Read the excerpt below about the problem of pocket money in British families. Discuss how it compares with the situation in Russia. Make use of the information in the role-play.
Date: 2015-10-07; view: 1422.
YOUR MONTHLY BUDGET
CHART 2
D. Discuss the following chart in your own dialogues. Make use of the expressions in italics from the dialogue above.
PERSONAL EXPENSE CHART
CHART 1
| Item | Percentage of total Expenses |
| Entertainment | |
| Food | |
| Clothing | |
| College supplies | |
| Savings | |
| Personal care | |
| Transportation | |
| Other |
| monthly sources of income | monthly fixed expenses | monthly flexible expenses | monthly optional expenses | |||||
| type | amount | type | amount | type | amount | type | amount | |
| 1. | ||||||||
| 2. | ||||||||
| 3. | ||||||||
| 4. | ||||||||
| … | ||||||||
| total |
1.7 Reading for Cross-cultural Associations
British parents take money seriously. Children from age of 5 or 6 are normally given weekly “pocket money” – a few pence at first, increasing as they get older. Pocket money is often related to household chores. “Now you are old enough to help me, you are old enough to have some money of your own.” Pocket money is not considered to be a payment for work, but a right.
Teenage children are often given a clothing allowance; they must buy their own clothes and budget accordingly. If they spend too much on a small jacket or a fashionable dress, they will have no money for shoes. They are being taught “the value of money”.
Children from the age of 13 often take part-time jobs to pay for videos, electronic gadgets and so forth. Parents, on the one hand like to see their children being practical and enterprising. On the other hand they fear that school work will suffer. Teachers do protest that children are working too hard outside school and falling asleep in classes.
Meanwhile, the teenagers who go to university and spend several years as students did not start full-time earning at sixteen, and their student grants (from 18 to 21) are very small. So although they, too, want the records and videos, they wear much cheaper clothes and depend more on student allowance. In the vacations they look for part-time jobs, and because they are intelligent and literate they can find more skilled, better-paid work, even part-time.
And here is another dilemma for prosperous parents of university students: should they insist that their children learn to live on their student grants plus whatever they can earn during the holidays – or do they give them money to buy the clothes and electronic equipment they want?
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| B. Be ready to sum up the point of view of each of the speakers. | | | Student B |