Английский язык. Часть 1. Курс лекций

Text A

BILL GATES

We’ve really achieved the ideal of what I wanted Microsoft to become.

Bill Gates, June 2008

William (Bill) H. Gates III is a chairman of Microsoft Corporation, the worldwide leader in software, services that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

Gates was born on October 28, 1955 in Seattle, Washington, the USA. His father, William H. Gates II was a Seattle attorney and his mother, Mary Maxwell Gates was a school teacher, University of Washington regent, and chairwoman of United Way International. Gates and his two sisters attended the exclusive secondary «Lakeside School» and had a comfortable upbringing. There, he discovered his interest in software and began programming computers at age 13.

In 1973, Gates entered Harvard University as a freshman, where he developed a version of the programming language BASIC for the first microcomputer — the MITS Altair.

In his junior year, Gates left Harvard to devote his energies to Microsoft, a company he began in 1975 with his childhood friend Paul Allen. Under Gates’s leadership, Microsoft has continually advanced and improved software technology, and made it easier, more cost-effective and more enjoyable for people using computers.

Philanthropy is very important to Gates. He and his wife, Melinda, started a foundation in 2000 to help reduce inequities in the United States and around the world. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation supports philanthropic initiatives in the areas of global health and learning, with the hope that in the 21st century, advances in these areas will be available for all people.

He is ranked among the world’s wealthiest people and was the wealthiest from 1995 to 2009, excluding 2008, when he was ranked third, and 2010–2011, when he was ranked second behind Mexico’s Carlos Slim Helu. During his career at Microsoft, Gates held the positions of CEO (Chief Executive Officer) and chief software architect, and remains the largest individual shareholder with more than 8 percent of the common stock. He is also an author and a co-author of several books.

Bill Gates lives near Lake Washington with his wife Melinda French Gates and their three children. Interests of Gates include reading, golf and playing bridge.

Text B

THE INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE SCHOOL

IN OXFORD

My name is Ann and I am a student of the International Language School in Oxford. In our school there are two hundred students from forty countries. There are twenty-five groups of students, twenty classrooms and thirty teachers in the school. Most of them study English.

Our school building has got three floors. On the ground floor there is a small cafe, a cloakroom, two toilets and a long light corridor. There are many wide windows along the corridor with beautiful flowers on the walls and window-sills. The cafe is a small room with several tables and chairs. There is also a bar and a fridge for ice-cream and cold fizzy drinks. There are beautiful curtains on the windows and lots of flowers on the window-sills.

On the first floor there are some classrooms, a laboratory and a gymnasium. In each modern classroom there are desks, chairs, a blackboard, a musical center, a TV and a DVD player. On the first floor there are also two self-study rooms with modern equipment for independent work and study. All the students of our school can find necessary information from the Internet and use modern dictionaries for their projects. There is a big gym on the first floor with some halls where students do different sports: fitness, ping-pong, volleyball, basketball, football. There is no a swimming-pool and a tennis court.

On the second floor there is a big library and some classrooms. Our library has got a lot of English books and necessary materials for study: pictures, posters, dictionaries, magazines and newspapers. There are also several portraits of famous people and scientists on the walls in this room.

There is also a beautiful park outside the school building where students relax after the hard work.

There are five girls and seven boys in my class. Two students are from Italy, three students are from Brazil, five of them are from Japan, one is from Russia and one is from Greece. We are very friendly and get on well together.

If you want to know English well, welcome to the International Language School in Oxford which has all necessary facilities for successful language study, sport and serious work.

Text C

HIGHER EDUCATION IN RUSSIA

Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today.

Malkom X

The history of higher education in Russia goes back to 1755 when the first University was founded on the initiative of M. V. Lomonosov and in accordance with his plan. Later, universities were opened in many other big cities of the country. After the revolution in 1917, education was guaranteed to Soviet citizens by the Constitution and was free of charge. Higher education was not the exception. Those who got the secondary education and passed entrance examinations to higher educational establishments received monthly grants if they had good results during the term and did not fail the examination at the end of each term. Course of study lasted five years.

