"Inventions"

Екибастузский инженерно-технический институт имени К.И.Сатпаева

Преподаватель: Тезекбаева Г.А.

Тема: Inventions.

Цель занятия: развивать у студентов речевые умения: поисковое чтение текстов на английском языке, умение слушать и понимать информацию на английском языке по заданной теме, умение письменно излагать прослушанный материал, умение высказывать свое мнение; пополнить лексический запас и расширить кругозор студентов в области науки и инженерии.

I.Warming up: Студенты работают самостоятельно, потом в парах проверяют друг друга, затем учитель выборочно проводит контроль чтения.

1.Read the international words and mind the stress:

'Latin, fact, 'structure, 'problem, 'system, 'method, 'theory, 'principle, test, group, 'nature, 'basis, tech'nology, ma'chine, ma'terial, 'industry, 'aspect, 'radio, tele´vision, 'telephone, communi'cation, 'metal, com'puter, 'type, 'symbol, 'tempera­ture, ther'mometer, 'business, 'centre.

2. Read about the inventions and find the information to fill in the table below: студенты работают самостоятельно, проверка проводится фронтально.

Telephone

Invented by: Alexander Graham Bell

Nationality: Scottish

Date 1876

Purpose: to transmit the sound of the voice by wire, over long distances

Alexander Graham Bell was a doctor. He worked with deaf children and understood the way sounds caused vibrations. While only in his 20's, he discovered a way of converting vibrations into variations in electric current - and back again.

His telephone had a diaphragm (a thin metal sheet), which vibrated when spoken to: close behind the diaphragm was an electromagnet, which convened the vibrations into electric signals.

Bells telephone had a single transmitter/ receiver: when you had finished speaking into the microphone you held it to your ear and listened to the other person's voice.

In 1877 Thomas Edison invented a better, separate, microphone using carbon granules behind the diaphragm. Apart from that, today's telephone is as Bell invented it. Would you believe it?

There are nearly a billion telephones in use around the world. The demand seems never ending.

Safety Pin

Invented by: no information

Nationality: Mediterranean

Date: about 2000 ВС

Purpose: to protect the user from the unguarded point of the straight pin - which had been invented several hundred years earlier.

The Sumerians invented straight pins more than five thousand years ago. The first safety pins were used a thousand years later in Greece, Egypt, Italy and Sicily.

Early safety pins were merely straight pins bent double with the ends fitting into a slot or hook. Something was needed to stop the point from slipping free. Someone thought of making it spring tight. To do this, the pin was given a circular twist at the bend. The same principle is still used today.

Aqualung

Invented by: Jacques Cousteau and Emil Gagnon

Nationality: French

Purpose: to supply air to free-swimming underwater swimmer,

at the same pressure as the surrounding sea.

Jacques Cousteau told Gagnon exactly what he wanted. Emil Gagnon made it. With unregulated compressed air supplies, and with sea pressure increasing with depth, there was always a danger of an underwater swimmer's lung collapsing.

The aqualung has a special valve regulating the air supply. As the diver breathes out the pressure of his breath opens an outlet valve, which also shuts off the air supply as he breathes in, the internal pressure falls and the outside water pressure closes the outlet valve and switches the compressed air supply back on. The air flows in until the pressure in the valve is the same as the pressure of the outside water. Then it cuts off.

Tape Recorder (and Walkman)

Invented by: Valdemar Paulsen

Nationality: Danish

Date: 1898

Purpose: initially, a telephone message-taking device: nowadays, largely music recording

Paulsen’s first magnetic recording device used wire and then later steel tape. It was designed to record telephone messages.

In 1935 the first plastic recording tape was introduced: it was coated with iron oxide (tape today is often coated with chromium oxide). Early tape recorders were bulky machines with the tape running from one large reel to another.

In the 1960s Philips introduced the compact tape-cassette. This was a complete, easy to handle, plastic package of twin spools and narrow recording tape.

The cassette led to Sony's invention, in 1979, of the Walkman. It was a complete, portable, stereo cassette player, little larger than a cassette box. There was no room for a loudspeaker, so earphones were provided, with tiny super-efficient plastic membranes.

Now they're everywhere. Аnd the sound reproduction is excellent-except for outsiders!

Television

Invented by: John Logie Baird, Vladimir Zworykin

Nationality: British, Russian, in America

Date: 1926, 1925 -28

Purpose: to transmit moving pictures by "wire-less" waves

John Logie Baird invented a mechanical system for transmitting moving pictures, which he used for the world's first public television demonstration, in1926. Baird's system was based on light passing through spinning perforated discs at both transmitter and receiver.

Meanwhile, Vladimir Zworykin developed an electronic system based on a "gun" firing electrons at a coated surface within a cathode ray receiver tube to produce a picture. The principle was further developed by the RCA Company of America.

Baird's mechanical system was used by the BBC, alongside the electronic system, in the world's first regular television service in 1936. The electronic system proved to be the best and Baird's system was abandoned. The first American television service began in 1939. Color television services started in America in 1951 and Britain in 1967.

Electric Light Bulb

Invented by: Joseph Swan. Thomas Edison

Nationality: Scottish. American

Date: 1879. 1880

Purpose: to provide an electric light-source, to replace gas light or candles.

The electric light bulb was an almost unbelievable coincidence: two inventors produced almost the same idea, independently, at about the same time. Joseph Swan was first, by a whisker, but didn't patent his idea. Edison started making bulbs, and accused Swan of copying. Luckily for Swan, there was a small difference between the processes. The problem was solved by Edison and Swan forming a joint company to produce bulbs. The modern light bulb consists of a filament (coiled tungsten wire through which electricity flows. The filament becomes extremely hot and glows brightly inside the glass bulb. Early bulbs used bamboo, and even coated cotton thread, as a filament. Tungsten is better.

