READING AND SPEAKING

SECTION 1. READING IN YOUR LIFE

Task 1

Pre-discussion

• Does reading play an important role in your life? How much time do you devote to it? Do you read for pleasure or for information, or both?

• There are books which have been our great favourites since childhood. We grow up with them, and they stay in our memory for ever. Why do you think this happens? Give examples of books which you keep in your memory.

• Say what role you think books play in our lives and how they form our moral values.

1.1. Read the poem “Unfolding Bud”. How does the author show that a poem “at a first glance” is like a tiny bud?

unfolding bud

One is amazed

By a water-lily bud unfolding

With each passing day

Taking in a richer colour

And new dimensions.

One is not amazed

At a first glance

By a poem

Which is as tight-closed

As a tiny bud.

Yet one is surprised

To see the poem

Gradually unfolding,

Revealing its rich inner self,

As one reads it again

And over again.

Naoshi Koriyama

1.2. Express in your own words the idea of the poem.

• How are the bud and the poem alike after they unfolded?

• “Love for reading gives those who are great readers of books an advantage over those who have not read so much”. Do you agree with this idea? What are your arguments for and against?

1.3. Read the article below and be ready to give concise answers to the highlighted questions.

EnJoying literature

Why we read literature? Literature is one of the fine arts. It refers to “belles-lettres”, a French phrase that means “beautiful writing”.

Literature has two main divisions: fiction and nonfiction. Fiction is writing that an author creates from the imagination. Authors may include facts about real persons or events, but they combine these facts with imaginary situations. Most fiction is narrative writing, such as novels and short stories. Fiction also includes drama and poetry. Nonfiction is factual writing about real-life situations. The chief forms of nonfiction include the essay, history, biography, autobiography, and diary.

We all read for a variety of reasons. These reasons change with our age, our interests, and the literature we read. Our basic reason for reading is probably pleasure. We read literature mostly because we enjoy it.

Reading for pleasure may take various forms. We may read just to pass the time. Or, we may want to escape the four walls that usually surround us. Reading serves as a jet airplane that speeds us away from ourselves into the worlds of other people.

We often read for information and knowledge. We find pleasure in learning about life in the Swiss Alps or the Mississippi River. We find possible solutions to our problems when we meet people in books whose problems are like our own. Through literature, we sometimes understand situations we could not understand in real life.

We also read simply for the enjoyment we get from the arrangement of words. We can find pleasure even in nonsense syllables, just as children like the sound of “Ring Around the Rosie”, although they may not know what the words mean.

How to read creatively? No work of literature has wisdom or beauty in itself. The greatest poem ever written is only a printed sheet of paper until a reader reacts to it. Writing, to become literature, requires a reader. The reader helps to create literature by responding to the writer’s thoughts, emotions, and beliefs. Creative readers measure the honesty of the writer’s approach by their own ideas of truth. Creative reading leads to the deepest enjoyment of literature.

Judging literature. Reading is such a personal activity that there can be no final rules for judging a piece of writing. Yet, readers and critics do agree on certain writings that they consider classics, or literature of the highest rank. For example, thousands of stories have been published about young lovers whose parents disapproved of their romance. Most of these stories were soon forgotten. But for more than 300 years, Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” has been considered a classic story of young love.

Shakespeare was a superb craftsman. In his play, he used words and phrases that are packed with meaning. But, perhaps, more important, Shakespeare gave “Romeo and Juliet” broad human values. These values were not limited to one place or to one period of time. The characters of the play seem to be real people who face real problems. They express feelings that people anywhere might have at any time. They will probably appeal to readers during the 2000’s just as they did to readers’ intellects.

Every reader is a critic. Even when we say we have no opinion of a book, we are making a judgment. But such a judgment is a poor one, based on little thought. Our ability to judge literature intelligently develops as our reading broadens. Our critical skills, like our muscles, develop with use.

Task 2

2.1. Pre-discussion

• Talk to your partner about a book you have bought, read or used recently which you found particularly enjoyable, useful or interesting.

• Look at the types of book in the box and say which three you buy, read or use most regularly and why.

• What type of person do you think buys which type of book?

• Which type of book do you think is the most popular in your country?

• Look at the headline of the article. What do you think the article will say about book buying in Britain?

2.2. Read the article quickly to find out what the following numbers refer to.

95,000 899 35 55

55,000 12 793 47 22

Date: 2015-02-03; view: 1388