Give your views on the problems listed below and speak in rebuttal of your opponent.
Topic 1. What are the essential factors that help to mould a person's character?
Talking points:
1. Background and environment: with regard to family, friends and acquaintances.
2. Educational possibilities: with regard to schooling, further education of any type, interest in learning.
3. Cultural standards: with regard to literary, musical, artistic tastes, abilities and ambitions.
4. Circumstances: adverse and favourable.
Topic 2. What are the ways and means by which a person's character is revealed and estimated?
Talking points:
1. Appearance.
2. Speech characterization.
3. Manners and attitudes.
4. Likes and dislikes: with regard to people and things.
Topic 3. What is the role played by personal traits of character in choosing a profession?
Talking points:
1. Psychological types suitable for work in different trades.
2. Psychological tests and professional (vocational) guidance.
3. Success or failure caused by personal traits in a chosen profession.
Unit Eight
SPEECH PATTERNS
1. Frank Ashurst and his friend Robert Garton were on a tramp.
They were on a hike.
We shall go on an excursion tomorrow.
I shall start on a tour next Sunday.
He will set out on a trip early in the morning.
2. According to their map they had still some seven miles to go.
We have two hours to while away. They still have a lot to do. Jane still has two exams to take. He has letters to mail.
3.Both were (as) thin as rails.
The boy is really as obstinate as a mule. She was as good as her word.
You're as sulky as a bear, what's the matter? And let me tell you he is as cross as two sticks.
4.Gartonwas like some primevalbeast.Shelooked like a wild flower.
He looked like a huge bear. The cloth looks like silk.
5.Garton's hair was a kind of dark unfathomed mop.
Passing through a sort of porch...
It was a sort of box.
It was a kind of game.
We spent the night in a sort of hut.
6. Perhaps he struck her as strange
The whole affair strikes me as queer.
The suggestion struck him as tempting.
That I found nobody at home struck me as odd.
Her question struck me as naive.
EXERCISES
1. Complete the following sentences using Speech Patterns 1, 2, 3, 4:
14. 1. We saw lots of interesting things when we were .... 2. It's too late to start ... . 3. Will you go with them ... ? 4. I am busy now, I have ... . 5. It was growing dark and they still had ... . 6. I shan't be free till July 1, I have ... . 7. Both brothers are tall and as ... . 8. In the father's presence the boys are as .... 9. The twins are as ... . 10. With her close-cropped hair she ... . 11. She is under 20, but she ... . 12. The water in the lake was so warm that it was ... . 13. She was a small, pretty woman with a complexion that was The cloud was now spreading across the sky, it was ... .
15. I had a good look at the picture yesterday and I think it is ... .
16. I don't know the rules, but I think it's ... . 17. This is the house where the writer lived, now it is ... . 18. I'm not sure of the meaning of the term, perhaps it's ... .
2. Paraphrase the following sentences using Speech Patterns 5, 6:
1. I had a vague suspicion that he was cheating. 2. The vines formed a poor (inadequate) roof. 3. I didn't know the game they were playing. 4. It was a deserted hut that could give them some shelter. 5. She had something resembling a hat on her head. 6. The whole affair seems to me a bit queer. 7. That I found nobody at home seemed to me odd. 8. The excuse he gave seemed to me ridiculous. 9. He seems to me a person well-read in literature. 10. He turned the car towards a large house that seemed to be typically Swiss.