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program that uses such a wide range of technologies to provide live one-to-one instruction.

… the perfect blend of live interaction and self-directed learning.

FIHS teachers meet with their students one-to-one weekly using videoconferencing. During this appointment the teacher instructs the student just as he/she would if they were meeting in person. Between appointments students complete their assignments and prepare for their next appointment.

… students achieve academic success that leads to:

-a high school diploma

-college and career preparation

Vocabulary

1. Find words in the text that mean

-on an individual basis

-education where you communicate with your teacher by post

-happening now, in real time

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-a written task that a teacher gives you

-a meeting with someone at a fixed time and place

-once a week

Reading

2. Choose the correct alternatives to complete the statements about FIHS.

1.Futures takes a) only American students

b)students from any country.

2.Teachers give a) live

b)recorded lessons to the students.

3.Students “meet” their teachers online a) once

b) twice a week.

4.Students a) have to do

b)don’t have to do homework between the lessons.

5.At the end of the course students will get

a)a college

b)high school qualification.

6.Futures can help you solve any problems with your a) computer

b)library.

Writing

3. Write an e-mail to FIHS asking for more information about the school.

Ask about:

-students’ age

-courses offered

-teachers

-semester dates

-time of weekly interactive lessons

-time needed to complete the high school diploma

Speaking

5. What are advantages and disadvantages of traditional education at school, home schooling, online education?

Listening

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 5b

6. These words are all part of high school culture. Listen and note down what the words mean.

sophomore cheerleader homecoming prom yearbook

Redroofs Theatre School

Redroofs Theatre School provides a sound academic education and supports development of individual artistic talents of the child upto the highest professional standard preparing them for a career in theatre and the related arts.

Read the paragraph about daily life at Redroofs School and predict what the missing words will be.

Pupils at Redroofs are aged between ____ and ___. Classes begin each day at ___. Mornings are dedicated to ____ classes, and afternoons are spent studying performing arts such as speech,___,

____ , ___ , modern dance, ____ dance and ___ dance. Pupils are taken on regular visits to ___ , ___ and other places of interest. The school has its own practical exams every summer which pupils do at the school’s ___ , and they must also take the Royal

Academy of ___ exams. Senior students study for ___ exams.

5c

7.Listen to Natasha answering questions about her life as a pupil at Redroofs and check your answers.

UNIT 6

COMMUNUCATION AND TECHNOLOGY

I

THE UK PRESS

Britain’s National Daily Newspapers

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SUNDAY ROAST BRITAIN

The temperature officially reached 37.9 C (100.2 F) at Heathrow Airport, topping the 37.1 C recorded in 1990, but elsewhere thermometers rose to 101 F or even higher. Travellers and workers at Heathrow were grabbing stocks of ice-cream, lager, and soft drinks as they wilted in the heat. “All our chocolates are melting,” moaned sales assistant Martin Stankewicz. “But ice cream sales have gone through the roof!”

Roads in Great Leighs, Essex, melted, leaving the surface “like syrup”. Ambulance crews in Hempshire treated 27 pensioneers who collapsed from the heat.

Bookies got a 1£ million roasting as punters cleaned up on the temperature soaring past 100 F mark for the first time. Faced with paying out £250,000 on the record being broken and the temperature passing 100 F, a spokesman for bookies William Hill moaned: “It’s the worst weather result we have ever seen.”

to grab – to take quickly, with force lager – light beer

to moan (slang) – to complain

to go through the roof (slang) - to go up suddenly

bookies (bookmakers) – people who professionally take bets and pay money if the bet is successful

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to get a roasting (slang) – to be badly beaten

punters (slang) – someone who makes a bet with a bookmaker to clean up (slang) – to make a good profit

to soar – fly high into the air; rise higher than usual

THE INDEPENDENT

100 F: Britain’s hottest day

Britain entered a new hot-weather era yesterday when the temperature record of 98.8 F in 1990 was broken, the thermometer exceeding the 100 F mark for the first time. In the mid-afternoon the temperature at Heathrow airport was recorded at 37.9 C (100.2 F). It was the hottest temperature since records began in 1659.

Nigel Reed, head of the operations centre at the UK Met Office in

Bracknell, Berkshire, said that “this weather event was consistent with what we would expect to happen with climate change.” Though global warming might have seemed before a very doubtful phenomenon, now more and more observers see the latest weather record as a part of a steadily warming pattern affecting the world.

Bookmakers will have to pay £500,000 to hundreds of people who put money on the heat hitting 99 F and 100 F. William Hill’s bookmaking office faces having to pay out up to £250,000. He says “it will be as big a payout as one of the White Christmas.”

to exceed – to be greater of higher than smth. consistent with – agreeing, in accordance with doubtful – uncertain

to affect – to have a result on, to influence

Vocabulary

1. Give the English for:

достигать, хватать, вянуть, таять, взлетать, выплачивать, побить рекорд, жаловаться;

превысить отметку 100 F, впервые, соответствовать, изменение климата, глобальное потепление, сомнительный, столкнуться с необходимостью выплатить £250,000, выплата.

