Великобритания - реферат и презентация
творческая работа учащихся по английскому языку (10 класс) по теме

                                         I. Introduction

In our country the interest to modern Great Britain has always been great. Over the last few decades it has increased, mainly because of the development of Russian-English relations in economy, politics, tourism and culture. Nowadays many Russian people live and study in Britain, that is why they should know more interesting facts and important information about Britain for not having a mishap when they visit the UK.

English is spoken all over the world, but the country where English originated from is Great Britain, or the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, which is the official name of the state. The English language developed from Anglo-Saxon and is a Germanic language. However, all the invading peoples, particularly the Norman French, influenced the language and you can find many words in English which are French in origin. Nowadays all Welsh, Scottish and Irish people speak English (even if they speak their own language as well), but all the countries have their own special accents and dialects, and their people are easily recognizable as soon as they start speaking. Occasionally, people from the four countries in the United Kingdom have difficulty in understanding one another because of their different accents. A southern English accent is generally accepted to be the most easily understood, and is the accent usually taught to foreigners. Not only in Great Britain, but also in North America (in Canada and the USA) and in India English language is one of the official languages. It is so because in the 18th century Britain conquered these territories and they became British colonies.

Great Bratain is a unique country. Its area is not big (244 820 square kilometres), only two times larger than the Leningradskaya region. The country is situated in the British Isles and includes Great Britain, part of Ireland, the Hebrides, the Shetland Isles and the Orkney Islands. The Isle of Man and the Channel Islands are Dependencies of the Crown. There are four main regions in the Kingdom. They are England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. In the south part of the Great Britain island is England, in the west Wales is situated and the northern part is Scotland. Northern Ireland is situated in the northeast of the island of Ireland.

The  United  Kingdom  is  a  constitutional  monarchy  with  Her  Majesty  Queen

Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, as head of state.The position of Prime Minister, the UK's head of government, belongs to the current leader of the political party that can obtain the confidence of a plurality in the House of Commons. The UK parliament is made up of HM The Queen and two houses: an elected House of Commons and an appointed House of Lords. 

The flag of the United Kingdom, known as the Union Jack, is made up of three crosses. The upright red is the cross of Saint George, the patron saint of England. The white diagonal cross (with the arms going into the corners) is the cross of Saint Andrew, the patron saint of Scotland. The red diagonal cross is the cross of Saint Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland. Saint David is the patron saint of Wales.

The anthem is based on a 17th century song. The British national anthem was established as such in 1745, making it the oldest in the world.

The currency of the country is pound, it consists of 100 pence.

Since 1837 the royal coat-of-arms has depicted a shield with three English lions, the Scottish lions and the Irish harp, surrounded by the Ribbon of the Order of  the Garter with its motto “Honi soit quit mal y pense” (shame on him who thinks evil of it). The shield is supported by an English lion and the Scottish unicorn, standing on a field with the emblems of England (the rose), Scotland (the thistle) and Ireland (the shamrock); below this is the royal motto “Dien et mon droit” (God and my right).

Became acquainted with brief inquiry facts about the UK, which we can find in every guide-book, let us learn more details about this country.

