Топики по английскому языку
материал по английскому языку на тему

What makes a good teacher ?

     Some young people go into teaching because teaching is a creative, & important work. They admire teachers & want to be like them. Some of them like & enjoy working with children, they like the subjects they are going to teach. What is the social function of teaching? When one lists all the possible roles of the teacher, two main categories emerge. One category refers to the teacher as a director of learning. This includes all those activities & concepts that are related to teaching as an activity or a process. The other category refers to the social function of teaching, the teacher as a mediator of the culture. A teacher must honestly know his work, his particular subject, & his special group of co-learners. A good teacher studies constantly, reviews, researches his subjects perfects his knowledge. A teacher should display his love for his work. He should be deeply interested in what he teaches & he should openly share his enjoyment of his subject. A teacher must love children. He must love not only the children that are good, clean & beautiful, but also those that are uncared for, maladjusted & difficult. The second group, in fact, needs the teacher’s love more than the first one. If the teacher can’t love children, he must at least respect them. If a teacher can’t build up a feeling of respect & understanding for the children he must teach, he should leave the profession. The only guide that can be offered to build up the mutual understanding with children is to learn to know them. A teacher must know his pupils & establish the kind of personal relationship that will engender a cooperative classroom climate – an attitude that they are working together, to develop the knowledge & skills that will lead to effective teaching. Perhaps the best way to identify a good classroom atmosphere is to determine the conditions under which we as teachers do our best work. We work best in an orderly atmosphere, with known accepted rules without guesswork & with a proper place & time for everything. Children are unable to develop properly or work properly in a classroom without orderly routines; a warmly cooperative emotional climate & understanding & systematic guidance. This guidance must be carried out by the teacher & her methods of teaching. Properly understood, the modern classroom, though active, must be a well regulated, orderly place in which the teacher plays the role of the teacher. Above all, the good teacher is alive of her teaching to the possibility of improving the content & method of his teaching. Teacher doesn’t dictate, but directs, applies, the principal of an individual approach a teacher must teach from simple to complex. He uses visual aids, makes the logical presentation of the material at the lesson. A teacher should be demandful & loyal. It’s better to keep in contact with parents to achieve good results. In general, I want to say, teaching is a noble, vital activity, which helps to create a society, educates & brings up. It finds out talents & helps them to develop. Though today many people are not eager to be a teacher it’s a difficult, hard-working job, teachers have very little free time, have much preparation, small salaries, it’s a tiresomорe job. Generally speaking if one loves his job, he can easily find the best sides of it & we’ll be able to overcome all obstacles in our way.  

Understanding between people & nations is an urgent goal.

We can not predict the future, but we can prepare for it. At the dawn of the 21st century, four unprecedented challenges await us. The 1st is peace. The Cold War is over but the present peace remains “Hot”. Some 30 wars, mostly intrastate, have ravaged vast areas of the globe. The illusions of perpetual peace & the end of history have vanished. The 2nd challenge is if this century witnesses the development of an unparalleled degree of poverty alongside unprecedented wealth? Today, more than half of humanity lives in poverty. The “one 5th” society it thus consolidated. The 3rd major challenge is sustainable development. The 4th challenge is the “drunken boat” syndrome. We must rebuild a planetary society if we wish to humanize globalization & give it a real meaning. Four contacts should form the pillars of a new international democracy. First of all, we must conclude a new social contract. Priority must be given to rebuilding a sharing society through the eradication of poverty, in line with the commitment made by governments… We must harness the 3rd industrial revolution & redistribute the dividends of globalization. The second contract is the natural contract, founded on an alliance between science, development & environmental preservation. We must conclude a natural contract of sustainable development & co-development with the Earth. The 3rd contract is the cultural contract. Lifelong education for all should be a top priority for governments & for society. The revolution in new technologies constitutes a fundamental challenge but also a decisive tool at the heart of the cultural contract. We shall have to convert the information society into a knowledge society. The 4th contract is the ethical contract. We can encourage the growth of  a culture of peace & the intelligent development, instead of crushing human beings. But this new ethical contract cannot be concluded without sharing. In order to bring the benefits of globalization to every one the dividends of peace should be used to abolish the debt of the largest number of states. There are solutions to the problems of the 21st century, which can be implemented, provided with what political will is exercised.

How to create a good classroom atmosphere?

The education of children is a difficult & important trust which places a considerable burden of responsibility on the teacher. To teach well, teachers need to create a good atmosphere of a classroom. It greatly depends on personal relationship between a teacher & his pupils. These relationships should be founded on respect for a person. The child should feel that he is respected & loved. A teacher must know his pupils & establish the way of cooperative teaching to meet needs & take into account abilities of his pupils. It will help a teacher to develop knowledge & stimulate different motives for learning his subject. Teaching-thinking, a teacher should plan carefully & suitably in accordance with the general aims of good education & specific aims for his own students. A teacher should use all means & methods of teaching he has in his experience to maintain an active & well organized atmosphere at all times. A good teacher must be able to organize various types of work to stimulate pupils’ participation in the organized work, to organize the work of separate students, to create an atmosphere of kind, attentive attitude of students, to one another. Besides, as a personality he mustn’t be angry, hypocritical & enormous but he must be friendly, open & sociable, with a good sense of humor & ability to laugh at his drawbacks objectively & without any offence. But, of course a teacher will never create a good classroom atmosphere without his pupils’ help. A child should be always aware of all the requirements to him, a good work will be praised & his mistakes will be corrected, a pupil should recognize not only his rights but also the duties limitations. As for me, I think it’s not easy to create a good classroom atmosphere. But I hope that love for children combined with the knowledge, I’ve got at the Institute, would help me to succeed in my work.