Would you believe it?

Early light bulbs lasted about twelve hours: today's bulb should last a thousand hours.

Cameras in the beginning

Invented by: Joseph Niepce

Nationality: French

Date: 1826

Purpose: to preserve a photographic image

Niepce invented a way of recording the image on a metal sheet coated with chemicals.

In 1939 another Frenchman Louis Daguerre introduced a better way of preserving the image. Many "Daguerreotype" pictures still remain.

One problem with the Niepce and Daguerre processes was that they were "one-offs"; copies could not be made.

Аn Englishman William Fox Talbot was the first, also in 1839, to capture a negative picture - in which blacks and whites are reversed - from which positive (right way round) copies could be made.

Computers

Invented by: Charles Babbage

Nationality: British

Date: 1834

Purpose: a steam-driven, mechanical calculating machine

The father of all present day computers was designed by Charles Babbage. It was to make long calculations and analyze them. J232, 000 was provided by the British government to build it. Babbage’s huge computer machine was to have been programmed from a punched paper tape. The calculations were to be made by means of thousands of rotating gear-wheels, and moving levers and rods.

Had all the parts been really well made, it would have worked slowly. But they weren’t.

Computers at home

Popularized, made and launched by: Sir Clive Sinclair

Nationality: British

Date: 1980

Sir Clive Sinclair didn’t invent the home computer but he brought it within the reach of the man in the street. He did this by designing and making the cheapest possible machine. The Sinclair ZX80 sold for L 99.95.

The ZX80 had an internal memory of just 1 Kilobyte (a kilobyte is 1024 bytes: one byte equals one letter or number).

The ZX80 was small, with a plastic touch-keyboard; it displayed 24 32 character lines on a home TV screen. But it was a computer.

Within a year of its launch, 50,000 Sinclair ZX80 computers were sold-some as cheaper, self-assembly kits. The ZX80 was replaced by the ZX*!, and then the ZX Spectrum, many “Speckies” are still in use. In 1986 Sinclair sold his business to Amstrad.

Chewing Gum

Invented by: Thomas Adams

Nationality: American

Date: in the 1870's

Purpose: to silently exercise the jaws

Chewing gum came about as a result of a failure. A substitute for rubber was being sought. At first, the sap of the South American sapodilla tree, called chicle, was thought to be suitable. But it proved to be not elastic enough.

Then Adams - part of the investigating team - remembered that the South American Mayan people chewed sickle and thought that, flavored, it might be sold in America. It did.

During World War II American soldiers were sent supplies of chewing gum. This helped to increase its worldwide popularity.

Nowadays, chewing gum ingredients are listed as "gum base, sugar, syrup and softeners; the base is largely synthetic. But it doesn't taste too bad.

Fill in the table:

II.Аудирование: Студенты разбирают значения слов, предварительно записанных на доске, прогнозируют содержание текста, прослушивают его дважды и письменно отвечают на вопросы. Ответы должны быть в форме полных, распространенных предложений. Студенты сдают свои работы для оценки.

3.Look at the title of the text and words written out of the text on the blackboard and try to predict what it is about, who the main character of the story is, what contents it has.

The title: Edison

Words: theoretician, a dull boy, a wonderful memory, electromagnetic device, four thousand dollars, a workshop, conduct experiments, genius, inspiration, perspiration.

Listening:

A list of questions to answer:

1. What’s Edison famous for?

2. What education did he get?

3. How old was Edison when he patented his first invention?

4. What story is told about his first invention?

5. How did he make his inventions?

6. What is his idea of a genius? Do you agree with him?

III. Homework: One of the greatest inventions of the mankind. Домашнее задание подробно объясняется преподавателем. Студенты могут приготовить ответ устно или в форме презентации.

A film studio is going to make a documentary film about the greatest inventions of mankind. You are invited to the studio as an expert to decide what inventions to be included in the film. You are supposed to speak about one invention only. Present information on:

• An invention you consider to be one of the greatest in the world;

• The name of the inventor;

• The country this invention was made in;

• What thing was made for;

• How it is used now;

• How it influenced our life;

• Why you are sure that it should be included in the film

Приложение

Текст для аудирования

Edison

Edison is known as one of the greatest inventors of his time. He invented so much that it is difficult to say which of his achievements is the greatest. He was an experimenter and a practical man more that a theoretician.

Edison did not have any education. He went to school only for three month. Then he left became his teacher. The boy loved books and his mother said that he had a wonderful memory. When he first visited a public library and saw a lot of shelves with books he decided that he would read all the books and then he would know everything in the world. He measured the shelf and decided to read a foot of books every week.

In 1868 Edison built his first patented invention - an electromagnetic device.

It is told that he planned to ask three thousand dollars for his invention, though he secretly decided he would sell it for two thousand If necessary. He was invited to a meeting of businessmen who were interested in buying his invention, but when he was asked to name the price he was very nervous and quite unable to speak.

“It is no use asking us a big price,” said one of the businessmen, “we have already decided how much we will pay. Forty thousand dollars is our limit.”

With this money Edison established a workshop and began his career as a professional inventor at the age of twenty – two.

All his inventions were the result of hard work. He sometime made thousand of experiments. According to his words the idea that a genius works only by inspiration was absurd. “Genius is 2 per cent inspiration and 98 per cent perspiration,” he often said.

Использованная литература:

1. Английский язык для инженеров. Учебник. / Т.Ю. Полякова, Е.В.Синявская, О.И. Тынкова, Э.С. Улановская. -М., ВШ, 2000.

2. Рабочая тетрадь с поурочным планированием для 10-11 классов общеобразовательной школы /К.И. Кауфман, М.Ю. Кауфман. – Обнинск, Титул, 1998.