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Reading

2.Look at the headlines of the two newspaper articles. One is from The Daily Star (a tabloid paper) and the other is from The Independent (a broadsheet paper). What story are they both reporting?

3.Which newspaper reports the following things: The Daily Star, The Independent or both?

1) The actual temperature that was reached on the previous day. 2) The previous temperature record in the UK.

3) The possible link to global warming.

4) The effect of the hot temperature on the bookmakers. 5) How certain people suffered from the heat.

6) Damage to roads.

7) A quote from a bookmaker.

4.Which of the articles do you find easier to understand? Why do you think this is?

Read the articles again carefully. Which article includes the most:

-slang words

-direct quotes from people

-longer, Latin-based words

-long sentences

Before you listen

5. Look at the statistics about British newspapers. Which type of newspapers sells the most copies each day? Why do you think this is?

Listening  6a

6. Listen to three British people talking about which newspapers they buy. For each person find out:

a.what paper(s) they buy;

b.how often they buy them;

c.why they buy them.

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Speaking

7. What different newspapers do you have in your country?

What are the differences between national newspapers and local ones?

Which type of stories do you think tabloid newspapers concentrate on? Choose from the following:

-economy

-private lives of famous people

-crimes

-politics

-TV and pop-music

-sport

-the arts

II

TEXTING BOOM

Before the new millennium the English word text was just a noun, but these days texting is one of Britain’s favourite activities. It’s the short for text-messaging, the everyday phrase for what mobile phone companies officially call SMS, or short messaging service. The UK is the world’s texting champion with 60 million messages being sent each day, most of them (77 %) by teenagers. And texters aren’t limited only to words – nowadays they can add graphics, photos and pieces of music to their messages too. Texting has developed its own language of abbreviations. Here are the most common shortcuts:

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Reading

1. Read the text and find out:

-what SMS means?

-which country in the world sends the most texts?

-how many texts are sent in the UK each day?

-who sends the most texts?

-what can be added to SMS?

Listening  6b

2. Listen to four teenagers speaking about their texting habits.

3. Listen again and match the teenagers to the reasons why they like texting.

a.It is usually easier to write a message than to say it.

b.It is cheaper than making phone calls.

c.You can contact more than one person at the same time.

d.You can send messages in private.

Speaking

4.Why do you think the majority of texters are teenagers? Why do they enjoy texting so much? Why do they need special language of shortcuts?

5.In groups, discuss the advantages and disadvantages of these forms of communication:

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-letters

-phone calls

-emails

-texts

III

IT’S ALL FREE!

A____________________ . They do it quietly without guns or breaking the glass. Every month they (or we) are downloading over 2.6 billion files illegally, and that’s just music. That number doesn’t include the movies, TV shows, software and video games that circulate online.

B____________________ . But click by click, file by file, we are chipping away the entertainment industry. Over half a million movies are swapped online every day while CD sales are declining by 5% per year. Americans buy about 700 million albums per year but they buy 1.7 billion blank CDs. The online pirates say they are just using their freedom but people working in music and movies say their industries are disintegrating.

C____________________ . It links millions of computers to one another over the Internet. The software takes advantage of the fact that music and movies are stored as digital data that can be transmitted easily. People can look through one another’s music and movies collections and choose what they want. One click and it’s yours.

D____________________ . The recording Industry Association took it to court for copyright infringement. Napster was easy to unplug because it was based on a single central server. But file-sharing services have evolved and become decentralized: Kaaza is built around a network of individual PCs.

E____________________ . Broadband access has become cheaper and quicker. The hard disks on PCs have grown bigger and can contain whole libraries of audio and video. Every new PC is a real entertainment studio. And the result of this evolution is a new generation of high-tech consumers for whom free entertainment has become a basic right.

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to chip – to cut chips (small pieces) out of something to decline – to go down, to decrease

to swap – to exchange

to link – to connect, to join to evolve – to develop

infringement – unlawful use of a trade-name or a trade-mark; an act that offends against the copyright law

to unplug - to break a connection

broadband access – широкополосный доступ digital data – цифровые данные

Vocabulary

1. Form antonyms adding prefixes: legal –

to integrate – to plug - centralized –

dis- : to connect, to please, to agree, satisfied, organized, honest, advantage

un- :real, fortunately, comfortable, predictable, known, to load in- : direct, convenient, efficient, dependant

il-:literate

im- : mortal, mobile, personal

mis- : to understand, to lead, to print, to spell, to use

Reading

2. Read the article and complete passages A-E with the following sentences:

1.Computers and the Internet are also evolving.

2.It seems there are no victims to this crime.

3.Your friends and probably you are involved in 24-hour virtual robbery.

4.Most online piracy happens through file-sharing software such as Kazaa.

5.Napster, the original file-sharing service, was closed down in

1999.

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