Find in the text equivalents to the following words and word combinations.

1. a structure or building that provides cover from weather or protection against danger; 2. legal procedure for taking a child into the family from an orphanage; 3. two people who are married, are living together; 4. somebody’s husband or wife; 5. the custom of having more than one spouse at the same time; 6. a relative by marriage; 7. somebody who is named as a sponsor when a child is baptized; 8. skill in making or doing things, especially by hand; 9. the people who live together in a single home; 10. the ending of a marriage by an official decision in a court of law; 11. the only one. 12. the woman whom a man is going to marry 13. the act of taking someone else's child into your home and legally becoming its parent. 14. the mother of your wife or husband.

Work with a partner. Ask him/her the following questions and make a note of his/her answers.

1. How many children, including you, are there in your family?

2. Are you the oldest child, the youngest child, or somewhere in the middle?

3. What is the age difference between the oldest child and the youngest?

4. What do you think is an ideal number of children to have in a family?

5. What is an advantage of your position in the family?

6. What is a disadvantage of your position in the family?

Look at the answers that you got from your partner and compare them with the answers he/she got from you. How many of your answers are the same? How similar are your families?

Try to make a list of all the members of your family: cousins, aunts, uncles, etc. Compare your list with your partner’s. Tell your group-mates about your family and your distant and close relatives both on your father’s and your mother’s sides.

A high school teacher in Oregon has developed an unusual course for helping people make intelligent decisions about marriage. Read the following text to see how you feel about Mr. Allen’s “Conjugal Preparation”.

The bridegroom dressed in a blue blazer and brown Adidas sneakers, nervously cleared his throat when his bride in traditional white, walked down the classroom aisle. As the mock minister led the students – and ten other couples in the room through familiar marriage ceremony, the giggles almost drowned him out. But it was no laughing matter. In the next semester, each couple would buy a house, have a baby and get a divorce.

In a most unusual course at Parkrose (Oreg.) Senior High School, social science teacher Cliff Alien leads his students through the trials of married life. Young marrieds must face the “nitty-gritty”[1] problems of housing insurance and child-care. Students act out in nine weeks what normally takes couples ten years to accomplish. In the first week each couple is required to get an after-school job – a real one. The third week the couple locate in an apartment they can afford.

In the fifth week the couple “have a baby” and then compute the cost of hospital and doctor bills, baby clothes and furniture. In week eight disaster strikes: the marrieds have a calamity like mother-inlaw’s moving in, death or imprisonment. It is all over by week nine (the tenth year of marriage). After lectures by marriage councillors and divorce lawyers and computations of alimony and child support, the students get divorced.

 

10. Say it in another way:

a man just married or about to be married; a woman just married or about to be married; false (imitation); a set of formal acts proper to a special occasion (marriage); painful experience, an instance of trouble or hardship, especially one that tests somebody’s ability to endure; concerning or involving the most important aspects of a subject; a great misfortune; an adviser; money a judge orders paid to a woman by her legally separated or divorced husband.

11. Use each of the following word combinations in sentences of your own:

ceremony; to get a divorce; to be expecting; housing insurance; financial problems; an after school job; mother-in-law; imprisonment; bill; care; councillor; alimony, married life, nitty-gritty.

12. Answer the following questions:

1. What are the “nitty-gritty” problems that Alien’s students must face during the course? 2. How long are the couples “married”? 3. How long does the course last? 4. What are some of the events of married life that the students “experience”? 5. What are the examples of the disasters that strike couples in the eighth week of the course? 6. How does the course affect the marriage plans of some students? 7. Do you think young people in Russia need to take such a course? 8. Why are there giggles in the classroom during the mock marriage ceremony? 9. Do you think the given scenario of a married life is true-to-life or not?

 

13. Translate the text into Russian:

At Bishop O’Dowd High School we have a course “Marriage and the Family”. I obviously

believe that all three institutions (family, school, church) should prepare people for marriage. Statistics on divorce, abortion, child-abuse and wife-battering indicate we are not doing a good enough job preparing people for marriage and child-rearing.

In addition to the situations created by Mr. Alien’s Course, Bishop O’Dowd students are required to study the following topics: 1) Premarital Sex; 2) Birth Control; 3) Abortion; 4) Rape-Sexual Assault; 5) Homosexuality; 6) Child-rearing Attitudes; 7) Communication; 8) Pregnancy; 9) Biology of Sex and Reproduction; 10) Extended families; 11) Extra-marital Relations.

The purpose of these studies is not to “convert” the students, but inform them of various

relations related to family, and to challenge the student to clarify their values and attitudes about these topics. The material is often controversial and arouses complaints by parents. Still it is important part of our curriculum.

(Meg Gorstky)

 

POINT OF GRAMMAR

Future Simple

FORM

 

Positive

I He She It We You They

will ('ll)

stay.

 

Question

Shall/will	I	stay?
Will	he she it
Shall/will	we
Will	you they

 

Negative

I He She It We You They

will not (won't)

stay.

 

Notes

• the negative contraction = won't.

• shall is not used very often now. We generally use it only as a first person

question (= with / or we) to make suggestions and offers:

Shall I carry your suitcase for you?

Shall we go to a restaurant?

USE

• For a statement of future fact. This can be

a) certain:

They'll be here on Saturday afternoon.

The journey will take six hours.

b) uncertain:

I think, it 'II rain tomorrow.

I'm not sure he'll be there.

Going to can also be used for this purpose.

• For a sudden decision to do something (usually used with / or we):

No one's offered to help? I'll do it for you!

Wait a minute - I'll open the door for you,

I think I'll have eggs and chips please.

• To show willingness to do or not to do something in the future (often as a

promise or a threat):

I promise I'll be there.

I'll never speak to him again.