Специальности «Английский язык»

Богатикова Л.И.

 

 

Практическое пособие

по устной речи для студентов IV курса

Специальности «Английский язык»

(Тема: «Добро и зло»)

 

Гомель, 2003

 

 

В авторской редакции

 

Автор-составитель: Богатикова Л.И., доцент, к.п.н.

 

Рецензенты: Жилина И.К., доцент, к.п.н.,

                 Мэри Брукс, директор Института

                 английского языка при Восточно-                                               

                 Вашингтонском университете

 

Рекомендовано к изданию научно-методическим советом Учреждения образования «Гомельский государственный университет имени Франциска Скорины».

 

Данное пособие предназначено для студентов 1У курса факультетов иностранных языков специальности «английский язык» и предполагает развитие навыков и умений устной речи по теме «Добро и зло» и является дополнением к теме «Преступление и наказание».

                       Богатикова Л.И.

                      Учреждение образования «Гомельский

                      государственный университет имени      

                     Франциска Скорины

 

Введение

 

Данное практическое пособие предназначено для студентов 1У курса специальности «английский язык».

Целью данного пособия является развитие навыков и умений в устной речи и систематизация знаний в рамках темы «Добро и зло».

Пособие содержит текстовый материал по данной теме, упражнения на развитие лексических навыков и расширение словарного запаса студентов; предтекстовые и послетекстовые упражнения, направленные на обеспечение понимания и толкования текста, определение отношения читателя к проблемам, затрагиваемым в данных текстах и предназначенных для дальнейшего обсуждения; а также упражнения на развитие навыков и умений в говорении и, в целом, коммуникативной компетенции речевого взаимодействия в дискуссиях и диспутах.

Материалом для обсуждения являются различные проблемные вопросы, утверждения, цитаты, пословицы и т.д. Обсуждение последних способствует не только более полному осмыслению этих проблем, но и критическому подходу к ним.

Творческие упражнения для коллективного обсуждения сопровождаются не только речевыми клише, которые студенты должны использовать, но также описанием всей процедуры дискуссии.

 

 

                   Vice and Virtue

Discussion point

I. Different culture seem to provide different models of moral virtue, and there may be several, some conflicting, within a given culture. For instance, the ancient Greeks had a place for the virtue of pride (an appropriate sense of one’s honor), while medieval Christian monks thought humility more important.

 

- How do you differentiate between vice and virtue?

- What do modern thinkers/ you recognize a virtue of?

 

II. Read the definition of the words “vice” and “virtue” and answer the following questions:

vice – 1) (U) criminal activities that involve sex or drugs;

 2) a bad habit; 3) a bad or immoral quality in someone’s character;

virtue – 1) (U) moral goodness of character and behavior;

 2) a particular good quality in someone’s character;

 3) (C,U) an advantage that makes something better or more useful than something else.

- What criminal activities, bad habits and immoral qualities can be called ‘vice’?

- What good qualities are considered to be virtuous?

- What qualities do you most admire in people?

- What characteristics most annoy you in people?

 

Vocabulary Development

III. Are the following descriptions of people positive or negative?

 

a) She’ll always give you what you need.

b) She’s got a very high opinion of herself.

c) I never know whether to believe him.

d) He eats like a pig.

e) He says what he means, and he means what he says.

f) He’s always trying to pick a fight.

g) She won’t let her husband out of her sight.

h) He wouldn’t give you yesterday’s newspaper.

i) You can always depend on him.

j) Once she’s made up her mind, she won’t change it.

 

IV. Match one of the sentences in ex. III with a vice

or virtue listed below. Write in the adjective.

Vices                               Virtues

aggression aggressive  sincerity

pride                                reliability

obstinacy                         generosity

meanness

greed

jealousy

deceit

 

V. Match these definitions to the following words:

Stingy, 2) sensible, 3) rash, 4) generosity,

Mild, 6) moderation, 7) prodigal, 8) cowardice,

 9) irascible, 10) self- indulgent, 11) aversion,

Irresponsible, 13) compassion, 14) honesty,

Negligence, 16) lazy, 17) prudent,

E) compassion; f) irascible; g) consistent; h) virtue;

I) aversion; j) prudent; k) foolhardiness; l) stinginess;

M) negligence; n) generous; o) self-indulgent.