The world of literature.

Literature is exhilarating out of poetry, drama, prose fiction across many centuries. It presents a prolific overflow of genres & trends: from lyrical, romantic to comic, from naturalistic to mysterious & imaginary. Reading with full attention is the real difficulty with any work of literature. The more so when one reads in a foreign language. The problem us concerned with the inherent comprehension of the reading matter, & the fact that we are not accustomed to attending such complicity in everyday life. In many ways the exhilarating experience of a reader feeds his intellectual & emotional will in the most beneficient way, enabling him to absorb a wide array of relationships, bringing into the focus the ever-present patterns of human thought & behavior. There are various means of interpretation that might help the reader to come to his own understanding of literary art, by pointing out some of the features of the narrative structure, such as chronology & point of view. The writers of post war & contemporary literature confidently express the spirit of the time. Modern writing offers to the reader sensitive students of male or female characters; it makes an ardent appeal to human intellect & emotions. The writers show the ability to see the emptiness of the newly-acquired ideas of the period. They expose the magical fascination of the wealth & its self-destructive essence; they show the drama of love & betrayal. They pierce to the heart of human situations in matters of social behavior. In order to understand the literature of any country, the readers need to know something about the social attitudes of its in habitants. Obviously class structures have changed over the centuries & are rapidly changing now. Eventually the writers turned to depicting characters who were men & women rather than gentlemen & ladies & the context of the political, economic & social life of the 20th century. For anyone under 50 now, the idea of the gentlemen is meaningless. Differences of genres in literature. Today our society is rich in books & there are many genres. Some people like love story & detective. The basic problem today’s that books aren’t referred to individuals but to mass reader. It’s a form of a mass culture. Some books are too plain, fruitless even dangerous for development of a person, it’s a special problem for younger generation who have know stable view point on the world & life around them. These books don’t develop don’t educate, don’t give knowledge but the most terrible thing is that being very popular among youngsters they can easily distort vision of reality of the youth. I like reading. Reading a good book is like a great adventure for me. I like to imagine heroes, nature & the places of the story. Best of all I like fantasy. Tolkien & Luis wrote many interesting books. I think their best books are all parts of “The King of Rings” & “The Chronics of Narnia”.

Foreign languages in the life of an educated person.

Knowledge of foreign languages & foreign cultures is becoming more important nowadays. There are many reasons why we study foreign languages now. In a period when we’re reconstructing our economy, when there are many joint ventures with foreign companies operating in this country; we need a great number of specialists who know foreign languages. If you know foreign languages, you can communicate personally or in writing with others who use these languages. If you wish to make a career in science, you must, read scientific books & magazines in foreign languages. Knowing foreign languages, you can read the works of foreign writers in the original. A more general aim is to broaden our intellectual & cultural horizons through contacts with people of other cultures. Knowledge of foreign languages helps people of different countries to develop mutual friendship & understanding. When people meet at international conferences they may be able to come into contact, learn to know each other better. People all over the world speak almost 3,000 languages. 350 million people speak English as their 1st languages. About the same number use it as the 2nd language. Russian is also one of the most prevalent, expressive means. Among the great number of languages that exist on our planet today there are some which stand out. A person who knows languages can speak to & understand people & doesn’t suffer from the languages barrier. To state the significance of this or that language one must take into consideration not only its prevalence but the quantity of printed production. Today there are a lot of people in Europe & Asia who know several languages. A person who knows several languages is called a polyglot. They are not few. The knowledge of other languages is very useful, especially if you have to work abroad or if you must read foreign literature in the original. If you know the language of a foreign country, you can talk to its people & understand what they are speaking about without anybody’s help. As for me, I am learning English, because in the recent years it has become not only an international language, it’s now a number one language in the world. Besides, English is becoming more & more the language for practical use. English has become the world’s most important language in politics, science, trade & cultural relations, aviation, international sport & pop music. Oriental languages are also widespread today. Learning a foreign language has a practical value but the choice of a foreign language sometimes depends on a fashion, if under fashion we mean the demands of life & society. Thus, the knowledge of a foreign language today is a life necessity.

