Education is very important in our life. An educated person is one who knows a lot about many things. He always tries to learn, find out, discover more about the world around him. He get knowledge at school, from books, magazines, from TV educational programs. The pupils can get deeper knowledge in different optional courses in different subjects and school offers these opportunities. They can deepen and improve their knowledge by attending different optional courses in different subjects. The result of the educative process is the capacity for Further education. Nowadays the students of secondary schools have opportunities to continue their education by entering, gymnasiums, lyceums, colleges. But the road to learning is not easy. There is noroyal road to learning. To be successful in studies one must work heard. It's for you to decide to learn and make progress or not to learn lose your time. The role of foreign languages is also increasing today. Thanks to the knowledge of foreign languages one can read books, magazines in the original, talk to foreigners, translate various technical articles. Moreover, joint ventures which have recently appeared in our country need specialists with profound knowledge of foreign languages like English, German or French. To know foreign languages is absolute necessary for every educated person, for good specialists. Our country is transferring to a market economy. Research and innovations should improve living, working conditions of our people. That is why it is so important to be persistent in students. English is a world language. It is the language of progressive science and technology, trade and cultural relations, commerce and business. It's the language of international aviation, shipping and sports. It's also the major language of diplomacy. Geographically it is the most widespread language on earth, second only to Chinese in the number of people who speak it hearing a foreign language is- not an easy thing. It's a long and slow process that takes a lot of time and practice. A foreign language is not just a subject learnt in the classrooms. It's something which is used in real life situations. There are many reasons why we begin to study foreign languages. First of all it's an effective medium of international communication. I'm convinced if we are working in any brunch of science we must read books and magazines in other languages. Learning foreign languages opens up opportunities and careers that didn't even exits some years ago. Knowing foreign languages can help us to find a job in such fields as science and technology, foreign trade and banking, international transportation communication, teaching librarian science and others. A more general aim is to make our intellectual and cultures. Learning a foreign language including learning also culture, traditions and mode of thought of different people. Of course speaking and writing in a foreign language is a difficult art and it has to be learned. Needless to say that English has become very popular today. About 350 million people speak English as its first language. About the same numbers use it as a second language. It's an official language in 44 countries. It's the dominant language of medicine, electronics and space technology, of international business and advertising, of radio. It has replaced French in the world of diplomacy and German in the field of science. As for me, I'm completely convinced that to know a foreign language is absolutely necessary for all educated person and modern specialists. Everything depends on our own efforts.
Citizens of Russia have the right to education which is guaranteed by the Constitution. The public educational system in our country incorporates pre-school, general school, specialized secondary and higher education. Pre-school consists of kindergartens and creches. Children there learn reading, writing and arithmetic. But pre-school education isn't compulsory - children can get it at home. Compulsory education is for children from 6(7) to 17 years of age. The main link in the system of education is the general school which prepares the younger generation for life and work in modern production. There are various types of schools: general secondary schools, schools specializing in a certain subject, high schools, lyceums and so on. Tuition in most of them is free of charge, but some new types of schools are fee-paying. The term of study in a general secondary school is 11 years and consists of primery, middle and upper stages. At the middle stage of a secondary school the children learn the basic laws of nature and society at the lessons of history, algebra, literature, physics and many others. After 9th form pupils have to sit for examinations. Also they have a choice between entering the 10th grade of a general secondary school and enroling in a specialized secondary or vocational school. Persons who finish the general secondary school, recieve a secondary education certificate, giving them the right to enter any higher educational establishment. Entrance examinations are held in July and August. Institutions are headed by rectors; the faculties are headed by the deans. One has to study in the institute for 5 years. Higher educational institutions train students in one or several specializations.
