Find the words in the text which have the following meaning.

a. An available supply, shared by the group.

b. Freedom to act or judge on one’s own.

c. Commonly practiced or used.

d. The state of being found guilty of a crime.

e. Not fully grown or developed.

f. To escape or avoid by cleverness or deceit.

Text 3.

You are going to read an article about a non-traditional theory of motivation at work. Frederick Herzberg, a well-known theorist of the psychology of work, has argued that many of the features like good salaries and working conditions do not in fact motivate people. Read the following text and find out why.

‘Satisfiers’ and ‘Motivators’

It is logical to suppose that things like good labour relations, good working conditions, good wages and benefits, and job security motivate workers. But in Work and the Nature of Man, Frederick Herzberg argued that such conditions do not motivate workers. They are merely ‘satisfiers’ or, more importantly, ‘dissatisfiers’ where they do not exist. ‘Motivators, on the contrary, include things such as having a challenging and interesting job, recognition and responsibility, promotion, and so on.

However, even with the development of computers and robotics, there are and will be plenty of boring, mindless, repetitive and mechanical work in all three sectors of economy, and lots of unskilled people who have to do them.

So how do managers motivate people in such jobs? One solution is to give them some responsibilities, not as individuals but as a part of a team. For example, some supermarkets combine office staff, the people who fill the shelves, and the people who work on the checkout tills into a team and let them decide what product lines to stock, how to display them, and so on.

Other employers ensure that people in repetitive jobs change them in a couple of hours, as doing four repetitive jobs a day is better than doing only one. Many people now talk about the importance of a company’s shared values or corporate culture, with which all the staff can identify: for example, being the best hotel chain, or hamburger restaurant chain, or airline, or making the best, the safest, the most user-friendly, the most ecological or the most reliable product in a particular field. Such values are more likely to motivate workers than financial targets, which ultimately only concern a few people. Unfortunately, there is only a limited number of such goals to go round, and by definition, not all the competing companies in an industry can seriously claim to be the best. (314 words)

2. Writing an outline: Read the text again and complete the following sentences. Use your own words as much as possible.

1. Herzberg suggested that good labour relations and working conditions...

2. According to Herzberg, the kind of things that motivate...

3. The problem with saying that only challenging, interesting and responsible jobs are motivating is that...

4. Ways of motivating people in unskilled jobs include...

5. The problem with trying to motivate workers by their belief that their company is the best is that...

Turn the outline into a summary of 70 words by generalizing, i.e. omitting some unimportant details. Insert suitable transition words to improve coherence, i.e. to develop a logically united text. Evaluate it using the summary scoring rubrics.

4. Write business definitions (not synonyms) in English using your own words:

1) recognition; 2) office staff; 3) to display products; 4) checkout till; 5) hotel chain

Text 4.

1. Read the title of a newspaper article from RIA Novosti & The Moscow News and say, in your own words, what you think you will learn from the article. Skim the article for gist and say whether your prediction was correct and to what extent (fully, partly or not at all)

Russians saving more – poll

(Part 1) The number of Russians who claim to have money stashed away for a rainy day has hit a 20-year high. More than 70 percent of Russians now have savings, while number of Russians with no savings at all fell to less than 30 percent, a survey conducted by the Romir research center found.

The results mark a shift in the financial behavior of a nation traditionally wary of stashing money in savings accounts, due to a recent history of funds being wiped out overnight in shaky economic times.

Romir attributed the trend to increased economic stability and changes in psychological behavior. The research center said individuals are less likely to complain about their difficult position now than two to six years ago.

“Another positive indicator is a massive shift to maintaining savings in Russian rubles. The ruble really has over the last 10-12 years become the Russian national currency. Sixty percent of survey participants said they keep their savings in rubles only. If we exclude from consideration those who have no savings, you will find that 82 percent of Russians keep their savings only in rubles,” RIA Novosti quoted a specialist from the Romir agency as saying on Monday.

Just over a decade ago, nearly all financial transactions in Russia were carried out in dollars, due to mistrust in a domestic currency marred with instability in the 1990s. (230 words)

(Part 2) The second-most popular saving instrument is a portfolio of rubles and U.S. dollars, favored by 6 percent of respondents.

Only 35 percent of Russians favor the purchase of real estate as a means of saving compared with 50 to 60 percent four to ten years ago, Romir said. It added that saving through property was especially popular among high-income respondents younger than 35 who reside in big cities.

Bank deposits are becoming an increasingly popular form of investment, with 34 percent of respondents keeping savings in accounts, nearly as many as the numbers investing in real estate.

Interest in investing in one’s own business has risen by 50 percent after a decline in the past few years. Investing in stocks has declined and returned to the level of 5 percent registered eight to ten years ago.

The poll was conducted in March 2012 and covered 1,500 urban and rural dwellers aged 18 to 60 across Russia. (155 words)

2. The texts is easily divided into two informative parts. Read Part 1 once more and switch to the summary of this section below. Compare the original text with the summary and identify the differences by answering questions: How are the phrases in the article paraphrased in the summary? What differences in the sentence structures can you identify?

Summary (Part 1):The number of Russians who have savings has increased to a record level for the last 20 years. Over 70 percent of Russians have saving accounts, while the number of Russians without savings fell to less than 30 percent. Another positive trend is to maintain savings in rubles. 60 percent of survey participants stated they keep their savings in rubles only. In contrast, in the 1990s almost all financial transactions in Russia involved dollars as the population did not trust the local money. (80 words)

Read Part 2 of the article and write your own summary of 60 words. In pairs, compare your summaries. Try harmonizing your variants, in other words, improving your summaries by benefiting from your collaboration and using the scoring rubrics.

Date: 2015-12-24; view: 3646