Иностранный язык профильного региона (английский). Учебно-методическое пособие
.pdf2)carry flowers to the house in person;
3)place an order with a florist;
4)wear black or dark grey at a funeral;
5)have a notice of thanks published in a newspaper.
Reading. Oral practice
1 Study the following words and word combinations: Good Friday “церк. великая пятница”;
Easter Day “пасхальное воскресенье, первый день Пасхи”; Easter Monday “второй день Пасхи”;
Hogmanay /’hɔgmənei/ “хогманей, канун нового года”; first-foot, also first-footer “шотл. первый новогодний гость”;
maypole “майское дерево (столб, укрaшенный цветами, разноцветными флажками и т. п., вокруг кот. танцуют на майском празднике)”;
mince pie “сладкий пирожок (круглый, со сладкой начинкой [mincemeat]; традиционное рождественское лакомство”;
hot-cross bun “горячая крестовая булочка (сдобная, с корицей; на верхней корке крест из теста или сахарной глазури; перед едой разогревается)” [20, p. 217, 175, 242, 195, 312, 319, 245];
New Year’s resolutions благие намерения, принимаемые в новом году решения (обещания самому себе) по самосовершенствованию; purchase n покупка;
throng n зд. масса, множество;
rush n зд. спешка, суматоха; the Christmas rush предрождественская суета, сутолока.
2. Read the text below. Which bank holiday(s) do you find more and less culture-specific?
BANK HOLIDAYS
1 Every country and every nation has its own holidays, customs and traditions. British people are very proud of their traditions, cherish them and carefully keep them up, because many of them are associated with the history and cultural development of the country. Speaking about British
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traditions we should distinguish bank or public holidays, annual festivals, celebrations and ceremonies.
2The term «bank» holiday dates back to the 19th century when the Bank Holiday Acts of 1871 and 1875 declared certain days to be bank holidays, that is days on which banks were to be closed. Today their observance is no longer limited to banks only. Post offices, most factories and shops are closed too. There are eight bank holidays, they are: New Year’s Day, Good Friday, Easter Monday, May Day Bank Holiday, Spring Bank Holiday, August (or Summer) Bank Holiday, Christmas Day and Boxing Day. All public holidays, except New Year’s Day, Christmas Day and Boxing Day are movable, that is they do not fall on the same day each year.
3Most of Bank holidays are of religious origin, and meant holy days. But for the great part of the population they have long lost their religious significance and are simply days on which people relax, eat, drink and make merry.
4Christmas Day, which is the 25th of December, is the most widely celebrated and the most colorful and merry of all bank holidays.
5On Christmas Eve everything is rush. Offices close at one o’clock but the shops stay open late. The last preparations and purchases and made. Christmas trees are decorated, Christmas cards are arranged on shelves and tables, stockings are hung over the end of the bed, a carrot for the reindeer is left on the mantelpiece.
6On Christmas Day many people go to churches, open their Christmas presents, eat a Christmas dinner of roast turkey and Christmas pudding. Many people watch the Queen’s Christmas broadcast on TV. This day is a traditional family reunion and a special day for children. They wake up early to find a stocking full of small presents on their bed. Other presents, opened when everyone is together, are arranged around the Christmas tree, which is usually decorated with multi-coloured lights.
7Christmas meal is really traditional – stuffed turkey, boiled ham, mashed potatoes to be followed by plum pudding, mince pies, tea or coffee and cakes.
8People travel from all parts of the country to be at home for Christmas.
9Boxing Day on the 26th of December is the day of visiting friends, of giving «Christmas boxes» of gifts of money to servants. Many people still
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give a Christmas gift to paperboys and papergirls. But most people sit in front of TV recovering from Christmas Day.
10New Year’s Day is on January, 1. In England New Year is not as widely observed as Christmas. Some people ignore it, but others celebrate it in one way or another. The most accepted type of celebration is a New Year party. Traditional parties and dances are held on New Year’s Eve. Most people see the old year out and the New Year in with their friends and relations. At midnight on New Year’s Eve when Big Ben is chiming everybody joins hands and sings Robert Burns’s poem «Auld Lang Syne» or «The good old days» («The days of long ago»). The most famous celebration is round the statue of Eros in Piccadilly Circus, where people sing, dance and welcome the New Year.
