Практикум к учебнику В.Д. Аракина (ред.). «Практический курс английского языка. 5 курс». 050303 — «Иностранный язык». Уровень - подготовка специалиста

Департамент образования города Москвы Государственное образовательное учреждение высшего профессионального образования города Москвы «Московский городской педагогический университет» (ГОУ ВПО МГПУ)

Институт иностранных языков

Факультет английской филологии Кафедра английской филологии

Практикум к учебнику В.Д. Аракина (ред.)

«Практический курс английского языка. 5 курс»

Уровень: подготовка специалиста Квалификация — учитель иностранного языка Курс V, семестр 9, очное отделение

Москва

2011

УДК 811.11 ББК 81.432.1я73

П 69

Печатается по решению Научно-методического совета ГОУ ВПО МГПУ

Составители:

кандидат филологических наук, профессор Т.Г. Давиденко, кандидат филологических наук, доцент О.В. Вострикова

Рецензенты:

доктор филологических наук, профессор О.В. Афанасьева доктор филологических наук, профессор О.Г. Чупрына

П69 Практикум к учебнику В.Д. Аракина (ред.) «Прак-

тический курс английского языка. 5 курс». 050303 — «Иностранный язык». Уровень: подготовка специа­ листа. Квалификация — учитель иностранного языка. Курс V, семестр 9, очное отделение / Сост.: Т.Г. Давиденко, О.В. Вострикова. – М.: МГПУ, 2011 – 32 с.

УМКД обсужден и утвержден на заседании кафедры английской филологии (протокол № 11 от 20 мая 2010 г.) и на Ученом совете института иностранных языков (протокол № 10 от 22 июня 2010 г.).

© ГОУ ВПО МГПУ, 2011

Foreword

This study guide is designed for graduate English Language students who have completed an upper-intermediate course of training. The main objective of the guide is to improve the students’ comprehension, reading, speaking and writing skills up to the level requiredatthegraduationexams.Thematicallyitscontentscorrespond tothetopicofValues(seeUnit2in«Практическийкурсанглийского языка для студентов 5 курса» под ред. проф. В.Д. Аракина. — М.:

Владос, 2008).

The structure of the study guide follows the progression of difficulty. Texts for Discussion (Part 1) are meant to precede Texts for Rendering (Part 2) with essay-writing on the basis of Quote Box for Essay Writing (Part 3) as a follow-up. This will give the students an opportunity to gradually incorporate their new factual and vocabulary knowledge.

The following scheme of working on the texts is recommended:

•Pre-readingActivities

•Reading

•Vocabulary Practice

•Post-ReadingActivities and Contextualisation.

Pre-ReadingActivities lead the students into the subject matter of the text and allow them to share their initial personal opinions on it.

Reading contains the selected informative passages which are meant as a debate starting point and the essential vocabulary context. The texts introduce the students to a wide range of ideas that increase their awareness of the present-day national identity issues thus providing a stimulating basis for cross-cultural comparison. All the texts are authentic. The passages have come from magazines, websites, and manuals.

Vocabulary Practice includes exercises of several types — checking, matching, filling in the charts, defining etc. It also involves the students’ independent work of making up contexts for translation to make the usage of new words more automatic. This type of work balances personal creativity and authenticity.

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Post-reading Activities and Contextualisation check the way the information is processed by the students and suggest further selfexpression. Speaking activities, demand individual work, pair work andgroupwork.Herethestudentsalsolearntoproduceone-paragraph summaries.

Quote Box for Essay Writing contains a number of famous sayings which can serve as the themes for argumentative essays.

Appendix gives the teachers and the students an example of workingonthetext(‘Let’sCommunicate’)andguidingstepstowriting a one-paragraph summary. Self-Evaluation Techniques encourage the development of the students’ self assessment skills concerning both written compositions and oral talks / discussion.

Most of the practising, apart from work on the word-lists, is to be received in class. This includes reading the English texts aloud. However, in order to maximise class speaking time, the students can read the texts, and do the written tasks at home.

It is up to the teacher to decide how discussion items can be developed and what other exercises can be suggested.

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Part 1

Texts for Discussion

ON Stereotypes

Pre-readingactivities

Before reading the text answer the following questions:

•What is a national stereotype?

•What stereotypes are popular in your country about different peoples and nations? What would your position be?

•What are the common sources such stereotypes derive from? How accurate are national stereotypes?

