XVII. Brash up your table manners.

A. Answer the following questions and then check youranswers by comparing litem with the answers below:

1. What is the correct way to sit at table? 2. Should you use your fork or your knife for taking a slice of bread from the bread-plate? 3. How should you get a slice of bread from the plate standing on the far end of the table? 4. What is the correct way of using spoon, fork and knife? 5. How should you cut your meat? 6. What are the dishes for which knife shouldn't be used? 7. What is the way to eat chicken? 8. What is one supposed to do with the stones while eating stewed fruit? 9. What should you do with the spoon after stirring your tea? 10. What should you do if your food is too hot? 11. What should you say to refuse a second helping? 12. What should you say if you like the dish very much? 13. What should you say if you dislike the dish? 14. What shouldn't one do while eating? 15. Where should one keep the newspaper or the book during a meal, on the table or on one's lap?

В. Make up dialogues discussing good and bad table manners. Use the material of Section A for questions and that of Section В for answers.

Answers toExercise XVII.

a) "It tastes (really) fine" or "It is delicious."

b) Never eat the stones (trying to be overpolite). Neither would it be a good idea to dispose of them by dropping them under the table, placing them in your pocket or in your neighbour's wine-glass. Just take them from your mouth on your spoon and place them on your own saucer.

c) Nowhere near the table. Reading at one's meals is a bad habit; it is bad for your digestion and impolite towards others sitting at the same table.

d) Sit straight and close to the table. Don't put your elbows on the table. Don't cross your legs or spread them all over the place under the table.

e) Never lean across the table or over your neighbours to get something out of your reach. Just say: "Please pass the bread." Or. "Would you mind passing the bread, please?"

f) Nothing. Keep your impressions to yourself and don't embarrass your hostess.

g) Fish dishes are generally eaten without using knife. If one does, it is considered a serious breach of good table manners. The same refers to rissoles, cereal and, in general, to anything that is soft enough to be comfortably eaten with spoon or fork.

h) Neither. Your hand is quite correct for getting a slice of bread for yourself. After all, it is you who is going to eat it.

i) While eating, one should produce as little noise or sound as possible. It is decidedly bad manners to speak with your mouth full. Don't put your bread in your soup. Don't pour your tea in your saucer. Don't leave much on the plate: it is impolite towards your hostess. If you have liked the dish, it doesn't follow that you should polish the plate with your bread.

j) Don't hold your spoon in your fist, don't tilt it so as to spill its contents. The fork should be held in your left hand, the knife in your right.

k) It is wrong first to cut all the meat you have got on your plate in small pieces and then eat it. Cut off a slice at a time, eat it, then cut off another, holding your knife in the right hand and your fork in the left.

l) "No more, thank you."

m) Cut off and eat as much as possible by using your knife and fork; the remaining part eat by holding the piece in your hand by the end of the bone.

n) Never cool your food by blowing at it. Just wait a bit, there is no hurry.

o) Don't leave your spoon in the glass while drinking. Put it on your saucer.

XVIII. a) Read and translate the following extracts:

1. Breakfast in the Jenssen home was not much different from breakfast in a couple of hundred thousand homes in the Great City. Walter Jenssen had his paper propped against the vinegar cruet and the sugar bowl. He read expertly, not even taking his eyes off the printed page when he raised his coffee cup to his mouth. Paul Jenssen, seven going on eight, was eating his hot cereal, which had to be sweetened heavily to get him to touch it. Myrna Jenssen, Walter's five-year-old daughter, was scratching her towhead with her left hand while she fed herself with her right. Myrna, too, was expert in her fashion: she would put the spoon in her mouth, slide the cereal off, and bring out the spoon upside down. Elsie Jenssen (Mrs. Walter) had stopped eating momentarily the better to explore with her tongue a bicuspid (коренной зуб) that seriously needed attention. (From "The Ideal Man" by J. O'Hara)

b) Comment on the table manners of the Jenssen family and say what you would do if you were the father or the mother:

2. While Anna prepared herself to meet her class of fortysix lively and inquisitive children her landlady was busy preparing the high tea for her husband and the new lodger.

She had screwed the old mincer to the kitchen table and now fed it with rather tough strips of beef, the remains of the Sunday joint. There was not much, to be sure, but Mrs. Flynn's pinch-penny spirit had been roused to meet this challenge and the heel of a brown loaf, a large onion, and a tomato on the table were the ingredients of the rest of the proposed cottage pie.

"If I open a tin of baked beans," said Mrs. Flynn aloud, "there'll be no need for gravy, I shan't waste gas unnecessarily!" She pursed her thin lips with satisfaction, remembering, with sudden pleasure, that she had bought the beans at a reduced price as "This Week's Amazing Offer" at the local grocer's. She twirled the handle of the mincer with added zest.

