MEDIA IN BRITAIN

MASS MEDIA

Idioms we might use when talking about news 

• Behind closed doors – Events which take place hidden from view.
• Both sides of the coin – To see both points of view in an argument
• Pull the wool over (someone’s) eyes – To deceive
• Raise/lift the curtain – To make something public; disclose
• Turn a blind eye – To ignore something and pretend not to see it
• No news is good news – If you don’t hear any news it means nothing is wrong. 

Conversation questions about news and media 

• What are the main stories you have been following in the news recently?
• How do you keep up with world events?
• What is the latest news about your country?
• How much time do you spend discussing current events with friends and colleagues?
• What recent events are you fed up hearing about?
• Which person in the news do you most like hearing or reading about?
• Do you think most journalists tell the truth when they write a news piece?
• Do you trust the information you get from the news?
• Why do you think that news is censored in some countries?
• Do you think the world would be better off if no one heard the news from other countries?
• Which news source do you trust the most?
• Do you think the news influences people too much?
• How has the reporting of news changed over the years?
• Do you think people need to know all of the news? What are some examples of news people should not hear about?
• Do you think that the private lives of politicians should be reported?
• What do you think is the most important thing the news should report?
• What was the most memorable news you ever watched?
• What do you think has been the biggest news item in the past ten years?
• Do you think that the media covers too much bad news and not enough good news? How do you think this affects people?
• How has technology affected the way we receive news?
• Do you think that most newspapers print what’s really important, or what will help them sell more newspapers?

Interview with William Shakespearе (4 course)

Sleep deprivation

Sleep Habits: More Important Than You Think

Chronic Sleep Deprivation May Harm Health

By Michael J. Breus, PhD
WebMD Feature

Reviewed by Stuart J. Meyers, MD

WebMD Archive

Not sleeping enough and not sleeping well is not OK. As a matter of fact, there is quite a price to pay. It may surprise you to learn that chronic sleep deprivation, for whatever reason, significantly affects your health, performance, safety, and pocketbook.

There are many causes of sleep deprivation. The stresses of daily life may intrude upon our ability to sleep well, or perhaps we trade sleep for more work or play. We may have medical or mental-health conditions that disrupt our sleep, and be well aware that we are sleep-deprived.

However, it is critically important to realize that sleep deprivation is very often due to unrecognized sleep disorders. After a typical night's sleep, you may not feel restored and refreshed and be sleepy during the day, but be totally unaware that you are sleep-deprived or have a sleep disorder. You might think, "It's just the stress of work or the kids," or you might have "always felt this way" and had no idea that you should feel differently. This lack of awareness compounds the consequences, because so many people remain undiagnosed for years.

 

That said, let's look at the consequences of sleep deprivation.

In the short term:

• Decreased Performance and Alertness: Sleep deprivation induces significant reductions in performance and alertness. Reducing your nighttime sleep by as little as one and a half hours for just one night could result in a reduction of daytime alertness by as much as 32%.
• Memory and Cognitive Impairment: Decreased alertness and excessive daytime sleepiness impair your memory and your cognitive ability -- your ability to think and process information.
• Stress Relationships: Disruption of a bed partner's sleep due to a sleep disorder may cause significant problems for the relationship (for example, separate bedrooms, conflicts, moodiness, etc.).
• Poor Quality of Life: You might, for example, be unable to participate in certain activities that require sustained attention, like going to the movies, seeing your child in a school play, or watching a favorite TV show.
• Occupational Injury: Excessive sleepiness also contributes to a greater than twofold higher risk of sustaining an occupational injury.
• Automobile Injury: The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) estimates conservatively that each year drowsy driving is responsible for at least 100,000 automobile crashes, 71,000 injuries, and 1,550 fatalities.

The good news for many of the disorders that cause sleep deprivation is that after risk assessment, education, and treatment, memory and cognitive deficits improve and the number of injuries decreases.

In the long term, the clinical consequences of untreated sleep disorders are large indeed. They are associated with numerous, serious medical illnesses, including:

• High blood pressure
• Heart attack
• Heart failure
• Stroke
• Obesity
• Psychiatric problems, including depression and other mood disorders
• Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD)
• Mental impairment
• Fetal and childhood growth retardation
• Injury from accidents
• Disruption of bed partner's sleep quality
• Poor quality of life

MODAL VERBS: CAN, MAY, MUST

Вставьте глаголы may или can.

