Easy living at Japan's colleges

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Undergraduate life in Japan is blissful, largerly because school life is not. The Ministry of Education recently revealed that entrance exams for private high schools still include questions on subjects not covered by the state primary school curriculum:
To get into a good school you have to be ahead of the pack by age 11. Good schools offer a direct route to the universities. Consequently, the students who will be sailing blithely through their final university term this winter spent most of their youth doing hours and hours of homework and endless exams. By the time they gain admission to a university they have all the basic education that a Japanese corporation needs. Hiring by a Japanese company except recovering from the rigorous of school and prepare for the rigorous of corporate life. One 1987 poll found that the average Japanese university student spends 26 minutes reading newspapers and just 49 minutes reading books. Around half of those polled spent less that half an hour every day reading books, and a full 17% came out with the astonishing admission that they hardly ever read at all. Japanese undergraduates watch television or videos for an average of 105 minutes every day - exactly the same amount of time they spend on comics, newspapers and books combined. Corporate Japan apparently has just one objection to an academic - it takes up too much time. Companies are trying to persuade the Ministry of Education to shorten four-yesr degree courses by a year. Japanese companies routinely train graduate recruits for up to six years and operate on the assumption that anyone bright enough to get into a university is bright enough for on-the-job training. How well you did at university is less important than the fact that you went to a university in the first place.

Vocabulary to the Text.

Undergraduate – старшекурсник

Blissful – блаженный

Largely – в большей степени

Recently – недавно

Reveal – обнаруживать

Entrance exam – вступительный экзамен

Include – включать

Be covered – входить в состав

Curriculum – учебная программа

Be ahead of the pack – быть впереди ровесников

Route – путь, дорога

Consequently – соответственно

Sail – плыть

Blithely – жизнерадостно

Final – заключительный

Gain – добиться, получить

Adnission – прием, поступление

Except – здесь: возражать (против)

Recovery – освобождение

Rigours – мн.ч. строгость, суровость

Poll – опрос, опрашивать

Average – средний

Astonishing – поразительный

Admission – здесь: признание

Amount – количество, число

Combined – здесь: вместе

Apparently – очевидно

Objection - возражение

Persuade – убеждать

Shorten – сокращать

Degree – научная степень

Routinely – обычно, традиционно

Train – обучать

Recruit – новобранец, новичок

Assumption – допущение

Bright – здесь: умный

On-the-job training – обучение на рабочем месте.

Ex. Match the phrases with their Russian equivalents.

1. To be ahead of a/ сократить срок обучения

2. School curriculum b/ вступительный экзамен

3. Undergarduate life c) то же самое число

4. Bright enough d/ поразительное признание

5. Final term e/ прямой путь

6. Train recruits f/ достаточно умен

7. On-the-job training - g/ добиться приема, поступления

8. The same amount h/ строгости школьной жизни

9. Direct route i/ возражать

10. To gain admission j/ опрошенные студенты

11. Rigours of school k/ заключительный семестр

12. To have an objection l/ быть впереди, опережать

13. Astonishing admission m/ обучение на рабочем месте

14. Polled students n/ обучать новичков

15. To shorten a course o/ школьная программа

16. Entrance exam p /жизнь старшекурсников

Ex. Translate into English.

1. Жизнь старшекурсников в Японии значительно легче, чем учеба в школе. 2. Министерство образования обнаружило, что вступительные экзамены в частные вузы включает вопросы, не входящие в учебную программу государственных школ. 3.Попасть в хорошую школу – значит, опередить своих сверстников к 11-летнему возрасту. 4. Хорошая школа – это прямой путь в университет. 5. Соответственно, ко времени поступления в университет, выпускники частных школ обладают знаниями, достаточными для того, чтобы приступить к работе в фирме. 6. Опрос, проведенный среди студентов, показал, что студенты очень мало времени посвящают (devote) чтению газет и журналов. 7. У фирм есть одно возражение относительно (concerning) обучение в вузе – это то, что оно занимает слишком много времени. 8. Компании пытаются убедить Министерство образования в том, чтобы сократить 4-летний срок обучения в вузе на год. 9. Они считают, что тот, кто достаточно умен, чтобы поступить в университет, умен и для того, чтобы получение в ходе работы.

