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Task based on the book “Understanding Britain”

=**1. Scan 11 sections from the book “Understanding Britain” by Karen Hewitt.**= =**2. Look at the section headings and choose one that catches your interest.**= =**3. Type your name next to the section that you are interested in to reserve it.**= =**4. Summarize the section you have just reserved.**=

**Don't forget to click the button "Save" to save your summary.**

 * (from the book “Understanding Britain” by Karen Hewitt; Part Six. Culture and Civil Society; Ch. 1)**


 * SECTION 1: How the British Enjoy their Leisure (definition)**
 * This chapter contains a brief overview of the ways in which British people spend their free time. 'Free time' is not an easily definable term. For some people, religious observance is their priority and not a matter of choice. For others, their voluntary activities become a binding commitment from which they do not wish to disentangle themselves. What these chapters share is that they explore that space between personal relationships and state institutions which is in some ways the space that most defines a society.**
 * In 1991 when Understanding Britain was first published, the leisure activities available to the British and to Russians differed widely. Today we share much more - from computer games to trips to Turkey. In Britain the range of activities is more diverse than in Russia, partly because our society is more diverse, partly because we lack your long traditions of organizing activities for everyone. In what follows, do not assume that 'British people do this' or 'British children do that'. Some do, some do not, generalizations are difficult, and, except from friends and oneself, there is absolutely no pressure for anyone to take up any particular activity. In that sense at least we are considering 'free time'.**


 * SECTION 2: How the British Enjoy their Leisure (TV, reading books, computers)**
 * In 2009 the British Attitudes Survey found that 'watching television remains Britain's most common leisure activity', with 90% of our population watching several times a week. 'Watching television' ranges from recovering-from-exhaustion-on-the-family-sofa to intense shared experiences where every¬one is sitting in the near-darkness, pop-eyed with excitement so perhaps it is not surprising that only a third of these frequent viewers say that they enjoy television very much, and nearly a quarter say that they do not enjoy it at all! By contrast, only 42% read a book several times a week. However 85% of those readers told the survey that they got 'a great deal of enjoyment' from reading.**
 * Younger people turn to computers, partly for games but increasingly to enjoy social-networking sites. More than half the population use computers several times a week as a leisure activity. In fact if we look at 'leisure' in its widest sense, perhaps the most popular activities are using mobile phones and exchanging news on sites such as Facebook and My Space. Meanwhile older people are fast catching up; pensioners are not interested in computer games but are learning to use the internet in order to follow up their own interests - for example, discovering the history of their family.**


 * SECTION 3: How the British Enjoy their Leisure (music, gardening)**


 * Listening to popular music, is as widespread in Britain as anywhere. I am not qualified to say any more about this pleasure, but my son tells me to point out to Russian readers that 'one distinctive thing about British attitudes to music is that -along with the USA - we are its 'history': Beatles, Stones, Kinks, Who, Sex Pistols and on and on. The success of these groups can make the British (and English in particular) very smug, but a huge proportion of massive and influential acts are British. This does, however, have its downside, since many British acts are compared with these pillars of popular music and understandably come up short.' These leisure-time activities occur mostly inside the house.**
 * Outside, the British are indeed a nation of gardeners. Nearly half of us claim to spend time gardening. Almost all houses have a small garden and the climate is ideal for growing plants from most parts of the world, since with a little ingenuity we can acclimatize them. I can walk out to admire the flowers in my garden during every month including January. Those of us who grow vegetables enjoy the fact that home-grown fruit and vegetables taste much better than those in shops. And, as everyone knows, we have a passion for lawns of grass which stay green throughout the year. For really enthusiastic gardeners who want more land, it is possible to rent an allotment from the local authority. An allotment can vary from about 100 square metres to 300 square metres; whoever rents it must cultivate it or it will be returned to the local authority since there is always a queue of people waiting for one. Unlike your bigger dacha plots, we are not allowed to build houses on allotments!**
 * (from the book “Understanding Britain” by Karen Hewitt; Part Six. Culture and Civil Society; Ch. 1)**
 * SECTION 4: How the British Enjoy their Leisure (shopping, eating out)**


 * Even twenty years ago most people would have hesitated to include 'shopping' in their leisure-time activities. Shopping meant either going to the supermarket for the household's weekly necessities, or searching in department stores or specialist shops for clothes, shoes, and so forth. We have become an increasingly rich society with money to spare, so people have turned essential shopping into 'fun' shopping. What they buy is not necessarily very glamorous or expensive; much of it is short-term, to be bought and then thrown away. Going shopping, especially at the weekend, is therefore now treated as a pleasure in itself.**
 * 'Eating out' is another pleasure which is characteristic of an affluent society. In practice it can mean sitting around a table with friends in a pizzeria or a simple cafe; it can mean eating at a very expensive, exclusive restaurant but obviously that is for the very few. Tens of thousands of pubs provide cheap but decent bar meals and often, more elaborate meals, especially at lunchtime; cafes, restaurant and food-chain shops line our streets. Our enthusiasm for getting others to cook our meals is maybe laziness. But eating socially with others in public seems to derive from habits in southern Europe where eating in the fresh air is almost essential during the summer months. Sometimes, in good weather, cafes and restaurants here put out tables on the pavement or in a little garden, but too often the rain and wind**
 * disappoint them. So mostly our meals are served indoors. (Personally I mourn the decline in Britain of dinner parties where friends came together in someone's home; the host cooked the meal and the pleasure of being together in an intimate place lasted for hours. This still happens, but less often.)**


