Предисловие

Одной из основных целей современной системы образования является подготовка молодежи к жизни в сложной системе общественных отношений, к успешному выполнению определенной социальной роли. Общественная и политическая жизнь становится все более многообразной, она не всегда укладывается в привычные стереотипы и схемы.

Реалии современной жизни требуют понимания сути демократического общества, самостоятельного и ответственного выполнения определенных социальных функций, четкого представления о правах и обязанностях личности и государства. Содержание гражданского образования подразумевает ознакомление с ценностями и нормами жизни в условиях демократического общества.

Идея гражданского образования удачно реализуется в курсе изучения иностранного языка в рамках Программы курса иностранного языка для студентов неязыковых специальностей (раздел «Основы и ценностные ориентиры современного общества).

Учебно-методическое пособие “People and Society” предназначено для студентов второго курса факультетов журналистики, философии и социальных наук, а также может быть использовано студентами других гуманитарных специальностей.

Основная цель учебно-методического пособия – развивать и совершенствовать навыки говорения студентов на основе оригинальных текстов. Пособие состоит из четырех структурно идентичных глав. Каждая глава снабжена серией упражнений для активизации лексики, заданиями для развития навыков аудирования и говорения и завершается тестом для контроля полученных знаний.

В пособии представлены также тексты для дополнительного чтения, которые могут быть использованы как для аудиторной, так и для самостоятельной работы. Для облегчения работы студентов предлагается англо-русский словарь.

INTRODUCTION

A diverse and complicated world is around us nowadays. Living in countries with different social systems, different political and economic situations people are facing various but often similar problems. And it's obvious that to better settle them one should be able to conduct a discussion, to set the conflict on a compromise and to make collective decisions. One of the ways to solution of the above-mentioned problems is to realize one's place in a society, to assume the existence of different opinions, attitudes and goals, to try not to impose your personal views and ideas on the whole community.

Teaching Civics as an integral part of the education process assists in preparing students to live in a democratic and legal state by forming an adequate notion of the society, basic social relations and connections. Civic education is obviously a fundamental part of cross-cultural study as it teaches students to accept the variety of the national peculiarities, prevents cultural shocks that may affect people exposed to an alien culture and environment without adequate preparation. It’s quite natural that it becomes a part of the English language course as one of the components of the Basic English studies at the BSU, as it meets the requirements of the Academic program (the sphere of socio-political communication).

The manual “People and Society” is an attempt to contribute in teaching students to become good citizens of their country and realize the diversity of social groups, values and practices in the world.

This manual hopefully meets the needs of teachers and second-year students of journalism, philosophy, sociology, communication and other humanities in the course of the English language studies (Basic English) as regards the part of the curriculum devoted to the social and political studies. It is mainly focused on providing material for development and improvement of the learners’ skills in reading and speaking based on the authentic texts. The manual contains materials for reading, discussion, arguments, debates, conclusion making and other types of intellectual and speech activities in and outside the classroom.

Generally it is designed for about 50–60 hours of class activities. It is organized in such a way that it’s possible to work on it both as a class activity and as a self-studying.

The manual is organized into four units and is supplied with an appendix which includes supplementary texts for reading and a glossary.

Each unit opens with the list of basic vocabulary terms, which is followed by the vocabulary development exercises. The “Reading Practice” part includes several texts accompanied with pre-reading, reading and post-reading tasks. Texts which are considered to be basic according to the topic of the unit are marked by the sign (!) and are compulsory for studying. Texts for skimming or scanning contain some additional information and broaden the students’ outlook but they are not designed for obligatory reading. It’s worth mentioning that when students are assigned to skim the text it means that they are supposed to glance through or to read the text in a superficial manner just for some general idea or a gist. Having got the task to scan the text the students should read, examine or analyze it for some specific information. The unit is completed with some listening and speech practice activities of different types, writing practices and an achievement test. The main aim of the tests is to check vocabulary awareness of the students after completing the work on each unit.

The second part (Appendix) presents some additional material for reading and a glossary. It is up to the teacher’s choice and the language abilities of a specific group whether to use these materials or not. Besides, texts for supplementary reading may be used as an individual or group task for home- reading. The students may read and translate or discuss them.

At the end of the book one can find a glossary, which will definitely help to better understand texts.

UNIT I