2 Уровень

Задание 2. Прочитайте и перескажите текст

The Post

The post as we know it started in 1840 when an Englishman named Rowland Hill introduced the first postage stamp, the penny black. For the first time, the cost was the same all over the country and the sender, not the receiver of a letter, paid for it.

Since Hill, the post has grown enormously and now over 1,000 million letters are posted every day. Post offices have had to develop newer, faster machinery to sort, frank and move the post. Today people can send their letters over telephone lines by using fax, telex machines or an electronic mail service. But I think you agree with me that without the post today business, social and private life would be seriously disrupted.

enormously — чрезвычайно

machinery — машинное оборудование

to frank — франкировать

3 Уровень

Задание 1. Ролевая игра «Speaking over the Telephone». Разыграйте сценку «Разговор с другом», используя лексику из модульного блока №2

Обучающий модуль 6.2

Mass Media. Internet

1 Уровень

Задание 1. Прочитайте и переведите текст, обратите внимание на слова, выделенные курсивом

Newspapers and Magazines

Newspapers and magazines play a very important part in our life. Practically there is no family that does not read them. We can learn many things from newspapers. Perhaps that is why many years ago an American humorous writer said: “All I know is what I see in the papers”; and another American author more than half a century ago wrote that “the careful reader of a few good newspapers can learn more in a year than most scientists do in their great libraries”.

We can agree or disagree with these statements (better to disagree, because scientific books and magazines have more information than newspapers), but we'll have to say that newspapers help us in many ways. There are a lot of different kinds of newspapers in our country. One can buy them practically everywhere. It is impossible to read all the newspapers and magazines. Everyone has favourite ones.

My favourite newspaper is “Komsomolskaya Pravda”. We can read almost about everything in this newspaper. There are articles dealing with home and abroad news, sport events, life of favourite actors and singers and even the weather. We can find many interesting things there. We can read some useful pieces of advice, some stories about our life, and so on. There are puzzles, songs and even anecdotes there. “Komsomolskaya Pravda” is one of the most interesting newspapers to my mind.

Задание 2. Перескажите тему своими словами

Mass Media

The most popular sources of entertainment and information are press, radio, TV, and movies.

The press plays an important part in the life of society. Millions of people in their free time read newspapers. The English word ‘newspaper’ does not really describe everything that you can read in this kind of publication. Newspapers include not only stories about recent events (news), but opinions, advertising, and other non-news items.

The radio does not interfere with your activities. You can listen to the radio while doing some work about the house, reading a book or driving a car. On the radio one can hear music, plays, news, and different commentary and discussions called ‘forums’. At a forum several authorities exchange views on social, economic and political problems. There are a lot of games on the radio. They are called ‘panel games’. Radio brings also cultural and educational programs. Many programs are made up of classical music.

Television is a ‘chewing gum for ears and eyes’. There are many serials on TV. TV games attract a large audience too. During TV quiz programs TV viewers answer different questions. There is a lot of education on television. For example, you can take a TV course in history, political economy, management, banking and in many other subjects, or learn a foreign language by TV. Educational TV films and programs are shown in schools and colleges as a part of the curriculum.

Задание 3. Прочитайте и переведите текст

Introduction to the WWW and the Internet

Millions of people around the world use the Internet to search for and retrieve information on all sorts of topics in a wide variety of areas including the arts, business, government, humanities, news, politics and recreation. People communicate through electronic mail (e-mail), discussion groups, chat channels and other means of informational exchange. They share information and make commercial and business transactions. All this activity is possible because tens of thousands of networks are con­nected to the Internet and exchange information in the same basic ways.

The World Wide Web (WWW) is a part of the Internet. But it’s not a collection of networks. Rather, it is information that is connected or linked together like a web. You access this information through one interface or tool called a Web browser. The number of resources and services that are part of the World Wide Web is growing extremely fast. In 1996 there were more than 20 million users of the WWW, and more than half the information that is transferred across the Internet is accessed through the WWW. By using a computer terminal (hardware) connected to a network that is a part of the Internet, and by using a program (software) to browse or retrieve information that is a part of the World Wide Web, the people connected to the Internet and World Wide Web through the local providers have access to a variety of information. Each browser provides a graphical interface. You move from place to place, from site to site on the Web by using a mouse to click on a portion of text, icon or region of a map. These items are called hyperlinks or links. Each link you select represents a document, an image, a video clip or an audio file somewhere on the Internet. The user doesn't need to know where it is, the browser follows the link.

All sorts of things are available on the WWW. One can use Internet for recreational purposes. Many TV and radio stations broadcast live on the WWW. Essentially, if something can be put into digital format and stored in a computer, then it's available on the WWW. You can even visit museums, gardens, cities throughout the world, learn foreign languages and meet new friends. And of course you can play computer games through WWW, competing with partners from other countries and continents.

Just a little bit of exploring the World Wide Web will show you what a much of use and fun it is.