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Открыта: 13-11-2010

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Материалы к воскресному English Speaking Club 13.03.2011


+7 (812) 605-34-05
тел. +7 (905) 267-13-89
"Infinitive" - курсы английского Петербург (СПб)




В зависимости от уровня владения английским выберите подходящий Вам клуб:

English Speaking Club I
Time: 15.00-16.30
Levels: Elementary - Pre-Intermediate
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English Speaking Club II
Time: 17.00-18.30
Levels: Intermediate - Advanced
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English Speaking Club I

Students of Elementary Level:


13 February, Sunday
15.00-16.30
Leader: Andre
Topic: Are you City or Country Mouse

Vocabulary


city's heat – when it is very hot in the city
pall - a thick cloud of dust/smoke, etc
mould - a green or black substance that grows in wet places
beggar - a poor person who lives by asking other people for money and food
developed transport system – a lot of different kinds of transport. It is easy to get everywhere.
sewerage system – канализация
shopping malls – big trade centers with a lot of different shops (Stockman for example )
entertainment - the pleasure afforded by being entertained; amusement
be cut off - be far away from smth
weather conditions – bad weather, good weather
pollution – when the air gets dirty
respiratory distress – when it is difficult to breathe


Problems of city and country life


- What are the advantages of living in the modern city?

- Life in the city is much easier than in the country - developed transport system, sewerage system, information, sports, shopping malls, etc. Modern men are too sophisticated for simple country pleasures. There is far more entertainment in the city than in the country. Cities offer high concentration of good things in life: big stores, restaurants, theatres, cinema, art galleries. Life is more convenient in a city: services are always better here. In the city people are more open-minded. It is possible to go out, make friends and never be cut off from them by weather conditions. Generally, people do not mind what you do in the city. In the city people have more chances to be employed, as the range of jobs is greater than in a village. Besides in the city people have more chances to succeed. Moreover, life is never dull in the city, people always have something to do here. The objections to city living are not convincing enough. People easily adapt to various inconveniences of city life. For example, noise and traffic are hardly noticeable to city-dwellers. In the city especially in our country people live in apartments with central heating, telephone, gas, electricity, radio, TV the Internet. Most people love cities. In 330 BC Aristotle wrote that by nature man belonged to a city. Many people love the busy city life. It is enough for them to visit a country at week- ends.

- What brought about the growth of cities over the centuries?

- Cities grew over the centuries because they served aims that could not have been served otherwise. Two thousand years ago most people lived in the countryside. It was not their choice. Today, almost half of humanity lives in cities. It does so because it wants to. Man has always lived in groups. It makes life safer and easier. Geography - rich soil, a safe harbour or navigable river, ample fresh water, easy defence, coal - was the start of many towns. In Europe towns grew over the strongholds of a local lord. Most of them developed as buying and selling centres; trade needed a market, and markets needed people.

- How did towns serve their inhabitants?

- Towns served their citizens very well if they in turn were served by them. During the Middle Ages when harvest failed, the nearby town offered hope of survival. All successful towns satisfied economic needs. For a peasant town was the only place where he might make a fortune. In the new industrial order, the city was the nerve centre, brining to a focus all dynamic economic forces: vast accumulation of capital, business and financial institutions, spreading railroad yards, factories, and armies of manual and clerical workers. For example, in the USA villages, attracting people from the countryside and from the land across the seas grew into towns and towns into cities almost overnight.

- Are there any disadvantages of living in the city?

- Pollution is the greatest disadvantage of the city life of today. Polluted air is hanging like a brown cloud over cities. Dirt and smoke are pouring from the buildings of cites and factories. Polluted urban air causes respiratory distress, particularly in children, and elderly people. The increased number of motor vehicles not only jam the city streets but pollute the city air as well. Cars give a collection of pollutants. In bright, calm weather, sunlight turns the chemicals into a poison smog. All big cities have problems with air pollution. There was still nothing anywhere like "killer-smog" which caused some 3000-4000 deaths in London in December 1952. Mexico city's air is famously filthy, as is that of many Indian, Chinese, and East European cities. The exceeding output of industries and urban communities is harmful to the city aquatic systems. The result is a foul-smelling body of water running for a bath or dish washing. Noise pollution is the problem of big cities too. Urban garbage - like food, paper, and cans - on the ground or in the street is one more problem of cities. People don't always put their garbage in the garbage can. Urban garbage is ugly. It makes the city look dirty, and it spoils the view.

- What are other disadvantages of living in a big city?