                                                     II.Main part

Education

Education in Great Britain is controlled by Ministry of Education. British schools can be various in size, particularly in Scotland. In some schools study several hundreds of pupils, but in the mountains there can be just several of them of different ages and one teacher for all. (The same situation is in Russian deeply situated villages, where there are not enough schools and teachers for children.) The school year continues since September up to the end of July. It is devided into three terms, separated by three-week holidays at Christmas and at Easter and six-week summer holidays. Nearly all schools have a five-day week and are closed on Saturdays and Sundays. The school day starts at nine and finishes between three or four. There is a lunch break which usually lasts about an hour and a quarter. Since 1870 first free state schools for children from 5 to 10 years old appeared in Great Britain, but nowadays education in the country is compulsory for children from 5 to 16 years old. The continuation of education till 18 years old is their own choice. School in Great Britain usually starts at the age of five, but some children go to nursery school before that. Some parents send their children to a creche, where they are looked after during the day while their parents are out at work. In Great Britain primary school finishes at the age of eleven. Transition from class to class is made not by the resultes of the tests but by your age. A typical timetable for the course of secondary school usually includes English language, History, Geography, Mathimatics, the Humanities, Art, Music, foreign language, Handicraft and Physical education. A lot of schools offer a range of after-school activities such as choir, drama, and trips to interesting places. Most children go to state schools, and only about 7% attend fee-paying private ones (such as Eaton, Ragbi, Uinchester, etc.). Pay for such kind of education is more than 3000 pounds a year. At the age of sixteen students take GCSEs exams (“O” level exams) and then some of them can leave school. That is one option, or they can go on to a technical college or “Tech”, and maybe do some kind of vocational subject like nursing, or some kind of technical or computer studies, or they can stay on for another two years and take “A” levels, which are Advanced level exams. At the age of about eighteen, in August, the students are waiting for their “A” level results to see if they got high enough grades to go on to university. Every year more and more English children choose to get higher education. Firstly, you should choose the university you want to enter and then apply for it, sending your exam results and documents to it. The most famous English universities are Oxford, Cambridge, Bristol, Manchester, Leeds. The Scottish universities are very good too. These universities require a certain grade – ‘A’ to ‘C’ are passes. ‘A’ is the best, followed by ‘B’, then ‘C’. University students graduate after completing their first degree, usually in three years. Many students then continue their studies for a Master’s degree, or a PhD.

Russian modern system of education is almost the same as in Britain. If you are quite a good student in Russia, you have a good chance to enter one of British Universities.

Nationalities

The United Kingdom is a multinational country. The British Isles have always been exposed to invasions from continental Europe. Each new interventionist, such as the Romans and the Anglo-Saxons and the Normans landed and lived on fertile British lands and then forced out native inhabitants. Nowadays native inhabitants of Great Britain make up 92.1% of the whole population (2001). The main nationalities of the United Kingdom are: the English (83.7%), the Scottish (8.5%), the Welsh (4.9%), the Irish (2.9%). Immigrants and their children form 7.9% of the population of the country, including people from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh (3.6%), the Arabs (1%), people from Africa (0.8%), the Jewish (0.9%), the Italian (0.5%), the Russian (0.4%), the Greek (0.4%), the Chinese (0.4%), the German (0.3%), the Polish (0,3%), the American (0.2%), immigrants from France, Afghanistan, Mexico, Armenia, Canada, Turkey (0.1%) etc. The population of Great Britain is 60.5 million (2006) that is the 3rd place in Europe. Nowadays the number of British people who are native of Asia, Africa and Latin America is 3 million. Approximately ½ of them have already been born in Britain and consider it their historical motherland. However, they don’t forget their native language that is why in Britain there are schools, where children are speaking nearly 160 foreign languages. Each nationality, which lives on the territory of Great Britain, brought in its peculiarities to the life of this country.

If you are going for a walk about different streets of London, don’t be suprised when suddenly after turning the corner you find yourself in another world: strange signboards, hairstyles, clothes, the language of passers-by and the smell of food that can mean that you are in small China or on Gaiti. If you know where to find it you can sit at the restraurant “Troika” table, listen to balalaika, eat pancakes with caviar and hear native, close to heart Russian speech.

Food

What for should we take a plane for tasting Peking Duck, rabit fricassee in wine sauce, sushi, pancakes with caviar and Russian vodka? - You can find everything mentioned in Great Britain. But firstly I would like to start with national British cuisine. Here are some striking examples of British art of cookery. I’m definitely sure that they should be tasted exactly here. English cuisine is various. “Mince” is a national English dish, which they cook from ground beef. England is a unique country where, according to legends, roast beef was one of aristocratic dishes. Roast beef is a big slice of brisket, baked in the oven. The best garnish to it is Yorkshire pudding (2 eggs, 1 spoon of flour and ½ litre of milk, whisk it and put it on a fried-pan). Another common dish “Toad in the hole” is a slightly fried sausage, baked in dough. We also have such a dish in Russia, but its name sounds more prosaic – sausage in dough. In the south and in the west of England adherence to dishes made of friuts and vegetables can be noticed. Fruits were brought to the British land by the Romans. Thanks to them apples and cherries became popular in Great Britain. Such dishes as “pudding with raisins by steam”, “English cherry pie” are quite common there. Since that time the cooks of Great Britain have been famous for cooking various sauces. Mint sauce can be called the best in English cuisine. England is famous all over the world because of its tomato sauce. There is no place on our planet where people do not know or have not ever tasted tomato sauce.

