Read two texts below and discuss with a partner arguments to prove that ambition is a healthy impulse. Give both texts suitable titles. Retell the texts

1. Five nights a week she pins back her hair, puts on an apron and works as a school cleaner. On a wage of 4 an hour, Gan, the 18 – year old girl from China .sweeps floors, stacks chairs, empties bins and washes out toilets.

She does this work willingly in the knowledge that the work will help her to pay for her education. Now she is studying on a scholarship of 9.500 a year at Bruton School for girls in Sommerset. She has just been offered a place at Cambridge, but the fee and living costs for a foreign student will be 14.000 a year. That’s why she works every weekday evening as a cleaner at her school and does a restaurant waitress’s job in the holidays.

“I am tired sometimes’ said Gan, who has been in England less than 18 months. “But it is a hard year for everyone who wants to go to university. And I think it has made me a more experienced and mature person. I am also proud I am making money for myself and my mother back home.”

Three years ago Gan sent letters to a dozen schools in England. “I began studying English at the age of six”’ she wrote. “I don’t have any difficulties in studying academic subjects in English, and could be treated as normal English students. My mother’s income is not enough to pay all the school fees. As I consider myself a good student, I hope I can get a scholarship.”

Gan’s letter impressed Bruton school, and she was offered a place. She flew to England on a one-way ticket paid for by her mother’s life savings.

In several years Gan is expecting to come back to China where there will be lots of work for her.

2. At eighteen the young clerk realized there was little future for him in his native Germany. Scraping up enough money for the passage, he made the long journey across the Atlantic to America, where his two older brothers had preceded him. He was disappointed to discover that his brothers were peddlers, not millionaires in New York. But with no skill or trade, and only a few words of English, h was forced to become a peddler as well. He learned quickly and soon began to earn a decent living. Although his brothers seemed content with their lives, he knew that America offered far greater potential. When he heard that gold had been discovered in California, he took his savings, bought all the merchandise he could, and sailed on a ship to San Francisco.

There was such a need of goods of all kinds that he sold almost everything as soon as he arrived. He had nothing left to sell except several rolls of light canvas with which he intended to make tents for the miners. He bought a wagon, loaded it with his rolls of material, and set out to sell it. But when one of the first miners told him of a special problem, he suddenly got an idea. It was then that one of the great success stories of America was born.

Nowhere in San Francisco could the miners find clothing which was strong enough to withstand the wear and tear of the rocky terrain where they looked for gold. The young immigrant went to a tailor and had all of his material, a light canvas called “denim”, made into pants in several sizes. He sold them all in one day, then began improving his new product. Learning that the pockets often tore from the weight of heavy rocks, he got the idea of fixing the pockets in place with copper rivets.

As the years went by, the pants he made became extremely popular throughout the West. He died a wealthy man, having founded a company which today is known all over the world. It all began with a few rolls of material in the back of a wagon owned by a little peddler named Levi Strauss /Li:vai Stros/.

Listen to a story by J. G. Gozzens. Discuss it in groups of 3-4 until you are ready to sum up its message and guess its title.

Below there are two stories about getting on in life. Working in pairs, get prepared to explain how their contents are related to Joseph Epstein’s ideas on ambition. Picking up from both stories, enlarge the list of your topical vocabulary, paying special attention to the phrasal verbs.

Two people, Peter and Jane are describing how they came to choose their careers.

Peter

At the moment I have a very good, well-paid job that I enjoy doing, but it hasn't always been like this.

Several years ago I used to work as a salesmanfor a small company that specialized in making motor components for the car industry. It was the sort of job where you had to be committed to your product, you had to believe in it and do everything possible to sell it. But times were hard, and a lot of companies were going out of business, so our company started to cut back on the number of people it employed in order to save money- fortunately, I wasn't one of them - but in the end it had to close down, and I found myself out of work for the first time in my life.

I applied for several jobs in similarcompanies, but I wasn't successful - every one of them turned me down.

Then one day I was looking through the paper and I came across an advertisement for courses that specialized in journalism I filled in an application form, sent it off, was accepted onto the course, studied hard, passed al1 my exams, and became a qualified journalist. I then wrote to a small magazine for the car industry, attended an interview along with dozens of other applicants and, to my surprise, they took me on. The magazine grew in size and popularity. I moved from writing articles to being sub-editor, and this year I became the editor, so I suppose I've been lucky really.

Jane

When I was young my father always told me how important it was to get on in life and be a success. “You must make something of your life”, he used to say. I think he wanted me to be a doctor or an engineer or something like that. And I can remember how disappointed he was when I left school early and started work as a secretary.

It was a small, badly-run company, and when I went there they told me the job wasn't difficult and I would soon pick it up. At the beginning I liked the job, but as time passed the work started to take up more of my time and I found I was working late in the evenings and even at weekends. And in addition to this I had to put up with poor working conditions and a low salary - I earned just enough to get by - and there were no promotion prospects at all. All this really got me down. And then I started to wonder if I was really cut out for this kind of work - it didn't really suit me or my particular abilities.

Then one day - I remember I’d been working very hard that month and had put in a lot of extra hours - I went to see my boss to ask for some time off work. I needed to visit my mother, who wasn't well at the time. I have to say that I didn't get on with my boss very well. Anyway, he refused point-blank. He said it was out of the question and he didn't want to hear another word. I tried explaining but I just couldn't get through to him. He wouldn't listen. So I walked out of the office, and as far as I was concerned, that was it, that was the last straw. The next day I handed in my resignation, and I said to myself I would never put myself in that kind of position again. I decided to return to studying and go in for law. I graduated from London University and now I’m starting to make my way in the world. As my father used to say, “The world is my oyster”.

So was my father right? Is it important to get on in the world? Well, in some ways it is, but it depends on how you measure success and what you want to get out of life. After all, there are other things in life besides work.

Think over and suggest a suitable plot for a story which title is “An Alternative Cinderella”. Discuss the suggested plots in groups of 4. Choose the best one. Compare the choices in the form of a competition between groups. Choose 1 plot, which is the best and compare it with the key version.

9. Talk on the following, making good use of topical vocabulary:

1. Ambition is fruitless without setting and hitting targets.

2. Ambition is like a powerful engine, driving one forward.

3. Ambition is something that allows one to reveal a great deal of oneself.

4. The life shorn of ambition is doomed to be a total waste.

5. Ambition is meaningless without the love of the world.

10. Contradict or support the following statement in the form of debates:

It is ambition that helps people to get a great deal out of life.

Section 5

Writing