1. … I come in? 2. Let me look at your exercises. I … be able to help you. 3. I … not swim, because until this year the doctor did not allow me to be more than two minutes in the water. But this year he says I … stay in for fifteen minutes if I like, so I’m going to learn to swim. 4. Libraries are quite free, and any one who likes … get books there. 5. I … come and see you tomorrow if I have time. 6. Take your raincoat with you: it … rain today. 7. Do you think you … do that? 8. I … finish the work tomorrow if no one bothers me any more. 9. … we come and see you next Sunday at three o’clock in the afternoon? 10. What time is it? – It … - be about six o’clock, but I am not sure. 11. Only a person who knows the language very well … answer such a question.

Вставьте модальные глаголы may (might) или  can (could).

1. … you help me? 2. I … imagine her speaking in public: I knew that she was so shy. 3. Something was wrong with the car: he … not start it. 4. A fool … ask more questions than a wise man … answer. 5. She asked me if she … use my telephone. 6. … I use your pen? 7. … I find a pen on that table? 8. You … read this book: you know the language well enough. 9. You … take this book: I don’t need it. 10. … help you? 11. … I ask you to help me? 12. The school was silent: nothing … be heard in the long dark corridors. 13. Waiting … be endless, you know. 14. … you tell me the nearest way to the city museum? 15. They … think that I am too weak to take part in the excursion, but I am strong enough to do any kind of hard work, indeed. 16. He knew this period of history very well: he had read everything on the subject he … find in the rich university library.

 Переведите на английский язык, употребляя модальный глагол must.

1. Я должна упорно работать над своим английским. 2. Вы должны внимательно слушать учителя на уроке. 3. Ты должен делать уроки каждый день. 4. Вы не должны забывать о своих обязанностях. 5. Вы должны быть осторожны на улице. 6. Она должна быть дома сейчас. 7. Мои друзья, должно быть, в парке. 8. Вы, должно быть, очень голодны. 9. Должно быть, трудно решать такие задачи. 10. Я должен сегодня повидать моего друга. 11. Он, должно быть, очень устал. 12. У них даже есть яхта. Они, должно быть, очень богаты. 13. Ты должен уехать завтра утром? 14. Вы не должны опаздывать. 15. Я не должен забывать о своей  матери. Я не писал ей целую вечность. Сегодня вечером я должен написать ей письмо.16. Эта книга очень ценная. Вы не должны ее терять. 17. Неужели вам надо уже уходить? 18. Я должен признать, что я неправ.

PRESS

PRESS

Pakistani student Malala Yousafzai and Indian children’s rights activist Kailash Satyarthi have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their "struggle for education and against extremism." (Photo: Getty)

Indian children’s-rights activist Kailash Satyarthi and Malala Yousafzai, a Pakistani teenager shot by Taliban militants after campaigning for girls’ education, were awarded this year’s Nobel Peace Prize on Friday, in the same week that cross-border violenceflared up between their countries.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee sought to draw attention to problems that persist globally: child labor and the limits imposed on women and girls by radical Islamists.

In its statement announcing the prize, the committee said it is “an important point for a Hindu and a Muslim, an Indian and a Pakistani, to join in a common struggle for education and against extremism.”

The joint honor came at the end of a week in which fighting between India and Pakistan left 17 people dead and more than 100 injured.

Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan have fought three wars since gaining independence from Britain in 1947 after the partition of the South Asian subcontinent along religious lines.

Nobel committee chairman Thorbjørn Jagland said this year’s prize was unrelated to the current confrontation between the countries but, he said, “any contribution to resolving any conflict is of course good.”

Children rescued by Mr. Satyarthi’s organization watch the news on the 2014 Peace Prize in New Delhi on Friday. Bernat Armangue/Associated Press

In its prize citation, the committee said that 17-year-old Ms. Yousafzai, the youngest person to win the Nobel Peace Prize, had fought for girls’ rights to schooling “under the most dangerous circumstances.”

Ms. Yousafzai, speaking in Birmingham, England, where she lives, said she felt honored to be chosen as a Nobel Laureate and that the award made her feel more powerful and courageous. She said her teacher had taken her aside in class to tell her the news.

“I’m proud that I’m the first Pakistani and the first young woman, or the first young person, who is getting this award,” she said. “This is not the end, this is not the end of my campaign, this is the beginning.”

She also said she was happy to share the award with another campaigner for children’s rights, Mr. Satyarthi, and appealed for peace between India and Pakistan.

“This prize is a recognition and honor to hundreds and millions of children who are still languishing in slavery, who are still deprived of their childhood, their education, their health care, their fundamental rights,” Mr. Satyarthi told journalists in his New Delhi office.