 * SECTION 5: How the British Enjoy their Leisure (two ways of parents’ spending time with children)**


 * Families with small children have their own leisure priorities. Most parents try to spend as much time as they can with their children in two typical ways. The first is to read to the child or children, usually at bedtime. The second is to go out for a walk, as a family, on Saturdays and Sundays. The 'walk' may be to the local playground equipped with swings, slides, climbing frames, often constructed alongside a public space for playing family football, cricket or simply running around.**
 * Some families - as well as millions of individuals -choose to visit museums. British national art and antiquity collections are free to everyone. Free entry to the public is a right we have sometimes had to fight for, and we are, I believe, rightly proud that our national glories are open to all, not just to those who can afford to pay. The British Museum, the National Gallery, the Tate Modern and other national museums in London, Edinburgh and Cardiff attract many millions each year; for poor tourists they are not denied the opportunity to sее great arm collections; while for families free entry means that they can 'drop in' to museums and return the following weekend without spending a huge part of the family's weekly budget.**


 * SECTION 6: Holidays (going abroad, country cottages)**
 * If they can afford to do so, most British people like to go abroad for their annual holiday. (By this I mean a period of one or two weeks.) Spain is the most popular destination, followed by France, America (on special cheap packages), and other European countries, with Turkey rising up the list of favourite destinations. Half of British holidaymakers book a 'package holiday' in which everything is arranged for them; the other half choose their accommodation, means of travel and activities. Although the British love their own countryside as a place for relaxation, what we miss is reliable sun. People go abroad for sunshine, and many return having enjoyed lying on beaches and doing little else. But annual visits to other countries do change our perceptions of the world. We can still be insular in our views of 'abroad', but we adopt many of 'their' habits and assimilate them to our own.**
 * Unlike you, we do not have dachas in the countryside, elderly relatives in villages, sanatoria or camps for children in huge forests. Instead we have gardens and allotments, grandparents with their own lives and accommodation, and -strangely, perhaps - very few camps of the kind familiar in Russia and America, although such holidays for children are increasing. So for those who want to enjoy a holiday in Britain, the options are camping, caravans, renting old cottages for a week or two, or driving around and sleeping at night in bed-and-breakfast accommodation or in hotels. Camping can be a cheap (but often very wet) family holiday. Caravans can be rented on special caravan sites, or bought and towed from place to place by the family car. Country cottages, absolutely unlike the Russian concept of a 'kottedzh', are small, usually old, often built of stone and rather damp inside, uncomfortable, romantic and much loved by those who use them. We can rent cottages all over the country, but the most popular ones are in remote and deserted beautiful parts where town-dwellers can enjoy refreshment and exercise in the good country air.**


 * SECTION 7: Holidays (typical holiday for working people, middle class and pensioners)**
 * Although children have summer holidays from school lasting six weeks, few working people get more than 28 days of paid free time in the whole year. Typically, the annual summer holiday will take up two weeks, while the other two weeks will be spent on short breaks and staying-at-home. Those who have plenty of time are pensioners. (In Britain a woman can retire at 60 and a man at 65. Here I am mostly considering the over-65s.) In Britain the old expect to stay active and, as far as possible, to go on doing what they have always enjoyed doing. They watch television, they garden, they take part in social activities with family and friends, they involve themselves in all kinds of associations, they study for certificates and diplomas and for sheer pleasure, they argue, demonstrate, read, sing, exercise, and often continue to work.**
 * It is sometimes rumoured in Russia that British pensioners spend their lives on round-the-world cruises. This is a myth Some pensioners find that they are very poor when they cease to earn; the state pension is not generous. Others, especially the middle-classes who have paid off the mortgage, saved some money, and have bought a smaller house for their retirement can suddenly find that they are quite rich. At this point, especially if they are not very energetic, the dream of the round-the-world cruise occurs to them. And for a few - a very few - sailing round the world can become a drug of addiction. 99.9% of pensioners, even the rich and well-off, would think such immersion in cruise life rather absurd. They can think of many other things to do. If you read the second chapter on 'Helping Ourselves' you will learn about some of them.**
 * (from the book “Understanding Britain” by Karen Hewitt; Part Six. Culture and Civil Society; Ch. 1)**