In 1991, the Russian Federation, one of the biggest and the most powerful countries in the world, began to be developed as a democratic state. From the very start democratic reforms began to take place in many spheres of life as well as in the system of higher education. Its aim was to prepare the younger generation for independent life and work in new conditions. There have appeared a lot of private schools, colleges, lyceums, gymnasiums and different courses where students can study sciences and humanities as well as foreign languages.

Since the year 2010 the system of higher education in Russia has been greatly changing into the two-level one: the Baccalaureate (undergraduate studies) and the Magistrate (MA course).

Higher education in Russia is becoming a powerful mechanism for the social development of the country. The level of higher education has greatly changed. Nowadays school leavers have opportunities to enter any university in the city where they live as well as in any other cities in accordance with their future speciality. Universities offer the high level of knowledge and have a wide choice of departments and faculties. The universities provide the faculties for innovative business ideas and theories that shape the fortunes of cities, regions and even nations. It is becoming prestigious and important to graduate from the university and get a well-paid job both in Russia and in other countries of the world.

Higher education is of great importance not only in Russia but also all over the world and you have to do your best to be a good specialist and to follow the conditions and requirements of modern life. Nowadays a bright future of any person depends on higher education.

Text D

TOMSK STATE UNIVERSITY OF CONTROL SYSTEMS AND RADIOELECTRONICS

Tomsk State University of Control Systems and Radioelectronics was founded in 1962. At the present time TUCSR is one of the leading higher educational establishments in Russia.

There are thirteen faculties at the university: the Radio-Design, Radio-Engineering, Electronic Engineering, Computer Systems, Automated Control Systems, Economic, Humanitarian, Law and the Innovation ones. There is also the faculty of System Modeling, the faculty of Part-time (evening) and Correspondence Education and the faculty of Additional Education (for post-graduates). In 1998, the Faculty of Distant Education was founded which is one of the biggest one and gives the opportunity to get higher education without leaving native towns and cities for more than 7,000 students all over Russia on nineteen specialties.

The university is staffed with highly qualified teachers. A lot of them are Doctors of Science. The teachers of the university train bachelors, specialists and magisters in more than fifty specialties in the field of radioengineering, nanotechnology, optics, programming, information security, radioelectronics, automated control systems, information technologies, economics, management, juridical sciences, social work, etc.

In 2006, TUCSR won the contest among the universities of higher professional education in accordance with the national project «Education» and since then the innovative program has been carried out in scientific and research fields of TUCSR.

The important directions in educational, scientific and research development of the university are the exchange of students and cooperation with the leading universities

of the USA, Germany, France, China, Japan, the Netherlands, Great Britain and other countries.

The innovative form of educational process in TUCSR is the organization of students’ scientific societies where they are engaged in group research work and design as well as in getting additional knowledge and qualities of leaders. Such form of learning gives the start for further creative projects and for getting demanded and well-paid jobs in Russian and international industrial enterprises, firms and companies.

TUCSR was the first university in Russia that opened its own Business Incubator which is now the residence for many students and their tutors where they carry out theoretical and practical research create different innovative projects for industrial enterprises in Russia as well as for some other countries.

The university has modern sport facilities such as a sport gym, a football pitch, a fitness center and others. The students can do any sports they like: playing volleyball, basketball, football, tennis, and chess. They can also do rowing, judo, boxing and aerobics as well as going skiing and swimming. At the University Leisure Center students can take up ball and modern dancing, solo and group singing, writing poems, playing and writing music.

In October 2012 TUCSR celebrated its fiftieth anniversary. No doubt that Tomsk State University of Control Systems and Radioelectronics is developing rapidly. The students of the university have all the opportunities for high-quality training and they try to do their best in order to become good specialists in the modern spheres of science, industry and technology.

ЛИТЕРАТУРА

[1]Некрасова Е. В. English. Уникальный курс эффективного и быстрого изучения грамматики / Е. В. Некрасова. — М. : Эксмо, 2007.

[2]Лычковская Л. Е. English for Students of Technical Sciences / Л. Е. Лычковская, Е. Р. Менгардт. — Томск : Томский гос. ун-т систем управления и радиоэлектроники, 2007.

[3]Murphy Raumond. Essential Grammar in Use / Raumond Murphy. — Cambridge University Press, 1997.