Reading

X. a) Read the following text and find the answers to the following questions in it.

1) Is there any difference between character traits and moral virtues?

2) What is referred to moral virtues?

3) How does Aristotle interpret vice and virtue?

4) Why did Aristotle think that mildness was the virtue related to anger?

5) What can virtue ethics be used to determine?

 

Text 1. Vice and Virtue in Everyday Life    

What is primary is whether the person acting is expressing good character (moral virtues) or not.

A person’s character is the totality of his character traits. Our character traits can be good, bad or somewhere in between. They can be admirable or not. The admirable character traits, the marks of perfection in character, are called virtues, their opposites are vices.

Character traits are

1) dispositions or habit-like tendencies that are deeply entrenched or engrained. They have been referred to as second nature – “first nature” referring to tendencies with which we are born. Character traits are not innate – we were not born with them. Thus infants are neither virtuous nor vicious.

2) formed as a result of more or less freely selected actions of a certain kind. We are not born honest or liars, but we become so by repeatedly telling the truth or by repeatedly lying.

Moral virtues:

1) are admirable character traits; generally desirable dispositions, which contribute, among other things, to social harmony

Craft knowledge is a technical virtue specific to a particular line of work (rhetoric or the art of effective persuasion, the housebuilder’s art, the computer programmer’s art, the accountant’s art). The moral virtues have a more general scope.

2) enable us to act in accordance with reason

You cannot be morally reasonable in the fullest sense, you cannot have the virtue called prudence, unless you are morally virtuous. The person who is not morally virtuous is sometimes ruled by his or her appetites or passions. Her/his emotions get in the way of doing the reasonable thing or even recognizing what the reasonable thing might be.

3) enable us to feel appropriately and have the right intention

The person whose character is less than virtuous may do what looks, from the outside, like the right thing to do, but his/her motives will leave something to be desired. A truthful person will usually tell the truth, and he will do so because it is the right thing to do, not because he fears the negative consequences of being found out.

4) are orientations towards the mean, rather than the extremes (vices relate to extreme).

In Aristotle’s famous study of character, a frequent theme is the fact that a virtue lies between two vices. The virtue of courage, for example, lies between the vices of rashness and cowardice. The coward has too much fear, or fear when he should have none. The rash person has too little fear and excessive confidence. The courageous person has the right amount.

While courage is the virtue related to the emotions of fear and confidence, mildness is the virtue related to anger. A person who gets angry too quickly will be irascible; a person who never gets angry, even when s/he should, is inirascible (the term does not matter). The virtuous person will get angry when s/he should, but not excessively and not contrary to reason. Aristotle calls the virtue of appropriate anger mildness or gentleness.

The Top Ten Evil

1. Tomas de Torquemada. Born in Spain in 1420, his name is synonymous with the Christian Inquisition’s horror, religious bigotry, and cruel fanaticism. He was a fan of various forms of torture including foot roasting, use of the garrucha, and suffocation. He was made Grand Inquisitor by Pope Sixtus IV. Popes and kings alike praised his tireless efforts. The number of burnings at the stake during Torquemada’s tenure has been estimated at about 2,000. Torquemada’s hatred of Jews influenced Ferdinand and Isabella to expel all Jews who had not embraced Christianity.

2. Vlad Tepes – Vlad the Impaler was a prince known for executing his enemies by impalement. He was a fan of various forms of torture including disemboweling and rectal and facial impalement. Vlad the Impaler tortured thousands while he ate and drunk among the corpses. He impaled every person in the city of Amlas – 20,000 men, women and children. Vlad often ordered people to be skinned, boiled, decapitated, blinded, strangled, hanged, burned, roasted, hacked, nailed, buried alive, stabbed, etc. He also liked to cut off noses, ears, sexual organs and limbs. But his favorite method was impalement on stakes, hence the surname “Tepes” which means “The Impaler” in the Romanian language. It is this technique he used in 1457, 1459 and 1460 against Transylvanian merchants who had ignored his trade laws. He also looked upon the poor, vagrants and beggars as thieves. Consequently, he invited all the poor and sick of Wallachia to his princely court in Tirgoviste for a great feast. After the guests ate and drank, Dracula ordered the hall boarded up and set on fire. No one survived.