The 60-year-old has for decades been a leading voice in the fight against child trafficking and forced labor in India. Save the Childhood Movement says it has rescued 83,000 Indian children from servitude in India since 1981.

He said that he thought the prize carried a pointed message: “It has to be read between the lines—not by the governments alone, but by the public in general, by every Indian citizen and every Pakistani citizen.”

Globally, the incidence of underage work is declining, but remains widespread, with children toiling in brickyards, factories and as domestic servants. The United Nations says there were 168 million child workers in 2012—78 million fewer than in 2000.

India has more than 280 million children between the ages of 5 and 14, according to the country’s 2011 census. Unicef says 12% of them are child laborers, though India’s official figures put the number as low as 1.5%, or about 4.3 million children.

Not all child labor is illegal in India, where the government imposes limits on the number of hours and kinds of work children can do. Poor-quality public education and families’ need for children’s wages are among the main reasons children leave school for the workforce, development groups say.

Asked Friday if he thought India’s government had failed the country’s children, Mr. Satyarthi said: “Absolutely, they have failed. Not just them, it is a collective failure of the international community.”

Ms. Yousafzai rose to prominence in 2009 when she started writing an online diary about her experience living under the Taliban in Pakistan’s northern Swat Valley.

She criticized restrictions on education for girls and became a campaigner for women’s rights and education, drawing the ire of the Pakistani Taliban. On Oct. 9, 2012, when she was on her way home from school, two gunmen stopped Ms. Yousafzai’s school van and shot her in the head.

Life for Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai has never been particularly normal. WSJ’s Dipti Kapadia looks at Ms. Yousafzai’s life since she was shot in 2012. Photo: AP

Fifteen years old at the time, she survived and—undeterred by the attack—has continued to campaign around the world to raise awareness about education.

“I think it’s absolutely fantastic,” said Christina Lamb, who co-wrote Ms. Yousafzai’s book, “I Am Malala.” “I don’t think it could’ve been given to a better person. She really is out there trying to make a difference.”

The pair was honored by the Norwegian Nobel Committee for showing great personal courage in “their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children” to schooling.

Indian President Pranab Mukherjee congratulated Mr. Kailash on the prize and his work aimed at abolishing child labor in India.

The Nobel Committee said Malala Yousafzai, left, and Kailash Satyarthi were awarded the prize for their struggle for child education. Getty Images

“The prize should be seen as recognition of the contributions of India’s vibrant civil society in addressing complex social problems such as child labor,” Mr. Mukherjee said.

The five-member Nobel Committee picked the winner out of a record 278 nominations that included former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden and Pope Francis.

The committee has come under fire in recent years for selecting winners such as the European Union in 2012 and PresidentBarack Obama in 2009, but the eight million kronor ($1.1 million) cash award is still considered one of the most prestigious honors in the world.

This year’s winners were widely praised and regarded as being more in line with the traditional spirit of Alfred Nobel. “This is an excellent choice,” said Anna Ek, chairwoman for the Swedish Peace and Arbitration Society. “This is a way to acknowledge people who are trying to change the world with peaceful means on the grass-roots level.”

Ms. Ek added: “there’s a very nice symbolism in sharing the prize jointly between an Indian and a Pakistani. Hopefully, this can be a positive injection in that conflict and put pressure on the leaders to approach each another.”

TELLING THE TIME IN ENGLISH

Упражнение 1

Раскройте скобки, выбрав нужную форму глагола.

1.      There (is, are) a large table in my room.

2.      There (is, are) three windows in my classroom.

3.      There (is, are) a table and four chairs in my living-room.

4.      There (is, are) a blackboard, four desks and five chairs in our class-room.

5.      There (is, are) a text-book and two exercise-books on the table.

6.      There (is, are) two shops and a cinema in my street.

Упражнение 2

Вы приехали в родной город спустя несколько лет и увидели, что много изменилось. Составьте предложения по образцу, используя подстановочные слова.

1.      There was a big tree in the yard, but I don’t see it.

2.      There were two small sport grounds nearby, but I don’t see them.

Подстановочные слова

1.      a little garden / nearby;

2.      a big fence / round the garden;

3.      two little shops / in my street;

4.      an old school / in my district;

5.      a lot of small and old houses / nearby;

6.      a little market / in my district.

Упражнение 3

Перепишите предложения в вопросительной и отрицательной форме.
Образец

1.      There was a small shop in my street last year. Was there a small shop in my street last year? There was no small shop in my street last year.