Youth problems

Old people are always saying that the young are not what they were. The same comment is made for any generation & it’s always true. It has never been truer than it is today. The young are better educated, they have a lot more money to spend & enjoy more freedom. They grow up quickly & are so dependent on their parents. They think more for themselves & don’t blindly accept the ideas of their elders. Events which the older generation remembers vividly are nothing more than past history. This is as it should be. Every new generation is generation from the one that preceded it. Today the difference is very marked indeed. The old always assume that they know best for the simple reason that they have been around a bit longer. They don’t like to feel that their values are being questioned or threatened. And this is precisely what the young are doing. They are questioning the assumptions of their elders & disturbing their complacency. They take leave to doubt that the older generation has created the best of all possible worlds. What they reject more than anything is conformity. Office hours, for instance, are nothing more than enforced slavery. Traditionally, the young have turned to their older for guidance. Today, the situation might be reversed. The old - if they are prepared to admit it – could learn a thing or two from their children. One of the biggest lessons they could learn is that enjoyment is not ‘sinful’. Enjoyment is a principle one could apply to all aspects of life. It’s surely not wrong to enjoy your work & enjoy your leisure; to shed restricting inhibitions. It’s surely not wrong to live in the present rather than in the past or the future. This emphasis on the present is only to be expected because the young have grown up under the shadow of the bomb: the constant threat of complete annihilation. This is their glorious heritage. Youth is the time when a person is trying to find his place in the world. & during this search he or she comes across different problems which are as important as those of the adults. I think we must understand & help the young people. We must decide the problems with them.

Habits &ways of British life

Traditions & habits play a great part in Britain nation &their life. They mean a lot to them. In the matter of holidays, the British are less well-off than other Europeans. Most people have only three weeks paid holiday per year, & the small number of bank holidays puts Britain at the bottom of the list of Common Market countries as far as public holidays are concerned. British “bank holidays” are New Year’s Day, Good Friday, Easter Monday, May Day, Spring Bank Holiday, Summer Bank holiday, Christmas Day & Boxing Day. Only when the UK joined the European Economic Community New Year’s Day became a public holiday. Patron saints’ days are not celebrated with a holiday. They are St. David’s Day (March 1st) in Wales, St. George’s Day (April 23rd) in England, St. Andrew’s Day (November 30th) in Scotland & St. Patrick’s Day (March 17th) in Ireland. Halloween means “holy evening”, & takes place on the 31st of October. Although it’s a much more important festival in the US than in Britain, it’s celebrated with witches & ghosts. At parties people dress up in strange costumes & pretend they are witches. Many people travel home to be with their families on Christmas Day on the 25th of December. The Christmas celebration of the birth of Christ: with the traditional festivities of winter. At midnight on the 31st of December throughout British people celebrate the coming of the New Year, by holding hands in a large circle & singing the song. Although the Christian religion gave the world Easter as we know it today, the celebration owes its England name & many of its customs & symbols to a pagan festival. Every spring northern European peoples celebrate the festival to honour the awakening of new life in nature. It’s very interesting to read about English traditions. It helps us to understand this country & its people.      

Learning the English language

In learning a new language, perhaps the hardest thing to catch is intonation. Memorizing the vocabulary is perhaps the easiest. This brings us to the last & most difficult – point in learning a new language: learning to think as the native speakers of that language think. The student must not only learn the new shades of sounds & the new patterns of intonation & structure: he must learn a new way of structuring thought into a content. We sometimes forget that language is primarily communication, not words listed in a dictionary or cut of newspapers & gathered in the heap. Learning a foreign language consists of forming the sounds of the language, of framing the structures correctly, of choosing the right word in the right place in a pattern, of using the right intonation with each structure & so on. Learning a language is not a matter of acquiring a set of rules & building up a large vocabulary. The student’s mastery of a language is ultimately measured by how well he can use it, not by how much he knows about it. The student’s command of a language will be judged how well he can perform it in public. Written English & spoken English are obviously very different things, but very important for a language learning. You must hear a foreign language but just hearing isn’t enough; you must listen to it, & you must listen to it not for the meaning but for the sound of it. It’s no use practicing silently. Every language has melody in it; no language is spoken on the same musical note all the time. The voice goes up & down & the different pitches of the voice combine to make tunes. English intonation is English: it’s not the same as the intonation of any other language. It may be quite different from the normal tunes of your own language. Grammar is a very important part of learning a language. When you know grammar well it shows you as an educated & capable man. You can achieve better results if you know not only pronunciation & meaning of words but also how to join them in speech correctly. I would like to suggest that language & culture are linked. Language itself is already culture. I suggest learning a language in its close connection with the culture. In this case we can achieve better results. So, to learn a foreign language means to learn its inner form, that is meaning & structure, & phonetics, & outer form, that’s its combination with the people speaking this language.

Keeping fit & doing sports

Unfortunately our health depends not only on ourselves but on many other factors. These are environmental state of our place, our way of life, and some psychological & social spheres of our life. But we shouldn’t learn the secrets of our sickness; we should better know the secrets of health. Polluted air, water, soil result in many deceases. You make up in the morning rush to the window & take a deep breath. Don’t the air is polluted with lead from petrol you want to clean you teeth. Put down that nylon toothbrush at once! It will ruin your germs after touching a door handle your hands are covered in bactories which are also patterns of sicknest. When you go to you work by bus or by car you may be involved into an accident! So, after such a heart – thumping journey, you reach work & get into the lift. You would better get out at once & race up the stairs, other wise you’ll get a heart attack. Tomorrow reaching your office you breathe in different aromas of perfumes, aerosol, and cigarette smoke. Don’t you know that all these aromas, even passive smoking ruin your lungs? It may cause cancer or any other disease. During your lunch – time you join your mates for a sandwich. Remember! Unhealthy eating & the world’s healthiest diets are the consequence of high blood pressure & chronic indigestion. Besides, one may be attacked by AID’s, & another sexually transmitted disease as a result of alcohol & drug addiction or casual sexual contact. Any of these adventures of your day make you get a nervous break & you go to visit your doctor. Thus, being both a civilized & healthy person is a very difficult task nowadays. But to lead an interesting way of life we must unite these two qualities & fight for our health.  

