Английский язык: устная речь

МИНИСТЕРСТВО ОБРАЗОВАНИЯ И НАУКИ РОССИЙСКОЙ ФЕДЕРАЦИИ

УРАЛЬСКИЙ ФЕДЕРАЛЬНЫЙ УНИВЕРСИТЕТ

ИМЕНИ ПЕРВОГО ПРЕЗИДЕНТА РОССИИ Б. Н. ЕЛЬЦИНА

АНГЛИЙСКИЙ ЯЗЫК

Устная речь

Практикум

О. В. Степанова

Москва
Екатеринбург

Издательство «ФЛИНТА»
Издательство Уральского университета

2018
     2018

2-е издание, стереотипное

Р е ц е н з е н т ы:

кафедра теории и практики перевода 

Уральского гуманитарного университета 

(зав. кафедрой канд. филол. наук, доцент А. А. Каслова);
канд. филол. наук, доцент кафедры иностранных языков
Уральского юридического института МВД России В. В. Гузикова

УДК 811.111’24(076.5)
ББК 81.432.1я73

С79

Степанова О. В.
Английский язык: устная речь [Электронный ресурс] : 
практикум / О.В. Степанова. — 2-е изд., стер. —  М. : 
ФЛИНТА ; Екатеринбург : Изд-во Урал. ун-та, 2018. 
— 64 с.

ISBN 978-5-9765-3610-4 (ФЛИНТА)
ISBN 978-5-7996-2209-1 (Изд-во Урал. ун-та)

Практикум содержит тексты из аутентичных учебников, 
материалы из современной прессы, сгруппированные в четыре 
тематических раздела: средства массовой информации Великобритании; экологические проблемы; поиск работы; моя научноисследовательская работа. Упражнения и задания нацелены 
на усвоение студентами основных идей текстов и выводят на 
дискуссии по представленным проблемам.

Для студентов, осваивающих пороговый уровень владения 
английским языком.

УДК 811.111’24(076.5)
ББК 81.432.1я73

С79

ISBN 978-5-9765-3610-4 (ФЛИНТА)
© Уральский федеральный

университет, 2018

ISBN 978-5-7996-2209-1 (Изд-во Урал. ун-та)  © Степанова О. В., 2018

Предисловие ...........................................................4
Section 1. British Media ...........................................6
Section 2. Environmental Protection ........................ 16
Section 3. Looking for a Job ................................... 23

3.1. Рrofessions ............................................. 23
3.2. Recruitment........................................... 37
3.2.1. Process of Recruitment......................... 37
3.2.2. New Tendencies in Recruiting
People .......................................................... 40
3.3. Writing a CV and a Letter of Application .... 44
3.4. An Interview .......................................... 51
3.5. A Contract of Employment ...................... 55

Section 4. Writing a Research Paper ....................... 58

Оглавление

Данное методическое пособие предназначено для студен
тов филологического факультета, изучающих английский
язык. По окончании изучения дисциплины студенты должны освоить пороговый уровень владения иностранным языком (B1, Pre-Intermediate) и обладать следующими навыками и умениями:

— понимать основные идеи четких сообщений, сделан
ных на литературном языке на разные типичные темы, связанные с работой, учебой, досугом и т. д.;

— общаться в ситуациях, которые могут возникнуть во

время пребывания в стране изучаемого языка;

— составлять связное сообщение на известные или осо
бо интересующие темы;

— описывать впечатления, события, надежды, стремле
ния, излагать и обосновывать свое мнение и планы на будущее.

Материал пособия представлен в виде четырех темати
ческих разделов: средства массовой информации Великобритании; экологические проблемы; поиск работы; моя научно-исследовательская работа.

В пособии используются тексты из аутентичных учебни
ков, а также материалы из современной прессы. Упражнения и задания позволяют раскрыть основные идеи текстов
и выводят на дискуссии по предложенным проблемам.

Предисловие

Тексты и иллюстрации взяты из следующих учебных

пособий:

Kirszner L. G. The Concise Wadsworth Handbook /

L. G. Kirszner, S. R. Mandell. 2nd ed. Thomson Advantage Books.
“Thomson”. UK, US. 2008.

O’Driscoll J. Britain for learners of English / J. O’Driscoll.

2nd ed. Oxford : Oxford univ. press, 2009. 224 p.