The traditional English breakfast is: oatmeal, then bacon and fried eggs or ham-and-egg (fried eggs with ham). Devotion to oatmeals for breakfast in Great Britain also has reflection in literature and in motion films. Every Russian knows the phrase from a film, shot on the book of Arthur Conan Doil “The Hound of Baskerville”: -“What is it, Berrimore?!” –“Oatmeal, sir.”  For dessert the English eat toast with lemon or orange jam. English tea is a perfectly made tea with milk or cream. Tea which came to Great Britain from China has changed a lot. The English drink it not like all other nations: they drink it with milk or cream. The Russians also like tea a lot, because samovar was invented in Russia. But Russian people drink this beverage whithout any milk, but with jam, honey and spice-cake.  

In cold climate of Scotland and Northen England inhabitants like nourishing dishes and nutritious fillings and also hot, half-liquid dishes. For example, “cocalici” (dense soup made of chicken and onion), “shepherd’s pie” (a baked dish made of small pieces of cooked meat covered with cooked potato), Lancashire dinner in one dish (stewed mutton, onion, mushrooms and potato in a pot). In Northern Ireland people like potatoes. The number of recipes of cooking potatoes is more than 1000. The most popular is “colkenon” (mashed potatoes with stewed onion) and “chemp” (mashed potatoes with stewed onion and lettuce). As Great Britain is an islanda lot of the British are occupied with fishing. That is why there are various dishes made of fish: jellied fish, fried fish with potatoes, pickled fish. The English eat more ready made meals than people in other European countries. Indian rice with sauces, Italian pizza are among their favourite. I’d like to mention some of the English holiday dishes, for example on Christamas Day, the 25th, people cook special food. Especially they like to cook turkey with bacon on the top and stuffed sausages (two kinds of stuffing: chestnut stuffing and a kind of sage and onion stuffing), roast potatoes, sprouts, gravy and bread sauce. After that the English eat Christmas pudding, which is incredibly rich, very sweet, and very heavy: it is made from all kinds of dried fruit, like raisins and sultanas, with a lot of alcohol in it. The word “rollmops” refers to a pickled herring fillet rolled (hence the name) into a cylindrical shape around a piece of pickled cucumber or an onion. The “rollmops” is held together with one or two small wooden skewers.

In 2005 British cuisine reached new heights when 600 food critics writing for British Restaurant magazine named 14 British restaurants among the 50 best restaurants in the world with the number one spot going to The Fat Duck in Bray, Berkshire and its chef Heston Blumenthal.

                                         Traditions and holidays

There is no other nation that clings to the past with the tenacity of the British.The British have a sense of the continuity of history. They love to go through their ancient ceremonies as they have always performed them, with the consciousness that they are keeping faith with their ancestors, that they are maintaining the community they have created. The British don’t often change their manner of carrying out official acts, and if they ever do, the new method at once becomes a tradition.

In Great Britain people celebrate New Year traditionally holding their hands and singing the song “The good old days”. In Scotland and in the north of England there are New Year’s traditions of the “first meeting”, that means that the man you first meet in the street at New Year will influence your life. Also on New Year’s day on January 1st in England there is a custom of taking a symbolic gift of coal to neighbours and friends who live nearby at midnight to wish them prosperity and warmth for the coming Year.

Easter is also a traditional holiday for British people. In the south-west of England, they have special celebrations for Easter. There is a very large hill in Glastonbury called “The Tor”, and the local people go to top for an Egg-Rolling competition оn Easter day. Each person brings an egg and the one that can push or roll the egg down the hill from the top to the bottom first gets a prize.

Holidays are important as they shine out from the grey nine-to-five routines of everyday life and work as a time when we can forget about the stresses of our lives and enjoy ourselves, relax, and be with our family and friends. We can do the things that we dream about when we’re doing what we don’t want to do so much. They function as a break from the other days, and they should be very different from our usual routines.

In the past, holidays were primarily religious festivals or celebrations of  the different times of year - the harvest, winter time, days getting longer or shorter - and acted as natural reference points in the cycle of the year. Nowadays they mostly give us a bit of release from the monotony of going to work or to school every day. In England, apart from the big holidays such as Christmas and Easter, the British have many so-called Bank Holidays. They have one on May 1st, for example. This day is a traditional festival in England, but not many people know about its roots. It originates from one of the old Celtic fire-festivals, called “Beltaine”, which was marked by the time when the “May trees”, or hawthorn trees, came into blossom in England. One of the celebrations of  this festival was to put a big pole called the May pole in the middle of the field, and all people would come out from their houses dressed up in brightly coloured costumes, and, holding on to ropes or pieces of ribbon tied to the top of the pole would dance round the May pole.