My family

Family is basis of any society. We all are from a family. Many of our habits, our culture and behavior are taken from our families. There are several pillows on which the family can be based the 1st one of love. This is the felling that joins people to build the family. We love our children, our relatives & did help us to live. But also there is responsibility when we are responsible for our actions & for our eldest & youngest. Freedom is the basis which helps us to find our own place in a society. We have the freedom of expressing our opinion, of choosing a career, of forming relations. Noting can be done without trust & support in the family. We trust our father & mother. We always find support in them. We all always find kind words advice in the family but you know that there are no fellings of this kind, if no tolerance is in our family relations. We should be tolerant to our people & it will result in our tolerance to the members of the society we live in. I think this is not the full list of those relations felling & emotions that one can get in this family. Let me introduce my family. In my opinion family is an emotional centre of a person’s life, transmitter of culture, the place where children are being raised. The process of upbringing children is difficult. It requires much effort, mutual respect, tolerance. In happy families parents are frankly honest with their children without moralizing & the children in their turn learn how to get on with other people. The proverb says: “men make houses, women make homes”. It is true for our family, I think. Our family consists of five members. They are my father, mother, sister, brother & their family & I. These are people who’ll always support me in all my beginnings & difficulties & will stay with me in my happy moments. In my future I hope to build the same united & friendly family as I live in. We like to spend our pastime together we often gather in our house. To celebrate birthdays, holidays, to meet friends, to discuss important events. My family told me many vital things I took the manner of my behavior from my family. They thought me the basic & even deep secrets of the society we live in. Our family helps us financially & morally, especially at the beginning of our professional activity & separate living. All that I have in this life I’ve got thanks to my family. I’m thanked for my family for these.    

Education in a changing world

The systems of education have considerably changed for the last several decades all over the world. It’s connected with the change of goals of education. Education today serves to bring together people of various cultural & linguistic groups, religions, social & political backgrounds. These goals are reached by different students exchange programs. A student of one country can get a proper secondary or higher education institution abroad. The problem is the quality of education in different countries. For example, the Americans still complain about the poor quality of education. The Russians say that the quality of education has declined as compared to the soviet era. But, in general, I think that the knowledge we get in Russia, even in state schools, is better. The reason is that the programs of different subjects are smaller in other countries. But in the spite of this our country also faces many problems. One of them is the necessity of reforms in Russian educational system. Today the slogan “free education for all to build a perfect nation & solve all the problems of society” turned out to be a failure. We have many people with university degrees & no jobs for them. I think, education must be based on a highly selective approach. Another problem for Russia is connected with fee-paying basis of education. It needs to be understood that in comparison with other countries our people are very poor. To achieve a high-quality educational system in 10 years, we need additional state funding. In our country tuition on the fee-paying basis doesn’t ensure a better quality of education. Large number of semi-educated people who have graduated from pseudo-institutions of higher education will not be able to get a good job in the future. Today education founded on the alliance between science, development & self-education. Students are provided with different technical means of education, such as: computers & various programs, TV-sets, tape-recorders. One can get all the necessary information & even share it with his teacher & students by means of the Internet. The problem for our country is the shortage of providing of our education establishments & private users with these “clever” machines. Surely, an education system can never be perfect. Still it’s essential to understand: Russian society is lagging behind the developed countries on a vast number of parameters. We can effectively reform our economy by investing in the education system. Our people as well as the public of foreign countries should never forget to identify good growth in economy & social life with the idea of good education.

TV or not TV?

Whether we realise it or not, TV plays a very important part in our lives. It’s the main source of information & a cheep form of entertainment for millions of people. It has the power to educate & broaden our minds. It helps us to relax after a hard day’s work & escape from reality. The trick is to learn to control TV & use it intelligently. Violence on TV is another problem that worries people. TV & cinema play an important part in the life of society. Their task is to inform, educate & entertain people. They also influence the way people look at the world & make them change their views. But both TV & cinema have advantages & disadvantages. Some people say that TV prevents us from communicating because we spend the whole evening glued to the screen. Other thinks that TV is used only to make people buy more goods. They support the idea that advertising time on TV should be restricted. Violence on TV is also the problem for the society. I think it should be prohibited. Besides, TV causes some friction in the family life as to which program to watch. Children prefer watching TV to reading a good book. In general, TV can be harmful for health & spirit. As for cinema I can say that films are different according to their genre & art value. But some of them are reproached for creating the world of dream on the screen, which has nothing to do with reality. But I can’t agree with all the arguments. There are a lot of educational programs on TV, a lot of music, news, commentaries & other programs, many good films. They organize forums where people exchange views on social, economic & political problems on TV. People can get prizes taking part in various quises; as for cinema I can say that today films are quite realistic & raise many important social problems. They analyse causes of criminal acts & conclude that criminals are the fruits of the circumstances & environment. Science fiction helps us to understand that great scientific achievements of humankind may result in catastrophe in the world. I want to add that TV & cinema give us an opportunity to listen to the latest news, to see the best actors & well-known people on the screen. But I want to defend these types of mass media. Because I like them & think that they possess many positive sides & have many advantages.        

