- •Государственное образовательное учреждение
- •I. Say what’s meant by the words and word combinations:
- •II. Say what you know about:
- •III. Points for discussion:
- •I. Find in the article the Russian for:
- •VII. Comment on:
- •VIII. Points for discussion.
- •I’m Counting Every Penny
- •I. Define the words and word combinations below. Say how they were used in the article:
- •I. Think of the best English Equivalent of:
- •I. Define the words and word-combinations:
- •II. Say what you know about:
- •III. Answer the questions:
- •IV. Interpret the following lines:
- •VI. Points for discussion:
- •I. Define the words and word combinations below.
- •II. Say whether you are agree or disagree.
- •III. Do you need a college degree in order to be successful?
- •IV. Which of the opinions is well-grounded? Whose opinion do you share?
- •Interpret the idea:
- •V. Give a 5-sentence summery of the article. Formulate its key idea.
- •VI. Write out questions posed in the article. How would you answer them?
- •V. Should every bright student be offered a college place regardless of his/her ability to pay?
- •I. Define the words and word combinations below. Say how they were used in the article.
- •VI. Come out with a short report on Japan.
- •I. Say what you know about:
- •IV. Say what you know about:
- •Interpret the idea:
- •1.Тип ботанический (компьютерщик)
- •2. Тип политический
- •I. Render the above article into English.
- •II. Comment on the choice of words in the headline.
- •III. Say if you agree with the described student types. That other types would you single out? Do you belong to any of them?
- •I. Define the words and word combinations below. Say how they were used in the article.
- •VI. Enlarge on the statements below:
- •I. Think of the best English variant of:
- •Is the headline of the article suggestive? How would you translate it into English?
- •I. State the difference between:
- •II. Say how you understand the words and word combinations below. Say how they were used.
- •III. Find English equivalents for:
- •IV. Answer the following questions:
- •V. Enlarge on the lines below:
- •VI. Interpret the headline of the article.
- •I. Find in the article the Russian for:
- •I. Practice the pronunciation of the words below, learn and translate them.
- •VI. State the idea behind the following lines.
- •VIII. Enlarge on the idea. Say whether you agree with it.
- •IX. There are a number of questions in the article. White them out and come out with answers to them.
- •X. Did the author raise an acute problem? Has the homework eaten your family/leisure time?
- •I. Think of the best English equivalent of:
- •I. Render the above article into English, try to use the active vocabulary under study.
- •II. Find an up-to-date Russian article on the topic discussed, render it into English and say if much has changed in the American educational system by now.
- •VII. Comment on the choice of the headline.
- •I. Find in the article the English for:
- •II. Think of the best English variant of:
- •III. Specify the difference between the words below. Give examples to illustrate their usage.
- •V. Points for discussion.
- •Psychology Seeks Out Brain’s Seat of Learning
- •Set Work
- •Interpret the idea:
- •In the u.S., Soaring Tuition Necessitates New Strategies
- •I. Define the words and word combinations below. Say how they were used in the article:
- •V. Sum up the key points of the article and formulate its message.
- •Interpret the idea:
- •I. Explain what’s meant by the following words and word combinations:
- •I. Find out and say how you understand:
- •II. What is meant by:
- •III. Find English equivalents for:
- •IV. Say what is implied in the lines below.
- •V. Points for discussion.
- •In what connection were these lexical units used in the article?
- •IV. Rephrase using the active vocabulary from the article.
- •I. Practice the pronunciation of the following words. Translate and learn
- •IX. Points for discussion.
- •VIII. Comment on the headline of the article.
- •I. Practice the pronunciation of the following words. Translate and learn
- •VII. Points for discussion.
- •VIII. Comment on the university’s name.
- •I. Define the words and word-combinations below. Say how they were used in the article.
- •VI. Points for discussions.
- •VII. Translate the last paragraph into Russian in writing.
- •Interpret the idea:
- •I. Render the above article into English and formulate its message.
- •II. Does the described practice appeal to you? Does it have any disadvantages?
- •Set Work
- •III. Define the words and word combinations below, say how they were used in the article.
- •VIII. Points for discussion.
- •Interpret the idea:
- •I. What is the English for:
- •I. Define the words and word combinations below. Say how they were used in the article.
- •II. Find in the article the English for:
- •III. Say what you know about:
- •V. State the difference between the following words. Give examples to illustrate their usage.
- •VI. Agree or disagree with the statements below.
- •VII. Points for discussion.
