Практика устной речи по английскому языку - Малышева О.Л., Валько О.В., Щёголева Т.П

the restaurant in Terminal 4, he remarks wonderingly to his wife, ‘You know how much zis aeroport cost the British taxpayer? Not a sou.’ And he makes the finger and thumb ring which to him means ‘zero’.

Unfortunately, at the time he is glancing at a Colombian who is enjoying a fine Burgundy with his steak Bearnaise. The Colombian, enraged by the deadly obscenity which assumes is directed at him, chokes on his wine and catches at his nose with finger and thumb.

This appalls a Syrian sitting opposite, who thinks the Colombian is telling him to ‘go to hell’.

The Syrian is restrained with difficulty by his Greek colleague from getting up and punching the Colombian on the nose. Meanwhile the maitre d’hurries over and attempts to calm the situation with two out-thrust palms. This of course is taken by the Greek to be a double-’moutza’ and in his rage he promptly skewers the unfortunate man with his fish knife.

Of course I am exaggerating to make a point, but I do find it astonishing that Heathrow receives only 8 complaints per 100,000 passengers. Keeping the lid on this simmering rum-punch of international emotions must take every bit as much diplomatic skill as running the United Nations.

But even if you’re never treated to such a choreography of misunderstandings, the Heathrow ballet is never dull.

Eyes peeled, next time you’re there.

Exercise 6. The following sentences all contain idioms requiring a part Idiom of the body to complete them. How many do you know?

If in doubt, refer to your dictionary.

1.She gave me the ______ when she started going out with Roger.

2.The company is making money hand over _______.

3.They’ll be glad to get their son off their ______ financially.

4.You’ve got to put your ______ down and make him stop seeing her.

5.What are you doing in this _____ of the woods?

6.You need a thick _____ to be a politician.

7.I’d like to tell you what I know but my _____ are sealed.

8.She’s got a chip on her _______ about not having gone to university.

9.The industry was brought to its _____ by the strike.

10.My boss regularly checks on what we’re all doing, just to keep us on our ______.

11.I’ve got a ____ to pick with you. Where’s the money I lent you last week?

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12.If she gets the job it’ll be one in the ______ for Peter: he thought he was bound to get it.

13.The prisoner listened to his sentence without turning a _____.

14.I’ve had no time to prepare for this meeting, so I’ll have to play it by _____.

15.He was caught with his _____ in the till.

eyeneckear	shoulderhair bone				foot	knees	elbow	skin
hands toes		lipsfingers fist
eye neck	ear	shoulder	hair	bone	foot	knees	elbow	skin
hands		toes	lips	fingers		fist

Exercise 7. Read and translate the extracts below. What does the Translation body language say about the characters in each passage?

1.She looked at Napier. He wasn’t good-looking in any conventional sense. But she liked the firm line on his nose and forehead, the way his eyes smiled when he talked. There was a strength to him, an assurance, but held in reserve. Napier made no open display of masculinity.

2.Everybody in the underground car was looking at the world with the usual stroked-out look, avoiding eye contact.

3.Spencer stood guard, with his back turned and his shoulders hunched and his hands jammed in his jeans pockets …

4.This afternoon Louise drove into university at speed, parked a long way from her usual place and scuttled into the department with her head down in the hopes of being unseen.

Exercise 8. Make up dialogues discussing a situation when your Speaking understanding of body language helped you to get along

with people.

UNIT 14. COLOURFUL LANGUAGE

Exercise 1. Answer the questions:

Preparation

a.What problems do colour-blind people face?

b.What jobs require being able to distinguish colours?

c.Are there any advantages of black and white TV and photos over colour?

d.Can you imagine how life would be different if everything were in black and white?

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Exercise 2. Scan the text and say whether there is any truth in the Reading personality descriptions.

Your favourite colour can tell you a lot about your personality

If it is either brown, black, or blue, read 1-3; orange, green or grey, read 4-6; red, white, pink, or yellow, read 7-10.

1.Want to give impression of mystery; sophisticated, dignified and impressive; always wearing this colour indicates protest.

2.Deliberation, introspection, conservatism, duty; like to be part of a group; good mixer, affectionate and faithful; a loyal friend; sometimes inflexible beliefs, worrier.

3.Solid, substantial, good worker; patient, conscientious, dutiful, dependable, responsible; not impulsive, obstinate in habits; don’t like change.

4.Frank, community-minded, hopeful, a little moralistic; too selfeffacing, modest and patient thus easily exploited; too much of this colour indicates high level of anxiety.

