LIVING INA THROW-AWAY WORLD: some problems of plastic recycling

The English writer John Galsworthy said: “If you don’t think about the future you will not have it”.  A lot of people  feel  that  pollution  has  become  one  of  the  biggest problems  in  the  world  today. But   when we talk about pollution, what do we really mean? Well, when we pollute something, we make it dirty or dangerous for other people or animals. All living things, especially people, make waste. They buy things, they use them and they throw their old things away. Today we live in a «throw – away» world. The world is becoming a growing dump of old paper, used plastic bags, containers, cans, clothes, chemicals and other rubbish.

The purposes of my project are

1. to get more information about waste and its recycling and reusing,
2. to make people aware of the problem of plastic recycling

to find out what children can do to improve the ecological situation.

People often talk about waste disposal, but disposal is really the wrong word, because you cannot really dispose of waste. Suppose that you put your waste on a rubbish dump. You have dumped it, but you have not disposed of it

The first plastic was made in 1850 by an Englishman called Alexander Parkes. Most plastic are made from oil and other natural materials which will not last for ever.

At the moment, we use plastic wastefully because it is cheap to produce. We pack things in it, then we throw away the packing.

 Plastic is a wonderfully strong, material which is very difficult to destroy. Most plastic does not decay, like wood or paper, because bacteria will not eat it. It stays the same for hundreds of years.

That is why it is much better to find a way of reusing or recycling plastic.

Many foods and drinks are sold in plastic bottles, boxes and pots which can be reused. They make useful containers in the kitchen, or plant pots for the garden.

In the USA some shops encourage customers to return their plastic containers. This saves both energy and materials. It also saves customer` money!

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The French drink a lot of bottled water. Now someone has found a way of recycling the plastic bottles to make sweaters.

Plastic made our life more comfortable though the price of such comfort is too high. Our world is becoming a dangerous dump.

To live in piece with the environment we should follow three “R”:

1. Reduce. СНИзить
2. Reuse. Использовать опять
3. Recycle.Переработать

There is another “R” – “Refuse”.  ОТКазаться.    It’s better for our environment to refuse plastic. In the Soviet Union there were no problems with recycling plastic as there were no plastic bags, bottles and containers. Milk, soft drinks and dairy products were packed in glass bottles which customers used to return to the shops and get money back. There was a system of collecting glass bottles. They were cleaned and reused again.

But production of plastic containers is cheaper than production of glass containers. So, the better solution is to recycle plastic.

Unfortunately, people in our country don’t understand the importance of recycling plastic. I think it’s necessary to organize a campaign on TV and radio to inform people about plastic recycling.

 The next step is to start sorting rubbish, to put metal, paper, plastic glass and food in separate containers.  People must aware the importance of sorting rubbish. Another step is to return plastic containers to the shops as many customers do in Great Britain.

But what can we, children, do, to stop living in “a throw-away-world”?

Of course, we can’t organize factories for plastic recycling, but we can reduce the use of plastic. The less we use plastic the less it is produced. We have to

1. Stop buying bottled water and soft drinks. Unfortunately, it is dangerous to drink tap water in our city so my father and brother go to the spring and bring spring water every week. I wish Saratov followed the example of Seattle where the major banned to use  bottled water and  took measures to improve the quality of tap water.
2. Use your own water bottles. Children are always active and thus thirsty. So they often buy water and Cola and then throw the used bottles away. It’s more comfortable to have one bottle and always take it with you. Besides, it saves your pocket money.
3. Give preferences to paper and fabric bags instead of plastic ones because their period of decay is much shorter.
4. Say “No!” to shop bags. Take your own bag when you go shopping.

Reusing plastic bottles and containers – is another helpful measure to improve the environment and reduce plastic production. Some creative people collect plastic bottles and make rafts from them. Plastic bottles can be turned into plant pots, vases, pencil boxes, decorations and what not! It depends on the imagination. In our class we organized an exhibition “We are creative!” My classmates made just amazing things from ordinary plastic bottles.

