Living in a big city

Общедидактическая цель: создать условия для осознания и осмысления блока новой учебной информации, ее применения в новой учебной ситуации.

Технология: критическое мышление (мозговой штурм, дискуссия, синквейн, шляпы мышления).

Образовательные:

• способствовать развитию практического владения языком, умению вести беседу;
• создавать условия для формирования лексических навыков говорения для подготовки учащихся к ЕГЭ;
• расширить кругозор по теме;
• реализовать межпредметные связи (история Санкт-Петербурга).

Познавательные:

• развитие лингво-культурной компетенции;
• активизация лексики и лексико-грамматических конструкций по теме.

Воспитательные:

• создавать условия для формирования способности к критическому мышлению;
• воспитывать умение внимательно слушать и слышать, уважать другое мнение;
• формировать потребности и способности к сотрудничеству и взаимопомощи при работе в группе.

Развивающие:

• создавать условия для развития исследовательских умений учащихся, способности к распределению внимания;
• развитие способности к переключению уровней мышления (The Six Thinking Hats).

Оборудование урока: компьютер, мультимедийный проектор, презентация урока (Презентация.PPT), дидактический материал, тексты для чтения, эпиграф на доске, “шляпы разных цветов”, музыкальное сопровождение - Mattafix “Big city life”.

Прогнозируемый результат

Учащиеся должны уметь высказывать свою точку зрения и понимать чужие точки зрения; уметь оценивать результаты своего труда, давать самооценку и проводить самокоррекцию.

Технология предполагает следующие этапы работы:

I. Вызов – вызов интереса, логическое предположение, все, что знаем по теме.

Актуализация знаний, мотивация, поиск того ростка, который мы ищем, чтобы связать его с новым.

II. Этап осмысления – пропускаем через себя новую информацию.

Обсуждение: высказаться должен каждый, каждый должен быть услышан. Умение донести свою точку зрения до каждого. Уметь воспринимать то, что непонятно. Фиксировать совпадающие моменты.

III. Рефлексия – осмысление того, что мы узнали. Новые знания выстраиваются в общую систему знаний.

Epigraph

God made the country, and man made the town.
William Cowper
The city is not a concrete jungle; it is a human zoo.
Desmond Morris

Teacher:

Good morning, my dear friends. I’m very glad to see you. I hope you are fine. So let’s get down to work.

The subject of today’s discussion is controversial. Today we are going to talk about advantages and disadvantages of living in a big city. We’ll compare rural and urban way of life and decide which of them is better. After the discussion you should comment on the following quotations and give your reasons.(You can see them on the blackboard. They are epigraphs of our lesson.) (слайд №2)

I. EVOCATION

1. Let’s get down to the first task. Do you agree or not? Comment on the following statements. Discuss them in groups. You should make comments based on your own experience. Don’t be shy, try to express your own opinion. Can you support what you say?

BRAINSTORMING

1. Life in a big city has got lots of disadvantages.

2. Young people prefer to live in big cities.

3. Life in big cities is much more passive.

4. It is very difficult to find friends in a big city.

5. Nothing is going on in a big city.

6. The entertainment is non-stop in a big city all year round.

7. Rural life is more preferable because everybody knows each other.

8. Hordes of people are trying to change the city life for the life in the village.

9. It’s difficult to find a good job in a big city.

10. It’s dangerous to live in a big city nowadays as the crime rate is constantly increasing. (слайд №3)

Teacher:

OK, as you can see there are different points of view. This subject is really difficult to discuss. Today we are going to use a new method which is called “Six thinking hats”. It will help to improve communication and decision-making in groups and escape from argument. It will make our thinking more effective. This method forces you to move outside your habitual thinking style, and helps you to get a more rounded view of a situation.

