пятница, 27 марта 2020 г.

Lecture 2 (Great Britain) 4 th course.


Education

3 stages of education: primary  school,  secondary (age of 11-12), further education.
Historical background
The British government attached little importance to education until the end of the 19centuty (public schools (бесплатная средняя школа; закрытая средняя школа (в Англии)  - character – building and team  spirit; boarding schools– future  up position in  the higher ranks of  the  army, in  business and politics. Today education is one of the most frequent  subjects for public debate in the country.
Organization
Central government does not prescribe a detailed programme of learning to determine what books and materials should be used. Nor does it dictate the exact hours of the school day, the exact dates of holidays or the age at which a child must start in full-time education. It is so because the system has been ΄influenced  by the public-school tradition that a school is its own community  . Universities, although financed  by the government, have more au΄tonomy. Each one has complete control over what to teach, how to teach it, who it accepts as students and how to test these students.
Style
Today  much  of  the public  debate about educational ΄policy focuses not  so  much on  how to  help people develop  useful knowledge and skills as on  how education might help to  bring about a better society – on social ΄justice  rather than on efficiency.
1.                 It has ΄influenced the general style of teaching, which has tended to give priority to  developing understanding rather than acquiring   ΄factual  knowledge and learning to apply this knowledge to specific tasks.
2.                 An ΄emphasis on academic  ability  rather than practical ability (high-quality education for the intelligent and academically inclined with comparatively little attention given to the educational needs of the rest.)
All British schools and universities give a really high priority to sport. The idea is that it helps to develop the “complete” person.
Recent developments 
Today most  eleven-year-olds all  go on to  the same  local  school (in  1965 they  have  to take an  exam at  this  age and  than  go  to a  grammar  (средняя классическая школа (государственная для детей от 11 до 16 или 18 лет; программа предусматривает изучение древних языков)  or secondary modern school (сре́дняя совреме́нная шко́ла (для детей от 11 до 16 лет; государственная; имеет практическую направленность; программа не предусматривает изучения классических языков) .
In 1980s two major changes were introduced by the government:
1.                 The setting up of a national curriculum. (There  are  3 of  them for  England and Wales, another for Scotland and  another for Northern  Ireland)
2.                 All schools can now decide to ‘opt  out’ (of  the control of  the LEA and  put themselves directly under the  control of  the appropriate government department.
School life
Many children do not begin full-time attendance  at school until they are about five and start primary school. Nearly all schools work a five-day week, with no half-day, and are close on Saturdays. Methods of teaching vary, but there is  most commonly a  ΄balance between formal lessons with the  teacher at  the front of  the  classroom, and activities in which children  work in  small groups round a  table with the  teacher supervising.
Public exams
Everywhere except Scotland each school or LEA decides which board’s exams  its pupils take.  The boards publish a separate ΄syllabus for each subject. The exams have nothing to do with school years as such. They are divorced   from the school system.
Education beyond sixteen
At the age of sixteen people are free to leave school if they want to. Far fewer sixteen-year-olds go straight out and look for a job than used to.  Most do not find employment  immediately and many take part in training   schemes which involve on-the-job training (сокр. OTJ упр. обучение на рабочем месте [без отрыва от производства) combined with part-time college courses. About half of those who stay in full-time education will have to leave their school, either because it does not have a sixth form( старший класс-«шестой класс» (Великобритания: последние два года обучения в средней школе (17 и 18 лет) and go to a Sixth-form College (подготови́тельный ко́лле́дж (среднее учебное заведение для молодёжи старше 16 лет; государственное или частное; готовит к поступлению в университет по расширенной программе шестого класса [sixth form]; выпускные экзамены сдаются на повышенном уровне [см. Advanced Level]; существует самостоятельно или при единой школе [comprehensive school]), or College of Further Education.
Universities normally select students on  the basis of A-level results = Advanced Level по программе средней школы на повышенном уровне) and an interview. Those with better exam grades are more likely to be accepted. The availability of higher education has increased greatly in the second half of the twentieth century. But nevertheless universities take only the better students.