Reading

Read the text for obtaining its information:

There are experimental ways of investigating stereotypes. One of the most obvious is to ask a group of people what traits characterize the Germans, the Italians, theAmericans and so forth. Results of such studies on the whole agree fairly well with what might have been expected; there is considerable agreement between different people in any one nation regarding the most characteristic traits of other nations. There is even agreement between different nations, for instance, the Americans and the English agree with respect to other groups, and even, though less markedly, themselves. The Germans, for instance, are regarded as scientifically minded and industrious by the English and the Americans alike; they are also considered solid, intelligent, mathematical, extremely nationalistic, efficient and musical by the Americans, and arrogant, aggressive and over-nationalistic by the English. The Italians are regarded as artistic, impulsive, passionate, quick-tempered, musical, religious, talkative, revengeful, lazy, unreliable and dirty by both. The Blacks fare even worse. They are considered to be superstitious, lazy, happy-go-lucky, ignorant, ostentatious, musical, slovenly, unreliable, dirty and religious by both the Americans and the English.

The Irish do rather better. While they too are religious and hap- py-go-lucky, they are also supposed to be quick-tempered, witty, in-

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dustrious, nationalistic, quarrelsome, aggressive and pugnacious. The Jews are believed to be shrewd, mercenary, industrious, intelligent, loyal to family, grasping, ambitious, sly and persistent. They are also credited with being very religious. The Chinese, as one would have expected, are looked upon with more favour by the English who consider them industrious, courteous, meditative, intelligent and loyal to their families, than by the Americans, who consider them superstitious, sly, conservative, ignorant and deceitful. The Japanese stereotype seems to have altered considerably as a result of the war. When pre-war they were considered intelligent, progressive, industrious, shrewd and meditative, they are now considered cruel, fanatic, treacherous, though still initiative and industrious. Perhaps a few more years will serve to restore them to their previous status. The Turks do rather badly; apparently they are cruel, treacherous, sensual, dirty, deceitful, sly, quarrelsome, revengeful and superstitious. They make up for this by being very religious. The French, needless to say, are sophisticated, talkative, artistic, passionate and witty, whereas the Russians are industrious, tough, suspicious, brave and progressive. The English consider themselves sportsmanlike, reserved, tradition-loving, conventional and intelligent; astonishingly enough, the Americans agree, adding, however, that the English are also sophisticated, courteous, honest, industrious, extremely nationalistic, and, I hardly dare put this down, humourless. The Americans consider themselves industrious, intelligent, materialistic, ambitious, progressive, pleasure-loving, alert, efficient, straightforward, practical and sportsmanlike. The English agree that theAmericans are materialistic and pleasure-loving, but also consider them generous, talkative, and, most widely used adjective of all, boastful.

The close agreement found in English and American groups is probably due to the fact these stereotypes derive from books, films and other cultural media shared by both groups. It is unlikely that a comparison between stereotypes held by the Spaniards, the Turks, or the Russians would show much agreement with those given here. To judge by German writings, it appears that, to the Germans, the average Englishman is a clever and unscrupulous hypocrite; a man who,

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with superhuman ingenuity and foresight, is able in some miraculous manner to be always on the winning side; a person whose incompetence in business and salesmanship is balanced by an uncanny and unfair mastery of the diplomatic wi1es; a cold-blooded, prescient ruthless opportunist; a calculating and conceited egoist. There is little resemblance between this picture of the Englishman, quoted from an account byHaroldNicolson,andanotheronegivenbyhim:‘TheFrenchportrait of the Englishman is a picture of an inelegant, stupid, arrogant and inarticulatepersonwithanextremelyredface.TheFrenchseemtomindour national complexion more, than other things. They attribute it to overconsumption of ill-cooked meat (O tempora, o mores!). They are apt, for this reason, to regard us as barbarians and gross. Only at one point does the French picture coincide with the German picture. The French share with the Germans the conviction of our hypocrisy.’

(After ‘Uses and Abuses of Psychology’by H.J. Eysenck)

Vocabulary Practice

1.Consult a dictionary to check your understanding of the unfamiliar words.

2.List the most popular national stereotypes presented in the text. Fill in the table with the adjectives used to describe these stereotypes.

Post-readingActivities and Contextualization

1.Giveaone-paragraphsummaryofthetext(See‘WritingaOne- Paragraph Summary’in Appendix).

2.Answer the questions:

•What prominent features of the national characters does thetext help to highliglt?

•Can you name the differences between the English / American attitude to the rest of the world and that of the Russians?