11In Scotland the New Year’s Eve is called Hogmanay and it is a very special time for merrymaking and exchange of presents. There and in the North of England people go first-footing. To symbolize good luck the visitor carries a piece of coal and a glass of water. On New Year’s Day people make New Year’s resolutions. They decide to do something to improve their lives. For example, people decide to give up smoking or go to the gym once a week at least.
12Good Friday is the Friday before Easter when the church marks the death of Christ. On this day people eat hot-cross buns – small sweet rolls marked on top with a cross. On Easter people give each other chocolate Easter eggs. Easter Monday is a traditional day for the start of the summer tourist season, as schools close for two weeks.
13May Day Bank Holiday is the first Monday after the first day in the month of May (May Day). May Day which is not a bank holiday is a celebration of the coming of spring. Different outdoor events are held, and May Queen, the most beautiful girl of the celebration, is selected. In villages throughout Britain children dance and sing round the maypole to celebrate the end of winter and welcome summer.
14Spring Bank Holiday* falls on the last Monday in May. August
Bank Holiday** is held on the last Monday in August. These two bank holidays are great days for excursions. In Britain people generally make a beeline for the coast. Throngs of cars take to the road to get the family to some seaside resort for a bathe or a game on the beach. On these days the beaches are crowded with visitors from inland. On the last weekend in
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August there is a big carnival at Notting Hill in west London. People who take part in it dress up in fabulous costumes. Bands play African and Caribbean dance music and people dance and blow whistles. It is the biggest carnival outside Brazil.
[18, p. 233-236]
*also Spring Holiday [6, p. 1310]
**also Late Summer Holiday [Ibid., p. 68], also the Summer Bank Holiday; in Scotland and the Republic of Ireland it is usually on the first Monday in August [Ibid., p. 1354]
3. Answer the following questions:
1)What is British people’s attitude to their traditions? Why?
2)Why are the bank holidays so called? List them.
3)Why do you think everything is rush on Christmas Eve?
4)Do you agree that Christmas Day is the most colourful and merriest? What makes it so?
5)Why is Boxing Day so called?
6)How is New Year’s Day celebrated?
7)Where is the custom of first-footing followed? What should first-footers take with them? Why?
8)What are New Year’s resolutions?
9)What do British people give each other and eat on Good Friday and Easter Monday?
10)When is May Day? What is celebrated on May Day? How? When is May Day Bank Holiday?
11)What are Spring Bank Holiday and August Bank Holiday known for?
4. Find in the text the English for the Russian expressions below. In brackets are the paragraph numbers:
гордиться традициями, лелеять и поддерживать их (para 1); различать выходные праздничные дни, ежегодные фестивали, празднования, церемонии (1); потерять религиозное значение (3); веселиться (3); съедать рождественский обед из запечённой индейки и рождественского пудинга (6); чулок полный подарков (6); провожать старый год и встречать с друзьями и родственниками новый (10);
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браться за руки (10); праздновать так или иначе (10); отправляться посещать в качестве первого гостя (11); празднование прихода весны (13); дети поют и танцуют вокруг майского дерева (13); приветствовать (встречать) лето (13); направиться кратчайшим путём (прямиком) к морскому побережью (14); выпадать на последний понедельник в мае
(14).
5.Draw a table entitled Bank holidays with the following column headings: name; when; activities in observance; realia. Complete it.
6.Read the text below. How does it compare with the text under study?
The excerpt under consideration is borrowed in the study text entitled
Bank holidays and published in the book Area studies: England. The text describes the traditions of celebrating official public holidays in Great Britain when banks and other businesses there are closed.
The extract is about Christmas Day, the most popular public holiday in that country. The author evaluates it also as the most colourful and merriest one and focuses attention on the preparation for it and its celebration. The preparation is done on Christmas rush on the eve. It requires shopping and arranging the usual Christmas holiday things at home. On December 25th people either attend the church or stay in. They relax opening presents, eating traditional Christmas food, watching TV. Christmas is a special occasion for children because of extra presents and for the entire family because it is a day of their reunion.
7.Select some passage. Make notes on it and give an oral summary of the facts presented in it.
8.Write a calendar of British bank holidays.
