Topic 5

Problems of the Youth.

Warm up.

1. Are you a teenager?

2. Do you have some problems at university, at home?

3. Are your problems connected with some psychological difficulties of your age?

Vocabulary focus

Study the following words and expressions

1. to make decisions -принимать решения

2. to adapt -привыкнуть

3. to be confident -быть уверенным

4. the rent -арендная плата

5. to provide -обеспечивать

6. to treat -обращаться с кем-л.

7. infant -ребёнок

8. urgent -острый, наболевший

9. to face -сталкиваться

10. to lure -соблазнять, искушать

11. to solve the problem -решать проблему

12. to cope with -справляться с чем-л.

Text 1

2.Read and translate the text:

YOUNG PEOPLE’S PROBLEMS

Everybody says your youth is probably the best time of your life as being young means romance, love, new discoveries and so on. But it is also the most difficult time because you have to make some very important decisions which will influence all your future life.

Things are not easy nowadays even for adults, but for teenagers who have to find their own place in society it is very difficult. It’s necessary not only to adapt to your society but also to be confident about your position in five, ten or twenty years time.

For your future it is essential to have a good job. Every boy and girl leaving the secondary school should choose an institution of higher education. In planning your future you have to think about the possibility of finding a job after graduation from your institution.

When you are studying you need money for your living expenses(food, clothes), to pay the rent if you live away from home. Money is usually the big problem for the young people. Your parents usually provide you with home, food and necessary clothes, but you have your own tastes and your parents can’t pay for them. To pay for extra things such as clothes, tapes, CDs, books, something connected with your hobby you have to work It is very difficult for a teenagers to find a job without any qualification.

Emotional problems of young people can be more difficult than financial ones. The typical teenager problem is that “nobody understands me’. The parents often continue to treat their teenage children as if they were infant, when they probably consider themselves to be grown up. So the problem of misunderstanding becomes urgent. Some people call it generation gap. Parents as well as children should be patient and tactful to solve the family problems and try to understand each other. Leo Tolstoy said: “All families are happy in the similar way and unhappy in its own way”. And happiness or unhappiness of any family mostly depends on relations in it.

The teenagers also face the problem how to spend their free time. They do it in different ways. Some teenagers attend different night clubs, other young people spend their free time in the streets where they can be lured to take alcohol or even drugs. Drugs becomes now the social problem. Once you try them you won’t stop and become dependent on drugs.

Youth if also time to meet you first love. It is wonderful but it is known that the first love is usually unhappy and some teenagers, especially girls, can’t cope with their depression themselves. Sometimes they need the psychological help.

So as you see it is very difficult to be young nowadays. But you can be young only once and some wonderful things can happen only when you are young. So enjoy your youth!