Практичний курс англійської мови. 6 семестр
Никула Денис, 3 курс Київського міжнародного університету, 035 Філологія, заочна форма

Speak of compulsory education and its stages in Great Britain. What do you know about schools maintained by the state in Great Britain? Dwell on Primary and Secondary schooling.

Let's begin with formal education. It education is organized and follows a set curriculum. It is delivered in institutions such as schools and colleges. It involves scheduled lessons, trained teachers and formal assessment methods like tests and certificates.

To take formal education, one works with trained instructors. There are clear learning objectives, progression through levels and measurable outcomes via examinations and accreditation.

Formal education is time-bound. You follow a sequence of classes and grades. You get official qualifications that are recognised for further study and employment.

Now let's talk about informal education. It happens outside institutions and can happen during daily activities, family interactions, conversations and media consumtpion. It as unstructured and not driven by a set curriculum.

Informal education does not rely on trained teachers. It does not produce formal certificates. Its timing and methods are flexible. It often responds to immediate practical needs.

There are many forms of informal education. For example learning by doing, observing others and personal study. It can support skill development that is practical and context-specific without formal assessment.

While formal learning is measurable and accredited, informal learning is flexible and experience-oriented. Both have roles depending on whether formal accreditation or practical. In any case, self-directed learning is the goal.^{2 , 3 , 4}

See last year.

Thomas Gainsborough was the author of «Mr and Mrs Andrews» and «The Blue Boy». He worked in the 18th century. He painted portraits and landscapes.

Many of his portraits show members of fashionable society. He used light colours and soft brushwork. He also painted rural scenes and wooded landscapes.

Unlike Reynolds, Gainsborough gave much attention to landscape painting. His landscapes often show quiet country views. They combine figures and nature.⁸

Sir Joshua Reynolds was the author of «Captain Robert Orme» and «Lady Cockburn and her Three Eldest Sons». He was a portrait painter and the first president of the Royal Academy.

Reynolds studied Italian Renaissance art and the works of Rembrandt, Rubens, and Van Dyck. He developed a style that brought dignity and variety to portrait art.

Like Gainsborough, Reynolds painted members of fashionable society. However, he concentrated mainly on portraits. Historical and classical references often appear in his works.⁹

John Constable was the author of «The Hay Wain» and «Dedham Vale». He belonged to Romanticism and worked mainly as a landscape painter.

Constable concentrated on scenes from the English countryside, especially the Stour Valley. Unlike Reynolds, he did not focus on portraits. His paintings show everyday rural life.

Constable worked through close observation of nature. He studied clouds, weather, and changing light. Unlike the more idealized landscapes of Gainsborough, he wanted to depict the scenery he saw in a truthful and realistic manner.¹⁰

Happiness involves positive emotions, life satisfaction and health. Both positive and negative emotions, as well as regulation abilities, matter for wellbeing.

Positive emotions are pleasant responses like joy, contentment and interest. They broaden attention and cognition. They can trigger reward pathways and lower stress hormones.

Negative emotions are unpleasant responses like fear, anger and sadness. They serve survival and adaptive functions. They induce vigilance, avoidance or problem solving.

Emotion regulation is the process of influencing which emotions we have, when we have them, and how we express them. Oce can display or disguise feelings using attention and regulation strategies.

Adaptive strategies, such as reappraisal, acceptance and problem-solving, relate to better health. Maladaptive strategies such as rumination, suppression and avoidance can create issues.

For positive emotions, one should quietly but confidently savor them. It links higher positive affect and to lower perceived stress. Trying to dampening positive emotions may cause depressive symptoms.^{11 , 12}

The Happy Prince by Oscar Wilde is about a gilded statue that watches over a city, and a migrating swallow that stays with him. When the Prince lived in a palace, he did not see suffering. Now on a high column, no longer alive, he sees the city's poverty and feels sorrow.

He asks the swallow to take the ruby from his sword-hilt to help a seamstress with a sick child. He then asks the swallow to take out his sapphire eyes to help a starving young playwright and a cold match-girl. The swallow also removes the Prince's gold leaf bit by bit and gives it to the poor.

