Учебно-методический комплекс по дисциплине «Иностранный язык (английский)» для неязыковых факультетов (отделение заочного обучения) (стр. 20 )

No common parent of the Germanic languages survives, but linguists refer to the hypothetical ancestor as primitive Germanic or proto-Germanic.

Questions

1.What languages do Germanic languages include?

2.What are the main three Germanic branches?

3.What languages does the North Germanic group include?

4.What languages does the West Germanic group include?

5.What language is spoken in Northern Belgium?

6.  In what country is Frisian spoken?

Notes

1. extinct languages – вымершие языки

2. Frisian – фризский язык

3.  Frisland – Фрисландия

4.  offshoot – ответвление

5.  common parent – общий прародитель

6.  proto-Germanic – протогерманский язык

Text 2. PRIMARY SHCOOLS IN ENGLAND AND WALES

The school day usually runs from nine a. m. to four p. m. with a break for lunch from noon to one thirty p. m., and with ten or fifteen minutes' breaks in the mid-morning and in the mid-afternoon. For children in an infants' school or in the infants' classes of a junior and infants' school, the school day may be somewhat shorter.

Members of a class usually do all their work with the same class teacher. In junior school or classes, however, teachers with special ability to teach special subjects, for example music, sometimes teach their subject to other classes while keeping general responsibility for their own class; the children may thus receive lessons from two or more teachers during the ch arrangements are rarely made for English or arithmetic.

Numbers in class vary widely: in rural areas they may be as small as 20 or even less, in urban areas every effort is made to restrict numbers to 40, which is considered the tolerable maximum.

So far as possible children of the same age are assigned to the same class, but where numbers in an age group are big enough to make up two or more classes, it is often found in junior schools (but rarely in an infants' school) that children are classified according to their ability in English and arithmetic. Even where such a division is made, group work, within the class, is generally practiced.

The work of the infants' school or the infants' classes of a primary school is largely informal. Children are encouraged to read, to write in heir own words, to understand and make use of numbers and to develop heir creative instincts using all manner bject teaching s rare, but direct instruction is given to children when they are ready or it. So far as possible the work done is based upon the interests of the children.

Questions

1.  How long does the school day run in the infants' school?

2.  Does the school day run shorter in the infants' school or in the junior school?

3.  Do pupils do their work with the same teacher or with several teachers as usual? What about English and arithmetic?

4.  May pupils receive lessons from two and more teachers in junior
school?

5.  What teachers teach their subject to other classes while keeping
general responsibility for their own class?

6.  Is the numbers of pupils larger in rural or urban areas?

Notes

1.  infants' school – начальная школа, в которой дети обучаются с 5 до 7 лет

2.  junior school – начальная школа, в которой дети обучаются с 7 до 11 лет

3.  assigned (to) – назначаются (в)

4.  manner materials – поведение, способы самовыражения

5.  instruction – руководство

Text 3. GREEK ARCHITECTURE

The classical Greek temple is regarded as the most typical, as well as the most beautiful. It consisted of an entrance porch with columns, a main chamber containing a statue, and a room to the back surrounded by a colonnade.

The early Geeks did not care for luxurious palaces. They preferred to build temples to protect the statues of their gods and athletic heroes. These buildings were comparatively crude and box-like, having one or two rooms with a porch in front. A few columns stood on the porch or sometimes went all round the temple. Brick and wood were used in construction, and the roofs were thatched. But already the pure geometric forms so dear to the Greeks could be discerned: square or rectangular in the floor plan, walls, doorway, and ceiling; circular columns; right angles at the meeting of columns and horizontal beams, and eventually a triangle between roof and doorway. All the basic elements of the Doric style were present in the synthesis of these mathematical forms.

As Greece carried on more trade with the East and became aware of other styles, her temples became larger and more substantial. Yet she remained faithful to her native Doric style. Temples were placed on a height to command a view of the sea and the surrounding area, for worship took place in the open. Architects worked carefully on the facade of the temple. To the Doric column they gave particular attention, continually revising the base, shaft, and capital. Stonemasons and artisans carved figures and designs in the spaces over the architrave and in the triangular area over the doorway. Afterward these figures and designs were painted in vivid colours.