Changing patterns of leisure

We live in a century of speed. Today people are often in a hurry, always busy, especially busy working. We sometimes forget that if we don’t have any rest we may fall ill. That’s why I think people must have their favourite ways to spend their pastime. For many people a hobby is the best way to spend a free time. A hobby is a favourite pastime of a person. Hobbies differ like tastes. If you have chosen a hobby to your liking, lucky you are: you have made your life more interesting. Numerous hobbies can be subdivided into four large classes: doing things, making things, collecting things & learning things. The most popular of all hobby groups is doing things. It includes a wide variety of activities, everything from gardening to travelling & from chess to basketball. Gardening is one of the oldest man’s hobbies, especially in some countries. A relatively new hobby which is becoming more popular is computer games. Making things includes drawing, painting, making sculpture, handicrafts. Some hobbyists write music. Two of the most famous hobby paintings were President Eisenhower & Sir Winston Churchill. Almost everyone collects something at some period in his life: stamps, coins, books, toys, watches. Some collections have no real value. Others become so large & so valuable that they are housed in museums & galleries. Many world-famous collections started in a small way with one or two items. People with a good deal of money often collect paintings, rare books & other art subjects. Often such private collections are given to museums, libraries & public galleries so that others might take pleasure in seeing them. No matter what kind of hobby a person has, he or she always has the opportunity of learning from it. By reading about the things he or she is interested in, he or she is adding to what he knows. Learning things can be the most exciting aspect of a hobby. My hobby is

Our Academy

Sterlitamak State Pedagogical Academy was founded on the basis of Sterlitamak Teachers Training Institute opened by the decree of the Union of People’s Commissars on the 22nd of June in 1940. Sterlitamak Teachers Training Institute was reorganized into Sterlitamak State Pedagogical Institute in 1954. Then in 2004 this Institute turned into Sterlitamak State Pedagogical Academy by the decree of the Ministry of Education. Nowadays there are 349 highly qualified teachers in our academy. 32 Doctor of Science & 209 masters are among them. 4563 students study at 6 departments of the academy. There are the following departments: Physics & Maths department, History department, and Philological department, department of Bashkir philology, department of Technology & Economics, and department of the Theory of Education & Methodology of Primary Schooling. The institution of higher education is ruled by the rector & there are deans at the head of each department. The departments have a number of chairs. 40 chairs lead the process of study at the academy. Our academy gives students a lot of opportunities for a productive study, research work & extra activities. There are a lot of laboratories, a sport complex, consisted of a big gym & a stadium. We have well equipped computer classes, where students can listen to different texts; work with modern media books, computer programs, surf in the Internet, while preparing for their course & diploma papers. Our library is very big & it has all necessary books we need for our work during seminars, practice classes, exams. The library has an electronic catalogue, which helps to find the book quickly. Our students also have the opportunity to live in the hall of residence. The academy has 3 student’s hostels, they are comfortable & cosy. The course of study lasts for 5 or 6 years. Full time students study for 5 years & part time students study for 6 years. An academic year consists of 2 terms & 2 sessions: winter & summer. At the end of the term students take exams after at the course, undergraduates take final exams & do their research work to get a certificate of education. Every year nearly one thousand specialists graduate from our academy. The graduates work in different cities, towns, villages of our Republic. Some graduates enter post graduate courses to continue their research work. Sterlitamak State Pedagogical Academy is a developing institution of higher education. It’s going to renew the system of training the specialists. Soon the graduates will be able to get the degrees of bachelor & master. So the academy is awaiting some reforms. Sterlitamak State Pedagogical Academy collaborates with the institutions of higher education not only in the Republic of Bashkortostan, but both in Russia & Europe.      

Scientific & technological progress.

It’s difficult to overestimate the role of science & technology in our life. They accelerate the development of civilization & help us in our co-operation with nature. Scientists investigate the laws of the universe, discover the secrets of nature & apply their knowledge in practice improving the life of people. Let’s compare our life nowadays with the life of people at the beginning of the 20th century. It has changed beyond recognition. Our ancestors hadn’t the slightest idea of the trivial things created by the scientific progress that we use in every day life. I mean refrigerators, TV sets, computers, microwave ovens, radio telephones, what not. They would seem miracle to them that made our life easy, comfortable & pleasant. A century is a long period for scientific & technological progress, as it’s rather rapid. Millions of investigations, the eldless number of outstanding discoveries have been made. Our century has been several names that were connected with a certain era in science & technology. At 1st it was called the atomic age due to the discovery of the splitting of the atom. Then it became the age of the conquest of space when for the 1st time in the history of mankind a man overcame the gravity & entered the Universe. & now we live in the information era when the computer network embraces the globe & connects not only the countries & space stations but a lot of people all over the world. All these things prove the power & the greatest progressive role of science in our life. But every medal has its reverse. & the rapid scientific progress has aroused a number of problems that are a matter of our concern. These are ecological problems, the safety of nuclear power stations, and the nuclear war threat, the responsibility of a scientist. But still we are grateful to the outstanding men of the past & the present who have courage & patience to disclose the secrets of the universe.