Elections

The system
Electoral system  is remarkably simple.  The country is divided into a number of areas of roughly equal population, known as constituencies. Anybody who wants to be an MP must declare himself as a candidate of one of constituencies. On polling  day votersgo to polling station and are each given the ballot paper with the names of the ΄candidates. Each voter put a cross next to the name of the ΄candidate. After the polls have closed the ballot papers are counted. The candidate with the largest number of votes is the winner and becomes the MP for the constituency. There is no counting of the proportion of votes for each party, no extra allocation of seats in Parliament.
Formal arrangements
Government takes a decision about the terms of an election. According to the law an election should be held at least every 5 years, but may be held at any time before the end of this term. If a government is popular then the election is often "called" after around 4 years in power.
Formally, it is not necessary to belong to a party to be a ΄candidate. Candidates don’t even have to live in the constituency . Supposed candidates have to deposit £500 with the Returning Officer and they get this money back if they get 5% of the votes or more. Candidates could include theirs “political description” on the ballot paper.
The campaign
To be ΄eligible to vote, a person must be at least eighteen years old and be on the electoral register.
There is the ΄contrast between formal arrangements and political reality campaign not only within the constituencies, but at a national level.
The amount of money that candidates are allowed to spend on their campaigns is strictly limited.
By agreement, they don’t buy time on TV.
΄Canvassing  is the activity, which occupies most of the time of local party workers and is a kind of election ritual.
It includes asking people about their intension to vote, observing the voting process, reminding people to vote, sometimes offering the transport and other activities.
Polling day
General elections always take place on a Thursday. There are not public holidays, so polling stations are open from 7 in the morning till 10 at night. As schools are used as polling stations pupils get a holiday.
Each voter has to vote at a particular polling station. After the polls close, the marked ballot papers are taken to a central place in the constituency and counted. The Returning Officer then makes a public announcement of the votes cast  for each candidate and declares the winner.
Election night
The period after voting has become a television extravaganza  .  Both BBC and ITV start their programmes as soon as voting finishes. The first excitement of the night is the race to declare. It is a matter of local pride for some constituencies to be the first to announce their result.  By midnight are making predictions about the compositions of the newly elected House of Commons. Some constituencies however are not able to declare their results until well into Friday afternoon because they are rural.
Recent results and the future
Since the middle of the 20th century the contest to form the government has effectively been a straight fight between the Labour and Conservative parties. Generally, the north of England and the most inner areas of English cities stand for the Labour party, and the south of England and most areas outside the inner cities stand for Conservative MP. Scotland used to be good territory  for the Conservatives. The Liberal party was traditionally strong in Scotland and Wales. Northern Ireland always has about the same proportion of Protestant Unionist and Catholic Nationalist MPs.
In the thirteen elections from 1945 to 1987 the Conservatives were generally more successful than Labour. In the 1992 election the Conservatives won the fourth time in a row. In 1997 the picture changed dramatically – Labour won the largest majority in the House of Commons. At any way, the winning party at election is the one who managed to get the support of the small number of “floating voters .



