YoUth ProBleMS

Цілі: вдосконалювати навички усного мовлення й читання; розвивати куль- туру спілкування й мовленнєву реакцію учнів; виховувати толерантне став- лення до інших і загальну культуру учнів.

Клас

Дата

1. Warm-up

Procedure

Do teenagers in your country have problems with drugs or alcohol? What is the difference between a habit and an addiction? (with a habit

you are in control of your choices, with an addiction you are not in control

of your choices)

2. Reading and writing

Work in pairs

Read the article and make some notes as for youth problems in Britain. Then compare it with the situation in Ukraine. Are there any differences and similarities?

School, lessons, games, clubs, homework. A bell rings. But one day young boys and girls will be at school for the last time. And then they are

confronted with difficulties. They must make a decision: to enter a univer-

sity or try to find a job.

In Britain life used to be fun for teenagers. They have money to spend,

and free time to spend it in. But for many young people life is harder now. Jobs are difficult to find. There is not so much money around. Things are

more expensive, and it’s hard to find a place to live. Teachers say that stu-

dents work harder than they used to. They are less interested in politics and more interested in passing exams. They know that good exam results may get them better jobs.

Three-quarters of young people do more or less what their parents did.

They do their best at school, find some kind of work in the end, and get

marry in their early twenties. They get on well with their parents, and en- joy family life. They eat fish and chips, watch football on TV, go to the pub.

Most young people worry more about money than their parents did twenty

years ago. They try to spend less and to save more.

For some, the answer to unemployment is to leave home and look for

work in one of Britain’s cities. Every day hundreds of young people arrive

in London from other parts of Britain, looking for jobs. Some find work

and stay. Others don’t find it and go home again, or join the army of unem-

ployed in London.

One of the main problems of young people is drugs. This is a relatively

new problem but it is becoming more and more dangerous. Million young

people today are using drugs, and most of them will die. Usually they want

just to try it, then again and again… and after year may be two years they

will die. It is true. Because there are no medicine to help you. That’s why never do it, if you do — it goes bad, very bad.

People of almost every age are susceptible to this pernicious disease but

it hits the youth the hardest. Its name is unemployment. The percentage of unemployed youth in the total number of the jobless is high. In many deve- loping countries the situation is more serious. Unless the economic situa- tion in the world changes, youth unemployment will mount.

There are many youth organisations in Britain, which unite young men

on different principles. There are some informal organisations, for exam- ple: skinheads, hippies, panks and so on. Now there exists the problem of misunderstanding between different youth groups.

They also face the problem how to spend their free time. They can do it in different ways. Some of teenagers spend their free time in different night clubs. Other young people spend their free time in the streets.

3. Listening

Listen to the surveys, summarize the article and compare with the situ- ation in our country.

TEENAGERS AND DRUGS

Two separate surveys suggest that Britain’s teenagers are amongst the heaviest drug-users and drinkers in Europe. The British government has introduced a number of measures to tackle the use and supply of drugs, particularly among young people.

The European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs inter- viewed 15 and 16-year olds in 35 countries. 26 % of boys and 29 % of girls in the UK had indulged in binge drinking at least three times in the previ- ous month. For the purpose of the study, binge drinking was classed as hav- ing more than five alcoholic drinks in a row. In the same survey, 42 % of boys and 35 % of girls admitted they had tried illegal drugs at least once.

According to another survey, by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, two in five 15-year-olds in the UK have tried cannabis. This number is higher than anywhere else in Europe. The UK has also the joint highest number of young cocaine users, alongside Spain.

The British government has recently unveiled new plans to fight the problem of drug abuse in the United Kingdom, also among teenagers. Ac- cording to the new proposals, young offenders will have to attend drug treatment as part of community service. British police will be able to give people blood tests for drugs when they arrest them, not just when they charge them with an offence. Dealers working near a school or using chil- dren to help sell drugs will face tougher penalties.

But schools also try to fight the problem of drug use themselves. At the beginning of 2005 a British state school has introduced for the first time random drug testing. Students from a school in Kent will have mouth swabs taken to detect drug use. Each week 20 names will be selected by computer and the swabs sent off to a drug testing laboratory. Results will be available three days later. The school’s head teacher says that no child will be tested against his or her wishes. Children who test positive will not be expelled from the school, but those who sell drugs will.

4. speaking

Do ex. 3, p. 217.

5. summary

There are many problems society faces nowadays and any problem can be considered from two points of view: if it is right or wrong. But it is danger- ous to discuss social attitudes in such a way. Scan the situations given below and discuss in your groups what you feel to be right or wrong in them.

y TV greatly affects the minds of the young people, it doesn’t aim at bringing up patriots of their motherland. Is it right or wrong?

y A young man, a person of age, doesn’t agree to serve in the army, to defend his motherland, in a word. Is it right or wrong taking into consideration that the constitution proclaims it a sacred duty of any obedient citizen?

y People with higher education are paid less than those who don’t have good education at all. Is it wrong?

y A gang of young criminals places a bomb in a large store. In their phone call to the police they say that they will explore the bomb unless they are paid 50 million. Is it right to use violence to get what you want?

6. Homework

Write a short paragraph upon any problem above.

Lesson 77