Yesterday's stewed apple, she thought busily, could be served out with a little evaporated milk, in three individual dishes. A cherry on top of each would make a nice festive touch, decided Mrs. Flynn in a wild burst of extravagance. She straightened up from her mincing and opened the store cupboard where she kept her tinned and bottled food. In the front row a small jar of cherries gleamed rosily. For one long minute Mrs. Flynn studied its charms, torn between opposite forces of art and thrift. Victory was accomplished easily. "Pity to open them," said Mrs. Flynn, slamming the cupboard door and returned to her mincing. (From "Fresh from the Country" by M. Reed)

c) Comment on the character of the landlady. Prove your statement.

XIX. Try your hand at teaching:

A. Preparation. Find some pictures and jokes on the topic and prepare to work with them in class. (See "Classroom English", Sections VII, VIII.)

B. Work in Class. 1. Tell a joke or show and describe a picture to the class. 2. Ask some questions to see if the listeners have grasped the meaning of your story. 3. If you want the students to use some new words write them on the blackboard, translate them, practise their pronunciation (in chorus) or usage (by making the students translate your sentences from English or Russian). 4. Tell the joke or describe the picture once more. 5. Make 1—2 students retell the joke (describe the picture) or make up a dialogue on the subject. 6. Correct the mistakes after the student has finished speaking. (See "Classroom English", Sections IX, X.)

XX. Role-playing:

Arrange a tea-party (at home or in the canteen). Two of the students are to act as host and hostess, having some friends round (2 or 3 of them are English). The main topic discussed at the party is traditions connected with meals. Each member of the group must tell a short story, joke or proverb to entertain the party.

XXI.. Arrange short debates on the following questions:

1. Should we stick to our custom of giving our guests a substantial meal? 2. How do you like the idea of celebrating family holidays in a cafe or restaurant? 3. Are old traditions, worth keeping?

STUDIES OF WRITTEN ENGLISH

IV

Repeating key-words in different ways and using topic -sentences properly within a paragraph are not the only writing techniques. Good writing no matter whether you are describing, narrating, arguing, or explaining should be well organized; that is, it should be under control of the central idea of the topic. Before starting to write any piece of prose you should organize your thoughts around a topic, you must have a plan or an outline.

Plan is a list of points which you intend to develop in your writing in logical order or in order of importance with reference to time, to point of view and to situation.

Note: The words "plan" and "outline" are sometimes used without sense discrimination. But it is better to use "plan" when the composition is not yet written or planning is made by the author. The word "outline" is used rather when dealing with a work already written by someone else.

The best way to learn how to make a good plan of your writing is to learn how to make an outline of original pieces of prose. There are different ways of writing an outline. It can be expressed in: 1) key-words or brief topic phrases (topic outline); 2) complete sentences (sentence outline); 3) groups of sentences containing the topic or main idea (paragraph outline). The choice depends on the length and complexity of the writing and experience of the beginner.

Examples: a) A sample topic outline of "A Day's Wait".

1. A very sick boy of nine years old.

2. Doctor's visit.

3. Feeling the same.

4. Leaving the boy for a while.

5. The boy's talk about death.

6. Argument about temperature.

7. Relaxation and nervous breakdown.

b) A sample sentence outline of "A Day's Wait".

1. The boy was shivering with fever, unwilling to go to bed.

2. The doctor took the boy's temperature and said there was nothing to worry about.

3. The boy seemed detached and kept looking at the foot of the bed.

4. The father went for a walk.

5. He came back and found the boy still staring at the foot of the bed.

6. The boy was sure he was going to die.

7. The father explained the difference between the Fahrenheit and Centigrade thermometers.

8. The boy relaxed, but the next day he cried very easily at little things that were of no importance.

Assignments:

1. Read the story "How We Kept Mother's Day" and make a topic outline of Its contents.

2. Make a sentence outline of the story.

3. Make a plan of your narration about the people presented is the picture (see p. 138).

LABORATORY EXERCISES (II)

1. a) listen to the test "An Englishman's Meals", mark the stresses and tunes. b) Repeat it in the intervals following the model.

2. a) Listen to the dialogue "At Table".

b) Repeat it in the intervals following the model.

c) Learn the text by heart.

3. Answer the questions using the given patterns.

4. Make up sentences using the given patterns.

5. Write a dictation.

6. Paraphrase the given sentences.

7. Translate the sentences into English. Check them with the key.

8. listen to the text "He Was Too Timid" or some other text on the topic "Meals". Get ready to give the summary in class.

