Discuss the following questions with your partner and then with the group.

1. Is there any remedy for such kids as Dennis the Menace? What pedagogical solution/s would you suggest in order to put him on the right track?

2. What are common causes of children’s inadequate behavior: the family atmosphere, hereditary factor, external environment, school, other?

3. Would you agree that most problem children come from single-parent or broken families as they are deprived of due supervision by both parents?

4. Is it possible for a problem teenager to turn over a new leaf? How can this be achieved?

5. If you had a problem adolescent in your class who would repeatedly cut or disrupt classes, misbehave or be rude to you, how would you deal with him or her?

11. Today’s teenagers are not only rude and rowdy but also – according to a report published by supermarket chain Asda (Britain) – extremely expensive.

Read the text below and say if the same is true of this culture.

Even for parents on average incomes who are unwilling to pay for luxuries, the cost over five years of keeping a 16- to 21-year-old is likely to reach 25,000 (pounds). For wealthier parents, the cost could be as high as 67,000.

Parents might like to reflect that the same sum would buy them a quiet country cottage, 11 Versace dresses, or 30 round-the-world trips!

The cost of the food that teenagers will eat in those five years comes to 5,463, with more generous parents spending 40% more. Electricity to keep them warm and power the hairdryer and CD player comes to 340.

One of the most frequent causes of rows between parents and children is the telephone bill. If parents are lucky, they can stop children ringing until the cheap rate starts at 6 p.m. But even so, talkative youngsters will cost 374.40. For yuppie children the cost of a mobile phone will be 910.

One in three teenagers now goes on to higher education and parents are expected to help with grants. The average payment by parents is 88o a year, though high-income parents must pay considerably more.

They finally leave. You shed a tear. But there’s one more check to sign. One day your child is probably going to want to get married. The average cost of a wedding is 9,247.

As the report warns young couples, “Having a child could be the most expensive decision of your life!”

& Reading comprehension

Read the text and do the exercises that follow.

REUNION

(By John Cheever)

The last time I saw my father was in Grand Central Station. I was going from my grandmother’s in the Adirondacks to a cottage on the Cape that my mother had rented, and I wrote my father that I would be in New York between trains for an hour an a half, and asked if we could have lunch together. His secretary wrote to say that he would meet me at the information booth at noon, and at 12 o’clock sharp I saw him coming through the crowd. He was a stranger to me – my mother divorced him three years ago and I hadn’t been with him since – but as soon as I saw him I felt that he was my father, my flesh and blood, my future and my doom. I knew that when I was grown I would be something like him; I would have to plan my campaigns within his limitations. He was a big, good-looking man, and I was terribly happy to see him again. He struck me on the back and shook my hand. “Hi, Charlie, “ he said, “Hi, boy, I’d like to take you up to my club, but it’s in the Sixties, and if you have to catch an early train I guess we’d better get something to eat around here.” He put his arm around me, and I smelled my father the way my mother sniffs a rose. It was a rich compound of whiskey, after shave lotion, shoe polish, and the rankness of a mature male.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-16