ACTIVE SPEAKING
Activity I: Dialogs Choose any situation to act out a dialog: 1. You believe that a private school is the best option for your child whereas your spouse disagrees with you. 2. Your wife wants to send your daughter to a single-sex school. You don’t think it’s a good idea. 3. You are thinking of hiring a tutor to get your son ready for the SAT and you are convinced that it is a worthwhile investment in his future. However, your husband says it is a waste of time and money. Activity II: Discussing the Issues1. Which is better – a centralized public school system with a national curriculum (the European model) or a decentralized public school system represented by a variety of curricula in each state and each school district (the American model). Discuss pros and cons of each model. 2. There is a wide-spread belief in the USA that the more schooling you have, the better off you will be in the future. Do you agree with this idea? Why/Why not? 3. There is a great emphasis on standardized testing in U.S. public schools. These tests are becoming more and more wide-spread in the Russian system of education, too. Are standardized tests so worthwhile to be used on such a large scale? 4. Some teachers believe that it is a ridiculous idea to use computers instead of textbooks in schools. However, such schools already exist in the USA. For example, Empire High School in Vail, Arizona, has introduced all-laptop curriculum, which means laptops, no textbooks, are used in class. Supporters of this decision say that more schools will move towards laptop instruction in the years ahead. Which of the views do you share?
Writing a Descriptive Paragraph
A paragraph is a series of related sentences which work together to develop a specific topic or idea. Most paragraphs contain a sentence which states (or strongly suggests) the focus or the topic of the paragraph. This sentence is called the topic sentence and is often found at or near the beginning of the paragraph. In a tightly organized paragraph, every sentence is closely related to the topic sentence, bringing a sense of unity and clarity to your writing. There are four basic types of paragraphs: narrative, descriptive, expository, and persuasive. A narrative paragraph tells a story of one kind or another. A descriptive paragraph is one in which sentences work together to present a single, clear picture (description) of a person, place, thing, or idea. An expository paragraph is one which presents facts, gives directions, defines terms, and so on. This type of writing can be used when you wish to present or explain facts or ideas. A persuasive paragraph is one which presents information to support or prove a point. It expresses an opinion and tries to convince the reader that the opinion is correct or valid (abridged from Sebranek P., Meyer V., Kemper D. “Writers INC: A Guide to Writing, Thinking, & Learning”, The Write Source Publishing House, 1989).
1. Read the following plan on writing an essay about your school. The introduction of the essay: the name of the school, its location and other simple information about the school. The body of the essay:description of your school (e.g. school building location, the building from the outside and inside, the departments, the faculty, the school’s surroundings, the students in the school, the kind of results that the students in this school get, the curricular and extracurricular activities, etc). The final part of the essay: the conclusion where you can express your own opinions and feelings about the school.
2. Write a one-paragraph essay keeping to the plan above.
Focus III: College
Before Listening Activities Activity I: Orientation
1. Project: College Admissions Find information about applying to college in the USA. Divide the material to cover among all the students in your group, organize it in a coherent and logical order and present it in class. Then, discuss the differences between college admissions in the USA and in Russia.2. Analyze the data given in the table below. What kind of colleges and universities are presented in it? Which of them belong to the Ivy League? What do you know about the Ivy League? Top 15 – Lowest Acceptance Rate
(http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/lowest-acceptance-rate) Activity II: Helpful Vocabulary 1. Match the words on the left with their definitions on the right.
2. Fill in the gaps with the appropriate idiom or phrasal verb in the correct form (from the list below). Then translate the sentences.
1. James __________ on a law degree (regarded a law degree as his goal). 2. I took _________ in ballroom dancing so we wouldn’t look stupid on the dance floor (a short and intensive training course). 3. After it was all over, it ___________ that both of us were pleased with the bargain (resulted). 4. I ___________ that it’s difficult to work and go to school at the same time (learnt by unpleasant experience). 5. I have _______________ in my briefcase (almost everything one can think of). 6. His acting ___________ but he looks good, so he’s offered lots of movie roles (is worthless). 7. She’s got a test tomorrow and she _______________ (is worried and frustrated). 8. They ______________ a lot of opposition to their plans for an out-of-town supermarket development (have faced). Listening Comprehension Activities 1. Listen to the radio program in which Andrew Ferguson, a senior editor at the Weekly Standard, talks about his new book, Crazy U: One Dad’s Crash Course in Getting His Kid Into College. Make notes about his attitude to the problem of applying to college. 2. Listen againand write (T) true or F (false) in front of each of the sentences. 1. Most middle-class parents aim at getting their kids into Harvard or Yale. 2. Mr. Ferguson began to get his son ready for college application when his son was in his last high school year. He felt he should have started earlier. 3. Mr. Ferguson consulted a woman who provides an A to Z college preparation program for children who are in their freshman or sophomore year in high school. The course costs $14,000. 4. Many parents start to compile the so-called “brag sheets” when their children are in elementary school. The “brag sheets” usually include all kinds of their children’s accomplishments like videos of athletic performances, tapes of music recitals and mentions in local papers. 5. Mr. Ferguson believes it is impossible to get into college without a great SAT score and a great GPA as they are the most important requirements for admission to college. 6. Mr. Ferguson says that the hardest part of college application is writing an application essay as the questions given usually appeal to your emotions, not reason. He admits he could not help his son to learn to write such essays. 7. When Mr. Ferguson met a college counselor, she recommended his son to take a SAT prep course. 8. Mr. Ferguson’s advice to all parents whose kids are going to apply for college is to stop worrying too much. 9. When Mr. Ferguson’s son was asked by his college counselor to describe college he would like to study at, he said that he wanted a school where he could go to a football game, paint his chest in school colors and major in beer. Mr. Ferguson did not like that joke.
After Listening Activities Activity I: Discussing the Issues and Comparing 1. What do you think makes selective and highly selective colleges so attractive? 2. Read the following excerpt from the article “Prestige Versus Education” written by Thomas Sowell, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. Do you agree or disagree with his opinion? Do prestigious universities and colleges really give you better education? Academic prestige is based mostly on the research achievements of the faculty. Places like Harvard or Stanford have many professors who are among the leading experts in their respective fields, including some who have won Nobel Prizes. Good for them. But is it good for you, if you are a student at Prestige U.? Big-name professors are unlikely to be teaching you freshman English or introductory math. Some may not be teaching you anything at all, unless and until you go on to postgraduate study. In other words, the people who generated the prestige which attracted you to the college may be seen walking about the campus but are less likely to be seen standing in front of your classroom when you begin your college education. <…>; By contrast, at a small college without the prestige of big-name research universities, the introductory courses which provide a foundation for higher courses are more likely to be taught by experienced professors who are teachers more so than researchers. Maybe that is why graduates of such colleges often go on to do better than the graduates of big-name research universities. You may never have heard of Harvey Mudd College but a higher percentage of its graduates go on to get Ph.D.s than do the graduates of Harvard, Yale, Stanford or M.I.T. So do the graduates of Grinnell, Reed, and various other small colleges. Of the chief executive officers of the 50 largest American corporations surveyed in 2006, only four had Ivy League degrees. Some – including Michael Dell of Dell computers and Bill Gates of Microsoft – had no degree at all (abridged from http://www.creators.com/conservative/thomas-sowell/prestige-versus-education.html). 3. Is there any gradation of universities in Russia? What universities can be considered selective or highly selective?
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ACTIVE WRITING:
ACTIVE LISTENING