It’s very comfortable to live in a throw-away world: goods are beautifully packed and decorated. But the other side of  comfort is hills of garbage, polluted land and dumped oceans. The 22nd of April, 2010 is  the 40th anniversary of  Earth Day. On that day ecological problems are much spoken about. But we should realize that not only scientists and  their new technologies can save our world.  It’s our duty to keep it clean for new generations. Every day doing shopping and throwing away rubbish we should be aware that we add to the problem of waste. We must remember the English proverb: Waste not, want not. If we do not waste resources we will never run out of them.

Министерство образования Саратовской области

Муниципальное общеобразовательное

Учреждение Лицей № 37

Фрунзенского района г. Саратова

Learning English in China

Творческая работа

Учащейся 6в класса

МОУ «Лицей № 37»

                                             ________________________

                                                                                                  (подпись учащегося)

Научный руководитель

Шуменкова Татьяна Ивановна

                                              _______________________

                                                                                                                    (подпись руководителя)

Саратов, 2010

Аннотация

Английский язык является  главным средством международного общения, поэтому его популярность растет во всем мире, особенно в Китае. В данной работе рассматриваются причины такой популярности английского языка и способы его изучения в Китае, а также система китайского образования.  Кроме этого, приводятся основные трудности, возникающие при изучении английского языка.

Introduction

It goes without saying that English is the means of communication for people all over the world. It helps them to understand each other, to exchange information, to develop friendship. More than 750 million people speak English. English is especially popular in China as this country is quickly developing nowadays. I became interested in China after meeting my Chinese girlfriend Alice. I was surprised by her fluent English, her deep knowledge of grammar and vocabulary. That is why the purposes of my work are to find more information about education in China, the ways Chinese students learn English and what difficulties they face as well as Russian learners.

The English language is the means of communication for people all over the world. It is called international because it helps people of different nations to understand each other. Today English is the language of the world. More than 750 million people speak English.  There are 340 million native speakers of English in Great Britain, the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. It is also spoken in China, Japan, India, Africa and other countries. It is the language of technology, sport and music. It is a language of international business. Millions of books, magazines and newspapers are printed in English. It is one of the official languages of the United Nation.

There are many  reasons why we begin to study English: some people want to have better job opportunities , others want to read books and magazines in the original, some travel a lot and want to feel at home in other countries. It also helps people to develop friendship and understanding. 

English is especially popular in China as this country is quickly developing nowadays.  International cooperation and education exchanges increase every year. China has more students studying abroad than any other country; since 1979, there have been 697,000 Chinese students studying in 103 countries and regions. The number of foreign students studying in China has also increased rapidly; in 2004, over 200,000 students from 188 countries were studying at China's universities. By 2004 there were 47,000 MBAs( Master of Business Administration), trained at 62 MBA schools. Many people also apply for international professional qualifications, such as EMBA and MPA(Master of Accountancy). Thus, Chinese parents understand the important role of good education, in general, and English in particularly in the future career of their children.

2. Educational system in China

The Chinese government considers education as one of the most important means of modernization and economical development of the country

China has a varied school system. There are preschools, kindergartens, schools for the deaf and blind, primary schools, private schools,  secondary schools (comprising junior and senior middle schools, vocational schools, regular secondary schools, secondary teachers' schools, secondary technical schools, and secondary professional schools), and various institutions of higher learning (consisting of regular colleges and universities, professional colleges, and short-term vocational universities). (See table 1).

Chinese children begin their early education at the age of 4 by learning Chinese characters in the kindergarten classes. All children must attend school for at least nine years. Primary education starts at the age of six or seven and lasts for six years. (See Table 2). At the age of 12 children go to secondary school where they spend 6 years till they are 18. Some provinces may have five years of primary school but four years for middle school. There are three years of middle school and three years of high school. The Ministry of Education reported a 99 percent attendance rate for primary school and an 80 percent rate for both primary and middle schools.