CURIOSITY QUIZ FOR EAGERS

1. What is "Mother's Day"? Where and when is it celebrated?

2. What is a pub? What traditions are connected with if?

3. What is a bank holiday in Britain!

4. Describe some traditions or customs connected with family or public holidays in England.

5. What do the terms "Welsh Babbit", "Pancake Day" and "Dutch Treat" mean?

6. Find a story (an essay) or a passage in a novel by an English or American writer describing a meal. Give its summary in class.

UNIT FIVE

I SPEECH PATTERNS

1. I was sure to be put down in class nextto the girl... and she would whisper and giggle.

The children always came to see their grandmother on Sundays, and she would give them delicious pastries.

When asked this question, he would smile and say nothing.

When people met him in the street they would turn away and pretend not to know him.

2. Judy said she didn't know that people use d to be monkeys.

a) They used to be great friends.

There used to be a telephone-booth round the corner. I used to know him. Used you to know him.

b) He used to travel by plane, Use(d) n 't he? or Didn't he? (colloq.)

He used to work late at night.

Did he use to work late at night? (colloq.)

Judy's fellow-students used to laugh at her ignorance.

3. I'm not used to receiving presents.

She was not used to being treated unkindly.

It is too bad when a college student is not used to reading books.

The mother was used to doing all the work about the house alone.

Our students are used to working with a cassette-recorder.

4. It was Judy who had to read plain books.

It was shame, not fear, that made her cry. It was the last course that tasted especially good. It was the mother who decorated the house and prepared everything for the celebration.

It was my sisters who cooked all the dishes.

EXERCISES

I. Paraphrase the following using Patterns 1-3:

P a t t e r n 1: 1. By the end of the working-day he usually waited for her at the factory-gate and they went home together. 2. The spring days were warm and sunny, and the children spent much time out-of-doors. 3. When they sometimes asked him about his college days, he always answered that he had greatly enjoyed going to college. 4. The mother never complained; usually she only sighed and went on with her work. 5. Her husband often came back home tired and angry; at table he again and again found fault with the cooking. 6. When we told the mother how good everything tasted, she always said "Hunger is the best sauce."

P a t t e r n 2: 1. He was in the habit of saying that there is no game like football. 2. She always left the dishes unwashed in the kitchen sink and went away. 3. When he was a student he went to the library every other day. 4. My mother always made a splendid chocolate tart for my birthday. 5. When I was a child, our family always went to the seaside for summer holidays. 6. When he was younger, he was a pretty good dancer.

P a t t e r n 3:1. It's something new for me to be treated in this way. 2. Being made fun of was something quite unusual for her. 3. It was not the first time that the doctor was to treat this horrible disease. 4. I always work by such light, it is normal for me. 5. The child was never refused anything and considered it a normal state of things.

II. Make the following sentences emphatic using Pattern 4 as in the example:

Example: My friend told me everything about it.

It was my Mend who told me everything about it.

1. Doctor Temple cured Mrs. Greene's husband of his stomach disease. 2. Steve treated them all to ice-creams. 3. Her brother told us all about that terrible accident. 4. Your rudeness made her cry. 5. My mother does the cooking for all the family. 6. Those books made a deep impression on him and decided his future. 7. This noise doesn't let me concentrate on my work. 8. These students recited their own poems at the last party with a great success.

III. Translate these sentences into English:

1. Он имел обыкновение говорить, что лучшее средство от нервных болезней — труд. 2. Это мама, а не я, так красиво убрала стол цветами. 3. Каждый раз, когда он приходил он приносил мне книга, которые я должна была прочитать. 4. Я не привыкла петь перед такой большой аудиторией, но сегодня спою. 5. Его лечили этим лекарством от ангины, а не от воспаления легких. 6. Раньше ты приходил домой гораздо позже. 7. Каждый раз, когда шел дождь, он чувствовал себя хуже. 8. Ребенок привык, чтобы с ним обращались ласково. 9. Тебе, по-видимому, не нравится доктор Марч? Но ведь именно он вылечил меня от этого ужасного кашля. 10. Время от времени он переворачивал страницу, делая вид, что читает.

IV. Answer the questions: use would or used to.

N o t e: When the meaning is customary, repeated or habitual activity m the past, used to or would are interchangeable, е.g. Our teacher used to give her students a written test every Thursday. She would read them a story every week too.

For greater emphasis on the idea of past custom used to is preferable, е.g. He used to watch a children's program at that hour.

To express volition, or persistence referring to the past would is usually used; е.g. Several times he tried to get away, but they would not let him go.

1. How often would you write a composition when you were in the ninth form? 2. Would your teachers always correct your compositions? 3. Who used to help you with your homework? 4. What would you do during the summer? 5. Where did you use to go for your vacation? 6. When you were a child what did you use to do on Saturday afternoon? 7. What would you usually do on Sunday? 8. When your brother was younger, he used to play tennis, use(d) n 't he?