- •I. Find in the article the Russian for:
- •I. Practise the pronunciation of the words below. Translate and learn them.
- •VII. Say whether you agree with the statements below.
- •VIII. Sum up the key points of the article.
- •IX. Comment on the headline.
- •X. Points for discussion.
- •Is Educational Expansion Productive
I. Find in the article the Russian for:
Out of the ordinary, to parade, skinny, people in the high income bracket, proportion, Aleutian, flourishing, hermaphrodite, innocent flirting, sexual harassment, in the long run, impoverishment.
Render the above article into English and say where the author has a prejudged opinion about the US elite.
Say what you know about the universities mentioned in the article.
Points for discussion.
Who encompasses the American class under discussion? Who helped these people climb up the earnings ladder?
How doe one find oneself in an Ivy League college? Would you like to study in a college like that?
Can one get on in life without a diploma of higher education in America?
Have you ever thought of leaving University? Have you ever regretted entering it?
Are early marriages advocated in America? Do you agree that an early marriage is a low-grade class label?
What does the author have in mind when he says that a new American maintains a hermaphroditic character?
Is sexual harassment prosecuted worldwide? Are there any ways to avoid it?
Does the author play up America’s rocketing homosexuality?
The Homework Ate My Family
Amount of time grade-school students spent on homework in one week in 1981:
85 minutes
in 1997: 134 minutes
Most of us remember homework, if we remember it at all, as one of the minor annoyances of growing up. Sure, we dreaded the multiplication tables and those ridiculous shoe-box dioramas. But let's admit it: we finished most of our assignments on the bus ride to school – and who even bothered with the stuff until after the requisite hours had been spent alphabetizing baseball cards, gabbing on the phone or watching TV reruns?
Kids today have scant time for such indulgences. Saddled with an out-of-school curriculum chock-full of Taekwondo lessons, ceramics workshops and bassoon practice, America's youngsters barely have time to check their e-mail before hunkering down with homework. On the whole, U.S. students come home with more schoolwork than ever before – and at a younger age.
After some historical ups and downs, homework in this country is at a high-water mark. In the early decades of the century progressive educators in many school districts banned homework in primary school in an effort to discourage rote learning.
Students frolicked in the late 1960s and '70s, as homework declined to near World War II levels. But fears about U.S. economic competitiveness and the publication of A Nation at Risk, the 1983 government report that focused attention on the failings of American schools, ratcheted up the pressure to get tough again. Other forces have kept the trend heading upward: increasing competition to get into the best colleges and the batteries of statewide standardized tests.
The homework crunch is heard loudest in the country's better middle-class school districts, where parents push their kids hard and demand that teachers deliver enough academic rigor to get students into top secondary schools and colleges. Now there's a blowback: the sheer quantity of nightly homework and the difficulty of the assignments can turn ordinary weeknights into four-hour library-research excursions, leave kids in tears and parents with migraines, and generally transform the placid refuge of home life into a tense war zone.
While kids grow more frazzled, parents are increasingly torn. Just how involved should they be? Should they help a son or daughter finish that geography assignment, or stay aloof and risk having a frustrated, sleep-deprived child? Should they complain to teachers about the heavy workload or be thankful that their kids are being pushed toward higher achievement? Battles over homework have become so intense that some school districts have decided to formally prescribe the amount of homework kids at each grade level should receive. All of which leaves open the questions of just how much and what kind of homework is best. Though there's evidence that homework does improve academic performance, at least in the junior high and high school years, its true value may be more subtle. It encourages good study habits and acclimates students to self-directed work--but only when it's not so oppressive that it turns them off school altogether.
And all the swirling arguments over homework underscore the bigger questions that confound American teachers, parents and policymakers: What should we expect from our children? What do we want them to learn? How much is enough?
The steady flood of homework can cause chronic weariness. Over time, that homework fatigue can pull at the fabric of families.
The frustrations that homework visits upon kids can irk their parents to the point of revolt.
The need for a more rational approach to homework may be one argument for establishing national standards for what all U.S. students should know. If such standards existed, teachers might assign homework with a more precise goal in mind, and parents might spend fewer nights agonizing about whether their children were overburdened or understimulated by homework.
"It is all about learning responsibility," says Janine Bempechat, an assistant professor at Harvard's Graduate School of Education. "When you have homework on a regular basis, you learn persistence, diligence and delayed gratification."
Daniel Louriere
/From Time, №9, 2004/
Set Work