9.Pair work
9.1 Talk about bank holidays. Refer to the table. Add your comment: express your attitude. Which holiday celebration would you like to join in? Why?
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9.2Talk about your experience: how you felt on Christmas Eve with its rush, what you did on Christmas Day, whether it was easy to recover from it.
9.3Support or challenge this statement: Christmas is a time for families.
9.4Talk about your New Year’s Day. What were your New Year’s resolutions? What special promises about improving your behavior will you make next year?
9.5Talk about the most colourful and merriest holiday in your life. What made it so?
9.6Talk about Russian holidays. Do you know their origins? Have any of them lost their original significance? What is the nation’s attitude to them? What is your favourite one? Why?
9.7Tell about the Immortal Regiment: whose idea it is, what it is about, what it has to do with Russian history and cultural identity, how culturespecific it is. (suggested vocabulary: old photographs/pictures of, enlarge, shaft-fastened poster, march together with, in commemoration of , Victory Day)
Aural practice
Listen to the text about first-footing in Scotland and Northern England [Hogmanay (New Year) (abridged, adapted): paras 5, 7: 18, p. 239-241]. Note: a sprig of mistletoe – веточка омелы.
T or F:
1)The first-foot’s (first-footer’s) gender and looks do not matter.
2)Any object brought in by the first foot is a luck-bringer.
Project work
Prepare and act out this custom in class.
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Reading. Writing assignment
1.Study the following proper names and appellatives, word combinations: Bonfire Night Ночь костров, also Guy Fawkes’ Night /,gai ‘fɔ:ks/ Ночь Гая Фокса;
Remembrance Day, also Remembrance Sunday церк. поминальное воскресенье;
Poppy Day День маков (перед поминальным воскресеньем);
Trooping the Colour вынос знамени, торжественный развод караулов с выносом знамени;
accession day 1) день вступления монарха на престол 2) Accession Day (A.D.) день вступления на престол правящего монарха [20, p. 34];
festival народное гулянье, e. g. May Day, Bonfire Night;
pageant ['pædʒənt] n “(sumptuous spectacle) церемония, процессия; (open-air enactment of historical events) представление, действо” [11, p. 1036];
pageantry n пышность, парадность [Ibid.]; be world famous;
attract numerous tourists from all over the world.
2.Read the text below. How are the events in question different from public holidays? Which would you like to see or participate in?
FESTIVALS AND CEREMONIES
(abridged)
Besides bank or public holidays there are festivals, anniversaries and celebration days on which certain traditions are observed, but unless they fall on a Sunday, they are ordinary working days. They are St. Valentine's day, Pancake Day, April Fool’s Day, Bonfire Night (or Guy Fawkes’ Night), Remembrance (or Poppy) Day, Halloween and many others including Royal Ascot – the biggest horse race In Britain, the Proms – a series of classical music concerts, the London Marathon, Harvest Festival, Dog Shows and so on.
British people are also proud of pageants and ceremonies of the national capital – London. Many of them are world famous and attract numerous tourists from all over the world. They include daily ceremonies and annuals.
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Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace at 11.30 a.m., the Ceremony of the Keys at 10 p.m. in the Tower, Mounting the Guard at the Horse Guards square are most popular daily ceremonies. Of those which are held annually the oldest and the most cherished are the glorious pageantry of Trooping the Colour, which marks the official birthday of the Queen (the second Saturday in June); Firing the Royal Salute to mark anniversaries of the Queen’s Accession on February 6 and her birthday on April 21; Opening of the Courts marking the start of the Legal Year in October; and Lord Mayor’s Show on the second Saturday in November, when the newly elected Lord Mayor is driven in the beautiful coach pulled by six white horses <…>
[18, p. 237-238]
3. Write a calendar of British festivals and ceremonies in 3 lists: (1) tradition-regulated festivals, anniversaries, celebration days; (2) pageants and ceremonies held in London: (2.1) daily, (2.2) annual. Learn the names of at least three festivals, daily and annual pageants.
Reading. Oral practice
-Look at the pictures: a man in a period (historical) costume standing next to the barrels of gunpowder in a vaulted basement, a torchlight in his hand; the children in the streets with models of funny-looking or ugly man called guy (чучело, пугало), a request for a “penny for the guy, please” coming from those children; a guy burning in flames. What do you think is going on?.. How does it resonate with your knowledge of British history and festivals?
