Английский язык. Higher education

DIRECTIONS:

Give a summary of the text.

PART II

DIRECTIONS:

Express your opinion:

The quality of higher education in our Republic.

Only the very best students can study at budget cost.

ACTIVITY G

LISTENING COMPREHENSION:

PART I

DIRECTIONS:

Listen to the passage that will be read to you and choose the correct answers from those given below. Choose one letter only, А , В , C, or D, for each of your answers. The passage will be read to you twice with pauses on the second reading for you to select your answers.

Education has acquired a kind of snob value in modern times. We are no longer content to be honest craftsmen, skilled at our work through years of patient practice. Nowadays if we want to get a decent job, we have to have a piece of paper. If we want promotion in even the humblest job, we have to obtain a certificate or a diploma first. We may know that we would be better at the job than the man with the paper qualifications, but our experience and practical skills are regarded as relatively unimportant. 'Johnson would have been Manager by now if he'd taken the trouble to get a degree,' his colleagues say, 'he's a clever man. He could have done anything if he'd had a proper education.'

I wonder if, as time goes on, we shall discover that many people whose practical experience and ability would have been enormously useful to their employers, have been rejected on the grounds that they are insufficiently qualified. Would it not be better to allow people to become expert in the way most suited to them, rather than oblige them to follow a set course of instruction which may offer no opportunity for them to develop skills in which they would have become expert if left to themselves?

1 The writer says that education

A is only valued by snobs

В is only acquired by snobs

С has become a modern form of snobbery

D has become a sign of snobbery

2 If we want to get promotion nowadays we have to

A produce proof of our qualifications

В write a paper about our qualifications

С apply to take a certificate

D apply to take a diploma

3 From the passage we understand that his colleagues think that Johnson

A should have been given a degree

В would have been able to get a degree

С couldn't have done anything without a degree

D wouldn't have become manager without a degree

4 The writer fears that without paper qualifications many people

A won't be able to get a job

В will prove useless in their job

С will be dismissed from their job

D won't be considered for a job

5 In the writer's opinion it would be better if people

A were obliged to educate themselves in their own way

В were free to become educated in their own way

С attended more practical courses

D attended courses intended for experts

ACTIVITY H

SELF-WORK:

TEXT 2

PART I

DIRECTIONS:

Translate the topical vocabulary using a dictionary:

a scholar –

capacity –

illiteracy –

campus –

significant –

to contribute –

foundation –

elimination –

ordeal –

landmark –

to sacrifice –

evidence –

creative –

facility –

to plunder –

to participate –

prominent –

staff –

PART II

DIRECTIONS: Now read .

HISTORY OF THE BELARUSIAN STATE UNIVERSITY

October 30, 1921 is the foundation date of the main educational establishment in our country – the Belarusian State University.

Academician Vladimir Ivanovich Picheta – the outstanding historian and slavist – headed the University. The first Rector united the staff consisting of scholars from Moscow, Kazan, and Kiev universities.

Rapid development of the University played a significant role in the creation of the educational system of the republic. The University’s educational and research capacity gave birth to a number of independent higher educational establishments, such as Minsk Medicine Institute, Minsk Law Institute, Minsk Pedagogical Institute, the Belarusian Institute of National Economy, Minsk Chemical and Technological Institute, which later became a part of the Polytechnic Institute. The Belarusian State University contributed much to the foundation and development of the Academy of Sciences, the Republic’s State Library and a number of large research institutions.

Elimination of illiteracy, assimilation of European and world cultural heritage, formation of the national system of higher education and science — all these impressive achievements of the Belarusian people in 1920-1930s would have been impossible without the University and the work of its staff.

In a two decades’ time the Belarusian State University trained 5240 specialists in History, Law, Mathematics, Chemistry, Biology, etc. The activities of the People’s Writer of Belarus Yakub Kolas and outstanding Commander-in-Chief, Marshal of the Soviet Union G.K.Zhukov were associated with the name of the University of that period. It was the time when L.A.Artsymovich, P.U.Brovka, K.K.Krapiva studied and worked at the University. These outstanding people made a valuable contribution to the development of both national and world science and culture.

1941 was the year of the most severe ordeal in the history of the University. June 21, 1941 a jubilee exhibition was arranged at the University presenting the achievements of the staff consisting at the time of 17 professors, 41 associate professors, 90 teachers and assistants, 60 post-graduates and 1337 students. The day following the celebration, June 22, 1941 became a tragic landmark in our history. All the post-war generations of teachers, post-graduates and students of the University have always remembered and will remember their colleagues who left the classrooms and scientific laboratories to sacrifice their lives for the glory and independence of their Motherland. The evidence of this is the obelisk erected in 1970s at the University campus in honor of those who perished in the battle against fascism.