EX. 9. TEENAGERS ARE CONSIDERED TO BE SIMILAR ALL OVER THE WORLD.IS IT TRUE?
TEENAGERS IN BRITAIN
* Britain has 12 million people under the age of 16 – around 20% of the population.
* If you ask teenagers what they do on a day they enjoy, most say “going to the cinema”, followed by “seeing friends”. If you ask what they do on a day they don’t enjoy, watching TV is the top answer, 11-16-year-old actually watch 11 hours of TV a week!
* Internet fans might think British teenagers spend all their time online, but surprisingly under 10% of 15-16-year-olds have the Internet at home (just 1 in 13). However, this number is increasing all the time.
* 11-16-year-olds spend about £12 a week. Girls tend to spend £2 a week more than boys.
* In the past, pocket money was usually spent on sweets, but now teens are spending most of their money on mobile phone cards.
* If children are spending so much, that means some of them are working. It’s illegal to work if you are under 13, but it is quite common for 15-16-year-olds to have some kind of job. 2 million schoolchildren with part-time jobs are earning an average of £14 a week.
* The most common part-time job is babysitting, followed by newspaper rounds.
* 25% of under-19s are living with just one parent.
* About 100,000 young people run away from home every year, with up to 350 of them sleeping on the streets of London each night.
1.What percentage of the British population is under 16?
a) 10% b) 20% c) 35%
2.What do most school-age teenagers say they enjoy?
a) going to the cinema b) playing sports c) watching TV
3.How many 15-16-year-olds have the Internet at home?
a) 1 in 2 b) 1 in 7 c) 1 in 13
4.How much is the average 11-16-year-old spending a week?
a) 2 pounds b) 20 pounds c) 12 pounds
5.These days, teenagers are spending most of their money on
a) CDs b) mobile phone cards c) sweets
6.How many of Britain’s teenagers work part-time?
a) 50,000 b) half a million c) 2 million
7.What is the most common part-time work?
a) babysitting b) paper round c) shop work
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8.How many young people under 19 are living with just one parent?
a) 5% b) 16% c) 25%
9.How many young people run away from home each year?
a) 1,000 b)10,000 c) 100,000
Ex. 10. YOU HAVE JUSTREAD ABOUT POSSIBLEPROBLEMSAND MISUNDERSTANDINGBETWEEN TEENAGERS AND THEIR PARENTS. ALL IS WELL THAT ENDS WELL BUT THERE ARE SOME CASES WHEN IT IS DIFFICULT OR SIMPLY IMPOSSIBLE TO FIND THE WAY OF FAMILY SITUATIONS. READ THE TEXT, DISCUSS ITAND ANSWER THE QUESTIONS THAT FOLLOW.
tograb– схватить
trigger – курок, спусковой крючок
to threaten – угрожать
concern – забота
to hesitate – колебаться
drugaddict – наркоман
totakeoff – срываться (с места)
to patch things up – улаживать, утрясать (ссору)
to be on the lookout for - зд.охотиться (за)
totakeadvantageof – использовать (в своих интересах)
quicksand – зыбучий песок (перен. трясина)
inevitably – неизбежно
suicide – самоубийство
orphan – сирота
famine – голод
poverty – нищета
oddjob – случайная работа
torape – насиловать
toroundup – зд. забрать, схватить
toimprison – сажать в тюрьму.
RUNAWAYS
More than a million American teenagers run away from home every year. Their parents are often puzzled and hurt. Why do they do it?
There is usually a lack of understanding on both sides – parents and children – problems in communication.
More than half of these runaways are girls. Their average age is fifteen. For one reason or another, they refuse to stay at home. Of course, the great majority of young people never run away from home. Nevertheless, the problem is a serious one. There is no “typical” runaway, though. Many come from homes broken by divorce or homes where there is an alcoholic parent. Some run away from parents who beat them. But there are also many runaways who come from seemingly healthy homes where no such problems exist.
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Steve, aged 15, ran away when he was 13. His father drank, and everyone in the family suffered when he got drunk. One night his father grabbed a gun and with his finger on the trigger, threatened to kill everyone in the family. Steve ran away – and stayed away. His chief concern was getting enough food and a safe, dry place to sleep.
“It’s frightening to be homeless because you don’t know about tomorrow,” Steve says. “Everything you have is what is on your back. You wonder where you’re going to eat or live. You don’t know if you’ll be all right”.
Sharon’s parents are divorced, but she says she had no real problems at home. She lived in a small town in Vermont. One evening she was watching TV when a friend rang up. “We are going to New York. Want to come along?” Sharon – 14 years old – hesitated, then shrugged her shoulders and agreed. When the police finally traced her, she had become a drug addict.
Unfortunately, these young people often run into trouble. Few runaways have any idea of how to get along in the lonely and often dangerous world they find after leaving home.
Most take off with only a few dollars in their pockets. When this is spent they find it is not easy to make money if you are only fifteen or sixteen years old. It’s useless for them to look for a proper job, because legally they are too young to get a job. The police say that most runaways return home within a few days. Often a phone call home is enough to patch things up. However, the longer a runaway is away, the more likely he or she is to get into trouble. One set of problems is often replaced by another. Runaways often think that they will find friendly people willing to help them out. But the sad fact is that cities are full of people on the lookout for runaways, who only want to take advantage of them.
On the street, there are four main means of survival: begging, stealing, prostitution and drug dealing. It’s like a quicksand: the deeper in you go, the deeper down you sink. Sometimes, inevitably, it leads to suicide.
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There are a lot of charity organisations which try to protect street children. But unfortunately, the number of teen runaways is rising and the kids are getting younger.
Street children
There are about 100 million people around the world who call the streets their home. And their numbers are rising by the hundreds of thousands each year. In Africa, they are orphans of civil war or victims of famine; in Latin America and Asia, they are victims of poverty. In the capitals of the Western world, they are runaways.
Street children have to look after themselves, living off rubbish, trying to earn money by odd jobs.
The two most difficult cities in the world right now are Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and Bangkok, Thailand. Many of the street children are beaten, raped and sold for sex. They cannot turn to the police for help because the police often do the same things to them. In some Latin American countries, street children are rounded up and imprisoned or killed, just to tidy up the streets for an important foreign visitor.
(SPEAK OUT, 5/2000)
EX.11.ANSWER THE QUESTIONS
1. Who runs away more often – girls or boys?
2. Can you portray a “typical” runaway?
3. Do teenagers run away only from “difficult” families?
4. What is a chief concern for a runaway?
5. Why do runaways often get into trouble?
6. Is it possible for them to find a proper job?
7. What is sometimes enough to return home?
8. How do young people survive on the street?
9. Who can really help runaways?
10. Why are problems of street children so urgent in Africa, Latin America and Asia?
EX. 12. COMPLETEEACH SENTENCEWITH A WORD INitalics. USE EACH WORD ONCE ONLY.
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