1.1 Study the following words:
yeoman /’jəumən/ warder лейб-гвардеец, страж лондонского Тауэра [20, p. 528]
Yeomen of the Guard лейб-гвардейцы, дворцовая стража [Ibid.] bonfire n костёр
gunpowder n порох plot n заговор
vault /vɔ:lt/ n подвал, погреб
treason [tri:zn] n измена, государственная измена villain ['vilən] n злодей, негодяй
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search n/v oбыск/искать; обыскивать
faked-up ['feiktʌp] а сфабрикованный, фальшивый
(v) prevent, blow up, commission, torture n/v. 1.2 Study the cognate words below:
discover v – discovery n; Pope n – anti-papist n; conspire v – conspirator n – conspiracy n; black a – blacken v; tight a – tighten v.
2.Skim the text below reading the paragraph-opening sentences. Where in the text structure is the author likely to have moved on to a new point or subpoint? What clues suggest that transition?
3.Read the text in full. Is your prediction about the text structure correct? Where are the transition points in it? Draw an outline.
GUY FAWKES’ NIGHT (BONFIRE NIGHT)
Guy Fawkes’ Night is one of the most popular festivals celebrated on the 5th of November for four centuries already. It commemorates the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot which prevented blowing up the Houses of Parliament.
The history of the festival goes back to the beginning of the 17th century – the times of severe conflicts between Protestants and Catholics. The Plot was aimed to destroy the English Houses of Parliament and King James I, a Protestant who was unpopular with Roman Catholics for his anti-papist measures. The king was to be killed during the opening of Parliament on November 5, 1605. Long before the time, in May 1604 the conspirators rented a house adjoining the House of Lords from which they dug a tunnel to a vault below the house where they stored 36 barrels of gunpowder. Guy Fawkes, an experienced soldier and an English Roman Catholic in the pay of Spain, had been commissioned to set off the explosion. But one of the conspirators wrote to a kinsman (relative), Lord Monteagle, warning him to stay away from the House of Lords. On November 4th a search was made of the parliament vaults1 and the gunpowder was found together with Guy Fawkes. Arrested and tortured he revealed the names of conspirators. Fawkes was hanged, and repression of English Roman Catholics increased.
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According to another theory, the plot never existed at all. The English government wanted an excuse to increase repression of Catholics, so they needed that plot to blacken the Catholics and tighten the laws against them. So the plot and the efforts to compromise some leading Jesuits and genuine Catholic gentry got full support of the government. And when at the right time the plot was «discovered» a number of innocent Catholics whom the government wanted out of the way were conveniently executed on faked-up evidence.
There is still another version of the events. There was a real plot which was penetrated from the start by Government agents (or may have been initiated by them), was carefully watched, and its «discovery» sprung at the most politically profitable moment.
The truth, however, is so deeply buried that it is not likely to be discovered.
But Guy Fawkes must be one of the most popular villains in history judging' by the spectacular celebrations, bonfires, fireworks of the day and the dignified ceremony that takes place in London before the Opening of Parliament. On the evening before opening or on the morning of the day the Yeomen, in their scarlet and gold uniforms, come from the tower of London to the Princess' Chamber in the House of Lords. There, in the presence of a number of the Palace officials, they are given old candle-lanterns and the order to search. They set out on a prolonged tour of the basements, vaults and cellars below the building, scratching every corner and conceivable hiding-place to make sure there are no gunpowder barrels, bombs or infernal machines intended to blow up sovereign, Lords and Commons. Though of course there is electric lighting in the House, the candle-lanterns is the ritual, as everything should be done just as it was four centuries ago.
When the work is completed, a message is sent to the Queen, that everything is well and Parliament is free to assemble without fear of disaster. The Yeomen are given well earned refreshment and return to the Tower.
There is hardly any need to say that the safety of the reigning monarch, peers, ministers and MPs does not really depend upon this picturesque lastminute ceremony, which is a reminder of the Gunpowder Plot. But notwithstanding the candles, the search now made is a real one, and certainly any secret enemy of the Queen and Parliament would find it hard
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