Answer the questions.

1. Where does John Smith work? 2. What kind of responsibilities does he carry? 3. What makes the beginning of term different from the end of term? 4. What is one of the main marks of a good teacher? 5. Why does lazy thinking occur most frequently in talented children? 6. Why is it important to know foreign languages? 7. Why do John's pupils like his lessons? 8. What are the com­mon problems which affect the smooth running of the school? 9. What is the most difficult task of education? 10. What are the main tasks of environmental education? Why is it very important? 11. Who helps pupils to choose their careers? 12. Why is coming to University for the first time quite important experience? 13. Who helps students to solve their difficulty? 14. What do students do in the community? 15. What association represents the interests of older students? 16. What courses do Colleges of Education provide? 17. What do teachers' training institutions look for in interviewees? 18. What do students do during their teaching practice? 19. What is the key to successful teaching? 20. What lies at the heart of good teaching?

Confirm or deny the statements. Expand on them.

1. One of the advantages of teaching is that it's so rewarding to work with children. 2. Only a person who never forgets that he or she was once a child can become a real teacher. 3. Studying can­ not possibly be an easy, pleasant game which brings only delight. 4. One can easily do without knowledge of a foreign language. 5. It's very important that every child should learn to care for ani­mals and birds. 6. Extra-curricular activity is an optional part of a teacher's job. 7. Every year some students experience academic problems. 8. Students do not touch with the "real world". 9. Many universities establish exchange programmes with students from different countries.

Drawing on your knowledge of Text A and your own life experience answer the following questions.

1. What is John Smith's working day like? 2. What is John in charge of? 3. What is John's atti­tude towards new theories and methods in education? 4. Does he find new teaching methods useful? 5. What is John's idea of children's upbringing? 6. Why does John invite his pupils' parents to school? What does John talk about with them? 7. Have your parents ever been invited to school to have a talk to your form teacher? What was the subject - matter of the conversation? 8. What was your favourite school subject / out-of-class activity? Why did you like it? 9. Have you ever had any academic problems at the university? Who helps you to solve your problems? 10. How do you find your university life? 11. What are the most important marks of a fine teacher? 12. What does the fol­lowing phrase mean: "The teacher should try mentally to get into the child's shoes"? 13. Why can studying become a torture for some children? What must the teacher do not to allow his pupils to be idle? 14. What are the most difficult tasks of education? 15. What makes a good teacher?

Read following text and do the tasks.

From FRESH FROM THE COUNTRY

By Miss Reed

The golden days slipped by all too swiftly and on the second day of September Anna crossed he playground to start her first day's teaching. She had spent a wakeful night. The thought of what the morrow might hold had kept her mind active. Would she be able to keep order? Would the children be ready to listen and willing to learn? For that matter, did she honestly know anything to teach them? And if so, could she impart it? ...

The first working day dragged on. Anna felt as though she had been weeks in the classroom and felt quite exhausted. She had called the children's names and marked her register with careful lest uproar should break out again she had kept her voice stern and her face unsmiling. She was not how she had envisaged meeting her new charges. She had meant to advance with happiness; and confidence as she had been told to do at college, but she felt neither at the moment.

As the weeks passed, Anna found her work a little less tiring. No longer did she totter home at four o'clock to her narrow little bed and lie exhausted for half an hour. Tired she still was at the end of the day, edgy with the constant noise of movement of hundreds of exuberant children, are overanxious about her ability to keep order and to teach her carefully prepared lessons; but not so completely drained as at first...

Anna's affection for her class grew as the weeks passed. The children were at the stage she liked best - old enough to be able to work and read on their own and young enough to be unself-conscious and keen to learn. Their zest for every kind of activity was incredible, and Anna found hat provided she could supply a variety of educational tasks for them to do, all was well; but; should they ever come to the end of a piece of work and have to wait for attention, then trouble began. The one great, wicked problem to Anna was the size of her class. Fond of them as she was as individuals, collectively they constituted an unwieldy, noisy mass.

The advisers, Anna thought, were the most trying. Each, rather naturally, felt that his own particular subject was the most important on the time-table and gave so many suggestions, not only for he classroom work but for out-of-school activities, that the poor girl felt quite overwhelmed. These people, each riding his own hobby-horse, were sympathetic about the difficulties, but Anna suspected that overcrowded conditions and pressure of time were such common places to them, that they lost all sense of proportion and, as specialists, expected from the hard pressed teachers far more than the latter could possibly give, no matter how willing they light be.

But as the end of her second term loomed in sight Anna began to feel more used to school life, though there were still some aspects of it which she found disconcerting. The children's home back­grounds varied, and she was prepared for a certain amount of slovenly behaviour. Another problem which Anna found a difficult one to solve, was the management of her classwork as opposed to everyday teaching and discipline.

" Preparing lessons was a fairly straightforward business, undertaken in the evenings, in the comparative peace of her establishment, and with the help of reference books, maps, pictures, and so Oil. Catching and holding her class's attention was becoming easier as the months passed and Anna's authority was recognized by the children and her own self-confidence grew. But there were difficulties in organizing the children's work. Apart from the impossibly large number in the classroom which was the arch-problem, there was the difference in speed at which children worked.

She tried to overcome those difficulties. All this took time to learn. It was experience bitterly bought at the cost of her own nervous energy and anxiety. The last day of term was the breathless joyous time it always is, compounded of cheerful good wishes, hurried farewells, and general excitement. And what of the future? To Anna it all seemed bright and nebulous. Meanwhile it was enough be young and to be on holiday.

Date: 2015-12-18; view: 2124