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•Is there any close agreement found in different ethnic groups when they describe themselves and other nations?

•What countries would you be most curious to discover more about and why?

3.Imagine you have to compile a special factsheet for newly arrived immigrants to your country. You must communicate the ten most important facts about Russians.

Firstly, in pairs, agree or disagree on the items you want to include in the list. Then in large groups compare your answers and arrive at a list of ten most important facts. Try and put them in order of importance in a group discussion. Then compare the lists devised by different groups within a class.

LovingAmerica

Pre-readingactivities

Before reading the text answer the following questions:

•What is patriotism to you?

•What do you love your country for?

•Doyouthinkthereisanydifferenceinhoworwhyyouloveyour country and how or why Americans love theirs?

•What is the reputation of Americans in Europe? Have you had any personal experiences which reinforce / contradict the estimation?

Reading

Read the text for obtaining its information:

One loves America both for its virtues and its faults, which are deeply intertwined. Indeed, one loves America for the virtues of its faults. One loves the almost obsessive American need to believe, the resistance to cynicism, even if that sometimes means oversimplification and moralizing. One loves the unique American restlessness, the refusaltosettleforwhatis,evenifthatsometimesmeansalackofcontemplation and peace. One loves the fact thatAmerica sees itself as the shaper of its own destiny, both private and public. While psychology,

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sociology and determinist historical theories have become massively fashionable, there is still a strong strain of resistance to the notion that man is formed by environment, by outside powers, or that the nation is in the grip of immutable forces. This rejection of fate, this insistence that everything is possible, is surely the dominant American characteristic, and the heart of its genius. Other nations cringe before fate, endure it nobly, or outlast it patiently. America insists on dominating, on bullying fate. This is very invigorating and liberating, for ‘fate’ is only too easily used as a justification for inaction, for maintaining an old order no matter how miserable.

In rejecting fate, the U.S. is the ultimate incarnation of Western, Faustian man. But that posture toward the universe also has immense dangers. There is no shifting of blame, no relief in the notion that ‘this is the way things are’. We are reluctantly willing to accept as inevitable natural disasters, but little else. Indeed, even nature must be put in its place through technology. Even death is somehow considered an affront, a failure of medicine, or of right living. Disease, poverty and other ancient afflictions simply are not accepted as part of the human condition. Perhaps rightly so — and yet the conviction that they can be banished completely is a tremendous burden because each setback, each delay is seen as a personal or national failure. That is partly why we Americans are so impatient with the study of history — because history is a reminder of fate. We would rather learn to do than learn to know.

One must love thisAmerican view of learning as the tool by which man transforms himself. WeAmericans believe that everything can be learned, including, to a very large extent, to be what you are not. You can learn to be pretty if you are plain, charming if you are dull, thin if you are fat, youthful if you are aging, how to write though you are inarticulate, how to make money though you are not good with figures. There is something admirable about this, yet nagging questions remain: Where is the line between making the most of one’s potential and reaching for the unattainable? Where is the ‘line between education as a tool and education as a kind of magic? The line is blurred and that is why when education fails, disillusionment is so bitter.

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One loves — with some misgivings — the deepAmerican belief in human perfectibility and goodness. Yet an element of this belief is the fact thatAmerica lacks an adequate sense of evil. In the Enlightenment tradition, evil is explained away as a curable flaw. But even in the puritan and evangelical traditions, the American sense of evil is curiously shallow and optimistic; more concerned with behavior (sex or drink, for example) than with the deeper states of sin. The devil can be banished, and evil can be fought; evil is seen almost as a mere ‘problem’ to be solved. There is little sense that evil is a constant presence and inextricably mixed with good. That is why every new American generation seems to discover evil as if it had been invented only yesterday — and by the older generation. There is not much of the insight that man and society are permanently imperfect.

Hence the shock and surprise when we find out that evil is being done by us or in our name. Hence, also, a kind of inverted pride, a mirror image of boosterism if one side of theAmerican chorus proclaims that the country is the best, the greatest ever or anywhere, the other side asserts that it is the worst ever, the worst anywhere. Both attitudes are equally false and provincial.

(After ‘Timely Topics. An Advanced Reading, Grammar and Vocabulary Book (College ESL)’by Patrick J. Aquilina)

Vocabulary Practice

1.Consult a dictionary to check your understanding of the unfamiliar words.

2.Match the words in bold from the text with the following synonyms and definitions.

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