Travelling

I can’t imagine my life without travelling modern means of communication make the world a small place. Now it’s possible to visit many countries & meet people of all nations. Today travelling is a way of life for some people moreover; in the past travelling was a specific driving force of human development. Today people can travel by air, by rail, by sea or by road, on foot. Travelling by air is the fastest & the most convenient way. Travelling by train is slower but it has its advantages. You can see many interesting places. Modern trains are very comfortable. There’re sleeping cars & dining cars where you can enjoy your journey. Travelling by sea is popular for pleasure trips. Large ships can visit foreign countries & different places of interest in your own country. As for me I prefer travelling by car or on foot. I think it’s convenient. You can stop wherever you wish & spend as much time at any place as you like. You can play games, enjoy nature, and get sunburn. I’m very fond of travelling & try to do it as often as possible. Million of people all over the world spend their holidays travelling. They travel to see other countries & continents, modern cities & the ruins of ancient towns, they travel to enjoy picturesque places, or just for a change of scene. It’s always interesting to discover new things, different ways of life, to meet different people, to try different food, to listen to different musical rhythms. Those who live in the country like to go to a big city & spend their time visiting museums & art galleries, looking at shop windows & dining at exotic restaurants. City dwellers usually like a quiet holiday by the sea or in the mountains, with nothing to do but walk & bathe & lying in the sun. most travelers & holiday-makers take a camera with them & take picture of everything that interests them-the sights of a city, add churches & castles, views of mountains, lakes, forests; different kinds of trees, flowers & plants; animals & birds. Later, perhaps years later, they will be reminded by the photos of the happy time they have had. People travel by train, by boat & by car. All means of travel have their advantages & disadvantages. People choose one according to their plans & destinations. If we are fond of travelling, we see & learn a lot of things that we can never see or learn at home, though we may read about them in books & newspapers, see pictures of them on TV. The best way to study geography is to travel; the best way to get to know & understand the people is to meet them in their own homes.

Man and nature.

Since ancient time’s nature has served man, being the source of his life. For thousand of years people lived in harmony with environment & it seemed to them that natural riches were unlimited. But today the relationship between man & nature has become one of the major problems facing civilization today. Ecology, a vital philosophical issue stands at the crossroads of politics, science & economics. Pollution is the contamination of the environment, including air, water & land, with undesirable amounts of material or energy. Over population, pollution & energy consumption have created such planet-wide problems as massive deforestation, global warming or ‘the greenhouse effect’, acid rains, ozone depletion, distruction of the countryside, pesticides & other pollution in food, species in danger of extinction. Air pollution is the result of man’s use of toxic chemicals. One form of air pollution is acid rain. It’s caused by electrical generating plants, industrial boilers large smelters & automobiles, acid rain killer’s vast stretches of forest. It has acidified lakes & streams, rendering them unable to support fish, wildlife, plants or insets & when a plant or an animal is gone forever, we say it’s extinct. It’s estimated that our species-plant, animal or insect-becomes extinct every day. The question of water protection from pollution becomes of primary importance nowadays. Waste waters are dumped untreated into our streams, rivers or lakes & make them polluted too. These polluted waters are used for soil irrigation. Soils containing harmful chemicals lose their natural fertility & agricultural products produced on such soils are a real health hazard to the consumer. We should also talk about a global climate change which results in the greenhouse effect. It’s caused by an increase in the concentration of gases in the atmosphere. Climate imbalances we are witnessing have a great impact on ecosystems. Some species disappear while others start breeding & proliferating with an alarming speed. What could mankind do to stop these processes? Firstly, stop destroying natural ecosystems; learn to make do with what has already been developed. Second, reduce pollution. To do this people join & support various international organizations & green parties, because ecological problems do not respect notional boundaries & the Earth is our common & the only home.        

Youth subcultures.

