Morning and evening

"What time do you get up as a rule?"

"Generally about half-past seven."

"Why so early?"

"Because I usually catch an early train up to town."

"When do you get to the office?"

"Normally, about nine o'clock."

"Do you stay in town all day?"

"Sometimes I do, and sometimes I don't."

"What do you usually do in the evenings?"

"We generally stay at home. Once or twice a week we go to a theatre or to the pictures. We went to the pictures last night and saw a very interesting film. Occasionally we go to a dance."

"Do you like dancing?"

"Yes, very much. Do you dance?"

"I used to when I was younger, but not very often now. I'm getting too old."

"Too old? Nonsense you don't look more than fifty."

"As a matter of fact, I'm nearly sixty."

"Really! You certainly don't look it."

"I'm glad to hear it. Are you doing anything special tonight? If not, what about coming with me to my club? You'd get to know quite a lot of interesting people there."

"I should love to but today happens to be our wedding anniversary and we're going out tonight to celebrate."

"Well, my heartiest congratulations."

"Thank you very much. I could manage to come along tomorrow night, if that would suit you."

"Yes, excellent. Let's make it round about eight o'clock."

"Very well. Thanks."

c) Give conversational situations with the phrases of the following type:

1. I am glad to hear it. 2. I should love to. 3. Sometimes I do and sometimes I don't. 4. My heartiest congratulations. 5. Why so early? 6. Really? 7. Generally...

15. The teacher or one of your fellow-students will read a question from the exercise. Reply using phrases suggested below. Make your fellow-students decide what attitude you are trying to render. Keep the exercise moving rapidly:

1. What time do you get up as a rule? 2. What time do you go to bed? 3. What time do you have breakfast? 4. What time do you read the newspaper? 5. What time do you go to the University? 6. When do you get to the University? 7. What time do you have dinner? 8. When do you get home? 9. What do you usually do in the evening? 10. What do you usually do on Sunday? 11. What do you usually do in the country? 12. What do you usually do in the garden? 13. Do you like dancing? 14. Do you like fishing? 15. Do you like boating? 16. Do you like sports? 17. Do you like singing? 18. Do you like skating? 19. Do you stay at the University all day? 20. Are you doing anything special tonight? 21. Are you doing anything special on Sunday? 22. Are you doing anything special tomorrow morning? 23. What about going to the theatre tonight? 24. What about going to the skating-rink? 25. What about going to the pictures? 26. What about going to the park? 27. When can you come?

1. Generally.... 2. Normally.... 3. Occasionally... 4. As a matter of fact.... 5. I used to.... 6. I could manage to... if that would suit you.

16. Make up a conversation with the phrases from the dialogue "Morning and Evening".

17.*** This exercise is meant to develop your ability to hear and reproduce intonation in reading. Listen to the text "My Bedroom" sentence by sentence. Write it down. Mark the stresses and tunes: Practise the text for test reading.

18. Read the text "About Myself" silently to make sure you understand each sentence. Split up each sentence into intonation-groups if necessary. Underline the communicative centre and the nucleus in each phrase. Mark the stresses and tunes. Use Intonation Pattern V in the word-groups in bold type to intensify the meaning of these communicative centres. It is not expected that each student of the class will mark the text in exactly the same way. Your teacher will help all the members of the class to correct their variants. Finally practise reading your corrected variant:

About myself

I'm a student of English. I have been a student only two months and a half. I can't speak English well yet. I'm just a beginner, you know. I live in a hostel. It is rather a long way from the University. In fact, it is in the country and it takes me about an hour and a half to get to the University. But it gives me no trouble at all, as I like to get up early. I don't need an alarm-clock to wake me up. I am an early-riser, as they say.

Though our hostel is out of town it is very comfortable and has all modern conveniences.

As a rule I get up at 6.30, do morning exercises and have a shower. I don't have a bath in the morning, I have a bath before I go to bed.

For breakfast I have a boiled egg and a cup of coffee. At about 7.30 I am quite ready to go. It is about a five minutes' walk from the hostel to the station. I usually take the 7.40 train. I walk to the station as I have plenty of time to catch my train.

I come to the University five minutes before the bell rings. So I can have a chat with my friends. Only four students of our group are Muscovites, the others either come from different parts of our country or from other countries. We usually have a lot of things to talk about.

There is a very good language laboratory at our University. It has modern equipment. We spend a lot of time in the laboratory listening to the tapes, imitating the sounds and intonation. It helps us to learn the language without much difficulty.

We don't go out to lunch. There is a good canteen at our University. It is on the ground floor. We can go downstairs and have lunch in no time at all. As to my dinner I have it in a cafe on my way back to the hostel.

I come to the hostel from the University about a quarter to five every evening. I live in a single room and have nobody to speak English to. I go to the girl next door and we do our lessons together. We are always ready to help each other.

In the evening we sometimes go out. We go to the pictures if there is something new on or to the club if there is a dancing party there.

But we often stay in, watch the TV program in the common room or listen to the radio. Then I read a book for half an hour or so and go to sleep. That doesn't take me long, as a rule.

This exercise is meant to develop your ability to read and narrate a story with proper intonation. a) Listen to the joke. Write it down. Mark the stresses and tunes, practise reading the joke. b) Listen carefully to the narration of the joke. Observe the peculiarities in intonation-group division, pitch, stress and tempo. Note the use of temporizers. Retell the joke according to the model you have listened to.

20. Read the joke silently to make sure you understand each sentence. Find the main phrase in the text. Split up each sentence into intonation-groups if necessary. Mark the stresses and tunes. Underline the communicative centre and the nuclear word of each intonation-group. It is not expected that each student will intone the text in the same way. Your teacher will help you to correct your variant. Practise reading the joke several times. Retell the joke following the model above (see Ex. 19):

Peggy, aged five, said she had a stomachache.

"It's because you haven't had lunch yet," said her mother. "You would feel better if you had something in it."

That afternoon their neighbour called and remarked while speaking to the mother that he had a bad headache. "That's because it's empty," said Peggy. "You'd feel better if you had something in it."

Section Eight

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