  
Religion
According to denomination  the overwhelming   majority of the residents of Britain belong to the Protestants,   the rest forming the ΄Catholic   and Presbyteria пресвитерианин (представитель пресвитерианства - религиозного течения, являющегося разновидностью кальвинизма в англоязычных странах)  minorities. Only 17% of the adult population of Britain belong to one the Christian churches, and this proportion continues to decline.
Today there is complete freedom of practice, regardless of religion or sect. But it was not always so. Until the mid-19th century those who did not belong to the Church of England the official, “established” or state church, were barred from some public offices.
There are two state Churches in Britain: the Church of England, or Anglican Church, and the Church of Scotland.
England was converted  to Christianity, in 597 AD when Roman Pope ([pəup] папа римский) sent St. ΄Augustine with about 40 monks to Britain to babtize King Ethelbert of Kent and so pave for the conversion of all England to Christianity. By the 8th century England was a Christian country under the ΄influence of the Roman Church.
The 40 Roman monks ([mʌŋk] монах) landed in Kent in ΄Saxon  town of Cantwara-byrig – “the borough of the men of Kent”, present  Canterbury, which became the cradle  of Christianity in Saxon  England. Canterbury Cathedral ( which was built in the same year and for 350 years was the destination) of countless pilgrims today is the Mother Church of Anglicans throughout the world.
In 1533 King Henry VIII, had broken away from Rome and declared himself head of the Church of England (the Protestant state church). Ever since 1534 the ΄monarch has been Head of the Church of England, which includes a wide variety of Protestant belief. The Archbishop of Canterbury is the most senior spiritual leader of the Church of England and is ΄Primate of All England.
There are other Christian Churches – the Free, or Nonconformist Churches (Any English Protestant who does not conform to the doctrines or practices of the established Church of England). The main ones are: the Methodist Union; the Baptists; the United Reformed Church; and the Salvation Army. The Roman Catholic Church returned to Britain in 1850.
Among other religions the oldest is Judaism. The Jews are divided into different religious groups.
There are also recently established religious groups: Hindus (1milion), Buddhism  , Muslims (1,5 million) and Sikhs. Muslim community is the most important. There are over 1000 mosques  and prayer centres, of which the most important is the London Central Mosque at Regent’s Park
The Church of England has always been closely identified with the ruling establishment and authority. It is used to be known as “the Tory Party at prayer”.
Most working-class people in England and Wales belong to the Nonconformist, or “Free” Churches. Generally speaking, 45% of the British people are Anglican, 9 – Catholic, 4 – Presbyterian, 3 – ΄Muslim, 2 – ΄Methodist, 1 – Hindu, other and non-religious make 36%. Customs and Traditions (National Character).
Almost every nation has a reputation of some kind. The British have been known as superior, snobbish, aloof, hypocritical and unsociable. Though these characteristics have been noted people from all over the world, the traditional opinion about British was based on the habits of those Britons, who could afford to travel: diplomats, merchants and those who were taught by Public School their stiff-upper-lip” philosophy. The British regard their own community as the centre of the world and look on foreigners in general with a slight contempt   and think that nothing is as well done elsewhere as in their own country. Andre Maurois, a French biographer  and novelist, described Britain as “a far country, far not in distance but in customs and idea” where it is so difficult for a foreigner “to find his depth”. British think that their important national values are ΄tolerance, ΄decency, moderation, consensus. As seen by outsiders, qualities of the typical British also include reserve and modesty, politeness and helpfulness, a gift for understatement and awkwardness with women and children. Many more books have been written by foreigners than by Englishmen on English traits and their authors are by no means always in agreement. The British people are known to be profoundly conservative by ΄temperament. They always prefer their glorious past with its reassurance to the uncertainty of the future.
The British are community-minded (социально активный) people. They have had a long tradition of democracy, not so much in the sense of creating formal institutions, but in the active sense of popular cooperation to uphold the will of the people. The British are individualist-minded people as well. Every ΄regiment in the army, every school or university, many municipal  corporations, clubs and other institutions tend to have their own uniform, traditions or their signs identifying them and making them different from others.
The Englishman’s home is his castle is the saying known all over the world. The British people more strongly than other nations are attached to their country and to their homes. The British are on guard of their privacy and respect privacy of other people. They prefer, whenever possible, sending a letter to making a telephone call which may happen to be untimely and intrusive.
Britain is supposed to be the land of law and order. The British deeply respect law, both written and unwritten, and strictly obey it. They never violate  traffic order  or game rules, they play fair and prefer to turn any conflict into a ΄compromise  . Many British people are guided by Victorian values and make them the principle of their life. Victorian values teach to work hard, to improve yourself, to live within your income, to give a hand to your neighbor, to respect yourself, to be self-reliant  , to be a good member of your community, to take it as duty to help others ΄voluntarily when you get greater prosperity, to have tremendous pride in your country.
The best known and universally marked qualities of the British people, especially English, are coldness and reserve. They do not talk very much to strangers, do not show their emotions openly.
Closely related to British reserve is British modesty.
 English people hate boastfulness).
Snobbery is not so common in England today as it was at the beginning of the century. It still exists, however, as the British accept and enjoy the distinctions of social class. George Bernard Show once made the famous remark that an Englishman cannot open his mouth without making some other Englishman despise him. For the way English is spoken gives away not only regional identity but class ΄status too. The so-called Received Pronunciation  (особ. выпускников привилегированных частных средних школ) systematically established through the Public School is the accepted ΄dialect of the national elite. The majority of middle class people speak a sort of classless, democratic version of RP, with a slight admixture of a local regional accent. The ΄Birmingham  is considered ugly, cockney.