5.Cautious, search for composure and peace, dedicated; may turn away from worldly things but have business ability, work too hard; compromise.

6.Colour of luxury and pleasure; flamboyant and fun-loving; inclined to dramatize; generally good-natured and popular; curious, maybe superficial.

7.Love and affection without passion; charming and gentle; a little indefinite; extreme fondness of this colour indicates desire for protection, special treatment and a sheltered life.

8.For those who are or want to be out-going; vigorous and impulsive, determined, optimistic; not very objective or aware of shortcomings.

9.Pure, innocent, naive but lively and well-balanced personality; worn continuously suggests immaturity and idealism.

10.Happy, wise, imaginative, mentally adventurous; good in business, intellectual, clear thinker; can be rather stubborn and opinionated.

Exercise 3. A. You and your partner have been invited to attend a Game dinner in aid of charity. It is not an occasion for a suit and an evening dress, but you can’t go in jeans and a T- shirt. Below, for each garment you are going to wear, you are given a choice of four colours. Choose an outfit

for both of you which you think will look attractive.

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For him		white
Jacket:	navy blue
Trousers:	royal blue	khaki
Tie:	multi-coloured	yellow
Shoes:	reddish	buff

dark brown crimson fawn sea green

bright orange emerald green peach black

For her	deep blue	russet	lavender	pale blue
Skirt:
Blouse:	salmon pink	tangerine	lilac	pearl
Jacket:	olive green	mauve	rose	yellowish
Tights:	flesh-coloured	tan	bright pink	turquoise
Shoes:	rust-coloured	violet	greeny-blue	jet-black

B.You and your partner are going to decorate two of the rooms in a flat. From the alternatives below, choose a colour scheme for each room.

The kitchen
Ceiling:	pure white	grayish	light green	amber
Walls:	brick red	sandy-coloured	steel blue	lemon
Tiles:	whitish	pitchblack	shockingpink brownish
Woodwork: reddish-brown coffee-coloured smoky-grey scarlet
The bedroom
Ceiling:	brilliant white	off-white	lime-green	sky blue
Walls:	copper	dazzling white	beige	chocolate
Woodwork: purple		cream-coloured	bronze	straw-coloured
Carpet:	mottled blue	golden	maroon	charcoal
Curtains:	and green	silvery grey	indigo	grey
	bottle green			gingeryred

Exercise4. A.Colours love to be used idiomatically. Cover the column Idiom on the right and complete each sentence with the approp-

riate colour.

1. He was … with envy as he watched his friend riding his	green
new bike.
2. When his father told him later he couldn’t have a new bike,	purple/white
he went … with rage.

3. I’m all … and … after being in that crowded underground black/blue

train for half an hour.	red
4. The student went as… as a beetroot when the lecturer gave
her one of his famous … looks.	black

5.You can be sure to find quite a few … movies in that … blue, red light district.

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6. I can’t really believe that Nero was as … as he is painted.	black
7. I felt sorry for those … recruits, getting Sergeant	green
’Squash’em’ Sanders on their first day.
8. You’re …! You’re just afraid of what your wife will do	yellow
to you if you do.

9.I feel so … when I see you, hand-in-hand with another blue man.

10. My fingers were … with cold and I imagine my face was	blue
as … as a sheet.	white
11. I’ll need your resignation in … and … of course.	black,white
12. She came out of that … comedy about making pies from	black
murder victims with her face a ghastly shade of … .	green
13. You’ve got to stop looking at the world through … tinted	rose
spectacles, stop considering these matters in terms of …	black
and …, and start realizing there’s a huge … in between.	white, grey
14. My father-in-law was hundreds of pounds in the … after	red
paying for your splendid … wedding.	white

B.Each of the concepts on the left can be expressed with a word or phrase that includes the colour given. Cover the right-hand column and see if you think of each idiom.

Black

1.a person who refuses his union’s instructions to strike

2.a member of the family who fails to live up to the other’s standards

3.illegitimate trading, perhaps of goods in short supply

4.a number of people under suspicion, or in danger of unfavourable treatment

Red

5.caught in the act, in the middle of a crime

6.a special, very important occasion

7.an excessive amount of bureaucracy

8.a very special welcome for a very special guest

Blue

9.very, very rarely

10.suddenly and unexpectedly

11.those doing manual, not clerical or admi-

nistrative work

12. someone of noble birth, an aristocrat

a blackleg

à black sheep

the black market a blacklist

caught red-handed a red-letter day red-tape

the red carpet

once in a blue moon out of the blue blue-collar workers

with blue blood

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Exercise 5. Which colours go with which words to make comCheckYourself pounds or idioms? Sometimes there may be more than onepossibility. Explain their meanings.