Culture is known to have many meanings. One of them refers to the spiritual & material achievements of humanity. On the whole it is possible to distinguish & kinds of culture. They are elite culture, folk culture & popular culture. These cultures are closely connected with one another & one culture is part of the others. Elite culture is a highly developed sphere it’s comprised of painting, sculpture, architecture, literature, music. Folk culture is the culture of everyday life & routine relations of social life. Folk culture consists of traditional knowledge & practice. It’s like a habit of people, thus this culture does not change very quickly. Popular culture is mass culture. It’s a professionally organized sphere that works for a large mass of people. Popular culture gives people, especially young, standards to be what they like. Today the life of many young people of Russia as well as in other countries of the world is influenced by popular culture. The youth follow certain stereotypes that are imposed on them through TV, movies & music. In their lifestyles they try to imitate the images of their idols. Other young people are sports & music fans. They frequent stadiums & huge concert halls. It’s generally held that sub-culture is the culture of those who are dissatisfied with their place in society. On the whole Teds, mods, rockers, bikers, skinheads & punks are the sub-cultures of the politically or economically weak segments of the society sub-cultures. Rastafarians were afro-cariffean immigrants in Britain. They dreamed of golden age in Africa before the slave traders came. They viewed Britain as part of the Biblical “Babylon”, the land of slavery. They began to wear distinctive clothes, common slag jackets, and large hats in the red, put their long, uncut hair in dreadlocks. They took to speaking in a special dialects became a recognized & legitimate minority group at the end of the 1980’s. Skinheads developed in the 1970’s in England out of an older cult, the Mods. They imitated black mannerism & fashion, to reggae. The wear heavy boots, jeans & braces & shave their hair & cut it very short. Skinheads dreamed about the revival of the traditional working class culture. Hippies forms of protest corresponded to the standards of their contemporaneous society. They rebelled against the values of their society. Their idol was J.R.R. Tolkien epic trilogy “The Lord of the Rings” became the guidelines for Hippies. Punks appeared in Britain in the 1970’s as a reaction to the glamour of the pop star world of the 1960’s. Punks are politically indifferent. They use vulgar language, wearing green & pink hair, dressing in torn clothes. Now punks are popular in our country. “Heavy metal” is a cult within urban subcultures. This music of failure is widely despised by those who enjoy pop, reggae or soul. Ragga & Gothic arose in the 1980’s. They are clothed in baseball caps, tracksuits trousers & chunky trainers. “Goths” wear their hair very long & dyed block, dress in cheap, loose clothes. They put much make-up, looking very pale, but non-aggressive.

Information sources in modern society.

The mass media play an important part in our lives. Newspapers, radio & especially TV inform us of what is going on in this world & give us wonderful possibilities for education & entertainment. They also influence the way we see the world & shape our views. Of course, not all newspapers & TV programs repot the events objectively, but serious journalists & TV reporters try to be fair & provide us with reliable information. The main source of news for millions of people is TV. People like TV news because they can see everything with their own eyes. That’s an important advantage. Seeing, as we know, believes. Besides, it’s much more difficult for politicians to lie in front of the cameras than on the pages of newspapers. Still, many people prefer the radio. It’s good to listen to in the car, or in the open air, or when you do something about the house. Newspapers don’t react to events as quickly as TV, but they usually provide us with extra detail, comment & background information. The internet has recently become another important source of information. Its main advantage is that news appears on the screen as soon as things happen in real life & you don’t have to wait for news time on TV. A message can be communicated to a mass audience by many means. The oldest media are those of the printed word & picture, which carry their message through the sense of sight: the weekly & daily newspapers, magazines, books, pamphlets, direct mail circulars & billboards. Radio is the mass communications medium aimed at the sense of sound, whereas TV & motion pictures appeal both to the visual & auditory senses. The reader turns to his newspapers for news & opinion, entertainment & the advertising it publishes. In the weekly the focus is upon the reader’s own community; in the daily the focus is upon the nation & the world as well. Magazines give him background information, entertainment, opinion, the advertising; books offer longer range & more detailed examination of subjects, as well as entertainment. Films may inform & persuade as well as entertain. TV & radio offer entertainment, news & opinion, advertising messages & can bring direct coverage of public events into the listener’s home.

Generation gap.

Old people are always saying that the young are not what they were. The same comment is made from generation to generation & it’s always true. It has never been truer than it is today. The young are better educated; they have a lot of more money to spend & enjoy more freedom. They grow up more quickly & are not so dependent on their parents. They think more for themselves & do not blindly accept the ideals of their elders. Events which the older generation remembers vividly are nothing more than past history. This is as it should be. Every new generation is different from the one that preceded it. Today the difference is very marked indeed. The old always assume that they know best for the simple reason that they have been around a bit longer. They don’t like to feel that their values are being questioned or threatened. This is precisely what the young are doing. They are questioning the assumptions of their elders & disturbing their complacency. They doubt that the older generation has created the best of all possible worlds. Traditionally, the young have turned to the older for guidance. Today, the situation might be reversed. The old – if they are prepared to admit it – could learn a thing or two from their children. One of the biggest lessons they could learn is that enjoyment is not sinful. Enjoyment is a principle one could apply to all aspects of life. It’s surely not wrong to enjoy your work & enjoy your leisure; to shed restricting inhibitions. It’s surely not wrong to live in the present rather than in the past or future. The world is full of uncertainly & tension. This is their glorious heritage. Can we be surprised that they should so often question the sanity of the generation that bequeathed it!

