Watching Habits

Task 15. Read the text to talk about watching habits.

Kinds of programmes

Task 13. Read the text and fill in the table.

TELEVISION

When you sit down to watch television, you may not think too much about the kinds of programmes you watch. You probably just pick things because you like them. However, there exist the main categories of TV programmes — informational programmes; shows; films and cartoons; programmes on sports, hobbies and interests.

Informational programmes include news (from international to domestic and local affairs), documentaries (about real life events), travelogues (accounts of smb.’s travels), TV shops (selling things and telling the prices) and even commercials or infomercials (inform about certain products or events).

Shows on TV comprise talk shows or chat shows (when guests come to talk about their lives or problems), game shows (when the programme features competitive games or quizzes), humour shows (featuring comedians), talent shows (dancers, singers, circus people, ice-skaters, etc.) and reality shows (when real people put themselves into certain situations).

Films on TV go in variety of styles. These programmes include light dramas where each episode is a new situation called situation comedies, soap operas where the drama is long — continuing from series to series, dramas (are usually action-packed, about life of detectives, police officers, lawyers and doctors) and cartoons.

Programmes on sports, hobbies and interests can be about different kinds of sports — from games to training sessions, DIY programmes (Do It Yourself) that show how to cook, how to repair the houses, how to plant the garden and even how to put on make-up.

	They include such programmes as…	The programme features…	It is usually viewed by…/ The TV audience for the programme is…
Informational Programmes
Shows
Films and Cartoons
Programmes on Sports, Hobbies and Interests

Task 14. What is your opinion of the programmes? Use the following adjectives to express it.

Positive	Negative
amazing, catching humorous, lively educational entertaining realistic, watchable	boring, dull, repetitive humdrum, monotonous tedious, hard to endure insulting, biased

Though television is one of the greatest achievements of the 20-th century, it has changed much since the time of its invention and so has its role. There have been numerous debates concerning advantages and disadvantages of television.

Today television gives people a possibility to be well informed and enjoy ‘civilised pleasures.’ The programmes are various and people have a chance to select what they want to see. Television provides great opportunities for education. With the help of TV it is possible to learn foreign languages, to know a lot of wonderful things concerning the world flora and fauna. TV teaches the ideals of democracy and political argument. It provides an outlet for creative talents. The choice of the channels ranges greatly and these channels show programmes of various kinds from documentaries, current events and sports to children’s programmes. Moreover, TV can keep children quiet. If people do not like TV they do not buy it or switch it off.

At the same time there are a lot of arguments against TV. It is said that only three generations have grown up with television, but they managed to forget how to spend their free time without television. It is called a ‘living room monster’ or ‘ one-eyed monster.’ It is established that the biggest viewers are pensioners and housewives. In total they spend five hours daily sitting before the ‘boxes’. Children watch commercials, horror films or films of violence. TV prevents children from developing their abilities. Moreover, TV is damaging for health. It has bad effect on the eyes, particularly of children. Sometimes TV programmes become the topics of common interest of the people and without them they have nothing to talk about. Today some people become TV addicts and free time is regulated by television. No surprise that television is often called ‘ chewing gum for men’s brains.’ People become lazy, instead of doing sports they watch TV and become ‘couch potatoes’. Another problem of constant watching is ‘zapping’ — instead of watching one channel, people zap the channels for hours which can cause even mental disorders!

Task 16. Fill in the gap (1–13) with the correct form of the verb.

The world’s most popular television programme:
‘China’s Got Talent’

With an audience of over half a billion people, over a third of China’s 1.3 billion population, the British-owned Chinese reality television show ‘China’s Got Talent’ (‘Zhongguo Da Renxiu In Pinyin’), (1) _______________ (to believe) to be the world’s most popular television programme, according to the ‘Daily Mail’. More than double the usual prime time TV audience (2) _______________ (to tune) in to watch the second show and it is expected that audience interest will continue to increase as the series progresses. The show (3) _______________ (to broadcast) on ‘Shanghai’s Dragon TV’, as well as a few other provincial TV stations across the country.

This is the first time that Chinese television (4) _______________ (to purchase) a foreign TV franchise — the Chinese have got permission to make their own version of the ‘Got Talent’ franchise from ‘Fremantle Media’. The reality show may (5) _______________ (to own) by a foreign company, but the emphasis is very much on the fact that it provides an opportunity for ordinary Chinese people to become famous through their talent. One of the most popular acts so far (6) _______________ (to be) a team of car-washing, road-digging migrant workers with an ability to break-dance. Other acts include a number of performances with a particular Chinese flavour, such as martial arts and singing.

The overall message is that anything goes, although cross-dressing is apparently frowned upon; the show’s director, Jin Lei, apparently said in an email that: ‘...for people to start (7) _______________ (to appear) in another gender altogether, this I don’t agree with, and you can even say I’m disgusted with it... Can you imagine a flamboyant guy who transforms himself into a ‘fake lady’, then performs in front of the audiences on Shanghai’s biggest platform, and then goes on to become a talent representing China?’

The show’s format basically follows the usual ‘Got Talent’ format. There are three judges: Shanghai comedian Zhou Libo, singer/actress Ye Nenjing and composer GaoXiaosong, although none of them are quite as straightforward as Simon Cowell. The prize for (8) _______________ (to win) the competition is a contract with ‘Fremantle Media’, the chance to perform in Las Vegas and accompanying Taiwanese singer, JolinTse, on a world tour as a guest performer. There will also undoubtedly be a huge number of opportunities within China itself.

The show (9) _______________ (not to be) without its doubters though. The Chinese (10) _______________ (to report) a number of criticisms, including the fact that the show uses too many English words, judge Zhou Libo talks too much, some of the acts must (11) _______________ (to manufacture) and even that there are too many commercials. Show director Jin Lei has explained the over-use of the English language by claiming that there is sometimes no Chinese equivalent — but critics have pointed out that other reality shows seem to manage without using English. The ‘Got Talent’ franchise is hardly new to criticism though, and it hasn’t affected its popularity in other countries; it is the highest (12) _______________ (to rate) show of the last ten years in the UK and now airs in 33 countries.

China has long been seen as a country that is very uninvolved with the rest of the world, despite the amazing changes that (13) _______________ (to take) place over the last twenty years. China’s ‘Got Talent’ proves that China is clearly now becoming more and more receptive to foreign ideas, although it is still keen to hold on to its own identity. Perhaps now it is time for the rest of the world to realise that there is also a great deal that can be learned from China and the Chinese.

Дата добавления: 2014-11-08