2.      There were two books at the table. Were there two books on the table? There weren’t two books on the table.

1.      There were a lot of flowers in the garden.

2.      There was an apple-tree in the garden.

3.      There were a lot of chickens on the farm.

4.      There were many white sheep on the farm.

5.      There was a table at the window.

6.      There was a bus stop here.

Social Influences and Musical Emotion

Previous music and emotion literature has focused on emotional responses in the individual, while he or she is alone and listening to music. However, music is often experienced in a social context- think pubs, clubs and festivals. With this in mind, the influence of a social setting on the emotional responses to music needs to be considered.

Research has largely ignored the influence of social factors on emotions (Manstead, 2005). This is unfortunate, as music is commonly associated with many social aspects apparent in everyday life (North & Hargreaves, 2008). For example, peer groups are known to influence the musical preferences of adolescents (Müller, Glogner, & Rhein, 2007) and the social bonding aspects of music have been suggested as the origins of music (Cross, 2009; Freeman, 2000; McNeill, 1995).

Of course snowball is waaaaay cooler (and alone) so there are opposing arguments...Empirical studies have been able to demonstrate supporting evidence in favour of a social bonding hypothesis. For example, Kirschner & Tomasello (2009, 2010) showed that children's drumming synchronisation improved in a social setting and that joint musical activity improved pro-social and cooperative behaviour. For more information about this you can see my MSc dissertation.

Another experiment by Wiltermuth (2010) revealed that moving and singing in synchrony can lead an individual to better comply with another's behavioural requests (even if for malicious reasons). Look at page 74 of the ICMPC11 conference proceedingspage 74 of the ICMPC11 conference proceedings. Other experiments report on the emotional responses to music which occur within the presence of others. Research examining strong experiences with music (SEM) has found social context to be an influential factor effecting emotional experiences (Gabrielsson & Lindström Wik, 2003) and more recently Lamont (2009) found SEMs to occur during live concerts. This bring to question: how does the presence of others alter emotional experience during music listening?

Before proceeding, we must first ask 'What are emotions?" That is, emotions can be understood from many different angles (models). One prominent model of emotion in music is the component process model by Scherer (2004). Under this model an emotion episode is triggered by a cognitive evaluation process and contains three reaction components: physiological arousal, motor expression and subjective feelings. Also, this model distinguishes between utilitarian and aestheticemotions. These emotions differ based on their goal relevance. Utilitarian emotions help us adapt to events that have direct personal relevance to us, like those with important consequences for our wellbeing. Think of being scared of a tiger. Being scared prompts you for the fight-or-flight response and in turn directs your goal towards survival. In this way, utilitarian emotions lead to distinct and proactive changes in physiology and behaviour and incorporate such emotions as anger, fear, joy, disgust, sadness, shame, and guilt. These emotions and there adaptive consequences on our physiology and behaviour can result in action tendencies (such as the previously mentioned flight or flight). In contrast, aesthetic emotions lack this direct relevance and so lead to reactive physiological and behavioural changes. For example, the emotional response or 'aesthetic experience' of art is not influenced by the ability of the art to satisfy biological needs or to help us achieve a goal. So our the emotional reaction to art is a product of an appreciation for the intrinsic beauty of the work. Examples of aesthetic emotions include awe, wonder, and ecstasy (Scherer, 2004). This may help explain modern art's argument of 'art for art's sake'.

Others have suggested musical emotion to originate through different mechanisms, arguing that music research has failed to reach a consensus because it has either neglected the underlying psychological mechanisms responsible for evoking musical emotion or because it assumes that all music-induced emotion requires cognitive appraisal. Juslin and Västfjäll (2008) therefore explain how music is able to arouse emotion, giving examples such as the brain stem reflex, evaluative conditioning, visual imagery, episodic memory, musical expectancy, emotional contagion, and cognitive appraisal.

Many researchers in music have also been concerned with the chills response, a common and strong emotional response experienced during music listening. Panksepp (1995) has speculated that chills evolved from a separation-stress system used to promote social bonding. He explains that the origin of chills is tied to a bodily reaction caused by the separation calls made my young animals when left alone by their parents. The call induced coldness 'shiver down the spine' in those parents is though to function as a motivator for social reunion (Panksepp, 1995; Panksepp & Berntzky, 2002). There are other explanations which speculate on why humans have a chill response. There are of course other speculations as to why we humans have the chill response (chills makes our hair stand on end, which makes us look bigger when we are scared), but we won't get into them here. Sloboda (1991) furthered chills research by collecting reports of participants' strongest emotional reactions to music, which asked questions about participants' physiological reactions, such as chills, shivers down the spine, goosepimples (goosebumps), tears, and laughter. He then examined the relationship between the occurrence of these strong experiences and specific musical structures, finding chills to occur during new or unprepared harmonies as well as with sudden changes in dynamic or texture. Sloboda's research has been corroborated with more recent work as well (Guhn, Hamm, & Zenter, 2007), suggesting that musical events play a large role in music-induced chills. However, this does not imply that music-induced chills are solely dependent on sudden changes in musical structures. If this were the case then under the right musical circumstances everyone would experience music-induced chills. In fact, past research has shown that music-induced chills is a highly individualistic response (Blood & Zatorre, 2001).