“The six thinking hats” are different ways of looking at an issue that has to be decided. Each thinking hat is a different style of thinking. Under the white hat you represent only the facts, or call for information known or needed. Under the red hat you express your feelings and emotions about the issue. Under the black hat you try to find disadvantages, the negative effects of the decision. Why something may not work. Under the yellow hat you look at the positive effects of the decision. It symbolizes brightness and optimism. Under the green hat you think about alternatives, new ideas, possibilities. It is an opportunity to express new concepts and new perceptions. It symbolizes creativity. Under the blue hat you clarify which kind of thinking is going on. It is used to manage the thinking process, to organize the discussion. Today this hat will be mine.(слайд№4)

2. I have prepared a very interesting text on the topic. You’ll find a lot of information in it so you should put the white hat. Let’s read this text and check your previous predictions. (слайд №5)

TEXT

PROBLEMS OF CITY AND COUNTRY LIFE

Cities grew over the centuries because they served aims that could not have been served otherwise. Two thousand years ago most people lived in the countryside. It was not their choice. Today, almost half of humanity lives in cities. Man has always lived in groups. It makes life safer and easier. Geography – rich soil, a safe navigable river, ample fresh water, easy defense, coal – was the start of many towns. In Europe towns grew over the strongholds of a local lord. Most of them developed as buying and selling centres; trade needed a market, and markets needed people.

Towns served their citizens very well if they in turn were served by them. During the Middle Ages when harvest failed, the nearby town offered hope of survival. All successful towns satisfied economic needs. For a peasant town was the only place where he might make a fortune. In the new industrial order, the city was the nerve centre, brining to a focus all dynamic economic forces: vast accumulation of capital, business and financial institutions, spreading railroad yards, factories, and armies of manual and clerical workers. For example, in the USA villages, attracting people from the countryside and from the land across the seas, grew into towns and towns into cities almost overnight.

Life in the city is much easier than in the country – developed transport system, sewerage system, information, sports, shopping mails, etc. Modern men are too sophisticated for simple country pleasures. There is far more entertainment in the city than in the country. Cities offer high concentration of good things in life: big stores, restaurants, theatres, cinema, art galleries. Life is more convenient in a city: services are always better here. In the city people are more open-minded. It is possible to go out, make friends and never be cut off from them by weather conditions. Generally, people do not mind what you do in the city. In the country everybody knows you and expects you to live and behave in a certain way. Moreover, life is never dull in the city, people always have something to do here.

It is needless to say that the citizens are more advantaged in education. The students have museum classes and excursions. They can attend lectures and preparatory courses and therefore have more chances to enter this or that university. After graduating from the university the residents of big cities and more likely to find a prestigious and well-paid job, than the outsiders. They are more communicative, more experienced and have more friends, relatives and to help them. In the city people have more chances to succeed.

The objections to city living are not convincing enough. People easily adapt to various inconveniences of city life. For example, noise and traffic are hardly noticeable to city-dwellers. In the city especially in our country people live in apartments with central heating, telephone, gas, electricity, radio, TV, the Internet. Most people love cities. In 330 BC Aristotle wrote that by nature man belonged to a city. Many people love the busy city life. It is enough for them to visit a country at week-ends.

It goes without saying that life in a big city has got a lot of disadvantages. Pollution is the greatest disadvantage of the city life today. Polluted air is hanging like a brown cloud over cities. All big cities have problems with air pollution. There was still nothing anywhere like “killer-smog” which caused some 3000-4000 deaths in London in December 1952. Mexico city’s air is famously filthy, as is that of many Indian, Chinese, and East European cities. Noise pollution is the problem of big cities too.

Urban garbage – like food, paper, and cans – on the ground or in the street is one more problem of cities. People don’t always put their garbage in the garbage can. Urban garbage is ugly. It makes the city look dirty, and it spoils the view.

There are lots of other disadvantages of living in a big city. Today’s cities are ballooning. Bombay in 1960 was a jam-packed city of 4 mln. people. Now Mexico city holds around 18 m people. “The rash-hour” with crowded streets, packed trains, full buses that happens twice a day is one of them. Everyone grumbles about exorbitant rents that must be paid for tiny flats which even country hens would disdain to live in. Apart from accommodation, the cost of living is very high. A citizen runs into a lot of extra expenses paying for public transport, snacks, food delivery and entertainment.

Besides, life in a big city is much more stressful than that in the country it causes stresses and heart disease. Drivers suffer from traffic jams accidents and car crashes, pedestrians curse rush hours, constant queuing and irregularity of public transport. In addition, people live under constant threat. Businessmen and clerks are scared to lose their jobs and become unemployed. Living conditions in crowded cities are similar to those of animals in a zoo and make inhabitants abnormally aggressive. So the crime rate is constantly increasing. In the city people loose touch with land, rhythms of nature. Everyone who cares about his health tries to move out from the city. Cities are not fit to live in, man are born for countryside. Most people in Europe and America try to live in non-industrial cities, which are set down near big cities and can not be killed by pollution and traffic.