The swallow dies from the cold. The Prince's lead heart cracks, having lost its gold covering. Town officials melt down the worn statue. However, instructed by God, an Angel bring the lead heart and the dead bird to the Paradise, as the most precious things in the city.¹³

From a progressive, humanist perspective, the tale highlights compassion, empathy and the moral duty to relieve suffering. Despite one's beauty and privilege, one can see others' needs and feel responsibility. The Prince’s gifts and the Swallow’s sacrifices value human welfare over wealth and social status. Selfless action and practical aid are moral goods. True worth is measured by actions rather than outward appearance or material riches.

From a conservative angle, the tale commends personal duty, loyalty and sacrifice. The Swallow keeps his promise to the Prince despite feeling pity, which reflects fidelity to commitments. The officials' focus on material value when they melt the statue warns about misplaced priorities in public life. The Angel's reward for the humble heart and the loyal bird points to a moral order that ultimately recognizes virtue.

Overall, the story teaches that concrete acts of kindness matter more than status, and that personal duty and loyalty remain important for a moral society.

In «The Nightingale and the Rose» by Oscar Wilde, a Nightingale hears a Student who believes he needs a red rose to win the Professor's daughter. The Nightingale asks the Rose-tree how to make a red rose. The Rose-tree says a Nightingale must sing all night with her breast against a thorn and give her life-blood. The Nightingale sings through the night and dies to make the red rose. The Student finds the rose and takes it to the girl. The girl rejects the rose and prefers jewels from Chamberlain's nephew. The Student throws the rose away and returns to his studies, calling love impractical.¹⁴

First, the story shows that self-sacrifice can be ignored by those it was meant to help. Acts of devotion can be unacknowledged and wasted when value is judged by status or material benefit. The tale echoes nationalist rhetoric that demands absolute loyalty and sacrifice. Nations expect citizens to accept danger and hardship in the name of collective glory. Official praise and ceremonies may follow, but the people who bear the costs can receive little concrete support afterward.

The story maps onto work and wartime economies in which labour and heroism are lauded but neglected. Employers and states praise dedication, but fail to provide lasting protections, benefits or recognition. Veteransf and workers who expend themselves find that their sacrifices serve image, profit or short-term goals. The Nightingale's irreversible loss contrasts with how short-lived the attention to her act is.

Second, one can also read Oscar Wilde's story as a warning to liberal institutions that rely on metrics, prestige and efficiency at the expense of people. Decision makers tend to ignore individual hardships and evaluate actions by their contribution to goals or appearances. Student's dismissal of love can illustrate how institutional priorities can override personal worth.

Finally, the tale is a practical lesson about responsibility and care. If societies value sacrifice only for its usefulness, they betray those who make real sacrifices. People need concrete measures that align rhetoric with action. Wilde challenges both bureaucratic and market-driven systemd that allow human beings to be used up for the sake of image, profit or prestige.

In Oscar Wilde's «The Devoted Friend», a Water-rat, a Duck, and a Linnet talk about friendship. The Linnet tells a story about a poor gardener named Little Hans and a rich Miller. Little Hans has a beautiful garden, and many people come to see his flowers. During winter, however, he has no money, is hungry and lonely. The Miller never visits him in winter, but later promises to give Hans his old, broken wheelbarrow. He often talks about friendship and generosity and asks Hans to do many jobs.

One night, the Miller asks Hans to fetch a doctor for his sick son. There is a storm, and Hans loses his way and falls into a deep pool. The next day, the villagers find his body, and everyone attends the funeral. The Miller talks about says that he was Hans' best friend, positions himself as the leader of the procession and talks at length about his own suffering for being generous, blaming Hans for the wheelbarrow still being broken. After finishing the story, the Water-rat feels annoyed that it has a moral, and the Duck and the Linnet agree that telling stories is a dangerous thing to do.^{15 , 16}

The story shows the importance of strong communities and personal responsibility. Little Hans has no family, no stable support, and no protection in hard times. His neighbors appear only after his death. The villagers come to the funeral, but they do not help him during the winter. The Miller talks about virtue, but words cannot replace real obligations.

Little Hans is good and charitable to people, but in fact the story isn't about him or his virtues, it's a story about power. The Miller enjoys respect because he speaks well and owns more. Little Hans works hard and asks for little. The person who praises values the most contributes the least. Meanwhile, the poorest man carries the burden and pays the highest price.