Note: Every Romanian who contacted me said I  

should remove Vlad from the list. They said he was

not evil and seemed to like him. So the perception of

evil can differ from person to person. (Cliff Pickover)

3. Adolph Hitler – The dictator of Nazi Germany, Adolph, was born on April 20, 1889, at Braunauam Inn, Austria-Hungary.

4. Ivan the Terrible – Ivan Vasilyevich, (born Aug. 25, 1530, in Kolomensloye, near Moscow) was the grand prince of Moscow (1533-84) and the first to be proclaimed tsar of Russia (from 1547). His reign saw the completion of the construction of a centrally administered Russian state and the creation of an empire that included non-Slav states. He enjoyed burning 1000s of people in frying pans, and was fond of impaling people.

5. Adolph Eichmann – Born in March 19, 1906, Solingen, Germany he was hanged by the state of Israel for his part in the Nazi extermination of Jews during World War II. “The death of five million Jews on my conscience gives me extraordinary satisfaction”.

6. Pol Pot – Pol Pot (born in 1925 in the Kompong Thom province of Cambodia) was the Khmer political leader whose totalitarian regime (1975-79) imposed severe hardships on the people of Cambodia. His radical communist government forced the mass evacuations of cities, killed or displaced millions of people, and left a legacy of disease and starvation. Under his leadership, his government caused the deaths of at least one million people from forced labor, starvation, disease, torture, or execution.

7. Mao Tse-tung – leader of the Gang of Four, who killed somewhere between 20 and 67 million (estimates vary) of his countrymen, including the elderly and intellectuals. His picture still hangs throughout many homes and businesses. Mao’s own personality cult, encouraged so as to provide momentum to the movement, assumed religious proportions. The resulting anarchy, terror, and paralysis completely disrupted the urban economy. Industrial production for 1968 dipped 12 percent below that of 1966.

8. Idi Amin – Idi Amin Dada Oumee (born in 1924 in Uganda) was the military officer and president (1971-79) of Uganda. Amin also took tribalism, a long-standing problem in Uganda, to its extreme by allegedly ordering the persecution of Acholi, Lango, and other tribes. Amidst reports of the torture and murder of 100,000 to 300,000 Ugandans during Amin’s presidency.

9. Joseph Stalin – Born in 1879. During the quarter of a century preceding his death in 1953, the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin probably exercised greater political power than any other figure in history. In the 1930s, by his orders, millions of peasants were either killed or permitted to starve to death. Stalin brought about the deaths of more than 20 million of his own people while holding the Soviet Union in an iron grip for 29 years. Stalin succeeded his hero Vladimir Lenin in 1924. From then on, he induced widespread famines to enforce farm collectives, and eliminated perceived enemies through massive purges.

10.Genghis Khan – The Mongol Temjin, known to history as Genghis Khan (born 1162) was a warrior and ruler who, starting from obscure and insignificant beginnings, brought all the nomadic tribes of Mongolia under the rule of himself and his family in a rigidly disciplined military state. Massacres of defeated populations, with the resultant terror, were weapons he regularly used. His Mongol hordes killed off countless people in Asia and Europe in the early 1200s. When attacking Volohoi, Khan convinced the city commander that Mongols would stop attacking if the city sent out 1,000 cats and several thousand swallows. When he got them, Genghis had bits of cloth tied to their tails and set the cloth on fire. The cats and birds fled back to the city and ended up setting hundreds of fires inside the city. Then Genghis attacked and won. At another time, Mongols rounded up 70,000 men, women and children and shot them with arrows. Genghis told his comrades: ”Man’s greatest good fortune is to chase and defeat his enemy, seize his total possessions, leave his married women weeping and wailing, ride his gelding, use his women as a nightshirt and support, gazing upon and kissing their rosy breasts, sucking their lips which are as sweet as the berries of their breasts”.

