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B) What evening's viewing would you recommend for a foreign visitor who is very interested in learning more about our country and its people?
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6. "Children and television" is an issue about which teachers and parents are naturally very concerned.
a) The two extracts by American authors given below present rather controversial views on the problem. Read them attentively for further discussion:
a) There have been more than 2,300 studies and reports on the effects of television on American society. Most of them show that these effects are mainly negative. Researchers have been especially concerned about children. In the past decade, researchers have had children participate in numerous studies. They had children watch television intensively for three weeks. The results showed a drop in the children's creativity. The re-
searchers concluded that television makes the children lose some of their creativity.
Teachers can't get children to pay attention for any length of time because today's children want everything to be as fast and entertaining as TV. Dr Benjamin Spock, an expert in child raising, once complained that he couldn't get his grandchildren to leave the TV set when he wanted to take them to the zoo. Some of today's children are so addicted to TV that nothing else interests them. Parents have to make them turn off the TV and go out to play or read a book. They can't get them to do these traditional childhood activities without having an argument over the TV.
Although most of these studies have shown the negative effects of television, some sociologists argue that television has become a part of our lives. They do not think that parents should make their children limit the amount of TV that they watch to one or two hours a day. They believe that parents should let their children decide for themselves what and how much they want to watch.
b) Although most studies show the negative effects of television, there are also some important positive influences. There are many excellent educational programs, especially for children. Some schools have children watch certain programs in the classroom. They often get them to watch worthwhile programs at home by encouraging them to discuss what they have seen the next day in class. "Sesame Street" is a program that is watched by millions of children around the world. It uses bright colors, fast timing, and humour in order to get children to pay attention. It makes children enjoy learning about the alphabet, reading, and numbers.
Television also exposes children to different people and places. A little girl who had never seen a ballet before watched a famous ballerina on TV. This program got her to decide to become a ballerina herself. TV also increases young people's understanding of other people's views of life. Many people feel that "Roots", a program on the history of black people in the United States, is an example of this. Because viewers of this program became emotionally involved with the characters, "Roots" got some people to think more compassionately about the difficulties of black people in the United States.
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B) Pair work. Team up with another student, work out pros and cons of children's television as they are presented in the extracts and discuss the extracts in pairs.
c) Speak about the effects of television on children. Consider the following:
1. Does television have a negative or bad influence on children? If you think it does, tell how. 2. What are the effects upon the vulnerable and developing human organism of spending a significant proportion of each day engaged in this particular experience (watching TV)? 3. How does the television experience affect a child's language development, for instance? 4. What good or positive influences does television have on children? 5. How does television stimulate children's curiosity? 6. How does the availability of television affect the ways parents bring up their children? 7. Are new child-rearing strategies being adopted and old ones discarded because the television set is available to parents for relief? 8. How does watching television for several hours each day affect the child's abilities to form human relationships? 9. What happens to family lif£ as a result of family members' involvement with television?
(There may never be clear-cut and final answers to these questions.)
7. Below are four different opinions on the same controversial issue "Children and Television".
a) Work in groups of 3 or 4 and assign one of the opinions to each member of the group:
1. Primary and secondary education have improved out of all recognition since the arrival of TV in the home and this is not only because of programmes designed for schools. Through TV a child can extend his knowledge and it provides vital food for his imagination. 2. We aire dealing with a culture of TV babies. They can watch, do their homework and listen to music at the same time. What kids can't do today is follow things too long. Today's TV babies get bored and distracted easily. 3. You can blame TV for the fact that children take longer to learn to read these days and barely see the point any more of acquiring the skill. Watching TV should be strictly confined to "treats". 4. Television provides outlet for creative talents. The programmes done with good taste and imagination actually stimulate a child's own creativity.
B) Spend a few minutes individually thinking of further arguments you will use to back up the opinion you have been assigned.
C) Now discuss the issue with other members of the minigroup using the arguments you have prepared. Do your best to support those who share a similar point of view and try and persuade those who don't agree with you. (Use cliches of agreement/disagreement and persuasion.)
8. In a students' debating club the topic of the next session is "Educational TV. Who is it for?”
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