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Unit 13 Lesson 3
The rights of the old must not be neglected
Obigetives : By the end of the lesson you will have
• discussed old age
• made a list of the rights of the elderly after reading a passage
• read a shun passage and answered questions based on it
• completed a passage using appropriate prepositions
A What age would you Consider 'Old'? Put u tick on the minimum aye from which you would call a person old.
from 45 years
from 50 years
from 55 years
from 60 years
from 65 years
B Now read the following passage and check if your guess was right. Cross out the incorrect word in the bracket as you read.
In Bangladesh the retirement age fur government employees is 57 years and for university teachers 65 years, in the United Nations the retirement age is 65 years. But this (do, dues) nut mean that alter this age people suddenly become useless and unfit to work. These people are an asset to society with knowledge that only (experience, inexperience) can bring and (need, needs) to feel useful and (want, wanted) in society. In the developed countries social security is (provided, provide) by the government in the form of post-retirement and old aye benefits, so that these people (got, get) free medical facilities and can also be economically (dependent, independent). In Bangladesh, government employees are granted a pension and there are a few facilities at the government hospitals for the old but these are (hardly, hard) enough. Besides the majority of our female population do not (belong, belongs) to the working class. They are housewives and are not (eligible, illegible) for any pension or gratuity. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, about 6% of the population of Bangladesh are aged people which came to about 13.3 million people in 2000. This includes male and female elderly people both from the villages and towns. These people have (served, serve) their nation and their families through the years. In their old age, it is their right to expect service from us (in, on) return. Their physical health has (started, start) deteriorating and they need as much care and consideration as possible. The government still (does, do) not have any system to meet the health and (economical, economic) needs of this large population. We ourselves however must (ensure, insure) that the elderly among us are respected and cared (for, after). After all, can we forget that we ourselves are going to grow old one day?
C From your reading of this passage what do you think are the rights of the elderly? Make a list. Give reasons for your answer. You can start like this: The elderly have the right to subsidised medical charges because at this stage they suffer from many age-related ailments and diseases.
D Read the following passage and discuss in pairs what rights Ayesha Begum and her husband are deprived of.
Ayesha Begum has three sons and two daughters. Her husband was a landless farmer who used to work on other people's land. With great effort they married their daughters off by the time they reached teenage. The sons also started working with their father as day labourers when they were old enough to help. By the time they were about seventeen years old, all of them had left to work in nearby towns to earn money. At first they used to send money to their parents occasionally, but after getting married they barely had enough to support their own families. Ayesha Begum and her husband are now old and feeble. Years of malnutrition and deprivation have made them look older than their years. All they are left with now is their broken little thatched house. Out of desperation Ayesha Begum has started begging in the village to feed her old, invalid husband and herself. She does not know what ails him neither does she have the means to find out. She is too busy collecting food for survival.
Now replace the highlighted words in the text above with a word/phrase from the box below so that the meaning does not change.
makes him sick finding no other way thirteen years
weak have any way sometimes want
E Find the following phrases (verb/adjective/noun & preposition) in the two passages above and underline them, then use them to fill in the blanks in the passage below. Make any tense changes if necessary.
belong to, eligible for, expect from, in return, cared for, married off, work in, work with, live in, left with
Rahima Khatun was worried. Her daughter was in her fifteenth year, and not
yet married. She was anxious to - her only daughter to any man who had enough earning to sustain a family. She wanted her beloved daughter to be well -. She did not expect anything -. It would be enough to see Sakhina happy.
F Write ten sentences about your family using the phrases in task E.
Focus:
Skills.
Reading, inferencing, speaking.
Functions.
Identifying underlying message.
Grammar/Structure.
Prepositional phrases.
Vocabulary.
benefit, means, hardly, feeble, desperation, elderly.
This text will be replaced
Unit 13 Lesson 3
The rights of the old must not be neglected
Obigetives : By the end of the lesson you will have
• discussed old age
• made a list of the rights of the elderly after reading a passage
• read a shun passage and answered questions based on it
• completed a passage using appropriate prepositions
A What age would you Consider 'Old'? Put u tick on the minimum aye from which you would call a person old.
from 45 years
from 50 years
from 55 years
from 60 years
from 65 years
B Now read the following passage and check if your guess was right. Cross out the incorrect word in the bracket as you read.
In Bangladesh the retirement age fur government employees is 57 years and for university teachers 65 years, in the United Nations the retirement age is 65 years. But this (do, dues) nut mean that alter this age people suddenly become useless and unfit to work. These people are an asset to society with knowledge that only (experience, inexperience) can bring and (need, needs) to feel useful and (want, wanted) in society. In the developed countries social security is (provided, provide) by the government in the form of post-retirement and old aye benefits, so that these people (got, get) free medical facilities and can also be economically (dependent, independent). In Bangladesh, government employees are granted a pension and there are a few facilities at the government hospitals for the old but these are (hardly, hard) enough. Besides the majority of our female population do not (belong, belongs) to the working class. They are housewives and are not (eligible, illegible) for any pension or gratuity. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, about 6% of the population of Bangladesh are aged people which came to about 13.3 million people in 2000. This includes male and female elderly people both from the villages and towns. These people have (served, serve) their nation and their families through the years. In their old age, it is their right to expect service from us (in, on) return. Their physical health has (started, start) deteriorating and they need as much care and consideration as possible. The government still (does, do) not have any system to meet the health and (economical, economic) needs of this large population. We ourselves however must (ensure, insure) that the elderly among us are respected and cared (for, after). After all, can we forget that we ourselves are going to grow old one day?
C From your reading of this passage what do you think are the rights of the elderly? Make a list. Give reasons for your answer. You can start like this: The elderly have the right to subsidised medical charges because at this stage they suffer from many age-related ailments and diseases.
D Read the following passage and discuss in pairs what rights Ayesha Begum and her husband are deprived of.
Ayesha Begum has three sons and two daughters. Her husband was a landless farmer who used to work on other people's land. With great effort they married their daughters off by the time they reached teenage. The sons also started working with their father as day labourers when they were old enough to help. By the time they were about seventeen years old, all of them had left to work in nearby towns to earn money. At first they used to send money to their parents occasionally, but after getting married they barely had enough to support their own families. Ayesha Begum and her husband are now old and feeble. Years of malnutrition and deprivation have made them look older than their years. All they are left with now is their broken little thatched house. Out of desperation Ayesha Begum has started begging in the village to feed her old, invalid husband and herself. She does not know what ails him neither does she have the means to find out. She is too busy collecting food for survival.
Now replace the highlighted words in the text above with a word/phrase from the box below so that the meaning does not change.
makes him sick finding no other way thirteen years
weak have any way sometimes want
E Find the following phrases (verb/adjective/noun & preposition) in the two passages above and underline them, then use them to fill in the blanks in the passage below. Make any tense changes if necessary.
belong to, eligible for, expect from, in return, cared for, married off, work in, work with, live in, left with
Rahima Khatun was worried. Her daughter was in her fifteenth year, and not
yet married. She was anxious to - her only daughter to any man who had enough earning to sustain a family. She wanted her beloved daughter to be well -. She did not expect anything -. It would be enough to see Sakhina happy.
F Write ten sentences about your family using the phrases in task E.
Focus:
Skills.
Reading, inferencing, speaking.
Functions.
Identifying underlying message.
Grammar/Structure.
Prepositional phrases.
Vocabulary.
benefit, means, hardly, feeble, desperation, elderly.