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Task 51. Make a list of what the Seed Bank does, then, present the topic to the class.
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Task 51. Make a list of what the Seed Bank does, then, present the topic to the class.
Task 52. You work for the Millennium Seed Bank and you are preparing a poster to promote the project. In pairs, decide what your poster will show. Give reasons.
Task 53. Scan the text about the recycling in the United Kingdom to answer the following questions:
1. What is the main problem of recycling of plastic?
2. Can you provide any examples of recycling in your country?
FOCUS ON DISCUSSION
Recycling in the United Kingdom
The majority of recycling undertaken in the United Kingdom is undertaken by statutory authorities. Local Authorities are responsible for the collection of municipal waste and operate contracts which are usually kerbside collection schemes. The Household Waste Recycling Act 2003 required local authorities in England to provide every household with a separate collection of at least two types of recyclable materials by 2010.
Local Authorities are given incentives towards meeting recycling targets set by European, national and regional Government by the imposition of financial penalties for failing to recycle. For example, levies are imposed on the proportion of waste material going to landfill under a landfill tax.
UK domestic recycling policy is geared towards encouraging more people to take control of recycling in their own homes, and over the last decade a number of new regulations have been introduced to encourage greater amounts of recycling. These include fines for people who don’t cut their household waste and a greater emphasis on separating waste into different recyclable materials, with each council applying different rules.
Recently, the focus has shifted from punishing those who don’t recycle enough to encouraging more people to recycle through rewarding the practice.
Other ways to improve recycling include taking glass items to bottle banks at supermarkets and composting biodegradable waste which prevents it from being sent to landfill. One of the best ways to recycle is to simply reuse items around the home rather than throwing them out.
UK recycling policy aims to improve recycling methods and levels across the UK. The four main materials that it focuses on are glass, paper, plastic and metal cans.
1. Glass - can be recycled in the form of bottles and jars which are crushed down and then melted. Glass can be recycled infinitely because it does not lose any of its quality. It uses a lot less energy, fewer raw materials and produces less CO2 than manufacturing glass from scratch. The main difficulty with recycling glass is the need to remove the unwanted materials that contaminate it and avoiding the mixing of different colours.
2. Paper. Nearly all types of waste paper are recyclable, and recycled paper requires a lot less energy and fewer raw materials to produce than manufacturing it from scratch. However, paper cannot be recycled indefinitely, and the normal amount of times it can be recycled is about six.
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3. Plastic. The main problem with recycling plastic involves sorting the material because there are so many different types of plastic which complicate the process. For this reason plastic often has to be sorted by hand which can be very time consuming.
4. Metal cans. There is a high recycling rate for metal cans in the UK, with aluminium recycling and steel cans being the most common items. Metal can be recycled indefinitely, and aluminium cans use just 5% of the energy needed to produce them from scratch and only release 5% of the amount of greenhouse gases. In addition, it is the easiest material to extract and separate from the other recyclables, using magnets for steel cans and special magnets (eddy currents) it guarantees recycling of every can.
PART II
STRATEGIES FOR TEXT ANALYSIS
A STORY is a short narrative in prose. It usually contains one event focusing on a single aspect of life/ though the number of personages is limited, and the characters are revealed rather than developed, it has depth and social or psychological significance.
A story or a novel may belong to one of the following types ( genres ): social which studies the effect of social conditions at a given time and place upon human life and conduct; psychological which is concerned mainly with the mental and emotional lives of the characters; historical in which the events and characters are drawn from the past; detective in which a specific problem (usually murder) is solved; science fiction which deals with advances in science and technology and their influence on human beings. Sometimes the background of the narrative is quite fantastic and has no connection with reality. A documentary story reproduces real events as close as possible. Its main task is to involve the reader in some vital issue of the moment.
The interrelation between different components of a literary work is called composition. Any work of fiction consists of relatively independent elements – narration, description, dialogue, interior monologue, digression, etc.
Narration is dynamic, it gives a continuous account of events while description is static, it is a verbal portraiture of an object, person or scene. It may be detailed and direct or impressionistic, giving few but striking details.
Through the dialogue the characters are better portrayed. It also brings the action nearer to the reader, makes it seem more swift and more intense. Interior monologue renders the thoughts and feelings of a character. The most recent development in interior monologue is the so-called stream of consciousness which gives the reader an impression of the unending and uneven flow of ideas, feelings and memories in a person’s mind. Digression consists of an insertion of material that has no immediate relation to the theme or action. A digression may be critical, philosophical, lyrical, etc.
A story seldom begins at a point which leads quickly and logically to the crucial moment, the climax. This is the decisive point on which the fate of the characters and the final action depend. It is the point at which the forces in the conflict reach the highest intensity. Some explanation of background is necessary, the characters must be introduced. This introductory part of a story is called exposition.
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The description of the physical background – the place and time of the story, the significant items surrounding the action and the characters constitute the setting.
The theme or subject of a literary work is the basic problem or conflict, which the writer intends to present in his work. It is the general topic, of which the particular story is an illustration. The feeling aroused by the theme, the setting, the treatment of characters, the general effect of the total work make up the atmosphere of a piece of fiction.
The plot of a literary work is its plan and the structure of the action comprising a series of incidents or system of events. Episode is a separate incident helping to unfold the action in a large piece of fiction.
The final resolution of the plot is called denouement [dei’nu: ma: ŋ ]. This is a French word that means “unknotting”. This part in a work of fiction comes after and sometimes coincides with the climax. It is an event or episode that brings the story to its end. The manner of bringing a piece of fiction to a close is called ending. An unexpected turn of the plot not made clear until the end of the story is called surprise ending.
When the development of the plot deliberately produces a state of uncertainty, doubt and anxiety in the reader, we speak of suspense. This device is often made use of in adventure and detective stories.
The author’s attitude to what he is presenting is called tone. An author may treat his material objectively which implies a refusal to comment and interpret what he presents. A subjective treatment is one which is coloured by the author’s own feelings.
The focus of narration has to do with who tells the story. A character may tell his own story in the first person ( first person ). A character may tell, in the first person, a story which he has observed ( first-person observer ). The author may tell a story in an objective way, without going into the minds of the character and without giving his own comments ( author observer ). The author may tell what happens with complete liberty to go into the minds of the character and to give his own comments ( omniscient author ). There are, of course, various combinations of the four main types of narration.
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