Questions

1.  What kind of Greek architecture is regarded the most typical?

2.  What did the early Greek palaces look like?

3.  What material was used in their construction?

4.  What architecture style did the classical Greek temple belong to?

Notes

1.  thatched – соломенная или тростниковая крыша

2.  worship – богослужение, оправление обрядов

3.  stonemason – каменщик

4.  artisan – ремесленник

Text 4. SHELLS

Many kinds of animals without backbones have shells. Most of these animals live in water. They build their shells out of lime from the water. An animal's shell grows as the animal grows.

The shells of some animals are all in one piece. The shells of others are made of two parts hinged together.

Many of these one-piece shells come from snails. Snail shells are probably the shells people know best. There are water snails and land snails. All snail shells are twisted. Some of them are twisted in one direction, some in the opposite direction. Because of the way they are twisted, snail shells are called «right-handed» or «left-handed». The left-handed whelk makes one of the left-handed shells. Most of them are right-handed. Probably the biggest of the one-piece shells is the shell of the queen conch (KONGK). This shell has a beautiful pearly pink lining. When a person holds a queen conch shell to his ear, he hears a roar like the roar of the sea. Many people think that they are really hearing the sea, but of course they are not. The least little sound outside will be magnified into a roar inside the big twisted shell.

Among the animals with two-piece shells are the oysters, mussels, scallops, and clams. The animals with two-piece shells are often called bivalves. This name comes from the Latin and means "two doors".

Many people collect shells for a hobby. The names they give the shells may have nothing to do with the animals that made them. Instead they tell how the shell looks. There is no way of telling from the name "angel wing", for instance, that the animal that makes this beautiful shell is really it kind of clam.

Shells make a good protection for the animals that have them. They are also useful to humans. Many buttons and beads are made of shells. Shells are broken up and used as food for some animals. Chickens, for instance, are fed oyster shells. Grown-up shells are sometimes put on soil to keep it from getting sour.

For hundreds of millions of years animals with shells have lived in the sea. Billions of these shells have sunk to the bottom of the sea and have formed thick layers that have become solid limestone.

Questions

1.  What kind of shells do people know best?

2.  What are snail shells called because of the way they are twisted?

3.  What is the biggest of the one-piece shells?

4.  What do we call the animals with two-piece shells?

5.  Are shells useful to people?

Notes

1.  whelk – рубец

2.  conch – раковина

3.  mussel – двустворчатая ракушка

4.  scallop – гребешок, створчатая ракушка

5. clam – съедобный морской моллюск

6.  bivalve – двустворчатый

7.  limestone – известняк.

Text 5. THE SUN

The sun is a star. It is not by any means the biggest of the stars. It looks much bigger than any star because it is closer to us. It is only about 93,000,000 miles away! All the other stars are much, much farther away than that.

Of course, if we were still closer to the sun, it would look even bigger. If we were only a million miles away, let us say, it would fill the whole sky.

The sun is not very big as stars go, but it is enormous compared to the earth. If it were hollow, there would be room for more than a million earths inside. This enormous ball weighs more than 300,000 times as much as the earth.

There is a great deal of talk about space travel, but no one would want to take a trip to the sun even if he could. It is so hot that no one could stand to come near it. At the centre the temperature is supposed to be more than 35 million degrees!

Even if the sun were not hot, no one would dare visit it. The gravity on the surface is so great that a person would be crushed by his own weight.

The sun is far too hot to be solid. It is a huge ball of gases that are so hot that they give off light. Shooting up from the sun there are great rose-coloured streamers of glowing gas. They are called solar prominences. Some of them shoot up more than 100,000 miles from the sun's surface.

The sun has a halo around it. It is called the corona. The sun's corona shows only when there is an eclipse of the sun. Scientists think that it is a cloud of very, very small particles lighted up by the main body of the sun.

We all owe our lives to the sun. If it did not send light and warmth to the earth, nothing could live here. No wonder many people in ancient times worshipped it!