The story teaches the reader, through the Miller's perspective, that gifts create obligations, and in unequal societies, this is tragically exploited. The Miller promises Hans an old wheelbarrow and then asks for flowers, wood and labor in return. David Graeber might say that the Miller creates a false debt. He talks about friendship, but he turns every gift into an obligation. Little Hans works more and more, while the Miller keeps his own property and comfort.

Edmund Burke would probably dislike the Miller too. Burke believed that people with wealth and status have duties. For every demand, the Miller finds a moral lesson to justify it; while later acting amorally by abandoning Hans during the winter. He says that friendship is more valuable than money, but carefully protects his own comfort and property. The enjoys authority without accepting responsibility.

In his story, Oscar Wilde criticizes a system in which loyal and hardworking people remain vulnerable. The tragedy is not caused by greed alone. It is caused by unequal relationships. The Miller and Hans do not meet as equals. The spokesperson for the system claims eternal values, personal virtue, and proper behavior. But when one man reserves security, property, and influence for himself, the other depends on his garden and hopes for kindness.

Oscard Wilde, in his tale «The Remarkable Rocket», tells a story of fireworks prepared for the celebration when a Prince marries a Princess. One Rocket talks about himself and believes that he is more important than the other fireworks. His own story makes him emotional, he cries and his powder becomes wet. When the fireworks are set off, the Rocket does not go up. The workers throw him into a ditch and leave him there.

The Rocket meets a Frog, a Dragon-fly, and a Duck, but they do not understand him. Later, two boys find him and use him to make a fire. At last, the Rocket catches fire and goes into the air. He explodes, scaring a Goose, and thinks that he has made a great impression, despite nobody else having noticed him.^{17 , 18}

The Rocket thinks he is completely self-made. He believes that everything depends on his own importance. He ignores the workers who made him, the royal wedding that gave him a purpose, and even the boys who finally set him off.

People sometimes talk about success in the same way. They praise billionaires for pulling themselves up by their bootstraps. Yet many fortunes depend on inherited wealth, investors, public research, roads, schools, workers, and customers. Like the Rocket, they may speak as if they rose by themselves, even though many others helped them rise.

The point of the story is not to make fun of the Rocket, however, but to teach a deeper lesson about our society. Workers, artists, and inventors are praised when they produce results. When they become old, sick, or simply less useful, they can be ignored. Communities can resist this habit. We can treat people as neighbors rather than tools. We can strengthen families, local associations, and public institutions. Care, friendship, and dignity should not depend only on economic success.

The tale «The Star Childe» by Oscar Wilde tells how two woodcutters find a child wrapped in a cloak after seeing a star fall from the sky. One of them takes the boy home, and the child grows up with the woodcutter's family. As he grows older, the Star-Child becomes proud and treats poor people and animals badly. One day, a beggar woman comes to the village and says that she is his mother. The Star-Child rejects her and drives her away. After this, he sees that his face and body have changed. The villagers laugh at him, and he leaves to search for his mother.

For three years, the Star-Child travels from place to place. In a city, a Magician makes him a servant and orders him to bring back pieces of gold. Each time, the Star-Child meets a beggar and gives away the gold. At last, he finds the beggar woman and asks for forgiveness. She is his mother, and a man beside her is his father. The people of the city recognize him as their king. He rules for three years and is followed by another ruler.^{19 , 20}

Wilde suggests that care often comes from wealth. The Star-Child's beauty gives him influence, and, gaining followers, he uses his power to mock and abuse those in less fortunate circumstances. He learns the habits of a society that divides people into the worthy and the unwanted.

When his appearance changes, society treats him differently. The same villagers and children who admired him now reject him. Even the animals turn away from him. Wilde shows how quickly communities can abandon people who no longer fit their standards.

However, the Star-Child changes during his travels. He learns suffering for himself, and gives away his gold. Freely and without hope of reward. His kindness is habitual, no longer based on pride. He finally is recognized not due to his power or status, but as part of solidarity between living creatures.

Nonetheless, the people around him remain shallow. Having cast the Star-Child out when he becomes ugly, they welcome him back when he appears beautiful again. Their judgment changes with appearances. Wilde criticizes how communities built on such values are unstable, unfair, and prone to electing monarchs instead of taking their matters into their own hands.