P re -re ad in g Sp e ak in g
Ⅰ. Talking about th e p ictu res
Look at the pictures above and answer the following questions:
1. Have you ever read or heard people talking about the differences between Europe and the USA?
2. The two pictures above are trying to tell the differences between European people and American people. As far as you are concerned，how can Americans be different from Europeans when both of them belong to the same western culture in Easterners??eyes?
3. Can you guess what“ABCs”means in the title of Text A?
Ⅱ. Pair wor k
The following are some typically dominant American values. Try to understand them and explain the ideas to your partner in your own words.
1. Achievements and Success
In a competitive society，stress is placed on personal achievements. This is measured by accomplishments，such as economic success. Success emphasizes rewards. Failure is often attributed to character defects. Success is often equated with“bigness”or“newness”.
2. Activities and Work
Americans also value busyness，speed，bustle and action. The frontier idea of work for survival is still with them，as is the Puritan ethic of work before play.
Work becomes an end in itself. A person??s worth is measured by his or her performance.
3. Moral Orientation
Americans think in terms of good and bad，right and wrong - not just in practical terms. Early Puritan ideas of working hard，leading an orderly life，having a reputation for integrity and fair dealing，avoiding reckless display，and carrying out one??s purposes still hold weight but are losing ground.
4. Humanitarianism
Much emphasis is placed on disinterested concern，helpfulness，personal kindliness，aid and comfort，spontaneous aid in mass disasters，as well as on impersonal philanthropy. This emphasis is related to equalitarian democracy，but often it clashes with their value of rugged individualism.
5. Efficiency and Practicality
Americans have belief in standardization，mass production，and streamlined industrialism. They like innovation，modernity，expediency and getting things done. They value technique and discipline in science. They enjoy short-range adjustments in immediate situations. Practicality again means active interest in workability.
6. Progress
Americans look forward more than backward. They resent the old-fashioned，the outmoded. They seek the best through change. Progress is often identified with the Darwinian idea of survival of the fittest and with the free enterprise system.
7. Material Comfort
Americans enjoy passive gratification - drink this，chew that and take a vacation. They enjoy happy endings in movies. They enjoy consumption，and their heroes before 1920 were more from social，commercial，and cultural worlds of production. After the 1920??s the heroes came more from the leisure-time activities of sports and entertainments. Yet Americans also enjoy culture and engage in do-ityourself hobbies and vacations.
8. Equality
American history has stressed the equality of opportunities，especially economic opportunity. They feel guilt，shame，or ego deflation when inequalitarianism appears. While discrimination exists，much lip service is paid to formal rights and legal rights. Equality is not a pure concept but is largely two-sided: social rights and equality of opportunities.
9. Freedom
Americans also seek freedom from restraint. Freedom enters into free enterprise,
progress，individual choice，and equality. It has not meant the absence of social control.
10. External Conformity
Americans also believe in adherence to group patterns，especially for success.
Economic，political，and social dependence and interdependence call for some conformity. If all people are equal，each has a right to judge the other and regulate conduct to accepted standards.
11. Science
Americans have faith in science and its tools. Science is rational，functional and active. Science is morally neutral. It adds to their material comfort and progress.
12. Nationalism-Patriotism
Americans feel some sense of loyalty to their country，its national symbols，and its history. Foreigners observe how the Americans value their flag and their national anthem and how they believe that America is the greatest country in the world.
13. Democracy
Americans have grown to accept majority rule，representative institutions，and to reject monarchies，aristocracies，and dictatorships. They accept law，equality.and freedom.
14. Individual Personality
The Americans protect their individualism with laws and with the belief in one??s own worth.