Outstanding between people of Bashkortostan

The cultural heritage of any people is unique. It’s possible to find phenomena of the world culture in any sphere of the Bashkir culture. One of the forms of culture is folklore Yomobay Isenbaev was the 1st to bring fame to the Bashkort song. It happened in Paris in 1924. Lately the theatrical art of Bashkortostan has appeared on the world stage. The names of such Bashkort artists as A. Mubarakov, Z. Bikbulatova, and G. Mubarakova are known outside Bashkiria. The F. Gaskarov State Dance Company represents not only the Bashkir culture, but Russian as a hole. This company showed the beauty of the Bashkir national dance in many countries. The speaktaters of Europe & America enjoyed the ballet group of the Bashkir state opera house. It’s difficult to add something to the written about R. Nuriev the start of the world ballet. Many pictures of the Bashkir artists decorate halls of museums abroad. So, the pictures of A. Sitdikova, B. Domashnikov were exhibited in Germany, France, England, Sweden, and Japan. It goes without same that Bashkir literature is one of the leading trances representing our land in the world arena. The famous Bashkir writers & poets are very numerous. Among them is Z. Biisheva & R. Garipov. I want to tell about Z. Biisheva. Zainab Biisheva is one of the most important Bashkir writers of all time. She had a versatile talent, which she used in her work as a novelist, a poet, dramatist, journalist and as a translator. Zainab Biisheva's work is a mixture of fact and fiction, which includes a realistic portrayal of life alongside romantic hopes for the future of the Bashkir people.  Zainab Biisheva was born in January, 1908, in the village of Tuyembel in the Orenburg province. From a poor family, she had four sisters and a brother. Orphaned at the age of 11, she had to live with her stepmother, a vigorous, clever, but stern woman. Zainab was eager to learn and read a lot. In 1924, Zainab was sent to the Bashkir Institute of Public Education in Orenburg, located in a building designed by Brullov, a famous Russian artist. Zainab worked hard studying literature, history, politics and Russian. She read many Russian authors such as Push kin, Gogol, Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, and also enjoyed reading Bashkir and Tartar authors. After graduating from the Institute, she worked as a teacher in a Bashkir village in the Baimak district. Later, she was transferred to Ufa, where she became an editor, and that was when she began to publish her stories and poems. During the Second World War, Zainab had a hard life looking after her three sons and a sick sister while her husband fought against the Germans at the front. But she was still able to write a lot, and she translated the works of Aksakov, Gogol, Turgenev, Tolstoy and Chekhov into Bashkir. The post-war period was a very busy time for Zainab. She published more than 40 books of poems, essays and plays. Her most well known stories are A Strange Man, Where are You, Gulnisa? Love and Hate. The most important of Zainab's works, though, is her trilogy To the Light. It was the result of many years of thought and hard work. The three related novels in the trilogy depict the life and times of a young Bashkir girl called Yemesh, and other characters from the pre-revolutionary years onwards. The trilogy is considered not only Zainab's greatest achievement, but also a major cultural landmark in the general development of Bashkir prose.

Art

Artistic & cultural life in the world is rather rich nowadays. It passed several main stages in its development. There are many trends in arts. It may be cinema, theatre, painting, books, dancing. Every evening you can see or hear opera, or classical music, ballet or rock music. There are many concert halls in the world, we hold many musical festivals. Also you can enjoy a good play in the theatre. There you can get everything-excellent orchestra, good actors, staying of the literature. In case you want to watch a film with a popular actor or actress you can get to the cinema, take part in cinema clubs. Cinema going is a regular habit of a great number of people. The number of cinema – goers is much larger than that of theatre – goers. Each nation brought their cultures & habits with it. Monuments & traces of past greatness are everywhere. There are builders of all styles & periods. A great number of museums & galleries display precious & interesting findings from all parts of the world, from all stages of nature, man & art development. Every government promotes knowledge of culture & literature overseas, organizing participation of their country in international exhibition & encouraging professional interchange in all cultural fields between different countries.  

Britain today

The UK of GB & Northern Ireland is situated on the British Isles. The British Isles consist of two large islands, GB & Ireland, & about 5 thousands small islands. The United Kingdom is one of the world’s smaller countries. Its population is over 57 million. About 80 percent of the population is urban. The UK is made up of four countries: England, Wales, Scotland & NI. Their capitals are London, Cardiff, Edinburgh & Belfast respectively. GB consists of England, Wales, Scotland & does not include NI. But in everyday speech “GB” is used in the meaning of the “UK of GB & NI”. The capital of the UK is London. The British Isles are separated from the Continent by the North Sea, the English Channel & the Strait of Dover. The western coast of GB is washed by the Atlantic Ocean & the Irish Sea. The surface of the British Isles varies very much. The north of Scotland is mountainous & is called Highlands. The south, which has beautiful valleys & plans, is called Lowlands. The north & west of England are mountainous, but the eastern, central & south-eastern parts of England are a vast plain. Mountains are not very high. There are a lot of rivers in GB, but they are not very long. The Severn is the longest river, while the Thames is the deepest & the most important one. The mountains, the Atlantic Ocean & the warm waters of the Gulf Stream influence the climate of the British Isles. It is mild the whole year round. The UK is a highly developed industrial country. It produces & exports machinery, electronics, and textile. One of the chief industries or the country is shipbuilding. The UK is a constitutional monarchy with a parliament & the Queen as Head of State. The powers of the British Queen are limited by the Parliament. The British Parliament consists of the sovereign, the House of Lords & House of Commons.