II. Make up a vocabulary of new words.

III. Ask questions to each part of the text.

IV. Be ready to speak on the topic.

V. Make up word-combinations:

1. ability a) school

2. academic b) activities

3. high c) courses

4. extracurricular d) level

5. vocational e) subjects

TEXT 13

I. Read this text and translate it into Ukrainian.

Problems and Solutions

When an immigrant family moves to the USA, one of the first questions that parents ask is: ‘Will my children get a good educa­tion here?’ The answer depends on two major factors: where the children attend school and how hard they are willing to work.

In some schools where the community is stable, the funding is good and the school environment is orderly, a hardworking student can get an excellent education. But in other schools – especially those in poor neighbourhoods in the nation's large cities – it is very diffi­cult to become educated. The flight of middle-class families to the suburbs left big city public schools with mostly lower-income students. Many are deprived children from impoverished homes with only one parent. Many come to school ill-prepared and poorly motivated to learn. A large number need help in learning English. Many change residences and schools often, and a changing classroom population is difficult to teach. In some poor neighbourhoods, students do not attend school regularly because they are frightened by violent gangs. In some classrooms, teachers have difficulty keeping the students' attention because disrespectful, uncooperative students disturb the class. Because the quality of education varies so much from one school district to another, parents who are planning to move to a new neigh­bourhood often inquire about the schools – and even visit them – before deciding which community to move to.

Researchers are always studying the schools and evaluating the kind of education being provided. Experts ask: ‘Are today's students learning as much as their older siblings or their parents did? Are they learning as much as students in other countries?’ For example, of the 158 members of the United Nations, the USA ranked 49th in its level of literacy. It has been claimed that as many as 25 million American adults cannot read the front page of a newspa­per.

What's wrong with American education? To find the answer and to fix the problem, one must look at all elements: the students themselves, their parents, their teachers, the school curriculum, the textbooks and the community. Many students simply do not study enough. (Two-thirds of high school seniors do an hour or less of homework per night.) American teenagers are often distracted by part-time jobs, sports and other school activities, TV and socializing. Some do not keep up with their schoolwork because of emotional problems, use of illegal drugs or simply lack of motivation. Clearly, if Ameri­cans are to become better educated, students must spend more time studying and parents must insist that they do so.

II. Write down new words into your vocabulary.

III. Discuss the content of the text in the form of a dialogue.

IV. Translate the following words and word-combinations into Ukrainian and memorize them:

to attend school, hardworking student, excellent education, neighbourhood, to become educated, public school, impoverished, to teach, community, evaluate, sibling, school curriculum, textbook, to keep up with, to insist.

TEXT 14

I. Read the text. What is it about? What information of the text is the most interesting (in your opinion)?

Differences in the Organization of Education in Britain and America

Differences in the organization of education in Britain and America led to different terms. One crucial word, school, is used in overlap­ping but different ways. A place of education for young children is a school in both varieties. But a public school in Britain is in fact a ‘private’ school; it is a fee-paying school not controlled by the lo­cal education authority. The free local authority school in America is a public school. The American grade school has a BE near-equiva­lent of elementary school. But whereas an American can say: ‘Stan­ford is a pretty good school,’ the word school in BE is never used to refer to a university or other college of higher education. An Amer­ican high school student graduates; a British secondary school pupil (never student) leaves school. To graduate is possible only from a university, polytechnic or college of education in British usage; grad­uating entails taking a degree. British universities have 3 terms; American universities have 2 semesters (or in some recent cases, 4 quarters). A British university student takes 3 years, in the typical case, to get his degree; these are known as the first, second and final years. The American university student typically takes 4 years, known as freshman, sophomore, junior and senior years. While he is study­ing, the American majors in a particular subject, but also takes electives; the British student usually takes main and subsidiary subjects. The British term honours degree signifies that the student specializ­es in one main subject, perhaps with one subsidiary. The American student earns credits for successfully completing a number of self-contained courses of study, the credits eventually reaching the total needed for him to receive a degree. There is no counterpart to the credit system in British high education at present.

The British student who has already taken a first degree (usually a B.A. or B.Sc. except Scottish universities) is a post-graduate; theAmerican equivalent is a graduate. In American universities those who teach are known as the faculty; in Britain they are the staff, possibly dignified as the academic staff.

BE has no equivalent to AE co-ed for a girl student, nor is there any BE equivalent of the American sorority or fraternity, i.e. nation­wide university clubs or associations with restricted membership.