The Top Ten Good

1. Buddha – Buddhism, far more than Christianity or Islam, has a very strong pacifist element. The orientation toward nonviolence has played a significant role in the political history of Buddhist countries.

2. Baha’u’llah – Baha’is believe that all the founders of the world’s great religions have been manifestations of God and agents of a progressive divine plan for the education of the human race. Despite their apparent differences, the world’s great religions, according to the Baha’is, teach an identical truth. Baha’is believe that Baha’u’llah (d.1892) was a manifestation of God, who in His essence is unknowable. Baha’u’llah’s special function was to overcome the disunity of religions and establish a universal faith. Baha’is believe in the oneness of humanity and devote themselves to the abolition of racial, class, and religious prejudices. The great bulk of Baha’I teachings is concerned with social ethics; the faith has no priesthood and does not observe ritual forms in its worship.

3. Dalai Lama – head of the dominant Dge-lugs-pa order of Tibetan Buddhists and, until 1959, both spiritual and temporal ruler of Tibet. In 1989 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in recognition of his nonviolent campaign to end Chinese domination of Tibet.

4. Jesus Christ – for the preaching of love.

5. Moses – just the idea of “resting on the seventh day” improved the life of countless people.

6. Mother Teresa – Once Mother Teresa was asked how she could continue day after day, visiting the terminally ill: feeding them, wiping their brows, giving them comfort as they lay dying. And she said, “It’s not hard because in each one, I see the face of Christ in one of His more distressing disguises”.

7. Abraham Lincoln – for paving the way to freeing the slaves.

8.Martin Luther King – American clergyman and Nobel Prize winner, one of the principal leaders of the American civil rights movement and a prominent advocate of nonviolent protest.

9. Mohandas Gandhi – Indian national leader, who established his country’s freedom through a nonviolent revolution.

Who should be number 10? Would you ever consider someone like Carl Djerassi, “ father of the birth control pill”? Because millions of unwanted children were not produced, countless suffering has been abolished (including decreases in crime, child abuse, and ecological nightmares). With women gaining more control over their reproductive fate, society has changed. Reliable birth control became as easy as taking a pill, which some call the single greatest factor in helping women achieve equality. Although religious people may debate whether a fertilized egg (zygote) should be accorded the same rights as a child (and therefore the pill is evil), no one debates that the pill has decreased the suffering of fully formed, multicellular humans.

Note that “zygotic personhood” (the idea that a fertilized egg is a person) is a recent concept. For example, before 1869, the Catholic church believed that the embryo was not a person until it was 40 days old. (Aristotle agreed with this 40-day threshold). Thus, the church did not believe a human had a soul until day 40. Pope Innocent III in 1211 determined that the time of ensoulment was anywhere from 12 to 16 weeks. This means that the Catholic church, for centuries, did not equate abortion with murder.

                               (Cliff Pickover)

b) Referring back to the text discuss with your partner the following questions:

If you had scales and put Stalin’s massacres on the left side, what could you put on the right-hand side to balance it? Extreme kindness and attempts to alleviate suffering? Curing cancer? Ending world hunger? Charity? Elevating the thinking of humankind with respect to human rights? Perhaps the very best people don’t seek publicity for their good deeds; these are the unknown heroes who work tirelessly with the poor and the sick. When considering religious leaders, do we need to consider possible negative results that evolved, such as fundamentalist groups that suppress women, or the concept of Jihad, or holy war? If the Inquisition arose out of Christianity, need we consider this in assessments we make?

 

c) Give your list of ten top evil and ten top good.

Discussion Activity

The Frog and the Ox

“Oh Father,” said a little Frog to the big one sitting by the side of a pool, “I have seen such a terrible monster? It was as big as a mountain, with horns on its head, and a long tail, and it had hoofs divided in two”.

“Tush, child, tush,” said the old Frog, “that was only Farmer White’s Ox. It isn’t so big either; he may be a little bit taller than I, but I could easily make myself quite as broad’ just you see.” So he blew himself out, and blew himself out, and blew himself out. “Was he as big as that?” asked he.