Comprehension Check.

Ex. Answer the following questions.

1. What is the difference between school and university education in Japan?

2. How do you understand the phrase “good schools offer a direct route to the universities”? Can eveone afford to go to a private school?

3. Why are Japanese companies willing to hire graduates of private schools?

4. What are the results of the poll-1987 among students?

5. What are Japanese companies trying to persuade Ministry of education of?

Topics to discuss.

1. Schoolpupils and students in Japan.

2. Private school education.

3. Objection to the academic regime.

4. On-the-job training.

HAPPY DAYS?

Presenter: We asked three people to talk about their schooldays. First, Ishia, who went to a grammar school for girls.
Ishia: Um, I can't say it was a terribly happy experience, though I had lots of friends and a jolly good time, but actually I just thought that the work was so dull, an I was constanttly trying to get people to...challenging people I suppose because I wanted... I really did want to think and understand and try and work things out, and when I went to school it
didn't seem to be what education was about. It was very much, and because it was a grammar school and very formal... um... literally being dictated to, listening to sort of pages and pages of dictation, writing it all down and then learning it for exams. Um... so I found it deeply boring and I think it probably... probably the good thing it was that it... it turned me
into a rebel for the rest of my life.
Presenter: Mike was educated in the United States.
Mike: I think the main difference between the way we educate children and the way you do here is that our education is so much broader, it's not nearly so deep. I mean, "A" levels in English schools are more or less equivalent to the first year university in the States, similar kind of thoroughness and depth, but most people who do "A" levels here take three, three is good and four is exceptional... er... whereas in my senior high school I had seven different subjects. And not all of which I studied to a great depth, but I had for instance to do physical education, I had for instance to take some kind of social studies, I had for instance to do some kind of mathematics, which I... was my particular thing. But everybody had
to do mathematics: if you couldn't do calculus you could do arithmetic, even at the highest... your last year in... in high school. So we all had a very broad education.
It's true that in America the... the quality of education varies tremendously, not only from state to state but from county to county within states. I mean, you may have a very good high school in one town: the next town is short of funds, as ever it's like here or anywhere else the main thing is... is the lack of funds. But I think the thing I got most out of
my education was the different viewpoints of people from all over the country.
Presenter: Christine went to school in Scotland, where the education system has similarities to the American and European systems. What was her school like?
Christine: Well, it was a school which you went to at five and you stayed, all being well, until you were eighteen. And there were boys and girls, and it meant that you developed a really interesting view of boys, which changed as you got older. So when I was very little the boys were good fun... um... because I was a bit of a tomboy, they had... they did things
and palyed with things in the classroom that I thought were much more interesting than the things the girls played with. And then we went through a phase of ignoring the boys strenuously because they were completely beneath contempt, and I suppose that was between the ages of 10 and about 14 or 15. And then discovering that boys were awfully interesting but not the boys in your own year group which were... who were utterly
contemptible... um... because girls and boys are so different in their development, aren't they? And a 14-year-old girl can see no merits whatsoever in a 14-year-old boy. And all the girls are gazing at the 16, 17 and 18-year-old "big boys", who are much more interesting.
And then as we got to the end of our schooling...er... what in Scotland would be the fifth and the sixth year, in England would be the lower and the upper sixth years, the last two years, of course things... the boys caught up really and we became very good friends again all of us and so our last two years at school, um... I think we... we had lovely relationships and lovely friendships. And.. we did lots of things together. And when we left school we had an amazingly tearful last evening,...nearly all fifty of us who'd been in the year group, of whom perhaps thirty had grown up together since they were five. And leaving school was actually quite hard for us because having established good relationships with the boys around us in our last two years we all had long memories.
Presenter: What were Christine's strongest memories of her schooldays?
Christine: Of hating some of it. My strongest memories are negative ones, of a period in my two last years in primary, as it would be, 11 and 12 where our class teacher... I just loathed her and so did almost everybody else in the class and she was a bully and she taught very traditionally and it was very much "the three Rs"* and we were... we just had tests all the time, we were drilled in grammar.
And she also had an uncertain temper and was a great shouter, and her... the tip of her nose would go white when she was really angry and her whole face would go scarlet. And she was also used the belt very freely, and I didn't approve of that, I thought it was so wrong. And she used to belt* people for spelling mistakes. And I'll never forget, Anne Black and Alan Davidson who couldn't spell, and they used to to make spelling mistakes and if by Friday you had twenty mistakes out of the hundred, twenty a day, you got the belt in front of the class and I just thought that was so wrong. And it never improved their spelling, I mean years later at sixth-formers they couldn't still spell. And Anne Black used to get it particularly badly because she was English, because her mother was English, and she used to spell as she sounded and she used to make... create the most awful offence by spelling "saw" S-O-R rather than S-A-W, because that's how she heard it. And she used to be victimised by Miss Rae for her English spelling, and so I... and I really didn't like her. I just thought that the way she treated people was wrong, it wasn't with respect, it was... um... I don't quite know what she was doing when she bulled people, but she was a big bully. And I grew up very firmly disapproving of that way of treating children.
Notes:
* "the three Rs" are reading, writing and arithmetic.
* to belt: beat with a leather belt on the hand