In the countryside people enjoy such simple things of primary importance as sunlight and fresh air. Besides, living in the countryside is cheaper and safer than in a city. It provides people with more security. There is less crime and, of course, there is less traffic there. Life in the countryside is quiet, peaceful, and healthy if you like to be close to nature. Here people are friendly and it is much more pleasant in the countryside than in the city. Unfortunately, life in the countryside is rather hard. Working and living conditions are difficult, social and cultural life in the countryside is not full of entertainment. And annually more and more young people flee from the countryside for a better life in the city.

Certainly, the problem of employment in the countryside is very crucial today. It is especially acute for the young people and professionals. As a rule there are few labour places for skilled agricultural workers and less for professionals. Although villages do need teachers and physicians, they can not provide them with the necessary facilities. There are few schools and clinics in the countryside. Sometimes there is one secondary school for several villages and children have to walk ten kilometers to study there. Usually either the village community is too poor to provide the children with a bus or the roads are too bad for the bus to run off them.

Surely, people should always be optimists and hope for a better life. Where there is a will there is a way. Nowadays we can witness the revival of some villages. So far they are few but annually their number is increasing.

Vocabulary

ample	обильный, достаточный
harbour	гавань
soil	почва
stronghold	цитадель, твердыня
peasant	крестьянин
accumulation	накопление
clerical	конторский служащий
manual	ручной, физический труд
filthy	грязный
urban	городской
sewerage system	канализация
to grumble	ворчать
exorbitant	непомерный
disdain	пренебрегать
pedestrian	пешеход
curse	проклинать
annually	ежегодно
to flee	бежать
crucial	критический
acute	пронзительный, резкий
revival	возрождение

3. Now let’s make a list of pros and cons for people wishing to change the city life for the life in the country or vice versa. You will have to put the black and the yellow hat.(слайд №6)

Living in a big city

Better living conditions	Air-pollution
More likely to find a well-paid job	Stressful life
A lot of entertainment	The level of crimes is high
A lot of friends	The cost of living is high
Possibilities of getting a quality education	Inhabitants are aggressive
Life is more anonymous	Traffic jams

Let’s exchange the hats.

Living in a village

Fresh air	Rural life is boring
Rural life is peaceful and healthy	Living conditions are difficult
Less traffic (noise)	It’s difficult to find a good job
To be close to nature	Few schools
The cost of living is low	Social and cultural life is limited
More space	Narrower range of people to make friends

4. Well done! Your arguments are very helpful, but now it’s time to put on the red hat. (слайд №7)

We live in one of the most beautiful cities in the world. We love Saint-Petersburg very much. We are proud of our city. (You must stand up when you listen to the anthem of Saint-Petersburg.) Express your emotions towards our native city. Write a short love message devoted to our city (3 sentences will be enough.)

5. Let’s come to the conclusion and make up cinquains. I remind you that it is a kind of poem consisting of 5 lines (cinq means five in French). The first line is a general word on the topic, the second line consists of two adjectives which describe this word, the third line includes 3 verbs on the topic, the fourth line is the main idea of your poem (It must consist of 3-4 words) and the fifth line is a synonym of the general word (city, country).

You may work in groups. All your cinquains will be different. Read aloud your cinquains when you are ready. Don’t forget to put on the green hat which symbolizes creativity. (слайд №8)

Possible answers:

City	Country
Noisy, industrial	Peaceful, boring
To live, to study, to work	To farm, to relax, to water
It is a concrete jungle	Living in the country is my dream
settlement	village

6. Today’s discussion was very serious. We have covered the subject quite thoroughly. I don’t think there is anything more to say on the subject. So the general opinion seems to be that we wouldn’t swap city life for anything in the world. I’d like to thank you for good work. Don’t forget to comment on the epigraphs of our lesson. It will be your homework. Our lesson is over. I wish you good luck. (слайд №9)

Фотографии с урока.