Сockney dialect—is associated with criminals, ΄Scottish  is thought of as serious and sensible, Irish  as poetic. Westcountry  ΄accent  is identified with farm-workers, sometimes considered stupid by city folk.
The British people are great lovers of gardens, dogs and horses. Their devotion to animals and gardening is a tradition that is rooted not only in their own souls but in the minds of the rest of the world too.
Gardening is one of the most popular hobbies in the country.
Though Britain does not often produce world-famous sportsmen the British people are sport-lovers and taught the rest of the world organized games. Golf was first played in Scotland in the 15th century, cricket was first played in England in the 16th century. The first team sports such as football, rugby and hockey were first played in British Public Schools. There are also such sports as: fox-hunting, rowing and horse racing. But when a Briton, North Briton is neither playing nor watching games he likes to talk about them.
The British are a gambling nation. There are thousands of betting shops in Britain among them are bingo and football pools.
   The British people the world’s tea drinkers. They drink a quarter of all the tea grown in the world each year. In a British home there is the early morning cup of tea, tea at breakfast, tea at 11 o’clock in the morning, tea at lunch, then tea after lunch; there is tea for tea, tea for supper and then the last thing at night is tea.
   The British have the so called English sense of humor. This is perhaps the most fundamental   trait the British have in common. It is an ironic sense of humour which lends itself to self-caricature.
    Brutish people are polite in public much more than any other nation. Most British people expect the person in front of them to hold the door open for them.
A good conclusion about the British national character may be the reference to the words of Arthur Kolstler, a foreign writer who lived in Britain for many years and who described average Englishmen as an attractive hybrid between an ostrich hand the lion: keeping his head in the sand as long as possible, but when forced to confront reality capable of heroic deeds .
Bank holidays   
Every country and every nation has its own holidays, customs  and traditions. The British people are proud of their traditions, cherish them and carefully keep them up, because many of them are associated with the history and cultural development of the country. Speaking about British traditions we should distinguish bank, or public holidays, annual festivals  , celebrations and pageant  ceremonies.
The term “bank holiday” dates back to the 19th century when the Bank Holiday Acts of 1871 and 1875 declared certain days to be bank holidays, that is days on which banks were to be closed. Today their observance is no longer limited to banks only. Post offices, most factories and shops are closed too. There are 8 bank holidays: 1New Year’s Day, 2Good Friday, 3Easter Monday, 4May Day Bank Holiday, 5Spring Bank Holiday, 6August (or Summer) Bank Holiday, 7Christmas Day and 8Boxing Day. All public holidays, except New Year’s Day, Christmas Day and Boxing Day are movable, that is they do not fall on the same day each year.
Most of Bank holidays are of religious origin, and meant holy days. But for the greater part of the population they have long lost their religious significance and are simply days on which people relax, eat, drink and make merry.
     Christmas Day (рождество), which is the 25th of December, is the most widely celebrated and the most colourful and merry of all bank holidays.
On Christmas Eve everything is rush. Offices close at one o’clock, but the shops stay open late. The last preparations and purchases are made. Christmas trees are decorated, Christmas cards are arranged on shelves  and tables, stockings are hung over the end of the bed, a carrot for the reindeer is left on the mantelpiece.
People travel from all parts of the country to be at home for Christmas.
     Boxing Day (День подарков) on the 26th of December is the day of visiting friends, of giving Christmas boxes or gifts of money to servants. Many people still give a Christmas to paperboys  and papergirls. But most people sit in front of TV recovering from Christmas Day.
     New Year’s Day is on January 1. In England New Year is not as widely observed as Christmas. The most accepted type of celebration is New Year party. Most people see the old year out and the New Year in with their friends and relations. At midnight on New Year’s Eve when Big Ben is chiming everybody join hands and sing Robert Burn’s poem “The good old days”.
     Good Friday (Святая Пятница) is the Friday before ΄Easter when the church marks the death of Christ Jesus Christ Христос). On this day people eat hotcross-buns -  small sweet rolls marked on top with a cross. On Easter people give each other chocolate Easter eggs. Easter Monday is a traditional day the start of the summer tourist season, as schools close for two weeks.
     May Day Bank Holiday is the first Monday after May 1 (May Day). May Day which is a celebration of the coming of spring. Different outdoor events are held, and May-queen, the most beautiful girl of the celebration, is selected. In villages throughout Britain children dance and sing round the maypole to celebrate the end of winter and welcome summer.
Spring Bank Holiday falls on the last Monday in May. Summer (August) Bank Holiday is held on the last Monday in August. These two bank holidays are great days for excursions. In Britain people generally make a ΄beeline  for  the coast. Throngs of cars take to the road to get the family to some seaside resort for a bathe or a game on the beach. On the last weekend in August there is a big carnival at Notting  Hill in West London. People who take part in it drees up in ΄fabulous ΄costumes.
Festivals and ceremonies  
      Besides bank, or public, holidays there are festivals, anniversaries and celebration days on which certain traditions are observed, but unless they fall on a Sunday, they are ordinary working days. They are: St. Valentine’s Day, Pancake Day, April Fool’s Day, Bonfire Night or Guy Fawkes’ Night, Remembrance (or Poppy Day, Hallowe’en and many others including Royal Ascot -the biggest horse race in Britain, the Proms– a series of classical music concerts, the London ΄Marathon,  Harvest Festival, Dog Shows and so on.



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