Vocabulary to the text:
actually - фактически, на самом деле;
to challenge - вызывать (на соревнование), претендовать (на внимание);
literally - дословно, слово в слово;
to work (things) out - решать, разрабатывать;
to turn into - превращать(ся);
rebel - бунтовщик;
(with) thoroughness - тщательно, досконально;
exceptional - исключительный;
particular - особый, особенный;
to do calculus - делать вычисления;
tremendously - чрезвычайно, ужасно, (очень);
county - (амер.) округ;
to be short of funds - испытывать недостатьок/дефицит финансов;
similarity - сходство;
tomboy - девчонка-сорванец;
beneath one's contempt - ниже (своего) достоинства;
strenuously - сильно, энергично, упорно;
utterly - крайне, чрезвычайно, совершенно;
contemptible - презренный;
merit - достоинство, положительная черта;
to gaze (at) - пристально смотреть, присматриваться;
to catch up (with) - догнать, нагнать;
tearful - плачущий; печальный (о событии);
to loathe (= to hate) - чувствовать отвращение, не любить;
to bully - запугивать, третировать;
to drill - тренировать;
temper - нрав, характер, настроение;
shouter - любитель покричать/поорать;
to go scarlet - покраснеть;
spelling - орфография;
offence - нарушение; (здесь) ошибка;
to victimize - делать своей жертвой, мучить;
to treat smb. - относиться (к), обращаться (с).

Ex1. Find in the text equivalents to the following words and phrases:

самая ужасная ошибка, считать неверным, различные точки зрения, например, на всю оставшуюся жизнь, нагнать группу, этот способ обращения с детьми, орфографические ошибки, считать нудным/скучным, самая ужасная ошибка, кончик носа, она была любительницей поорать, установить/наладить хорошие отношения, кончик ноcа, различные по уровню развития, обучать детей, нехватка финансов (2 варианта), система образования, ужасно интересный.

Ex2. Match pairs of synonyms.

mistake, boring, awfully, to hate, utterly, lack of funds, offence, dull,
tremendously,
sad, short of funds, completely, tearful, to loathe.

Ex3. Translate the following sentences using the words and expressions from
the text.
1. Когда мы закончили школу, последний вечер был очень печальным.

19. Эта школа стеснена в средствах.

20. Образование варьирует/различается от штата к штату.

21. Мне это казалось скучным.

22. Я не одобряла то, как она обращается с детьми.

23. Затем был этап, когда мы упорно игнорировали мальчишек.

24. Позже мы заметили, что наши ровесники были очень интересными.

25. В детстве я была сорванцом.

26. 30 человек из 50-ти росли вместе с 5-летнего возраста.

27. У нее всегда было непонятное настроение.

28. За орфографические ошибки она наказывала тетей ремнем, хотя это так и не исправило их орфографию.

29. Анна писала так. как слышала.

30. То, как учительница относилась к детям, было неверным.

31. Нельзя мучить людей!

32. Он долго болел, но потом нагнал группу.

Topics to discuss.
1. Education in a grammar school for girls (in Ishia's opinion).
2. Education in the United States (as described by Mike).
3. Relations between boys and girls at school. Do they change during schooling?
4. Describe Miss Rae as a teacher and as a person.

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