Voices soften thick air and as they sing every

weary soul hanging in to the end of the journey comes to life.

The rutty road thrashes us along mountain terrain, foreign

words spilling out open widows startling Greek shepherds

lifting their eyes at a call from heaven passing.

Catching sight of the sea the girls break into a new, pop song,

“Vee all lee-ve ina alow submarine” and an old cowboy lyric

that sounds like “you-pee yi-A” and finally, the heavy air

dissipates with Glor-ee Glor-ee hall-a-luah-yeh.

Exercise 4. Discuss the poem with your friend. Remember that you are not in competition with anyone, and that you will progress at your own rate.

Exercise 5. Decode and transcribe a song of your favourite group or performer, translate every line. Repeat the lines over and over for clarity of articulation. Write down the unknown words into your dictionary. Use them in sentences of your own.

Exercise 6. Make up a dialogue on the song you have decoded. Express your attitude. Prove your position.

Exercise 7. Read and transcribe the tong-twister. Work for precision with a minimum of tension. After you have accurately mastered the phrases for clarity, work for speed in repetition. Find similar exercises for each English sound:

Roy is a boy. Roy’s bought a toy. Roy’s got a lot of toys.

Exercise 8. Imagine you and your friend are in the Zoo. Make up a dialogue. Use more adjectives to express your attitude. Be able to explain the choice of the Intonation pattern. Consult the dictionary to find the unknown words and terms. Repeat the names of animals for clarity of articulation.

Exercise 9. You have met a person you haven’t seen for ages. Express your emotions. Be able to explain the Intonation patterns in your sentences. Repeat the most expressive adjectives for clarity of articulation.

Exercise 10. Describe the your home library. Use the proverbs below. Give their Russian equivalents:

If you run after two hares you will catch neither.

The tailor makes the man.

First come first served.

The busy have no time for tears.

Rome wasn’t built in a day.

Exercise 11. Read, translate, transcribe and memorize a poem or a short text in prose. Repeat for clarity of articulation.

Unit ten

Exercise 1. Read, translate and transcribe the following poem by American poet Carol Levin from the collection “Place one foot here”. Write down all unknown words into your dictionary. Use them in sentences of your own:

Bullies Are Not Allowed in the Birthing Room

“speaks from a loneliness one encounters when thinking in poetic

time” reference to poet Bejan Matur, born 1968

Were you being born the very moment

we drove past women weaving shawls

and pantaloons, those women

trudging in the fields

hauling water from wells?

Still bleeding your mother

held you to her milk, whispered

rhythms of her banned

Kurdish mother tongue

while the men sat at little sidewalk cafes

sucking hookahs and drinking tea. The Turks

are always drinking tea contrary

to what I had expected. That day

everybody without exception waved.

At her heart did you feel the diction

of the dead language

coming to life in you, charged

by the myriad colors of life