A study by Grewe, Nagel, Kopiez, and Altenmüller (2007b) adds further support to the idea that music-induced chills are not automatic reflex-like responses to sudden changes in sound. Interestingly, this group found no specific musical structures which induced chills across a majority of their participants. This suggest then that a cognitive appraisal is taking place during music listening and that this appraisal, triggered by attention-raising structures in the music, leads to a chills response. This implies that familiarity and preference also play a role in influencing the intensity of listeners' emotions and chill responses to music (Grewe et al., 2009; Salimpoor et al., 2009), and indeed music known to consistently and reliably evoke chills in an individual is often one that is extremely familiar (Blood & Zatorre, 2001).

Previous literature suggests a real need for experiments to consider the social context of emotional responses to music, and indeed future research should take this into account. However, future studies also need to be aware of the underlying reasons why music is able to elicit emotion in the first place. That is, understanding why and how music is able to evoke emotion may be best understood through empirical investigations which incorporate a social factor into their design.

PHOTOS FROM LONDON

Some anecdotes and funny stories.
A man hasn't been feeling well, so he goes to his doctor for a complete checkup. After a performing a thorough examination and running multiple tests, the doctor comes out with the results.
"I'm afraid I have some very bad news," says the doctor, "You're dying, and you don't have much time left."
"Oh, that's terrible!"says the man, "How long have I got?"
"Ten," the doctor says sadly.
"Ten?" the man asks. "Ten what? Months? Weeks? Ten What?"
"Nine..."
Beer note!!

A guy walks in a bar, and buys a huge beer. Then he sees someone he knows, and decides to go and say hi to them, but he does not want to drag his beer mug with him.
So he sets it on a table, along with a note "I spit in this beer" hoping that noone will steal it then.
Upon return, he sees another note saying "Me too!"
The Portrait

A woman decided to have her portrait painted. She told the artist, "Paint me with diamond rings, a diamond necklace, emerald bracelets, a ruby broach, and gold Rolex."
"But you are not wearing any of those things," he replied.
"I know," she said. "It's in case I should die before my husband. I'm sure he will remarry right away, and I want his new wife to go crazy looking for the jewelry."
Sneakers

A guy stops by to visit his friend who is paralyzed from the waist down. They talk for a while and then the friend asks, "My feet are cold. Would you be so kind as to go get me my sneakers please?"
The guest obliges and goes upstairs. There he sees his friend's daughters, both very good looking. Being the adventurous and quick thinking kind, he says:
"Hi, ladies! Your daddy sent me here to have sex with you!"
They stare at him and say, "That can't be!"
He replies, "OK, let's check!"
He shouts at his friend down the stairs, "Both of them?"
"Yes, both of them!"
No reason to stop!

A great speaker, while speaking to a large audience, paused and said "I'm afraid I've kept you too long." And a voice in the rear replied , "Go on, sir, it's still raining."
Sidewalk

A well-to-do, plump woman went to visit one of her sons who was a cadet. Wishing to surprise her son she went to his room unannounced. The dormitory was still under construction, and as she passed through a doorway a sliver of wood caught on her dress and made a hole in it. A cadet who chanced to pass by at that moment called out impudently, "Madame, you should have gone through that door sideways." The heavily built singer did not take offence. Laughing heartily, she said, "My dear sonny, I have no sideways."
Food for thought!

Alexander A Stevens, US Senator and, subsequently Vice-President of the Confederate States, was remarkably short and weighed less than 80 lbs. Once there arose a heated debate between Stevens and a Congressman who was tall and huge. At one point in the debate the big Senator shouted, "Why, I could swallow you and never know I'd eaten a thing." "In that case, you'd have more brains in your belly than you ever had in your head," retorted Stevens.

Beautiful Lincoln

Lincoln had a great love for children. A little girl was taken by her father to see him at the White House. Lincoln took her upon his knee and engaged in pleasant chatting with her. Turning to her father, the girl exclaimed : "Oh, Pa! he isn't ugly at all, he's just beautiful!"