After you read the extract complete your Vocabulary Map with the words you find relevant.

Unit II

I AM A UNIVERSITY STUDENT

2A	THE WORLD A PART OF WHICH YOU HAVE BECOME

‘To achieve the goal you need to be going.’

Dear friends,

You are already acquainted with the etiquette of interaction and know how to communicate in formal and informal situations. Now you are going to learn how to communicate effectively in academic situations. This Unit provides you with understanding of the notion ‘university’ and introduces the University Community to you. We, the authors, are members of this Community, just as you are now. We joined this community many years ago, first learning to understand and appreciate its values as students, and later as teachers and researchers. You certainly agree that basic university values are timeless and universal which makes them important for students of all generations.

Now you are a university student, which means that you have joined the global university community. You have received a privilege to get to know it by using a foreign language and knowledge of a different language culture.

You already know that to have a good command of a foreign language for communicating with a foreigner is not just to know a certain amount of words and grammar rules. You cannot be an effective communicator without understanding the situations of communication and the communities you interact with. Thus, to study at university and to communicate with university people you need to know this particular community and its rules of interaction.

To acquaint you with various situations that students face at university is the purpose of Section 2A. Here you will get an opportunity to analyze and simulate communication ‘putting on’ different roles and acting on behalf of different university members. To understand who these members are you will get information about the structure of your university and your faculty. This understanding will help you plan your communication with university authorities beforehand and, thus, enhance your efficiency in reaching particular communicative goals. To realize your own position and prospects better you will have to identify how university differs from other educational establishments. You will see then what career prospects this University World provides you with. Finally, after you have a general picture of University, you will get a chance to improve your actual every-day communication by realizing the types and purposes of different texts that surround you at university.

Turn over this page and open the door to our university world.

· university as a special world

· university, faculty and chair structures

· careers at university

· sciences taught at university

· techniques of learning

· name and address the members of university community

· read and understand tables and charts

· speak about career prospects

· make Vocabulary, Semantic and Cognitive Maps

· collecting and using the vocabulary on the topic

· identifying communicative situation

· grasping and rendering texts about your new world

· talking to different university members

· creating texts typical of university

·

· vocabulary and speech patterns

· suffixes for jobs and professions

· some phrasal verbs

 

`

Πvocabulary building

² 1 Listen to the dialogues (Audio Recording 4) and simultaneously look through them marking where they could take place?

 

1 …………………………………………………………………..

– Hi, Jane! What a surprise to see you here on campus! I bet you * are a student already.

– Hi, Kate! You are right. I’ve entered the Information and Communication Department of the Institute of Journalism, this year. How about you?

– Oh, I am doing my third year here, at the university. By the way, I study in a similar department; the only difference is that mine is in the Faculty of Philosophy and Social Sciences. Anyway, they have classes in the same building so we’ll see each other quite often.

– Sounds great! And what do you major in?

–PR management.

– Me too. After graduation I am planning to work in advertising business so I specialize in this field.

 

2 …………………………………………………………………..

– Excuse me, I’m not quite sure how to get to the Department of International Affairs. I am from Poland, actually, and I am here on the Erasmus program. Could you help me, please?

– Sure. You should go to the administrative part of this building. The office is on the ground floor, room 110. Turn to the left, go down the stairs and then turn to the right. Ask for the Erasmus coordinator.

– Thank you! That’s very helpful.

– Good luck!

 

3 …………………………………………………………………..

– Andrew, do you have any idea what classes we are having tomorrow?

– Colloquium on argumentation, first class in the morning.

– Oh, no! I’ve quite forgotten about the colloquium. I am afraid I won’t be ready for it. I haven’t done any reading yet. It just couldn’t be worse.

– How come?

– You know, I’ve lost my Xerox copy of the timetable and mixed up some classes.

– That’s not good. Do you want me to send you our time-table by e-mail? I can do it tonight when I am home after the classes.

– That’ll be great, thank you so much.

 

4 …………………………………………………………………..

– Good morning, Professor. I am calling to find out whether we are gathering in the Dean’s Office today for our Academic Council session.

– Morning, colleague. In fact, today we are having a joint meeting of the Academic Council and Students’ Association and our library staff in two hours. We are meeting this time in room 119, which can fit us all.

– Thank you. Sorry for bothering you.

– You are welcome!

5 …………………………………………………………………..

– Any plans for tonight, Steve?

– Nothing special. It looks* like I can relax a bit. And what about you?

– Oh, I’ve got a huge assignment. I doubt if I’ll manage to prepare it for tomorrow.

– Oh, dear. Is it really so much?

– Yes, tomorrow we are having English. I have words to learn and a text to render and I must tell you this text is really difficult to grasp. When I first looked it over*, I could hardly make any head or tail of what it’s all about. I need to work with it. Plus I need to be ready for making a group presentation, and I cannot find any material on the Internet. So I’ll have to look for* the sources in the library.

 

6 …………………………………………………………………..

– Bon appétit, Mike. How’s it going?

– Today it’s been the first time that I gave students a twenty-minute lecture in the course of my scientific supervisor. Have you already had any experience in lecturing?

– Of course, I have. This is a usual thing for a second year post-grad.

– Do you find it difficult to do?

– I really enjoyed it. The lecture I gave was on the same topic as my postgraduate paper. There were several situations when I didn’t feel comfortable, though. The students asked me tricky questions, you know, and I had to use all my expertise not to fail.

 

Ñ 2 Read and/or listen to the dialogues again and define their communicative situations * in a little more detail – find out who is talking, with whom, where, when, and on what occasion.

Dialogue No	Addresser (who)	Addressee (with whom)	Time (when)	Place (where)	Event (on what occasion)

Ñ 3 Think of the aspects of the university life presented in the scheme below. Which of them were mentioned in the dialogues? What other aspects could be considered as parts of university life?

4 Using the material of the dialogues and the previous tasks you can make a personal vocabulary – a Vocabulary Map – to help you speak on the topic of University. In Appendix 5 (p. 179) read about Vocabulary Maps and build such a map centered around the concept ‘University’.

5 Read an extract from the dictionary entry ‘ School ’. It is taken from The New American Roget’s College Thesaurus in Dictionary Form. Explain why all these words appeared in the same entry.

Text 1

 

University is an institution of higher education, usually comprising liberal arts and sciences colleges, graduate and professional schools and having the authority to confer degrees in various fields of study. A university differs from a college in that it is usually larger, has a broader curriculum, and offers graduate and professional degrees in addition to undergraduate degrees.

Text 2

In the Middle Ages with the help of the word ‘ universitas’ (in Latin ‘sets of universus’ that is holistic combination of many) different communities were called, such as comradeships, merchants' guilds, trade-production shops etc. On analogy other newly appearing communities, such as open schools started to be called ‘ universitas magistrorum et scholarium’ (as corporation of teachers and students); and only with time the educational establishments started to be called first ‘ studium ’ (school), then ‘ studium generale ’ (general school); the attribute ‘ generale ’ pointed out at the international character of an educational establishment; later the term started to mean the curriculum of higher schools which unites the whole set of sciences (‘ universitas literarum ’).

(Smirnov, S.A. Russian higher school: on the way to new institutions

Retrieved from http://www.antropolog.ru/doc/persons/smirnov/smirnov17)

 

 

Ž Reading charts and tables

A chart is

1) a simple outline map on which information can be plotted or written.

2) a sheet giving information in the form of diagrams, tables and illustrations.

(Chart. In Webster’s New World of the American Language)

A table is

1) a compact, systematic list of details, contents, etc.;

2) a compact arrangement of related facts, figures, values, etc. in orderly sequence, and usually in rows and columns, for convenience;

3) a reference as the multiplication table.

(Table. In Webster’s New World of the American Language)

 

1On the following three pages there are several charts. Can you 'read' them?

Chart 4. Academic Career

² 4 Listen to Audio Recording 5, follow the speaker and repeat the names of sciences registered by academician structures. Fill in the right column of the table with the names of the faculties where these sciences are studied at your university.

Codes – names of sciences

Names of faculties

01.00.00 – Physical and mathematical sciences 02.00.00 – Chemical sciences 03.00.00 – Biological sciences 05.00.00 – Technical sciences 06.00.00 – Agricultural sciences 07.00.00 – Historical sciences 08.00.00 – Economic sciences 09.00.00 – Philosophical sciences 10.00.00 – Philological sciences 12.00.00 – Legal sciences 13.00.00 – Pedagogical sciences 14.00.00 – Medical sciences 15.00.00 – Pharmaceutical sciences 16.00.00 – Veterinary sciences 17.00.00 – Art criticism 18.00.00 – Architecture 19.00.00 – Psychological sciences 22.00.00 – Sociological sciences 23.00.00 – Political sciences 24.00.00 – Cultural studies 25.00.00 – Earth sciences

INFORMATIONAL TEXTS

1 …………………………………………………………………..

№	Position/Department	Room	Office Hours
	Rector		Monday –Friday: 8.30– 13.00, 14.00– 17.15
	Post-graduate Department		Monday –Friday: 8.30– 13.00, 14.00– 17.15
	Accommodation Department		Monday –Friday: 8.30– 13.00, 14.00– 17.15
	Labour and Salary Department		Monday –Friday: 8.30– 13.00, 14.00– 17.15
	International Affairs Department		Monday –Friday: 8.30– 13.00, 14.00– 17.15
	Personnel Management Department		Monday –Friday: 8.30– 13.00, 14.00– 17.15

2 …………………………………………………………………..

1^st year

1^st term

 

Code

Discipline

Credit Points

Academic work

Credit

L

T

S

PT

Lab

Pr

АНЛI1113

Literature of the Antiquity

E

ВЯЗ2113

Introduction into Linguistics

E

СРЯ2113

Contemporary Russian

–

–

E

КЛЯ1113

Classic Languages (Latin, Greek)

C

ВСП2113

Introduction into Specialisation

E

Optional discipline (S1)

ИГРI2123

History and Geography of Russia

E

ЧЦР2123

Features of Russian Civilization

E

Total:

2^nd year

3^rd term

 

Code	Discipline	Credit Points	Academic work	Credit
	L	T	S	PT	Lab	Pr
ИРЯ1113	The Russian Language History								E
АЛТV2113	Literary Text Analysis								E
СРЯ2213	Contemporary Russian								E
СПЯ1213	Seminar on Linguistics								E
ЗЛ1113	Foreign Literature (medieval times – part 1 of XIX century.)								E
	Optional Discipline (a foreign language)								C
	Optional discipline								E
	Total:

 

 

L – lectures, T – tutorials, S – seminars, PT – practical training, Lab – laboratory work, Pr – practice, E – examination, C – credit

3 …………………………………………………………………..

 

 

SOCIOLOGY

2009/10

 

Monday 21^st – Friday 25^th September 2009

Date	Time	Activity	Room
21/09/09	09.00 – 10.00	Registration	Levels 3+4 Refectory (University Building)
	10.30 – 11.30	Vice Chancellor’s Speech (optional)	Oliver Thompson Lecture Theatre (Tait Building)
	14.30 – 15.30	School of Social Sciences Induction	Oliver Thompson Lecture Theatre (Tait Building)
	15.30 – 17.00	Reception for all Undergraduate Students	Oliver Thompson Theatre Foyer (Tait Building)
22/09/09	N/A	None – self study day	N/A
23/09/09	09.30 – 12.00	Introduction to the Department of Sociology	D111/112/113 (Social Sciences Building)
	13.00 – 15.00	City Space Inductions	D518 (Social Sciences Building)
24/09/09	10.00 – 12.00	Studying Sociology session	D111/112/113 (Social Sciences Building)
	13.00 – 15.00	Meeting with Personal Tutor / Module Choice selection	Various (Social Sciences Building)
25/09/09	10.00– 12.00	Language Placement Test* (optional)	D104 (Social Sciences Building)

 

* On Wednesday morning, you will be divided into groups for an IT session on Wednesday afternoon.

** Please note: If you are considering taking a language as an optional module, you will need to attend a placement test to assess your level of competence. These take place between 10.00 and 12.00 on Friday, 25th September in Room D104, Social Sciences Building.

All First Year Students are expected to attend EVERY session on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday.

(Retrieved from http://www.city.ac.uk/social/dps/2009-2010/BSc%20Sociology%20induction%20schedules.doc.)

 

4 …………………………………………………………………..

Ñ2 Which of informational texts from Task 1 do you need if

· you want to find your friend on Wednesday at 2 p.m. and you know that he is studying at this time at the university?

· you want to join your university theater (debate club, etc)?

· you want to become a dormitory resident?

· you are a 2^nd year student and want to know how many subjects (courses) you can choose?

· you want to know how many credits you’ll get for the elective course?

 

1 3 Now create texts of these types:

§ Get acquainted with the study program of your major and make a list of subjects which you are studying this academic year. Write it in the form of a Studies Program.

§ Write your timetable in English.

§ Recall the announcements you have read recently in your university (faculty, institute). Share the information you have learned from them with your groupmates. Create an announcement of your own.

Video 1

Ñ 1 Watch Video Recording 6 about the structure of the University of Idaho (USA). After watching, tick the themes that were discussed in the presentation.

 

r the college that the listeners will be housed in;

r the colleges that are parts of the University of Idaho;

r future specializations of the audience;

r classes taught at the University of Idaho;

r the colleges that pertain to the audience of this presentation;

r the use of acronyms for the colleges names.

 

Ñ 2 Listen and/or watch the presentation once again and fill in the gaps in the following statements.

1. There is the University which _____________________________ ten different colleges. The colleges ________________________________, and each of you, students, will ________________________________ one of the departments.

2. Well, now, that you are the University of Idaho student, people will ask you what college ______________________________. And what they are asking is which one of these ten different colleges __________________________________.

3. Down in the bottom right column we have two colleges that __________________ to anyone in this room. And those are the College of Graduate Studies and the College of Law. Those are colleges that you will __________________ after you complete your bachelor's degree. The colleges on the left and the top right are the eight colleges that house ___________________________. And the undergraduate program is what you are part of ___________________________________.

4. Where appropriate I have included _________________________, because we at the University, were so used to these ______________________________ that we use acronyms all the time.

 

Ñ 3 Fill in the expressions with the words from the table.

 

University college(s) department(s) degree students program

 

……… is divided into ………

……… contains ……………..

………….. are in …………….

……….. belong to …………..

………… pertain to …….……

…………….. enroll in ……..………

……………... house ………..……...

…………. are housed in …….….…

……….… pursue their ….…………

…………….. complete …….………

Video 2

Ñ 1 Watch Video Recording 7 about Deakin University (Australia). While watching decide about the right choice in the following statements:

1. The girl is at Deakin Uni because

 

a) she is a correspondent, making a photo report for a newspaper

b) it is an open day at the university

c) she is just having a walk

 

2. Here there are

 

a) three campuses

b) four campuses

c) one campus

 

3. Faculty of Science and Technology is recognized globally for its

 

a) professionalism

b) professional and industry relevance

c) progress

 

4. Faculty of Science and Technology trains future

 

a) scientists, architects and engineers, as well as specialists in the areas of environment and information technology

b) scientists, architects and engineers

c) environment and information technology specialists

 

5. Faculty of Arts has

 

a) 3000 full time students

b) 500 full time students

c) 3500 full time students

 

6. Faculty of Arts provides pure and applied research in

 

a) performing and creative arts

b) humanities, social sciences as well as performing and creative arts

c) humanities and social sciences

 

7. Faculty of Business and Law offers a wide range of courses in the fields of

 

a) law and business

b) law, business and management

c) law, business, management and information technology

 

8. The courses at the Faculty of Business and Law are

 

a) relevant

b) give hands on experience

c) relevant and focus on giving students hands on experience

 

9. Faculty of Health, Medicine, Nursing and Behavioral Sciences offers many general and specialized health related courses including

 

a) nursing, psychology, social work, nutrition

b) nursing, psychology, social work, nutrition and occupational therapy

c) nursing, psychology, social work and occupational therapy

 

10. Faculty of Education offers

 

a) undergraduate and graduate programs

b) undergraduate, graduate and post-graduate programs

c) graduate programs

 

Text 1

Faculty (from Latin ‘ facultas ’ – possibility, capability) – a part of the higher educational establishment, where a certain cycle of adjoining scientific courses is being taught. F. is an educational-organizational part of a higher educational establishment which unites chairs (departments) that train students and postgraduates in a number of related courses. (Note: in the USA universities ‘faculty’ means ‘teachers’.)

Text 2

Rector (in Latin ‘ rector ’ – ruler, leader from ‘ rego ’ – to reign) – the head of a university and a number of other higher educational establishments. R. is appointed to lead all activities of the university or other higher educational institution including curricula and programs functioning and planning of research activities. R. is a chairperson at the meetings of the Scientific Council of the university and approves its decisions.

 

10 points

Below there is a list of criteria that can be of importance when one chooses a university to study at. Discuss these criteria and mark if they were considered by you when you made up your mind about the university to enter.

№	Criteria	Criterion significance (yes/no)
	the date of university foundation
	its location
	its prestige
	well known graduates in the country (Europe, world)
	the number of faculties, specializations, curricula, professors and associate professors, students
	its educational equipment, material base
	the quality of education
	the educational standards a university gives
	practical skills a university gives
	the acceptance of university diplomas abroad

1 4 Present the most significant criteria for choosing a university in the Vocabulary Map. You can include the criteria mentioned in Task 3 and/or add new ones.

	My University
		the newest in my country

& 5 Read the text ‘ Types of Universities’ and find information on different types of universities and different types of teaching.

While reading write out words and expressions that describe teaching and fill in the table below:

University Type	Type of Teaching	Words and Expressions
Industrial Shop Corporation	associative pedagogy (a teacher is a model)	to get the mysteries of trade from hand to hand; to keep to an educational pattern.
Classical Research University	…	…
…	…	…
…	…	…
…	…	…

Types of Universities

 

There are several types of Universities that historically changed each other and were different in the way of study.

 

Industrial Shop Corporation

First European Universities originated from Industrial Shop Corporations. Sorbonne and University of Prague featured shops of masters. Pupils gathered around the master (teacher) to get the mysteries of trade from hand to hand, by the teacher in person. The teacher had a small number of pupils. Such conditions of teaching formed Associative Pedagogy. Nowadays this form of teaching disappeared as a University type, but the importance of associative pedagogy still exists. This is the way Brahmanas and Daoists have been taught now. Orthodox Cloisters keep to this educational pattern as well. This type of university emphasises the role of a teacher as a model.

 

Factory University

 

Gradually by XX century, with its intensive industrial development, Factory University had come into demand. This type of University prepared a great number of specialists to satisfy the needs of the developing economy.

This is the type of University where science takes the sidelines and, instead of assimilating the scientific basics, students assimilate different systems of knowledge, packed in academic subjects. Moreover, students learn a great number of subjects (about 80-100). This mass model resembles an educational conveyor that follows a certain curriculum. A new figure appears here – that of a teacher-specialist who, following the standard scheme, transfers estranged knowledge. His task is to prepare hundreds and thousands of specialists who know and can use a standard set of actions and procedures.

This model is still followed by the majority of Russian Universities. Due to the rapidly developing economy, knowledge amplification, and the boost of professional requirements, this University type is losing its positions.

 

Supermarket University

AfterWorld War II, due to democratization, education in developed countries was becoming more and more affordable. While it was seen as a service that was bringing high income, education became a separate branch of economy. It was profitable because of the fact that universities were treated as big supermarkets with a great number of services to be bough and the students, just like customers in these supermarkets, were given an opportunity to choose the services that they needed.

This model, worked out in American universities, is associated with the credit* system of education. Students study academic disciplines the majority of which they choose out of the list proposed. Each course, when passed, gives a student definite number of credits. In this case credits serve as standard units necessary for control and for transferring students to their next year, another course or from one University to another.

A new figure of educational manager appears with this type of universities. He doesn't treat students as individuals. His job is to ensure the process of students’ following educational schemes as well as to control the work of the educational mechanism in general. The amount of direct contact between the professors and students is minimized. Such a system requires students’ independent work that is why professors ask more than answer.

 

Project University

 

This type also originated in developed countries, in particular, in the advanced US universities and in the best Universities of the former USSR. This type does not presuppose teaching groups of students. It focuses on familiarizing students with early professional training by involving students into the work at places of their future professional activity (industrial companies, corporations and laboratories).

There is a very slight difference between teachers and students in this type of universities. Team work is necessary here. Students and postgraduates, involved into a scientific project, form a project team. Team members specialize in different spheres and pursue their own goals in the project. Quite a concrete input into the project is required from everyone. Being in the process of carrying out projects, students get educated. It’s important that besides universal knowledge, students acquire creative thinking skills, communicative and business competence.

This type is impossible on a massive scale, for such a university cannot be very big, with a high number of students. This type can be 'built-in' as separate educational modules (colleges, institutes and/or business schools) of big University Corporations.

Network University

By virtue of the contemporary tendency towards international relations expansion, world business and economy formation, global corporation and Universities competition growth, Universities (especially the strongest ones) started the so-called network model development.

Network universities have affiliates in different regions and countries. All the subsidiaries work under common international programs, such as double diplomas programs, joint projects and research programs. Besides teaching future specialists, they produce strategies of a country/region/city development, development of economy, projects and programs for business companies and corporations. In such conditions a network university is not just an educational establishment, it`s a kind of a holding company, fulfilling different culture functions.

This is the only type to survive in contemporary conditions. It`s impossible for a university to survive with a single educational function aiming at transmitting experience.

(Smirnov, S.A. Russian higher school: on the way to new institutions.

Retrieved from http://www.antropolog.ru/doc/persons/smirnov/smirnov17)

In the text there are a number of sentences where Passive Voice is used. Did you have any difficulties in recognizing such sentences and translating them into Russian? If ‘yes’, go to Grammar and Vocabulary File. Passive Voice, p. 151.

 

Using the Vocabulary that you have collected in this section discuss with your groupmates the type of the University you study at, the type of teaching that is being practiced there and the type of teaching you would like to experience.

 READING AND INTERPRETING

Interpret – verb, [T] to explain; to translate; to construe; to give one’s own conception of, as in a play or musical composition.

verb, [I] to serve, to translate as an interpreter for speakers of different languages.

Interpretation is explanation; meaning; translation; exposition; the expression of a person’s conception of anything (text, piece of art, etc.).

(Interpretation. (2009). In The Dictionary of the English Language.

Retrieved from http://www.thefreedictionary.com/interpretation)

1 Read and compare texts and their interpretations. Answer the questions:

· What is the difference between the original text and its interpretation?

· What is the difference between interpretations given here and the renderings that you made in Section 2A?

№ 1.Knowledge (scientia) is a word that may define the conditions under which actual understanding of what is true and what is false takes place; it may also define the act of pure speculation (speculation as thinking, considering); it may also define the prerequisites of the act of learning. Knowledge is the condition of teaching under which the student starts to learn from their own experience and in this case it is called research; otherwise knowledge is transmitted by somebody; in this case knowledge means a doctrine for the teacher and a discipline for the student.

Interpretation: As we see, knowledge is the interpretation of one’s experience. The conditions, whether we (1) obtain knowledge by living, or (2) take knowledge from teachers completely relying on them, we most evidently choose by ourselves. In any case, if one chooses the second approach to obtain knowledge (that is, completely relying on teachers), it is worth knowing that even having learnt a discipline, one needs to check it by their own experience; otherwise knowledge is nothing but the doctrines of the others.

 

№ 2.‘ Scientia is a science taught and studied, so its followers (adepts) are a doctor and a scholar, a master and a student in their holistic settings (linkages), otherwise, a scientist (the one who knows) and a learner (the one who learns how to become one)’.

Interpretation: Here we see the significance of interaction to obtain knowledge, as a person who studies and the one who teaches are forming a holistic set, a linkage: each element of the linkage is molding the other (each is the cortege [1] of the other).

№ 3. ‘ Lectio means to listen to and get some information, to see and differentiate by seeing; to read and listen at the same time. Lectio also means collecting, making choices, reading, but also texts and their comments ….’

 

Interpretation: Studying the meaning of Latin words we can discuss what ‘lectures’ or ‘classes’ at university are. Lecture is not aimed at giving knowledge. Its aim is to give opinions, attitudes, evaluation and choices (what is worth paying attention to and what is not, which definition to choose and which not). A lecture is the very beginning of knowledge: it is aimed at pushing you to reading, thinking, research, pushing you to real cognition. Listening to lectures is just a starting step to obtain knowledge.

Review (n)

1) a brief statement or account of the main points of something;

2) a formal assessment or examination of something with the possibility or intention of instituting change if necessary;

3) a critical appraisal of a book, play, movie, exhibition, etc., published in a newspaper or magazine.

(Review (1997). In Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English.)

 

Review (v)

inspect, overlook, reconsider, re-examine, retrace, revise, survey; analyze, criticize, discuss, edit, judge, scrutinize, study.

(Review (2002). In Concise Edition Dictionary and Thesaurus.)

Report (n)

1) an account given of a particular matter, esp. in the form of an official document, after thorough investigation or consideration by an appointed person or body;

2) a spoken or written description of an event or situation, esp. one intended for publication or broadcast in the media press;

3) a teacher's written assessment of a student's work, progress, and conduct, issued at the end of a term or academic year.

(Report (1997). In Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English.)

 

Report (v)

announce, annunciate, communicate, declare; advertise, broadcast, bruit, describe, detail, herald, mention, narrate, noise, promulgate, publish, recite, relate, rumor, state, tell; minute, record.

(Report (2002). In Concise Edition Dictionary and Thesaurus.)

Presentation (n)

1) a demonstration or display of a product or idea;

2) the manner or style in which something is given, offered, or displayed.

(Presentation (1997). In Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English.)

Present (v)

introduce, nominate; exhibit, offer; bestow, confer, give, grant; deliver, hand; advance, express, prefer, proffer, tender.

(Presentation (2002). In Concise Edition Dictionary and Thesaurus.)

& 1 Look through the text Leonardo da Vinci. Express your opinion whether you share the idea by Liana Bortolon and really 'view Leonardo with awe'.

Liana Bortolon (1967) ‘Because of the multiplicity of interests that spurred him to pursue every field of knowledge Leonardo can be considered, quite rightly, to have been the universal genius par excellence, and with all the disquieting overtones inherent in that term. Man is as uncomfortable today, faced with a genius, as he was in the 16th century. Five centuries have passed, yet we still view Leonardo with awe’.

Leonardo da Vinci

(April 15, 1452 – May 2, 1519)

1. Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinchi was an Italian polymath, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, painter, sculptor, architect, botanist, musician and writer. Leonardo has often been described as the archetype of the Renaissance man, a man whose unquenchable curiosity was equaled only by his powers of invention. He is widely considered to be one of the greatest painters of all time and perhaps the most diversely talented person ever to have lived. According to art historian Helen Gardner, the scope and depth of his interests were without precedent and ‘his mind and personality seem to us superhuman, the man himself mysterious and remote’.

2. Born the illegitimate son of a notary, Piero da Vinci, and a peasant woman, Caterina, at Vinci in the region of Florence, Leonardo was educated in the studio of the renowned Florentine painter, Verrocchio. Leonardo was and is renowned primarily as a painter. Two of his works, the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper, are the most famous; most reproduced and most parodied portrait and religious painting of all time, respectively, their fame approached only by Michelangelo's Creation of Adam. Leonardo's drawing of the Vitruvian Man is also regarded as a cultural icon.

3. In 1466, at the age of fourteen, Leonardo was apprenticed to one of the most successful artists of his day, Andrea di Cione, known as Verrocchio. Verrocchio's workshop was at the centre of the intellectual currents of Florence, assuring the young Leonardo of an education in the humanities. Other famous painters apprenticed or associated with the workshop include Ghirlandaio, Perugino, Botticelli, and Lorenzo di Credi. Leonardo would have been exposed to a vast range of technical skills and had the opportunity to learn drafting, chemistry, metallurgy, metal working, plaster casting, leather working, mechanics and carpentry as well as the artistic skills of drawing, painting, sculpting and modeling. By 1472, at the age of twenty, Leonardo qualified as a master in the Guild of St Luke, the guild of artists and doctors of medicine.

4. Leonardo is revered for his technological ingenuity. He conceptualized a helicopter, a tank, concentrated solar power, a calculator, the double hull and outlined a rudimentary theory of plate tectonics. Relatively few of his designs were constructed or were even feasible during his lifetime, but some of his smaller inventions, such as an automated bobbin winder and a machine for testing the tensile strength of wire, entered the world of manufacturing unheralded. As a scientist, he greatly advanced the state of knowledge in the fields of anatomy, civil engineering, optics, and hydrodynamics.

5. In 1482 Leonardo, who according to Vasari was a most talented musician, created a silver lyre in the shape of a horse's head.

6. Many of Leonardo's most prominent pupils or followers in painting either knew or worked with him in Milan, including Bernardino Luini, Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio and Marco D'Oggione.

7. Renaissance humanism saw no mutually exclusive polarities between the sciences and the arts, and Leonardo's studies in science and engineering are as impressive and innovative as his artistic work, recorded in notebooks comprising some 13,000 pages of notes and drawings, which fuse art and natural philosophy (the forerunner of modern science). These notes were made and maintained daily throughout Leonardo's life and travels, as he made continual observations of the world around him. His notes and drawings display an enormous range of interests and preoccupations, some as mundane as lists of groceries and people who owed him money and some as intriguing as designs for wings and shoes for walking on water. There are compositions for paintings, studies of details and drapery, studies of faces and emotions, of animals, babies, dissections, plant studies, rock formations, whirl pools, war machines, helicopters and architecture.

8. Leonardo's approach to science was an observational one: he tried to understand a phenomenon by describing and depicting it in utmost detail, and did not emphasize experiments or theoretical explanation. Since he lacked formal education in Latin and mathematics, contemporary scholars mostly ignored Leonardo the scientist, although he did teach himself Latin. In the 1490s he studied mathematics under Luca Pacioli and prepared a series of drawings of regular solids in a skeletal form to be engraved as plates for Pacioli's book De Divina Proportione, published in 1509.

9. It appears that from the content of his journals he was planning a series of treatises to be published on a variety of subjects. A coherent treatise on anatomy was said to have been observed during a visit by Cardinal Louis D'Aragon's secretary in 1517. Aspects of his work on the studies of anatomy, light and the landscape were assembled for publication by his pupil Francesco Melzi and eventually published as Treatise on Painting by Leonardo da Vinci in France and Italy in 1651, and Germany in 1724, with engravings based upon drawings by the Classical painter Nicholas Poussin. According to Arasse, the treatise, which in France went into sixty two editions in fifty years, caused Leonardo to be seen as ‘the precursor of French academic thought on art’.

10. A recent and exhaustive analysis of Leonardo as Scientist by Frtijof Capra argues that Leonardo was a fundamentally different kind of scientist from Galileo, Newton and other scientists who followed him. Leonardo's experimentation followed clear scientific method approaches, and his theorising and hypothesising integrated the arts and particularly painting, these, and Leonardo's unique integrated, holistic views of science make him a forerunner of modern systems theory and complexity schools of thought.

11. During his lifetime Leonardo was valued as an engineer. In a letter to Ludovico il Moro he claimed to be able to create all sorts of machines both for the protection of a city and for siege. When he fled to Venice in 1499 he found employment as an engineer and devised a system of moveable barricades to protect the city from attack. He also had a scheme for diverting the flow of the Arno River in order to flood Pisa. His journals include a vast number of inventions, both practical and impractical. They include musical instruments, hydraulic pumps, reversible crank mechanisms, finned mortar shells, and a steam cannon.

12. In 1502, Leonardo produced a drawing of a single span 720-foot (240 m) bridge as part of a civil engineering project for Ottoman Sultan Beyazid II of Istanbul. The bridge was intended to span an inlet at the mouth of the Bosporus known as the Golden Horn. Beyazid did not pursue the project, because he believed that such a construction was impossible. Leonardo's vision was resurrected in 2001 when a smaller bridge based on his design was constructed in Norway. On May 17, 2006, the Turkish government decided to construct Leonardo's bridge to span the Golden Horn.

13. For much of his life, Leonardo was fascinated by the phenomenon of flight, producing many studies of the flight of birds, including his c. 1505 Codex on the Flight of Birds, as well as plans for several flying machines, including a helicopter and a light ornithopter. Most were impractical, like his aerial screw helicopter design that could not provide lift. However, the hang glider has been successfully constructed and demonstrated.

(Retrieved and adapted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonardo_da_Vinci)

2 Using paragraphs 3, 8 and 13 write down a review on Leonardo da Vinci as a learner.

Video 1

1 Watch Video Recording 8 and find out why students choose to study at the University of Birmingham.

Ñ 2 Watch and/or listen to the recording once again and fill in the gaps.

Anthony:

I arrived to Birmingham for Birmingham University's 1)_______________________day, I was really impressed with the 2) __________________________ on campus, with how 3) _________________________ the campus is, and with the sheer energy of the 4)__________________________ and students there. And for me the decision 5) ____________________ to Birmingham university 6) _________________ and to effectively live in Birmingham was quite an easy one.

 

Alexia:

I wanted to go to the university that was in a good city. And that was a kind of to whittle down the selection. Birmingham just seemed to be a 7) _______________________.

Stefan:

I’ve seen other universities and it tended to be quite stark modern sixties buildings, while Birmingham is a little bit different, it felt more 8) _____________________, it felt more 9) ____________________, and I think, that was one of the main 10) _______________ for me.

 

Tina:

That was one of the 11) ____________ __________ for my course in 12) _______________ studies, and I’d got places seven other universities, but this one was actually the best one. And the campus is 13) ________________, ‘cause I knew about, I lived on here all my life. So, I decided to come here. And also the course, the third year I was in 14) _____________________, which was a great … to come to this university.

 

Alexia:

That was a pretty campus, I felt very 15) ________________ there, attended it an open day. And I guess, I was just awed by Birmingham university, what it had 16) ___________________.

 

Stefan:

Combination of really 17) _____________________, really great 18) _____________________. It was there, it was a winner.

 

(Video retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4byZwQmTqDs)

& Text 1

1 Read the subtitles of the text ‘ Mission statement of the University of Warsaw ’ which is presented on the Internet page of the Warsaw University and dedicated to the University mission. The subtitles contain key thesis (key statements) of the text.

Video 2

Ñ 1 Watch Video Recording 9 about the mission statement of Grand Valley State University (GVSU), a public liberal arts university located in Allendale, Michigan, United States. While watching write down:

· one mission of the University;

· three values that the students of GVSU are to embrace;

· two directions of students' character development that the University assumes.

Dreams

…I will walk every day, not drive, to the University. Even if someone gives me a drozhki [Russian phaeton]. I will sell it, and devote the money to the poor. Everything I will do exactly and always” (what that ‘always’ meant I could not possibly have said, but at least I had a vivid consciousness of its connoting some kind of prudent, moral, and irreproachable life). “I will get up all my lectures thoroughly, and go over all the subjects beforehand, so that at the end of my first course I may come out top and write a thesis. During my second course also I will get up everything beforehand, so that I may soon be transferred to the third course, and at eighteen come out top in the examinations, and receive two gold medals, and go on to be Master of Arts, and Doctor, and the first scholar in Europe. Yes, in all Europe I mean to be the first scholar. – Well, what’s next?’ I asked myself at this point. Suddenly it struck me that dreams of this sort were a form of pride – a sin which I should have to confess to the priest that very evening, so I returned to the original thread of my meditations. “When getting up my lectures I will go to the Vorobievi Gori [Sparrow Hills – a public park near Moscow] and choose some spot under a tree, and read my lectures over there. Sometimes I will take with me something to eat – cheese or a pie from Pedotti’s, or something of the kind. After that I will sleep a little, and then read some good book or other, or else draw pictures or play some instrument (certainly I must learn to play the flute). Perhaps SHE too will be walking on the Vorobievi Gori, and will approach me one day and say, ‘Who are you?’ and I shall look at her, oh, so sadly, and say that I am the son of a priest, and that I am happy only when I am there alone, quite alone. Then she will give me her hand, and say something to me, and sit down beside me. So every day we shall go to the same spot, and be friends together, and I shall kiss her. But no! That would not be right! On the contrary, from this day forward I never mean to look at a woman again.

(Translation by C. J. Hogarth (2004) eBooks@Adelaide.)

1 3 Using the words and expressions from the extract compose a Vocabulary Mapon the topic 'Studying at University '.

² 4 Listen to Audio Recording 7 and look through the opinions of different students on their university studies. How positive and negative are they?

Resume

here is a summary of a text given in several sentences, the number of which depends on the number of key ideas presented in the text.

Key words

here are words that name or develop key ideas of the author’s message/text. When there are several ideas, key words could be grouped. They help to compose the resume of the text.

 

Ñ^ 1 Read six texts on different styles of thinking which Edward de Bono metaphorically presented in six colors: white, red, black, yellow, green and blue. Write down key words that characterize the standpoint of each hat.

Field

Object

Subject-matter

Goal

 

Tasks

Methods