B) Give your own sentences with words and word-combinations from Active Vocabulary.

Task 7. Render the following text in English using as many active vocabulary units as possible.

В Палестине я посетил коммуну, члены которой исповедуют материалистическое мировоззрение, отрицают Бога и бессмертие. Я спросил их: «Скажите, какова цель вашей работы, если нет бессмертия? Ведь это значит, что вы трудитесь для кладбища». «О, нет, мы трудимся для будущего поколения», – ответил мой собеседник. «Но ведь и будущее поколение умрет». Неужели нам утешаться лишь тем, что мы, по словам Достоевского, послужим «навозом для гармонии будущих поколений»? Да притом еще, что и сама эта гармония сомнительна?

«Если нет бессмертия, то все позволено», – говорит тот же русский писатель. Мы могли бы сказать в данном случае: «Если нет бессмертия, то все бессмысленно».

Одни говорят нам, что смысл жизни заключается в наслаждении. Так учат сторонники гедонизма (от греческого слова «гедонэ» – «удовольствие»). «Будем есть и пить, ибо завтра умрем!» Но где доказательства того, что мы умрем и не будем жить после смерти? Наши мысль, разум, совесть, внутреннее ощущение (интуиция) подтверждают откровение Библии о бессмертии и вечности. Она говорит нам: помни, что ты умрешь (memento mori). Она же предупреждает: помни, что ты будешь жить (memento vivere), существовать после смерти. И не вызывают ли все наслаждения и удовольствия этого мира уже и теперь чувства пресыщения, скуки, потери самого желания жить (taedium vitae)?

Сторонники эвдемонизма говорят нам, что смысл жизни есть благо (от греческого слова «эвдемония» – счастье, благосостояние). Но в чем же оно? Где такое благо, которое удовлетворяло бы вышеупомянутым требованиям человека?

Проповедники утилитаризма видят смысл жизни в достижении пользы (от латинского слова «utilis» – «полезный»). Но в чем эта польза – абсолютная, вечная, всем доступная?

Последователи материализма, признающие только видимую, осязаемую материю, отрицающие природу духа, вечность, приводят нас к тупику.

Все подобные теории, поскольку они представляют собою искреннее искание человека, в пределах его собственных сил, рождают лишь новые вопросы, для него непосильные...

(http://www.pobedish.ru/main/smysl?id=48#ixzz3MRspPy2A)

Task 8. Answer the questions to texts A and B:

A.

1. What is the only satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence according to Erich Fromm?

2. What is the first chapter of E.From’s book generally devoted to?

3. What is E. Fromm’s essay noteworthy for?

4. What premise is said to have become basic to E. Fromm’s book?

5. What is the thing anyone hardly ever thinks about according to the author?

6. What does the author mean by a “peculiar attitude” and what is this attitude said to be based on?

7. What are the paths people are known to follow to become lovable and be loved?

8. What is the essence of the notion “being lovable” in the Western culture?

9. What is the second premise behind the attitude to love, the author indicates as basic to his reasoning?

10. What are the reasons for such kind of attitude according to the author?

11. What is the importance of the new concept of freedom in love according to the author?

12. What feature, characteristic of contemporary culture is emphasized by E. From when the pattern of human love relations is discussed?

13. What is the way, modern men and women look at each other like?

14. What does the author say about the pattern of attractiveness girls used to follow in the twenties and that of today?

15. What outstanding value of modern society is discussed by E. Fromm ?

16. What sort of confusion is said to be responsible for the third error people tend to make?

17. Who is the moment of oneness said to be most exhilarating for?

18. What kind of attitude to love is described as prevalent in spite of the overwhelming evidence to the contrary?

19. What is the only adequate way to overcome the failure of love according to the author?

20. What is the essence of the mastery of any art according to the author?

B.

1. What is H.L.Mencken’s purpose in writing the essay?

2. According to the author is there in every living creature an obscure but powerful impulse to active functioning?

3. Does the author believe that a person chooses what to do in life or is it ordained by the inscrutable fate?

4. Has the author ever been interested in the effects of his activity upon other people’s lives?

5. Can you call a person lucky if he makes a good living doing precisely what he has wanted to do?

6. Has the author ever in his life experienced anything that could be plausibly called a religious impulse? What was his attitude to religion?

7. What firm conviction did the author have?

8. Many people incline to suspect that human life has no meaning, don’t they?

9. How does the author perceive immortality?

Task 9. Mind-map texts A and B.

Task 10. Retell texts A and B as closely as possible.

Task 11. Give a summary to texts A and B in writing (150-180 words for each).

III. SPEECH EXERCISES.

Task 1. Discuss the following questions in groups of 2-3. Make good use of topical vocabulary:

1. Do you agree with the author’s portrayal of the ways to make oneself lovable? Are they the same as those you would use? Are they really the same as those used to make oneself successful?

2. What do you think of the author’s presentation of the change of values on the personality market?

3. What type of love does the author present as not lasting and why? Do you think he is right? Why?

4. Does the author seriously suggest to study the meaning of love? Would you do what he suggests – examine the reasons for the failure in love, if you encounter one?

5. How do you like the author’s idea to compare love to art? Do you think it is right to do so? Do you find his argumentation convincing? What does it mean to be artful in love in practical terms?

6. What is the essence of the mastery of love as an art for you? What are the things one should master to be happier in love?

7. If love is an art why do people so rarely treat it as such?

8. The author finds his greatest means of attaining happiness in work and in relationship with family and friends. What is yours?

9. What factors determine an individual human activity?

10. Support or refute the ideas.

a) “The precise form of an individual’s activity is determined … by his heredity”.

b) Troubles tend to foster the most admirable human qualities – courage and its analogues.

c) What I do is simply what lies easiest to my hand.

d) Christian faith is full of palpable absurdities.

Task 2. Develop arguments to support or contradict the following points:

1. “Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, half shut after”. Benjamin Franklin.

2. “Every woman should marry - and no man”. Benjamin Disraili

3. “An ideal wife is any woman who has an ideal husband”. Booth Tarkington.

4. “There is only one happiness in life, to love and be loved”. George Sand.

5. “You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.” Albert Camus

6. "It is the first of all problems for a man to find out what kind of work he is to do in this universe." Thomas Carlyle

7. "The man who is born with a talent which he is meant to use, finds his greatest happiness in using it." Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

LESSON THREE

Text:People Aren’t Born Prejudiced

Grammar: 1. Conditionals.

2. Reported Speech. Sequence of Tenses.

Phonetics:

3. Consonant clusters.

4. Prosodic patterns.

PHONETIC EXERCISES