- There are lots of other disadvantages of living in a big city. Today's cities are ballooning. Bombay in 1960 was a jam-packed city of 4m people. Now Mexico city holds around 18m people. "The rush-hour" with crowded streets, packed trains, full buses that happens twice a day is one of them. Cost of living is very high in the cities. In addition, people live under constant threat; life is not quiet in the cities, it causes stresses and heart decease. In the city people lose touch with land, rhythms of nature. Everyone who cares about his health tries to move out from the city. Cities are not fit to live in, man are born for countryside. Most people in Europe and America try to live in non-industrial cities, which are set down near big cities and cannot be killed by pollution and traffic.

- Why do you like to stay in the countryside?

- Well, in the countryside I enjoy such simple things of primary importance as sunlight and fresh air. Besides, living in the countryside is cheaper and safer than in a city. It provides people with more security. There is less crime and, of course, there is less traffic there. Life in the countryside is quiet, peaceful, and healthy. I like to be close to nature. Here people are friendly and it is much more pleasant in the countryside than in the city. Unfortunately, life in the countryside is rather hard. Working and living conditions are difficult, social and cultural life in the countryside is not full of entertainment. And annually more and more young people flee from the countryside for a better life in the city.

- Is it difficult to find a job in the countryside?

- Certainly, the problem of employment in the countryside is very crucial today. It is especially acute for the young people and professionals. As a rule there are few labour places for skilled agricultural workers and less for professionals. Although villages do need teachers and physicians, they cannot provide them with the necessary facilities. There are few schools and clinics in the countryside. Sometimes there is one secondary school for several villages and children have to walk ten kilometers to study there. Usually either the village community is too poor to provide the children with a bus or the roads are too bad for the bus to run off them.

Вверх

English Speaking Club II

Students of Intermediate-Advanced Level:


13 February,Sunday
17.00-18.30
Leader: Ksenia
Topic: "Our belief"

That which characterizes "superstitious" behavior can be found in a variety of contexts — not just typical "superstition" but also religion, paranormal beliefs, and so forth. If superstition can be found in a variety of contexts as well as across both cultures and time, we should seriously wonder whether there are deeper, fundamental forces a work. I don't mean supernatural forces, of course, but rather evolutionary forces: have superstitious attitudes and behaviors evolved in humans for some reason? If so, then they will prove very hard to reduce, and perhaps impossible to eliminate.


I suspect that superstitious behavior is the result of evolutionary adaptation even though it seems counterproductive now. Consider an animal which has either a positive or negative experience (finds food or encounters predator). Without the logical machinery to analyze how its actions lead to the result (or if they did) the simplest potentially beneficial behavior modification mechanism would be to either avoid or repeat whatever it was doing at the time of the event.


It may be completely unrelated, but with limited analytical potential it nonetheless increases the animal's survival advantage. In humans, this instinct still exists. Our intellectual brain may recognize that wearing a particular item will not repeat the situation that happened last time, but our animal brain still goes by this paradigm and tries to push us in that direction. Like many of our evolutionarily old behavior patterns, this appears to us to be an intuitive drive.


Do you agree that what we today call "superstitious" behavior is basically just the expression of ancient instincts that, for many animals in the past and even today, has probably had positive survival value? If superstition is a product of evolutionary needs, then how likely are we to overcome it?


Some Superstitious

Good Luck



Lucky to meet a black cat. Black Cats are featured on many good luck greetings cards and birthday cards in England.
Lucky to touch wood. We touch; knock on wood, to make something come true.
Lucky to find a clover plant with four leaves.
White heather is lucky.
A horseshoe over the door brings good luck. But the horseshoe needs to be the right way up. The luck runs out of the horseshoe if it is upside down.
Horseshoes are generally a sign of good luck and feature on many good luck cards.
On the first day of the month it is lucky to say "white rabbits, white rabbits white rabbits," before uttering your first word of the day.
Catch falling leaves in Autumn and you will have good luck. Every leaf means a lucky month next year.
Cut your hair when the moon is waxing and you will have good luck.
Putting money in the pocket of new clothes brings good luck.

Bad Luck


Unlucky to walk underneath a ladder.
Seven years bad luck to break a mirror. The superstition is supposed to have originated in ancient times, when mirrors were considered to be tools of the gods.
Unlucky to see one magpie, lucky to see two, etc..
Unlucky to spill salt. If you do, you must throw it over your shoulder to counteract the bad luck.
Unlucky to open an umbrella in doors.
The number thirteen is unlucky. Friday the thirteenth is a very unlucky day. Friday is considered to be an unlucky day because Jesus was crucified on a Friday.
Unlucky to put new shoes on the table.
Unlucky to pass someone on the stairs.

Вверх
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