b) With a partner, choose one of the following situations. Prepare your part in the conversation for 2 minutes, then have the conversation.

a. Your son/daughter is now 30 and you want them to settle down. Try to talk them into it.

b. You have been going out with your partner for 3 years and are looking for a bigger commitment. Try to persuade them to think about getting married.

c. Your best friend is deciding whether or not to get married. Try to talk them into it.

d. Your best friend is deciding whether or not to get married. Try to talk them out of it.

V. Intercultural problems. With a partner, discuss the following:

1. Would you consider marrying (or are you already married to) someone from another country or culture?

2. What special problems do you think arise from a marriage between people from different countries or cultures?

3. Make a list of the benefits and drawbacks of such marriages.

Part II: Children and discipline

I. Work in pairs. Make a list of ways in which parents and teachers discipline children. For each punishment on the list discuss the following questions:

1. Is this a reasonable punishment to give a child in a civilised society?

2. What age of child is it suitable for?

3. Who can give this punishment to a child? Parents? Teachers? Other relatives?

II. Read these two letters. Which one do you agree most with? Why?

Dear Sir,

I think it is quite ridiculous that the government should be considering legislation to ban smacking. Every parent needs the right to be able to give a child a smack, not in order to cause physical harm or pain, but more as a shock tactic to stop a child from misbehaving or in some circumstances to stop them causing damage to themselves or other people. Some people argue that laws are needed to stop excessive physical punishment, but there are quite clear laws dealing with assault and bodily harm. If a parent causes physical harm to a child, then the police can use these laws to bring the parent to justice. My father used to give me the slipper and it never did me any harm. What is all the fuss about?

Jack Wallace

Dear Sir,

Thank goodness the government has finally begun to see sense regarding the punishment of children! Let us hope that they have the courage to do away with the physical punishment of children. We supposedly live in a civilised society. Can we at last realise that physical punishment is unreasonable, degrading, mentally harmful and completely unacceptable in the 21 st century? Smacking, indeed any form of physical punishment, should be made illegal immediately, and parents and teachers who practice this disgraceful activity should be brought before the courts.

Laura Flynn

III. Make four true sentences:

Jack Wallace Laura Flynn

would like to see all physical punishment banned. thinks the laws are acceptable as they are now. thinks smacking has more than a physical effect. was smacked as a child.

IV. Work in small groups. Discuss these statements:

'An adult hitting a child of any age is not right and there are much better ways to discipline children.'

'Children should have the same rights as adults. Adults cannot hit other adults, so they should not be allowed to hit children either.'

Do you agree or not? Why?

Are there other, better ways of disciplining children?

V. Study this sentence from the second letter. Notice the phrasal verb with two particles 'to do away with' meaning to abolish.

Let us hope that they have the courage to do away with the physical punishment of children.

VI. Match the phrasal verbs underlined in the sentences 1-8 with the definitions a-h below:

1. My brother was always in trouble but he was too honest. If I was in trouble I always denied doing anything wrong and I usually got away with it!

2.When I look back on my childhood, I realise my parents treated me really very fairly.

3.If I ran out of money, I would sometimes 'borrow' some from my mother's purse.

4.Sometimes I wished ray dad would just give me a smack. It would have been better than listening to him going on about 'responsibility'.

5. I can remember the first time I stood up to my dad. He wanted to punish me for coming back after midnight when I was 15 but I just told him I wasn't a child any longer and he couldn't tell me what to do.

6.I don't exactly look down on parents who smack their children, but I do think that they could find other ways of disciplining their children if they really thought about it.

7.I was really badly behaved when I was a teenager but I seemed to grow out of it when I reached my early twenties.

8. I didn't get into much trouble at school -except for once when I was caught fooling around with some chemicals in a science laboratory.

a. to not run away from, to resist

b. to escape without punishment

c. to consider inferior

d. to think about something in the past

e. to become too old to do something

f. to not have any left

g. to behave irresponsibly

h. to talk about something for a long time and in a boring way

VII. Work in pairs. Look at the sentences again. Are any of them true for you? Do any of them remind you of people you know or knew?

VIII. Work in pairs or small groups. Discuss these questions:

1. Which, if any, of the punishments below do you think are unsuitable for children above the age of three?

a. a quick smack on the hand

b. a quick smack onthe back of the head

c. a smack on the bottom

d. a smack on the bare bottom

e. a blow from a slipper on the bare bottom

f. a blow from a belt on the hand

g. a blow from a cane on the bottom

Would it make any difference if the child was a boy or a girl?

What other factors might determine whether a particular punishment was reasonable or not?

2. Which, if any, of these punishments do you think is acceptable?

a. sending a child to their bedroom for an hour

b. not allowing the child to play with their friends for a week.

c. stopping the child's pocket money

d. not allowing the child to watch TV for a week

e. making the child stay behind at school to do extra work

f. giving the child extra jobs around the house

3. At what age do you think it is no longer necessary or appropriate to discipline children?

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