Gryca D. Oxford Exam Excellence / D. Gryca, J. Sosnowska,

R. Whitehead. Oxford : Oxford univ. press, 2006. 200 p.

Taylore-Knowles S. Laser. Pre-FCE. Student’s Book /

S. Taylore-Knowles. MacMillan, 2008.

Burgess S. FCE Gold Plus Exam Maximiser / S. Burgess,

J. Newbrook, J. Wilson. Pearson Longman, 2008.

Watcyn-Jones P. Start Testing Your Vocabulary : Pearson

Education Limited / P. Watcyn-Jones. 1996. 96 p.

BRITISH PRESS

Britain’s first newspapers appeared over 300 years ago.

Now, as then, newspapers receive no government subsidy, unlike
in many European countries today. Advertising has always
been a vital source of income.

Today more newspapers are sold in Great Britain than almost

any other country. But, as in many other European countries,
Britain’s main newspapers and main TV channels are both in
long-term decline; fewer and fewer people are reading
the former or watching the latter. In the last quarter of the
twentieth century, people became richer, so that they were able
to pursue alternative forms of leisure activity. In addition,
cheaper means of production and distribution meant that
the main papers and the main channels found themselves with
more rivals. More recently, there is the internet, which gives
people not only a further form of leisure activity but also an
alternative source for news. Nevertheless, the main papers and
channels remain a central part of everyday national life.

Newspaper publication in the country is dominated by

the national press. There are more than seventy local and
regional daily papers, but the total circulation of all of them
together is less than the combined circulation of the handful
of national ‘dailies’.

The way politics is presented in the national newspapers is

an example of the fact that British political parties are

Section 1

BRITISH MEDIA

essentially parliamentary organizations, not countrywide ones.
Although different papers have differing political outlooks,
none of the large newspapers is an organ of a political party.
Many are often obviously in favour of the policies of this or
that party (and even more obviously against the policies
of another party) but none of them would ever use ‘we’ or ‘us’
to refer to a certain party.

The Two Types of National Newspaper

Conventionally, the national papers are divided into two

distinct types. The quality papers cater for the better educated
readers. The popular papers sell to a much larger readership.
They contain far less print than the ‘qualities’ and far more
pictures. They use larger headlines and write in a simpler style
of English. While the qualities devote much space to politics
and other ‘serious’ news, the popular papers concentrate on
‘human interest’ stories, which often means sex and scandal.

In the words of one ex-editor of The Times: ‘The values

of mass journalism are the traditional romantic values
of energy, intuition, personality, sexuality, excitement and myth.
The romantic element in the mass mind responds instinctively
to the energy in the mass newspaper. Readers are presented
with an exciting world of demons and temptresses, a flickering
and exotic fairy tale… By contrast the values of the serious
press are those of analysis, rationality, truth, lucidity, balance,
reality and, I would hope, compassion’.

The two types have also been known by other names:

the broadsheets and the tabloids. Not so long ago in Britain, if
you saw someone reading a newspaper, you could tell what
kind it was without even checking the title. This was because
the quality newspapers were all printed on terribly large-sized
paper known as broadsheet. The popular papers, on the other
hand, were all tabloids; that is, they were printed on much
smaller pages (which were therefore much easier to turn). But
in 2004, two quality newspapers, The Times and The Independent,
successfully adopted the tabloid format. And then, a year later,
another quality, The Guardian, broke with tradition even more
radically by adopting the Berliner format, which is halfway

between broadsheet and tabloid and often used in continental
Europe but never before in Britain. Again, the move was
a success. And so, the tabloid/broadsheet distinction no longer
fits the facts. However, it is still often used, in order to avoid
the snobbery of the other method of distinction.

In any case, the differences between the two types can be

exaggerated. The ‘qualities’ do not completely ignore sex and
scandal or any other aspect of public life. Both types of paper
devote equal amounts of attention to sport. Moreover, some
people make a three-way distinction (The Daily Mail and The
Express being in the middle). The differences are
in the treatments of the topics covered and in which topics
are given the most prominence.

The Rest of the Press

If you go into any well-stocked newsagent in Britain, you

will not find only newspapers. You will also see rows and rows
of magazines catering for almost every imaginable taste and
specializing in almost every imaginable pastime. There are
around 3000 consumer magazines published in the country and
about four million copies are sold every month. The vast
majority of those sales are of ‘women’s interest’ magazines
and (even more so) magazines which list all the TV and radio
programmes for the coming week. The best known of these is
the Radio Times, which also contains some fifty pages
of articles. (The magazine was first produced before television
existed and has never felt compelled to update its title.)