red	white grey purple green blue black yellow orange
1.	_______ squash	11. _________ passages
2.	_______ fingers	12. a bolt from the ______
3.	scream ______ murder	13.	_________ ice
4.	______ water rafting	14. double _____ lines
5.	______ -belly	15.	see ______
6.	______ elephant	16.	______ Pages
7.	______ economy	17.	______ area
8.	______ lie	18.	_______ matter
9.	______-blooded	19. the pot calling the kettle ____
10. _____-collar workers		20.	in the _______

Exercise 6. A.Readthetextbelow.Speakofhowimportant colours Discussion are to you. Discuss the following:

-colour and fashion

-why men and women wear different colours

-which colours seem more expensive than others

-how the colour of packaging influences our choice of products.

The colours we wear have a great influence on our psycho-physical state. A colour is something that can influence our mood, or well-being, and the way we are. This is because colours are partly responsible for the amount of light which gets to our skin and the stimulation our skin derives from it. Food dyes are artificial colours used by food manufacturers to help increase sales of their products. Consumers tend to associate a bright colour with freshness, wholesomeness and tastiness. Laboratory experiments have shown that if a range of drinks is presented with identical flavours, most consumers will report that the more darkly coloured the drinks are, the stronger they appear to taste. Moreover, banana-flavoured drinks dyed red will be reported as having a strawberry flavour. The colour of packaging has significant effects on sales. In 1996 Pepsi began a multi-million dollar campaign and changed its brand colour to blue. One mobile phone group renamed itself Orange.

B.Do you think that dyeing the colour of your hair is just a personal matter? Read the text and answer the questions.

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The colour of your skin and hair is genetically determined, and basically depends on how much pigment, mainly melanin, you have. Redhaired people have an additional pigment and some non-scientific people would argue that this pigment also affects their character, making them irate and aggressive.

People tend to make associations based on hair colour. The media exaggerate this by focusing on certain stars and personalities whose hair in some way reflects the colour of the age or society that they live in. Marilyn Monroe, for example, was responsible for the myth that gentlemen prefer blondes, though Jackie Kennedy gave brunettes a short lived supremacy. The media may also be responsible for making young blacks and Japanese, for example, want to change the colour of their hair.

*What associations with hair colour are made in our country? Are some colours considered to be better than others?

*Would you ever consider dyeing the colour of your hair? Why do women tend to dye their hair much more than men? Are women influenced more than men by the media?

*Should races with particular hair characteristics try and change them (e.g. Afro-Americans straightening their hair, Japanese dyeing their hair), or are they denying or undermining their culture? And white people with dreadlocks?

Exercise 7. Read the dialogue and say whether the following Word Use statementsare true or false.

Su: Wow! I like the hair, Jo. Blonde, is that your new look?

Jo: Yeah, I fancied a change, and do you know what, I feel really attractive too.

Su: Em, you’ve been reading too many fashion magazines. Jo: What do you mean?

Su: Well, I’ve been reading this report that says that there are far more blonde women pictured in certain magazines than there are blonde women in actual life.

Jo:You mean a disproportionate number?

Su: Yeah, apparently about a quarter of the white population in America are real blondes, but in some men’s magazines, for example, and not just men’s, well over a third of the women featured are blonde.

Jo: Well, they do say that gentlemen prefer blondes.

Su: You’re so frivolous sometimes, aren’t you, Jo? Don’t you see that this has important implications?

Jo: Like what?

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Su: It means that women like you are conditioned into dyeing their hair blonde, because they think it makes them more attractive. They did some survey of white college students and discovered that although only around a fifth were actually natural blondes, thirty nine per cent wished that they were.

Jo: I think you take these things too seriously.

Su: Well, be that as it may, the funny thing is that although nearly all these girls thought that men preferred blondes, actually only a third do, over a half preferred brunettes.

Jo: And what about the poor redheads like you? Su: A measly fourteen per cent.

Jo: Ah, now I understand why you’ve got it in for my blonde hair.

True or False?

a.There is a higher percentage of blonde women pictured in magazines than there is in real life.

b.About 25% of the white population in the US is blonde.

c.Many US college students would like to be blonde.

d.Most US men prefer their women blonde.

e.Only 13% of US men prefer redheads.

Exercise 9. Give a literary translation for the text below.

