Discussion and Conversation. Discuss the following questions in groups of 2-4

Discuss the following questions in groups of 2-4. Make good use of topical vocabulary (See Section 3, task 8)

1. Do you agree or disagree with the statement in paragraph 4 that not many people make their livings at tasks that interest them? Give examples to support your position.

2. What do you think of people who, like the author, do what they want to do with little or no interest in their effect on other people? What are your reasons for feeling as you do?

3. The author finds his greatest means of attaining happiness in work and in relationship with family and friends. What is yours?

4. What factors determine an individual human activity?

5. Support or refute the ideas.

a) “The precise form of an individual’s activity is determined … by his heredity”.

b) Troubles tend to foster the most admirable human qualities – courage and its analogues.

c) What I do is simply what lies easiest to my hand.

d) Christian faith is full of palpable absurdities.

Work in pairs. Basing on the words and phrases below in A), B), C) guess the number of each of the 3 paragraphs, taken out of the text, and add words and expressions which may help retell them. Try to be as close to the source text as possible. Correct your partner’s retelling and help to improve.

A) a means of, attain happiness, domestic affection, day to day intercourse, bitter sorrow, serious disputes, associate with, friends of old standing, delight sb, turn to sb, general tastes, see sth alike, give pleasure.

B) individual’s activity, determine, equipment, for the same reason, get oneself done, lie easiest to one’s hand, intense, insatiable, interest in, play with sth, the average facility, put sth into words, dealer, concocter.

C) worship, debasing rather than ennobling, grovel before, denounce instead of respect, goodness of, on the strength of, villainous, a clear conscience, treat sb, with vast politeness, can’t help doing, the rest of humanity, revere sb

3. Working with a partner and discussing every point fill in the blanks with the links from the box below:

which In other words rather more than which

of course For the same reason because that (2)

as or (3) In consequence and thus

The precise form of an individual’s activity is determined, ______, by the equipment with _______ he came into the world. _________, it is determined by his heredity. I do not lay eggs, ____ a hen does, _________ I was born without any equipment for it. __________ I do not get myself elected to Congress, ____ play the violoncello, _____ teach metaphysics in a college, _____ work in a steel mill. What I do is simply what lies easiest to my hand. It happens ______ I was born with an intense and insatiable interest in ideas, ________ to play with them. It happens also ______ I was born with _____ the average facility for putting them into words. _________, I am a writer and editor, _____ is to say, a dealer in them and concocter of them.

At other times until all the same

but still and at the same time just as

But like even though

There is very little conscious volition in all this. What I do was ordained by the inscrutable fates, not chosen by me. In my boyhood, yielding to a powerful _____ subordinate interest in exact facts, I wanted to be a chemist, _________ my poor father tried to make me a business man. _________, ____ any other relatively poor man, I have longed to make a lot of money by some easy swindle. ____ I became a writer ______, and shall remain one ______ the end of the chapter, _____ a cow goes on giving milk all life, _______ what appears to be her self-interest urges her to give gin.

Dialogue.

Practice reading the following dialogue in pairs, working at your pronunciation and expression. Learn it by heart and perform it with a partner in front of the class.

A: - Idle again? Is there any activity you ever turn to with unfailing eagerness?

B: - Why should I? I know other means of attaining happiness.

A: - Like what? Domestic affections, perhaps?

B: - Very funny. Is humour the only satisfaction you get out of life?

A: - I’ve had my share of woes, haven’t I? Nothing will ever urge me to be grim again There is time for everything.

B: - Right. The same with my inaction. Active functioning can not last forever. One needs recuperation.

A: - Not you. When have there been the last burst of activity?

B: - Why such an insatiable interest in me?

A: - Because you delight me as a very peculiar specimen.

B: - No wonder, because just before you came I finished drawing your portrait.

A: - You did what? My word! I didn’t even know you could draw!

B: - It’s been determined by heredity. My father was a painter.

A: - Do you mean to say that in what you did there was little conscious volition?

B: - Exactly. Though I’ve enjoyed an immense satisfaction in the process I did it not to profit you or the rest of humanity, but to satisfy myself.

A: -Why have I ever married you?

B: - You had no choice. It has been ordained by the inscrutable fates.

A: - Oh, you stupid, villainous, impossible, darling!..

The expressions below are useful for giving opinions. Working with 2 partners act out a conversation to discuss any issue from the article by H.L. Mencken. Use the topical vocabulary and the following expressions as largely as you can.

To my mind / To my way of thinking, …

It is my (firm) belief/opinion/view/conviction (that) …

In my opinion/view …

I (firmly) believe …

I am (not) convinced that …

I (do not) agree that/with …

It strikes me that …

My opinion is that,

I (definitely) feel/think that …

I am inclined to believe that …

It seems/appears to me …

As far as I am concerned, …