VIII Welsh Assembly launches £44m learning grants

Polly Curtis

The Welsh Assembly today launched £44m Assembly Learning Grants, designed to help the poorest Welsh students through higher and further education. The grants will be awarded on top of the existing student loans in higher education, and will also be available for some part-time courses. The average annual grant will be £935, paid on a three-term basis.

The Welsh assembly does not have the power to either abolish tuition fees or reintroduce a grant; the Department for Education and Skills decides on this. But it can implement measures to relieve student hardship.

The Guardian, June 12, 2002

Task 8. Analyse the linguistic features (special terms, clichés, neologisms, colloquial words, phrasal verbs, abbreviations) of Texts I-VIII given above.

Task 9. Read the headlines below, analyse their syntactical structure, translate them into Russian.

1. Dead spy’s family demand body.

2. Union warning over Royal Mail sell-off plan.

3. Boris Johnson: I’ll run for Mayor.

4. “Burn Koran” stunt sparks world riots.

5. Middle-income families facing losing sickness benefit.

6. Soldier maimed for life gets £16-a-week pension.

7. Marine: I lost both legs but I’ll run across America.

8. Two killed changing tyre on M6.

9. Boy, two, who died for an hour.

Task 10. Read the sub-heads below, match them with the headlines in Task 9. Translate the headings into Russian.

- Two men who died in a horrific motorway smash are believed to have been struck by a lorry as they...

- Boris Johnson cheered his party yesterday by finally confirming he will seek re-election for a...

- Postal workers were on collision course with the Government last night after it decided to press...

- A marine who lost both legs and an arm in a blast in Afghanistan began an astonishing new challenge...

- Little Gore Otteson is full of life – a remarkable feat for a boy who “died” for nearly an hour.

- Hard-working taxpayers could be the biggest losers under plans to means-test long-term sickness...

- A hero soldier awarded the ­Military Cross after being wounded in Afghanistan is to receive a...

- Violent protests spread across the world yesterday amid the escalating row over plans to burn a copy...

- The grieving relatives of murdered MI6 spy Gareth Williams last night demanded to have his body back

Task 11. Now read the headlines from another paper published on the same day as headlines in Task 9. How different are the headings below and in Task 10?

1. Muslims in America increasingly alienated as hatred grows in Bible belt.

2. Vince Cable announces plans for total privatisation of Royal Mail.

3. Boris Johnson to stand for second term as London mayor.

4. Three men jailed for rape in Oxford after victim sees film on mobile.

5. Police cuts will leave public less safe, federation warns.

6. Pope Benedict XVI’s whistlestop visit to Britain.

7. Fears for public health grow as Department of Health culls experts.

Task 12. Watch Video 4 (Folder Unit 3), featuring press review, and fill in the grid as in Task 7, Unit 1.

Task 13. Read the extracts from different articles on environmental issues. Work in pairs and write the newspaper headlines for them. Try to make the headlines appealing and eye-catching. 

1. Before 1900, rainforests (hot, wet forests in tropical areas where rainfall is heavy and there is no dry season) covered 14 % of the world’s surface. They have been cut down and today they cover less than 7 %. But it’s not only trees which are disappearing. Every rainforest also contains millions of animals, insects and flowers. If man continues to cut down rainforests, more than one million species of plants and animals will become extinct by the year 2030.

2. Acid rain is one of Europe’s and North America’s most serious pollution problems. In some parts of Europe and North America rainwater is sometimes more acidic than lemon juice! The most important cause of the excessive acidity of rainwater has been the burning of fossil fuels such as petroleum and coal. Burning fossil fuels produces gases which go high into the atmosphere, combine with water and form acid.  These acidic water droplets can travel hundreds of miles before they return to earth as rain or snow.  

 3. The ozone layer stops some of the ultraviolet radiation from the sun. Ultraviolet radiation causes a suntan. Too much ultraviolet radiation causes sunburn and skin cancer. The satellite photographs showed the hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica. The hole was caused by aerosol cans, fridges and air-conditioning, manufacturing of some plastic products.

 4. Sunlight gives us heat. Some of the heat warms the atmosphere, and some of the heat escapes back into space. During the last 100 years we have produced a huge amount of carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide in the atmosphere works like the glass in a greenhouse. It allows heat to get in, but it doesn’t allow much heat to get out. So the atmosphere becomes warmer because less heat can escape. Where does the carbon dioxide come from? People and animals breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide. Trees take carbon dioxide from the air, and produce oxygen. We produce carbon dioxide when we burn coal, oil, petrol, gas or wood. In the last few years, people have burned huge areas of rain forest. This means there are fewer trees, and, of course, more carbon dioxide.