There are also a few publications dealing with news and current

affairs. Some of these periodicals, such the New Statesman and
The Spectator, are quite widely read. In terms of sales, two of them
in particular stand out. One is the Economist, which is of the
same type as Time, Newsweek, Der Spiegel and L’Express. It is
fairly obviously right of centre in its views, but the writing is
very high quality and that is why it has the reputation of being
one of the best weeklies in the world. (In fact, it sells five times
as many copies abroad as it does in Britain itself.)

The other is very different. Private Eye is a satirical

magazine which makes fun of all parties and politicians, and

also makes fun of the mainstream press. It also has a serious
side, unearthing corruption in public life. Because of this
combination of, often rather ‘schoolboyish, humour and
investigative journalism, it is forever defending itself in legal
actions.

Task 1. Explain and translate the following words and expressions

from the text:
1) to receive no government
 9) to cater for

subsidy
10) tabloid/broadsheet

2) a vital source of income
distinction

3) to be in long-term decline 11) to exaggerate
4) rival
12) to cover the topics

5) an alternative source (for) 13) to feel compelled
6) circulation
14) to update the title

7) outlook
15) mainstream (press)

8) to be in favour of
16) to unearth

Task 2. Answer the questions:

1) What role does the press play in Great Britain today?
2) What are the two types of national newspapers? Give

examples.

3) What is the size of British newspapers today?
4) Look at the chart (fig. 1). How can it characterize British

press and British people?

5) What ‘other’ newspapers and magazines are mentioned

in the text? Are they widely read?

Task 3. Find Internet versions of the newspapers mentioned in

the text. Characterise them. What sort of information can we
find on the sites of these newspapers?

Task 4. Speak about Russian newspapers and magazines. Which

of them do you read? Why?

Task 5. Make up a dialogue. One of you reads only quality press,

the other prefers tabloids. Discuss your favourite newspapers
and magazines.

Task 6. Be ready to speak on the topic ‘British Press’.

BRITISH RADIO AND TELEVISION

The BBC

In 1936 the government established the British Broadcasting

Corporation (BBC) to provide a public service in radio. Since
then the BBC has been most affected by the invention
of television, which changed the entertainment habits of the
nation, and the establishment of independent and commercial
radio and television, which removed the BBC’s broadcasting
monopoly. In spite of its much reduced evening audience, BBC
radio still provides an important service. Its five radio stations
provide non-stop pop music, light entertainment, minority
interests (e.g. classical music, arts programmes and academic
material, cricket commentating in the summer months), news
and comment and discussion programmes, sport and education.

Fig. 1

Radio 1 began in 1967. Devoted almost entirely to pop

music, its birth was a signal that popular youth culture could
no longer be ignored by the country’s established institutions.
Radio 2 also broadcasts popular music but less contemporary
than that on Radio 1. At the time of writing it is the Britain’s
most popular radio station. Radio 3 is devoted to classical
music. Radio 4 broadcasts a variety of programmes, from plays
and comedy shows to consumer advice programmes and indepth news coverage. It has a small but dedicated following.
Radio 5 is largely given over to sports coverage and news.
Because of all the sport, it is sometimes referred to as ‘Radio
Bloke’. (‘Bloke’ is an informal word for a man which emphasizes
male interests).

Just as the British Parliament has the reputation for being

‘the mother of parliaments’, so the BBC might be said to be
‘the mother of information services’. Its reputation for
impartiality and objectivity in news reporting is, at least when
compared to news broadcasting in many other counties, largely
justified. In fact, the BBC is rather proud of the fact that it
gets complaints from both sides of the political divide, because
this testifies not only to its impartiality bur also to its
independence.

Interestingly, though, this independence is as much the result

of habit and common agreement as it is the result of its legal
status. It is true that it depends neither on advertising nor
(directly) on the government for its income. It gets this from
the licence fee which everybody who uses a television set has to
pay. However, the government decides how much this fee is
going to be, appoints its board of governors and its directorgeneral, has the right to veto any BBC programme before it has
been transmitted and even has the right to take away the BBC’s
licence to broadcast. In theory, therefore, it would be easy for
a government to influence what the BBC does.

Nevertheless, the BBC has established its effective

independence and its reputation for impartiality. It has always
been identified with the principles of democracy and free
speech. In this way the BBC’s fame became international. Today,
the World Service still broadcasts around the globe, in English