“Oh, much bigger than that,” said the young Frog.

Again the old one blew himself out, and asked the young one if the Ox was as big as that.

“Bigger, father, bigger,” was the reply. 

So the Frog took a deep breath, and blew and blew and blew, and swelled and swelled and swelled and swelled. And then he said: ”I’m sure the Ox is not as big as…” But at this moment he burst.

 

Androcles

A slave named Androcles once escaped from his master and fled to the forest. As he was wandering about there he came upon a Lion lying down moaning and groaning. At first he turned to flee, but finding that the Lion did not pursue him, he turned back and went up to him. As he came near, the Lion put out his paw, which was all swollen and bleeding, and Androcles found that a huge thorn had got into it, and was causing all the pain. He pulled out the thorn and bound up the paw of the Lion, who was soon able to rise and lick the hand of Androcles like a dog. Then the Lion took Androcles to his cave, and every day used to bring him meat from which to live. But shortly afterwards both Androcles and the Lion were captured, and the slave was sentenced to be thrown to the Lion, after the latter had been kept without food for several days. The Emperor and all his Court came to see the spectacle, and Androcles was led out into the middle of the arena. Soon the Lion was let loose from his den, and rushed bounding and roaring towards his victim. But as soon as he came near to Androcles he recognised his friend, and fawned upon him, and licked his hands like a friendly dog. The Emperor, surprised at this, summoned Androcles to him, who told him the whole story. Whereupon the slave was pardoned and freed, and the Lion let loose to his native forest.

 

The Hart in the Ox-Stall

A Hart hotly pursued by the hounds fled for refuge into an ox-stall, and buried itself in a truss of hay, leaving nothing to be seen but the tips of his horns. Soon after the Hunters came up and asked if any one had seen the Hart. The stable boys, who had been resting after their dinner, looked round, but could see nothing, and the Hunters went away. Shortly afterwards

the master came in, and looking round, saw that something unusual had taken place. He pointed to the truss of hay and said: “What are those two curious things sticking out of the hay?” And when the stable boys came to look they discovered the Hart, and soon made an end of him. He thus learnt that….

 

The Fox and the Grapes

One hot summer’s day a Fox was strolling through an orchard till he came to a bunch of Grapes just ripening on a vine which had been trained over a lofty branch. “Just the thing to quench me thirst,” quoth he. Drawing back a few paces, he took a run and a jump, and just missed the bunch. Turning round again with a One, Two, Three, he jumped up, but with no greater success. Again and again he tried after the tempting morsel, but at last had to give it up, and walked away with his nose in the air, saying: “I am sure they are sour.”

 

The Peacock and Juno

A Peacock once placed a petition before Juno desiring to have the voice of a nightingale in addition to his other attractions; but Juno refused his request. When he persisted, and pointed out that he was her favourite bird, she said:…

 

What did Juno say?

The Dog in the Manger

A Dog looking out for its afternoon nap jumped into the Manger of an Ox and lay there cosily upon the straw. But soon the Ox, returning from its afternoon work, came up to the Manger and wanted to eat some of the straw. The Dog in a rage, being awakened from its slumber, stood up and barked at the Ox, and whenever it came near attempted to bite it. At last the Ox had to give up the hope of getting at the straw, and went away muttering:…

What did the Ox mutter?

Avaricious and Envious

Two neighbours came before Jupiter and prayed him to grant their heart’s desire. Now the one was full of avarice, and the other eaten up with envy. So to punish them both, Jupiter granted that each might have whatever he wished for himself, but only on condition that his neighbour had twice as much. The Avaricious man prayed to have a room full of gold. No sooner said than done; but all his joy was turned to grief of when he found that his neighbour had two rooms full of the precious metal. Then came the turn of the Envious man, who could not bear to think that his neighbour had any joy at all. So he prayed that he might have one of his own eyes put out, by which means his companion would become totally blind.