Translation

The driver got out and came around the front of the van to open the sliding side door for them. He wore a stylishly wrinkled white linen shirt, light-weight white ducks, and bright pink canvas shoes with green laces. Even with dreadlocks, and one silver earring, he managed to look as intellectual and dignified as he had ever been in a three-piece suit or in a police captain’s uniform, in the days when Phil had served under him in the West Los Angeles Division of the LAPD. His ink-black skin seemed even darker and glossier in the tropical heat of Miami than it had been in Los Angeles.

Phil sat up front with the driver, who was now known to his friends as Ronald – Ron for short – Truman. ‘Love the shoes,’ Phil said.

’My daughter picked them out for me.’ ’Yeah, but you like ‘em.’

’Can’t lie. They’re cool gear.’

’You were half dancing, the way you came around the van, showing them off.’

Flashing a grin as he drove away from the hotel, Ron said, ‘You white men always envy our moves.’

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Ron was speaking with a British accent so convincingly that Phil could close his eyes and see Big Ben. In the course of losing his Caribbean lilt, Ron had discovered a talent for accents and dialects. He was now their man of a thousand voices.

Exercise 9. Write a short essay about your attitude to colours. Writing Here are some prompts:

*Do you care much about the colours of your clothes, of the walls in your flat or classroom, etc.?

*Do you have favourite colours? What do you associate with them?

*Do the colours of one’s clothes tell you anything about the person?

*How do colours influence your mood?

UNIT 15. BEHAVIOUR

Exercise1. Study focus vocabulary and give Russian equivalents. Vocabulary Make up your own sentences with the words and phrases.

A. To behave in a particular way

to conduct yourself = to behave in a particular way, especially in a situation where people will notice and judge the way you behave

to act = to behave in a particular way, especially in a way that is noticeable or a little unusual

to be – be rude/helpful/silly, etc. = to behave in a rude, helpful, silly, etc. way

B. To behave well

to behave oneself; to be good; to be on your best behaviour well-behaved

stay out of trouble; keep your nose clean orderly / unorderly

C. To behave badly, unfairly, or illegally

to misbehave; to get into trouble (with … e.g. the police) to be asking for trouble; to step out of line

to act up = to play up = to behave badly

to be up to no good = to be up to mischief = to plan something you know you shouldn’t do; mischief = bad behaviour, esp. by children, with no special harm

to mess around / muck about; to try it on

D.To change your behaviour in order to become a better person to reform; to mend your ways; to turn over a new leaf

E.The way someone behaves

antics = behaviour that seems strange, funny, silly or annoying

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conduct = behaviour in public, in one’s job

manner = the way you do something, or something is done demeanour = the way somebody behaves or looks that gives you a

general idea of their character

Exercise2. A. Match the words from exercise 1 with their definitions.

Word Use

1. If a child behaves well he or she is … . 2. When somebody behaves in a way that people think is good or correct, for example, by being obedient and not causing any trouble, he/she … . 3. Behaving well on a particular occasion means … . 4. When someone tries hard to behave as well as he can, especially in order to please someone, he/she … . 5. … means to try not to behave badly, especially because you do not want to be noticed or caught. 6. An informal expression meaning ‘to behave well’, especially by not doing anything wrong or illegal is … . 7. When a crowd or demonstration or march, etc. is well-behaved and not violent or out of control we say that it is an … demonstration / crowd / march, etc. 8. When you behave badly and cause trouble, for example by fighting, making noise, or causing damage, you … . 9. If someone …, they do something that is illegal or against the rules, especially something not very serious, and get caught doing it. 10. If someone, especially a child, is … or …, they are planning or doing something that they know they should not do, usually a secret. 11. If children … or …, they deliberately behave badly in order to annoy their parents or teachers, especially because they want to get attention. 12. … or … means to behave in a silly way when you should be working or paying attention. 13. … means to behave badly in order to find out how bad you can be before someone gets angry with you or punishes you. 14. When you behave badly by breaking rules or disobeying orders, especially in a situation where everyone is expected to be very obedient, you … . 15. If you behave so badly that if something bad happens to you as a result, you deserve it, you are … . 16. … means to change the way you behave, and start being obedient, hard-working, etc. after behaving badly for a long time. 17. If you decide that you will change the way you behave, because you really want to stop behaving badly, breaking the law, etc. you …. 18. … is such behaviour that some people think is stupid or irresponsible but others think it funny. 19. A legal or official word meaning the way someone behaves in public, in their job, etc. especially in matters where moral principles are involved, is … . 20. The way someone behaves when they are dealing with other people is called … . 21. The way someone looks or behaves, which gives you a general idea of their character is called ….

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