Secondary education is mandatory in Russia. Children start school at the age of 6 and finish at 17 . As a rule, a child attends the school located in the neighborhood,the one which is the closes to home . However , there in big cities there are also so-called "special" schools , offering more in-depth studies of the major European languages ( English , French, or German), or the advanced courses in physics and mathematics, and children attending one of these may have to commute from home. There are no school buses in Russia. The first stage of education is elementary school for grades 1 through 4. The second is secondary school for grades 5 through 9 . Upon graduation from secondary school ( which is not the equivalent of having completed their secondary education ) , students are given the choice of either continuing to attend the same school (high school; grades 10 and 11 ), or entering a vocational school or trade school. Both vocational school and trade schools are meant to provide one , long with the certificate of secondary education, with a number of useful skills ( e.g. , those of an electrician, technical, or computer operator ).One attends the former for two years, and the latter for three or four. Haveing completed one's secondary education, one can either become part of work force or go on to college ( " institution of higher learning " ). There are universityes and so-called "institutes" in Russian . The former stress a more teoretical , fundamental approach to education , while the latter are more practice oriented. There are no medical schools or departments with in the structure of Russian universitys . Future doctors attend medical institutes. There are no degrees in Russian equivalent to those of bachelor's or master's. Students spend approximately five years in college or six in a medical institute. To be admited to an institution of higher learning , one has to pass a series of oral and written tests. Grades in the certificate of secondary education are also taken account. Entry to higher education is quite competitive. Some college departments ( philologist,foreign languages-especially English,law, journalism ) have dozens of applicants for one prospective student's position. The same is true of medical and theatre institutes. Up to the present, neither college students nor schoolchildren have had any say in the selection of courses they had to take. Everyone has studied according to uniform series of guide lines approved by the Ministery of Higher Education . Evidently , this situation is going to change in the near future. Education in Russian has until recently been free on all levels. College students with good grades were rewarded with a modest stipend . All institutions of higher learning were subsidized by the government . Now that the country is changing to a market-place economy, the system of education is also bound to undergo profound changes . The first private scholls , gymnasiums and lycees, have already been founded in Moscow and St. Petersburg , in an attempt to revive the pre-1917 traditionals of Russian educational system with its high standards of excellence.
Everyone in our country has the right to education. It is said in our Constitution. But it is not only a right, it is a duty, too. Every boy and every girl in Russia must go to school, that is they must get a full secondary education. So, when they are 6 or 7 years old they begin to go to school. There are thousands of schools in Russia. There are schools of general education, where the pupils study Russian (or a native language), Literature, Mathematics, History, Biology, Geography, Music, Foreign languages. There is also a number of specialized schools, where the pupils get profound knoledge of foreign languages, or Maths, or Physics. After finishing 9 classes of the secondary school the young people can continue their education at different kinds of vocational or technical schools, colleges. They not only learn general subjects, but receive a speciality there. Having finished a secondary or a vocational, or a technical school, young people can start working, or they may enter an institute or a university. By the way, some people think, that professional trainings makes it easier to get a higher education. As for high schools, there are a lot of them in our country. Some of them train teachers, others - doctors, engineers, architectors, actors and so on. Many institutes have evening and extra-mural departments. That gives the students an oportunity to study at an institute without leaving their jobs at plants or factories.
Foreign languages are absolutely necessary for us no-wadays because of our growing international contacts with all the countries of the world. There are many reasons why we begin to study foreign language. One of them is to be able to communi-cate with other people who use this language. We may be planning to travel in one or two countries where the lan-guage is spoken. If we know the language of a foreign country, we can talk to its people and understand what they are saying to us. If we are working in any branch of science, we naturally wish to read scientific books and magazines in other languages. Making business nowadays also means knowing foreign languages because of the gro-wing international business contacts. Knowing foreign lan-guages helps people of different countries to develop mutual friendship and understanding. We can also make our intellectual and cultural horizons wider through con-tacts with people of another culture. It is also very inte-resting to read foreign literature in the original. We can also read foreign newspapers and magazines and to un-derstand films in foreign languages without any help. Learning foreign languages is compulsory in all the secondary and higher schools in our country. English is a very popular language. People use it in many parts of the world and there is a lot of business correspondence and literature in English. I think, it is very important to know at least one fore-ign language - English, German, French, Spanish or any other one.
Страницы: 1, 2, 3
