a few, to rule by many, at one end is autocracy. At the other end is democracy, which means authority in, or rule by the people. But the ancient Greeks were afraid of democracy — rule of people personifying it with the mob rule, which along side with other reasons had led to the collapse of the first democratic state.

Having worked on the material of this unit you’ll be able to speculate on the problems of relationships within a society, on the symbols and main principles of a democratic government, on the reasons of some isolation of people living in certain communities.

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Task 1. a) Complete the following word-form chart with the missed information. The first line is an example.

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Task 2. Give synonyms to the following.

Task 3. Match the terms in the left column with their definition in the right one.

Task 4. Fill in the blanks with the words from the box below.

1.Democracies fall into two basic …: direct and representatives.

2.You can find a lot of different … in the USA according to the nationality, religious and cultural similarities.

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3.Children often suffer from hostile … between their parents after divorce.

4.The controversy between majority and … often leads to the severe problems which can hardly be settled in a short period of time.

5.Very often people join into different … according to their personal or professional interests.

6.In the US there was traditionally high level of participation in … organizations.

7.A lot of people can come to the … after discussing some topical issues if they observe the rules of the political correctness.

8.Most psychologists are worried about the increasing number of … families where parents take care of their children separately.

9.The ideas of … have attracted peoples from the times of the ancient Greece.

10.The … of any society strongly depends on the ideas, principles and political will of its members.

Voluntary, minority, development, categories, lone-parent, communities, democracy, societies, relationships, consensus.

READING PRACTICE

T E X T 1

Pre-reading Activity

Share your opinions with your group mates on the following.

1.What do you understand by the word “society”?

2.Why does each society establish a political system?

3.What are the basic types of government?

Reading Activity

(!) Read the text and say why no individual can be totally independent of other people.

We learn from history that prehistoric man first lived and hunted alone. Later, he realized that he was more successful if he hunted with a group of other men. Eventually, men built their home together, and began to farm the land. These men came together because they had something in common — in this case, hunting and farming — and they found that they could achieve more by helping each other. In this way, first primitive communities were formed. Since then, these communities have expanded and joined together, into villages,

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towns, cities and nations. The people who live in them have developed a relatively fixed way of life. In the course of time they have evolved their own laws, customs, beliefs and institutions. An organized and permanent group of individuals living together in this way make up a society.

Nowadays, we usually think of societies as national, and even international communities. For example, when we talk of “Western Society” we mean the ways of life of people in Western Europe, in North America, and even in Australia and New Zealand. Within every national society, however, there are many smaller communities, social groups and “societies” in which individuals with common interests live or work or play together.

Everyone today belongs to one or more of these kinds of society. Certainly, no individual can ever be totally independent of other people. Everyone is greatly influenced by the society he lives in: at the same time, the individual person can play a responsible part in the creation and the development of that society.

Before the 18th century, few people ever looked seriously at the make-up of the various social groups in which they lived. Since that time, however, the study of society has developed into the important science of sociology. It is indeed by means of the sociological study of the relationships that exist between the individual and that it is hoped to create a better society in the future.

(“The Individual in Society”

Izolda Geniene, Liongina Miseviciena, 1997)

Post-reading Activity

Task 1. Decide which of the statements below are true and which are false. Read aloud the part of the text that you think gives you the answer.

1.The people who live in communities have developed a relatively unstable way of life.

2.Prehistoric man first lived and hunted in a group.

3.An unorganized and nonpermanent group of individuals living together makes up a society.

4.No individual can ever be totally independent of other people.

5.The prehistoric men came together because they had something in common.

6.In a short period of time the people have evolved their own laws, customs, beliefs and institutions.

7.Society is a system in which people live separately in organized communities.

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Task 2. Match the words with their definitions. Give your own examples where these terms can be applied.

Task 3. Explain the meaning of the following. Decide if these notions are associated with an individual, a group, a community or a society.

Task 4. Comment on the following quotations.

1.Society moves by some degree of parricide, by which the children, on the whole, kill, if not their fathers, at least the beliefs of their fathers, and arrive at new beliefs. This is what progress is. (Men of ideas, BBC TV programme)

2.The good is better than the best, else what does society mean? (Alan Bennett)

3.Our civilization ... has not yet fully recovered from the shock of the birth — the transition from the tribal or “closed society”, with its submission to magical forces, to the “open society” which sets free the critical powers of man. (Sir Karl Popper)

4.I write about violence as naturally as Jane Austene wrote about manners. Violence shares and obsesses our society, and if we do not stop being violent, we have no future. (Edward Bond)

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