 

 

The Wind and the Sun

The Wind and the Sun were disputing which was the stronger. Suddenly they saw a traveller coming down the road, and the Sun said: “I see a way to decide our dispute. Whichever of us can cause that traveller to take off his cloak shall be regarded as the stronger. You begin.” So the Sun retired behind a cloud, and the Wind began to blow as hard as it could upon the traveller. But the harder he blew the more closely did the traveller wrap his cloak round him, till at last the Wind had to give up in despair. Then the Sun came out and shone in all his glory upon the traveller, who soon found it too hot to walk with his cloak on.

 

The Miser and His Gold

Once upon a time there was a Miser who used to hide his gold at the foot of a tree in his garden; but every week he used to go and dig it up and gloat over his gains. A robber, who had noticed this, went and dug up the gold and decamped with it. When the Miser next came to gloat over his treasures, he found nothing but the empty hole. He tore his hair, and raised such an outcry that all the neighbours came around him, and he told them how he used to come and visit his gold. “Did you ever take any of it out?” asked one of them.

“Nay,” he said, “I only came to look at it.”

“Then come again and look at the hole,” said a neighbour; “it will do you just as much good.”

 

The Cat-Maiden

The gods were once disputing whether it was possible for a living being to change its nature. Jupiter said “Yes”, but Venus said “No’. “So, to try the question, Jupiter turned a Cat into a Maiden, and gave her to a young man for a wife. The wedding was duly performed and the young couple sat down to the wedding-feast. “See,” said Jupiter, to Venus, “how becomingly she behaves. Who could tell that yesterday she was but a Cat? Surely her nature is changed?”

“Wait a minute,” replied Venus, and let loose a mouse into the room. No sooner did the bride see this than she jumped up from her seat and tried to pounce upon the mouse. “Ah, you see,” said Venus,…

What did Venus say?

The Horse and the Ass

A Horse and an Ass were travelling together, the Horse prancing along in its fine trappings, the Ass carrying with difficulty the heave weight in its panniers. “I wish I were you,” sighed the Ass; “nothing to do and well fed, and all that fine harness upon you.” Next day, however, there was a great battle, and the Horse was wounded to death in the final charge of the day. His friend, the Ass, happened to pass by shortly afterwards and found him on the point of death. “I was wrong,” said the Ass:…

 

What did the Ass say?

b) Choose the morals from list below to match the fables.

a) Be content with your lot; one cannot be first in everything.

b) Better humble security than gilded danger.

c) Gratitude is the sign of noble souls.

d) Self-conceit may lead to self-destruction.

e) Never trust a friend who deserts you at a pinch.

f) Cunning often outwits itself.

g) It is easy to despise what you cannot get.

h) Wealth unused might as well not exist.

i) Vices are their own punishment.

j) Nothing escapes the master’s eye.

k) Ah, people often grudge others what they cannot enjoy themselves.

l) Nature will out.

m) Greed oft o’er reaches itself.

n) Kindness affects more than severity.

 

c) Think of the situations from your own or your friend’s life experience illustrating the vices and virtues described in the fables.

Disagreeing:

Do you really think so?

I’m sorry, but I just can’t accept that.

You can’t be serious.       It’s impossible.

I’m afraid you’ve missed the point.

It’s just the other way round.

Avoiding giving an opinion:

I really don’t know.           I’m not really sure.

It’s difficult to say….

I suppose it depends on your point of view.

 

Expressing doubt:

I find it hard to believe.

Sounds promising /incredible /highly improbable.

I doubt that it…                  It’s not unlikely that…

You never know. 

                             

Key Answers

Ex. V, p. 5.

1-e; 2-m; 3-l; 4-I; 5-f; 6-a; 7-k; 8-n; 9-d; 10-h; 11-b; 12-j; 13-g; 14-p; 15-c; 16-t; 17-o; 18-s; 19-q; 20-r

 

Ex. VI, p. 6.

  1-h; 2- c; 3-g; 4-I; 5-e; 6-a; 7-j; 8-f; 9-k; 10-d; 11-o; 12-m; 13-b; 14-l; 15-n

 

Ex. X IX, p. 26.

a) 3. Nothing escapes the master’s eye.

5. “Be content with your lot; one cannot be first in everything”.

6. “Ah, people often grudge others what they cannot enjoy themselves”.

