Our family is neither large nor small. I have a mother, a father and a sister. We all live together in a three – room flat in one of the industrial districts of Kharkiv. We are an average Ukrainian family.
My father Ihor Ivanovych is 45 years old. He is a tall and well-built man with short black hair and grey eyes. He works as an engineer at a big plant.
He likes his work and spends most of his time there. By character my father is a quiet man, while my mother is energetic and talkative. My mother’s name is Olha Petrivna. She is a teacher of music and plays the piano well.
My mother always has a lot of work to do about the house and at school. She is a busy woman and we all help her. My sister’s name is Alla. Like our mother Alla has blue eyes and fair hair.
She is a very good-looking girl. Alla is three years younger than me. She is a pupil of the 8th form. She does well at school and gets only good and excellent marks. Literature is her favourite subject and she wants to become a teacher, as well as I do.
Our family is very united. We like to spend time together.
In the evenings we watch TV, read books and newspapers, listen to music or just talk about the events of the day. Our parents don’t always agree with what we say, but they listen to our opinion. All of us like to spend our weekends in the country. We often go to the village where our grandparents live. They are aged pensioners now, but prefer to live in the country.
My grand-grandmother is still alive. She lives in my grandmother’s family and is always glad to see us. Her health is poor and she asks us to come and see her more often.
I also have many other relatives: uncles, aunts, cousins. We are happy when we are together.
Vocabulary:
Industrial district [‘indAstrial to prefer [рп’їз:] – віддавати перевагу ‘distrikt] – промисловий район to agree [a’gri:] – погоджуватися relatives [‘relativz] – родичі well-built [/wel’bilt] – гарної статури
Questions:
Is your family large or small? Where do you live? What does your mother look like? Do you have a sister or a brother?
Do you often visit your grandparents?
Solving everyday problems and conflicts.
The students are given cards with tasks: to solve conflict situations which they may easily witness in everyday life and are given 2 minutes to solve them. The representatives of each group present the situations and best solutions.
Situation 1
Mother brings home one orange. She wants her son and daughter to share it. But both insisit on the whole orange. Both feel hurt. What should be done?
Ways to solve the conflict:
To ignore the protests of the elder daughter and to give the orange to the son because he is younger.
To give the orange to the daughter because she has had “flu” recently and lacks vitamins.
……
……
Situation 2
A student studies at day time and works in the evening. He comes home late and turns on very loud rock-music. He also arranges noisy parties. His neighbour is an elderly gentleman, suffering from insomnia. All that noise drives him mad. What should be done?