The United Nations Development Program reported that in 2003 China had 116,390 kindergarten classes with 613,000 teachers and 20 million students. At that time, there were 396,567 primary schools with 17.3 million students. There were more than 80 thousand General secondary schools with 4.5 million teachers, and 85.8 million students.

Children usually go to school six days a week. The two-semester school year begins on September 1 and March 1, with a summer vacation in July and August and a winter vacation in January and February. The lesson lasts 45 minutes. The subjects are: Chinese, mathematics, physical education, music, drawing, and elementary instruction in nature, history, and geography and of course a foreign language ( often English).

3. Learning English in China

 Chinese parents and employers have begun to place a high value on overseas education, especially at top American and European institutions such as Harvard University, Oxford University, and Cambridge University. Thus, learning English of great importance in China.

Children begin to study English in primary school. They have classes 6 days a week. Some schools split their classes between Chinese and foreign teachers (e.g., one hour with a Chinese teacher and 90 minutes with a foreign teacher) while most schools use foreign teachers exclusively, some with a Chinese assistant teacher in the room, especially with the younger kids.

Private schools have pioneered cooperation with foreign partners in the running of schools and many foreign universities have entered China this way, which has both improved the quality of learning English  and opened new channels for students' further studies

Most Chinese schools tend to use specific EFL textbook series (e.g., New Interchange, Books 1, 2 & 3, etc.) written especially for Chinese students. The most common textbooks used in language schools with the younger children are the New Superkid Series and, as Look, Listen and Learn! as well as New Concept English (is widely used in intensive reading classes throughout China by the Chinese English teachers). Older students, both in senior middle school as well as adult learners, often use the Cambridge New Interchange Series or exam preparation textbooks, e.g., IELTS, TOEFL, Cambridge Business English, etc., to proprietary materials, depending on the needs and the learning objectives of the class.

Many researchers believe that Chinese students who begin to learn a foreign language between the ages of six and twelve will have less difficulties with that language, especially in  grammar and pronunciation. If they start after twelve they would have rare chance to use the foreign language (L2) fluently because of the strong influence of Chinese.

4. English is popular but difficult.

Chinese face a lot of difficulties studying English.

First, they have problems with reading and spelling, as there is no alphabet in Chinese but a picture or a character for a word.

Second, the Chinese use changes in tone not for stress or emphasis but to distinguish between the meaning of different words. Thus, the same syllable "ma," for example, can either mean mother, bother, horse, or scold depending on the tone.

Third, Chinese EFL students have distinctive difficulties with certain consonants and vowels, e.g. most Chinese learners of English have difficulty hearing the difference between the consonants "r" and "l" and will typically pronounce "right" and "rice,"  as "light" and "lice.

Fourth, they have certain problems with use of articles and possessive form of a noun.

4. My Chinese girlfriend

Last  summer holidays I spent in the camp “Beryozka” where the Chinese exchange students also had a rest. Soon I made friends with two girls, but I liked Alice most of all. She is studying English and Russian as she wants to be a translator.

She is twenty-one. She is from a town Fo Shan in the province Guang Don( It is 1800 km from Shanghai).  We talked a lot. She told me about her country, friends, her likes and dislikes. She likes our strawberry ice-cream very much. Her favourite colours are pink and green. She likes cats. To my surprise, Alice is fond of Russian cartoons, her favourite character is our Winnie-the-Poor. She spoke English fluently so I had a great opportunity to practice my English. Now we write emails once a week ( we can’t do it more often as we are both very busy). I am happy to have such friend like Alice.

Bibliography

1. Kузовлев Английский язык 9 класс.-М,2000
2. http:/ www.edu.cn
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/People's Republic of China
4. http://en.wikipedia.orgEducation in the Republic of China
5. http://middlekingdomlife.com/guide/oral-english-curriculum.htm
6.  http://www.stats.uis.unesco.org/unesco
7. http://www.childinfo.org/ 

Table 1. Education in the People's Republic of China

Table 2. Educational stages in China