7. ”Never trust a friend who deserts you at a pinch”.

13. “Nature will out”.

14. “Better humble security than gilded danger”.

 

b) 1-d; 2-c; 3-j; 4-g; 5-a; 6-k; 7-e; 8-i; 9-m; 10-f; 11-n; 12-h; 13-l; 14-b

Богатикова Л.И.

 

 

Практическое пособие

по устной речи для студентов IV курса

специальности «Английский язык»

(Тема: «Добро и зло»)

 

Гомель, 2003

 

 

В авторской редакции

 

Автор-составитель: Богатикова Л.И., доцент, к.п.н.

 

Рецензенты: Жилина И.К., доцент, к.п.н.,

                 Мэри Брукс, директор Института

                 английского языка при Восточно-                                               

                 Вашингтонском университете

 

Рекомендовано к изданию научно-методическим советом Учреждения образования «Гомельский государственный университет имени Франциска Скорины».

 

Данное пособие предназначено для студентов 1У курса факультетов иностранных языков специальности «английский язык» и предполагает развитие навыков и умений устной речи по теме «Добро и зло» и является дополнением к теме «Преступление и наказание».

                       Богатикова Л.И.

                      Учреждение образования «Гомельский

                      государственный университет имени      

                     Франциска Скорины

 

Введение

 

Данное практическое пособие предназначено для студентов 1У курса специальности «английский язык».

Целью данного пособия является развитие навыков и умений в устной речи и систематизация знаний в рамках темы «Добро и зло».

Пособие содержит текстовый материал по данной теме, упражнения на развитие лексических навыков и расширение словарного запаса студентов; предтекстовые и послетекстовые упражнения, направленные на обеспечение понимания и толкования текста, определение отношения читателя к проблемам, затрагиваемым в данных текстах и предназначенных для дальнейшего обсуждения; а также упражнения на развитие навыков и умений в говорении и, в целом, коммуникативной компетенции речевого взаимодействия в дискуссиях и диспутах.

Материалом для обсуждения являются различные проблемные вопросы, утверждения, цитаты, пословицы и т.д. Обсуждение последних способствует не только более полному осмыслению этих проблем, но и критическому подходу к ним.

Творческие упражнения для коллективного обсуждения сопровождаются не только речевыми клише, которые студенты должны использовать, но также описанием всей процедуры дискуссии.

 

 

                   Vice and Virtue

Discussion point

I. Different culture seem to provide different models of moral virtue, and there may be several, some conflicting, within a given culture. For instance, the ancient Greeks had a place for the virtue of pride (an appropriate sense of one’s honor), while medieval Christian monks thought humility more important.

 

- How do you differentiate between vice and virtue?

- What do modern thinkers/ you recognize a virtue of?

 

II. Read the definition of the words “vice” and “virtue” and answer the following questions:

vice – 1) (U) criminal activities that involve sex or drugs;

 2) a bad habit; 3) a bad or immoral quality in someone’s character;

virtue – 1) (U) moral goodness of character and behavior;

 2) a particular good quality in someone’s character;

 3) (C,U) an advantage that makes something better or more useful than something else.

- What criminal activities, bad habits and immoral qualities can be called ‘vice’?

- What good qualities are considered to be virtuous?

- What qualities do you most admire in people?

- What characteristics most annoy you in people?

 

Vocabulary Development

III. Are the following descriptions of people positive or negative?

 

a) She’ll always give you what you need.

b) She’s got a very high opinion of herself.

c) I never know whether to believe him.

d) He eats like a pig.

e) He says what he means, and he means what he says.

f) He’s always trying to pick a fight.

g) She won’t let her husband out of her sight.

h) He wouldn’t give you yesterday’s newspaper.

i) You can always depend on him.

j) Once she’s made up her mind, she won’t change it.

 

IV. Match one of the sentences in ex. III with a vice

or virtue listed below. Write in the adjective.

Vices                               Virtues

aggression aggressive  sincerity

pride                                reliability

obstinacy                         generosity

meanness

greed

jealousy

deceit

 

V. Match these definitions to the following words: