Explain the meaning of the following words and phrases, translate them into Russian/Belarusian

– rampant acquisitiveness;

– pluralistic society;

– morality was privatized;

– the chickens have come home to roost;

– battery;

– fraud;

– cry out;

– drug-related deaths;

– secular society;

– to throw away the moral baby with the religious bathwater;

– adhere to sth;

– laissez-faire approach;

– outshine sb on sth;

– toddler;

– hypocrisy.

 

2. Find the words in the text which have similar meaning with the following:

debate, sheer, fraud, fatal, to assert, fray, modern parlance, rigid, savage, to impart, thorny, to bewilder, to spank, an offspring, to roam, to mug.

 

3. Suggest antonyms for the words given below:

to liberate, spiritual, ease, fraud, collectivism, civilized, permissive, moral, secular, laxity, trustworthy, laissez-faire.

4. Match the words with their definitions. Translate them into Russian/Belarusian:

bewilderment	immoral, dishonest, not respectable activity
sleaze	temporary decline in economic activity and prosperity
fraud	vigorous beginning (esp. of sth unpleasant)
recession	deceiving sb illegally in order to make money
onset	a feeling of confusion and indecisiveness about what to do

5. Replace the italicized parts with the words and word-combinations from the functional vocabulary:

1. Each person can make a difference to the world through cooperation with others.

2. Most people are eager to be dignified and to have a purpose of life.

3. The country is mixed up in a public debate on standards in public life, ethics in business and education violence in the media and collapse in the family.

4. Moral philosophers, social analysts and politicians are all involved into the fight.

5. The incidence of teenage deaths caused by drugs has been soaring in the last decades.

6. The spread of permissiveness would lead to family breakdown.

Speech activities

 

 

1. Answer the following questions. For this you will also need to read the supplementary texts: “Who needs morals?”, “Parents are too permissive with their children nowadays.”

1. What lies at the heart of moral re-armament?

2. What is to be yourself for you? Is it the same as “do what you want as long as you don’t harm anyone else”?

3. What are the issues of a public debate in Britain? Are these concerns similar to those of your society?

4. How can you characterize the morality of the present-day British society? Support your opinion with arguments from the text.

5. What has brought the society to this mess? How much is the family responsible for the orderly situation in your society? Do you support the Victorian attitude to children?

6. What is the opinion of a “Youth of Today” member on morality and moral education, in particular?

7. Can a permissive society become a civilized society? Why not?

8. What is referred to moral values?

 

How do you understand the following statements? Do you agree with them?

1. Morality is simply the attitude we adopt towards people whom we personally dislike (O. Wilde)

2. Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo (H. G. Wells)

3. Lax authority over the years makes adolescent rebellion against parents all the more violent.

4. The dividing line between permissiveness and sheer negligence is very fine indeed.

 

Listening Comprehension

1. Listen to the interview with Mrs. M. Thatcher carefully and be ready to:

 

· make up a list of Victorian values that Mrs. Thatcher admires.

· speak about the improvements made in the standards of living during Victorian times.

 

2. Listen to the interview another time and reflect on the following statements:

· Every person should be a man/woman of property (why is it so important?).

· most kinds of advantages are offered only to the haves, not to the have-nots.

· life would have been very much different for many of our old folk if the money they’d put aside had kept its value.

3. Answer the following questions:

1. What does Mrs. Thatcher refer to Victorian values?

2. What negative aspects of life did Victorian times encompass?

3. How does Mrs. Thatcher describe an excellent society?

4. Does Mrs. Thatcher feel sympathetic for the lot of the unemployed?

5. What does inflation cause?

Discuss in groups of 3–4 the following questions and present the results of your discussion to the other groups in class.

 

· What are the challenges of moral re-armament?

· How much have Victorian values changed? Are these changes applicable to your society?

· How much different are moral values of the modern youth from those of the older generation?

· Who should impart moral values to young people?

 

 

Section 2. The Role of Charity in Moral Re-armament

 

Starter activity

How much do you know about charity? Have you ever participated in any charity work? Tell us about it. Is voluntary work a positive feature of any society? How is it related to moral re-armament?

 

1. Read the following citations about charity and comment on their meanings.

· Charity is never lost: it may meet with ingratitude, yet it ever does a work of beauty and grace upon the heart of the giver (Conyers Middleron).

· Goodness consists not in the outward thing we do, but in the inward thing we are. To be is the great thing (E.H.Chapin).

· How seldom we weigh our neighbour in the same balance with ourselves (Thomas Kempis).

· Nothing will make us so charitable and tender to the faults of others as by self-examination thoroughly to know our own (Fenelon).

· He has the right to critisize who has heart to help (Abraham Lincoln).

 

 

READING ONE