 * SECTION 8: How Students find a place at a British University**
 * Britain has about one hundred separate universities, all of them state universities. There are no private universities in our system (apart from the tiny Buckingham University which caters mostly for Americans). Each university has a finite number of places for undergraduates, and each place is funded by the state. So school leavers are competing for a limited number of places which are awarded on academic achievement and ability judged on the basis of examination results, together with school reports, personal reports and interviews. There are no 'commercial students' for undergraduate degrees. (See later for details of how these places are funded.)**
 * Because the Scottish school system has a different structure and curriculum, Scottish Universities also differ from English Universities. (For example the degree course usually lasts four years rather than three.) In other ways, particularly in funding, the Welsh system is also different from the English one.**
 * English school pupils who hope to go to university have a number of curriculum and examination routes in order to find a course and a university that suits them, but by far the mosl common of these routes is the A-Level (or Advanced Level of the General Certificate of Education). A-levels are a curious but central examination in the English system. Originally devised when only 3% or 4% of eighteen-year-olds went to University, they were exams that were deliberately deep and demanding for the very 'academic' children who took the course at school. They were also narrow in focus, in that pupils studied three, or at the most, four subjects. There was no sense of a broad education for those about to enter university, presumably because it was assumed that they were broadly educating themselves. Today, about 43% of school leavers enter higher education, so clearly an exam designed for a very small academic elite has had to change over the years. It has been adapted for a much wider range of academic ability, and yet it is still narrow in focus: most pupils still take only three subjects at A-level. By the standards of many of them, it remains a difficult, rigorous, even profound examination. By the standards of the cleverest 20% or so, it is not difficult to score top marks in all three subjects.**


 * SECTION 9: How British people find work**
 * In 2009 it is possible for a boy or girl to leave school at sixteen and start looking for a job. The government is keen to change this situation so that all young people between 16 and 18 are either in school or in some special 'work training' which will provide them with the skills for something better than unskilled manual labour. Even when the present law is changed (if it is changed), young people who are aged 18 and not about to enter higher education must find a job. Later, university graduates must find jobs. So how do they do it?**
 * Employers sometimes ask for a CV (the Latin is Curriculum Vitae meaning 'Account of my Life'). Imagine you are eighteen and looking for work. Writing your CV can be quite complicated because it makes you think about yourself as others might see you. A good CV will contain name, address, telephone and email address; education; qualifications (national exam results and any other relevant qualifications); details of any previous employment including part-time employment during the holidays; useful experiences and attainments, such as having a driving licence; interests, hobbies and activities such as volunteering – which is often crucial; two referees. Referees are people who know you and who are ready to provide an honest account of your abilities and character. If you have justleft school, one referee might be a schoolteacher who knows you well, and another might be the person who employed you when you did a holiday job.**


 * SECTION 10: Sport in Britain**
 * One hundred years ago Britain was famous for its devotion for organized sport. The schools which trained уoung men to go out and run the British Empire insisted that the boys should practice Association football or Rugby football in winter and cricket in summer for hours every week. By the middle of the twentieth century organized team games were a part of the curriculum in all secondary schools: football and cricket for the boys, field hockey and netball for the girls, and, where possible, tennis for both sexes. Such games were typically played for two or three lessons a week by all pupils. Competitive leagues were established among groups of schools, with teams travelling from one school to another, so that 'after-school' sporting events became the largest and most important element in extra-curricular activity. The aim of this activity was not to find Olympic winners, but to encourage all pupils to be active and healthy and to learn the 'team spirit'. Although not all pupils enjoyed “PE' or 'Physical Education', to be a member of a school team playing against other school team was considered a great honour.**


 * SECTION 11: The Internet, Mobile phones and Globalisation**
 * The existence of the internet has changed our views of the world. Information about any country, even if it is wildly inaccurate, can been found by pressing a few keys. Videos of events from the smallest disturbance to major acts of war are filmed on mobile phones and posted on the internet, as are news items and endless opinions about them.**
 * People all over the world can be in contact with each other via email, social networking sites, satellite video, and other newer technologies. Many global campaigns on behalf of electoral candidates, victims of torture, religious sects, sufferers from poverty, AIDS victims, economic crusades, anti-corruption and saving the planet from climate change have been mounted through the internet and enlisted hundreds of thousand sometimes millions of supporters. It is easy to press a key to ‘support' a campaign, even when you do not know the basic facts or the people directly involved. Nonetheless, the practice of organising such campaigns and the possibility of taking part even as you sit in your chair at your computer must have some significance. We begin to think in global terms.**
 * How has all this technology affected the British. Because the internet mostly operates in a kind of' technical English', we have not had to learn another language. So we can be 'international' while remaining resolutely monolingual (which is a disadvantage even if we think it is an advantage). At the same time the internet has enraged other people to learn this 'technical English' and to explore a wider world in which they become confident in communicating with people from other countries and cultures.**