There are eight Celtic festivals at different times during the year. There are two festivals for the Solstices, which are the longest day in summer and the shortest day in winter, and two for the Eguinoxes, which are the middle days in between these two extremes, with an equal length of day and night. There are also four more festivals which were spread in Britain. These were firefestivals, and represented different things such as fertility or the harvest.

In England, there aren’t really any directly political holidays, although on November the 5th the English have Guy Fawkes Night, which is officially the celebration of Guy Fawkes failure to blow up Parliament with a large guantity of gun-powder. On this night all of the fallen leaves, wood, and other things they do not need any more are burned on large bonfires, and all over England many fireworks displays are organised for children.

These are the national holidays of the United Kingdom for 2008:

England and Wales:

1 January - New Year's Day                                  

21 March - Good Friday

24 March - Easter Monday

5 May - May Day Bank Holiday

26 May - Spring Bank Holiday

25 August - Summer Bank Holiday

25 December - Christmas Day

26 December - Boxing Day

Northern Ireland

1 January - New Year's Day

17 March - St Patrick's Day

21 March - Good Friday

24 March - Easter Monday

5 May - May Day Bank Holiday

26 May - Spring Bank Holiday

14 July - Bank Holiday in Lieu of Battle of the Boyne (Orangeman's Day)

25 August - Summer Bank Holiday

25 December - Christmas Day

26 December - Boxing Day / St. Stephen's Day

Scotland

1 January - New Year's Day

2 January - 2 January

21 March - Good Friday

5 May - May Day Bank Holiday

26 May - Spring Bank Holiday

4 August - Summer Bank Holiday

1 December - Bank Holiday in Lieu of St. Andrew's Day

25 December - Christmas Day

26 December - Boxing Day

So, traditions and customs of nations are peculiar reflections of their history and psychology. The knowledge about them helps us to understand the souls of these nations, their art and literature better.

Despite different historical ways both the English and the Russians like to have fun, the only difference is national peculiarities which help to distinguish a cheereful Englishman from a happy Russian.

III. Conclusion

From the times of the first contact between Russia and Great Britain our relationships have gone through ups and downs. We became members of unions where we fought on one side and also the ones where we were on different sides of barricades. There were peaceful times when trade was improving and when the cultural exchange was prosperous: poets, writers, artists and architects were coming to Russia to do their bit in the history of the country which gave them a hearty welcome. And we will not forget the times when the Russians with all their heart were meeting the English army on our territory. We will not forget how in the years of World War II we were fighting nip and tuck against fascism and how English seamen were carrying help to deposited Murmansk through icy waters full of German submarines. In our mutual history there were many different situations. I hope that we will learn the lessons and will not repeat the mistakes we have done, and our relationships will become better and better with years. For realising it each person can make a contribution to improving these relationships. I reckon that for my part it can be profound knowledge of the language, culture and history of Great Britain. Reading poetry by W.Shakespeare, G.Byron, prose by O.Wilde, J.Swift, W.Scott, I’m not going to stop, because I know that it is just a drop in the ocean. I hope that somewhere in London or in a Scottish village or in a port city of Northen Ireland there lives a girl who is trying to learn more about Russian culture. I would like to talk to her, to learn how people live in the UK not only from books, the Internet and mass media but also directly from my friend. I hope that one day I will go up a boarding bridge of a plane and in several hours of flying I will step on the UK ground. And famous London mists won’t hide from me all that I have learnt from books. I will meet that girl and she will show me the sights of London, we will sit in a cafe Gaucho or Momos, listen to Big Ben, walk along the Thames embankment, and I will definitely invite her to the most beautiful city in the world – to Saint-Petersburg. We will go to the Peter-and-Paul Fortress, hear a minute gun there, walk along the Neva, eat pancakes in “Teremok”. Thanks to such communications true friendship appears and the more such friends there will be in our countries, the closer and friendlier will be our nations and as a result – countries.

Список литературы

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