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You are going to read an article about 'emotional literacy', the ability to put feelings and emotions into words. Read the article and answer the questions that follow (1-7).

Teach Boys Emotional Literacy, or Else

Luke, thirteen, pauses at the office door, undecided whether to take his baseball cap off or leave it alone; he pulls it off and steps into the room - the school psychologist's office. " Come on in, Luke. Have a seat in the big chair."

Luke's a 'good kid.' He plays drums in the school band and makes fair grades, though they've dropped lately. At school he's not part of the popular clique, but he does have a few good 'mates'.

So what brings him here? In the past few months Luke has grown increasingly sarcastic and sullen. A few evenings ago, concerned about his grades, his parents turned down his request to participate in an optional after-school activity. Luke flew into a rage. He slammed doors and kicked a hole in his bedroom wall. His mother was stunned by the violent outburst, his father was livid, but they left him alone to cool off. The next morning Dad left early for work, Luke had a headache and took a sick day off from school, and his mother called in at the school to see if anyone there might know what was troubling him. Luke's advisor suggested the counseling visit.

As we talk, my questions cruise the perimeter of his life: academics, music, friendships, family. His answers are curt, cautious and begrudging, punctuated with shrugs and a steely expression intended to keep the conversation from moving any closer than that outer edge. " About the other night. The rage and that hole in the bedroom wall. You must have been pretty mad to do that? " Luke looks wary, and even a little scared. He shrugs. " You look sad. Do you feel sad? "

Luke quickly looks down, and I see that tears are beginning to well up in his eyes. Clearly he is hurting, but it is masked in the toughness that fills his voice. " I don't know. Maybe, I guess."

" Let's see if we can figure out what's making you feel so bad."

Beyond Fight-or-Flight

Every troubled boy has a different story, but their stories share a disturbing theme, a theme of emotional ignorance and isolation. Each day we try to connect with boys like Luke, who are unversed in the subtleties of emotional language and expression and threatened by emotional complexity. When we ask them to open up, most, like Luke, respond with the same fight-or-flight response we all have to threatening situations.

A boy longs for connection at the same time he feels the need to begin to pull away, and this opens up an emotional divide. This struggle between his need for connection and his desire for autonomy finds different expression as a boy grows. But regardless of their age, most boys are ill-prepared for the challenges along the road to becoming an emotionally healthy adult. Whatever role biology plays (and that role is by no means clear) in the way boys are characteristically different from girls in their emotional expression, those differences are amplified by a culture that supports emotional development for girls and discourages it for boys. Stereotypical notions of masculine toughness deny a boy his emotions and rob him of the chance to develop the full range of emotional resources. We call this process, in which a boy is steered away from his inner world, the emotional miseducation of boys.

If you ask a boy the question " How did that make you feel? " he very often won't know how to respond. He'll talk, instead, about what he did or plans to do about the problem. Some boys don't have the words for their feelings - 'sad' or 6 'angry' or 'ashamed', for instance. A large part of our work with boys is to help them understand their emotional life and develop an emotional vocabulary. We try to teach them emotional literacy - the ability to read, understand and put into words our emotions and those of others.

We build emotional literacy, first, by being able to identify and name our emotions; second, by recognising the emotional content of voice and facial expression, or body language; and third, by understanding the situations or reactions that produce emotional states. By this we mean the link between loss and sadness, between frustration and anger, or threats to pride or self-esteem and fear. In our experience with families, we find that most girls get lots of encouragement from an early age to be emotionally literate: to be reflective and expressive of their own feelings, and responsive to the feelings of others.

In the Shadows

When we first began working with and speaking about boys, a large part of our task was to convince sceptical parents and educators of a truth we knew from our years of experience as therapists; that boys suffer deeply as a result of the destructive emotional training our culture imposes upon them, that many of them are in crisis, and that all of them need help. Perhaps because men enjoy so much power and prestige in society, there is a tendency to view it as a foregone conclusion that boys will have future success and to diminish the importance of any problems they might experience in childhood.

We have to come to grips with the fact that every boy has an inner life, that their hearts are full. Every boy is sensitive, and every boy suffers. When we do acknowledge it, and use this understanding to advance our own emotional education as parents and teachers of boys, we can help them meet the shadows in their lives with a more meaningful light. If we can give them an emotional vocabulary and the encouragement to use it, they will unclench their hearts.

1. Luke is the kind of boy who

A. regularly flies into fits of rage.

B. is not popular with his peers.

C. has a limited circle of friends.

D. wouldn't normally need counselling.

2. In narrating the incident which prompted Luke's mother to seek help, the writer presents Luke as being

A. spoilt.

B. troublesome.

C. tough.

D. distressed.

3. Luke's behaviour during the counselling session

A. is not consistent with a violent temperament.

B. shows that he is afraid of punishment.

C. is typical of boys visiting the psychologist.

D. shows fear which may not be entirely genuine.

4. The writer suggests that, when asked to talk about their feelings, boys feel

A. vulnerable.

B. offended.

C. ridiculed.

D. bullied.

5. The writer believes that the differences between boys and girls

A. are mostly of a biological nature.

B. are made greater by society.

C. cause boys to become tough.

D. give girls an unfair advantage.

6. When asked about their emotions, boys think of

A. ways of understanding them better.

B. dealing with them in practical terms.

C. how they can express themselves.

D. how they can use them to their benefit.

7. In the last paragraph, the writer stresses that

A. adults also need to develop emotionally in order to help boys.

B. boys won't suffer if they have a good emotional vocabulary.

C. admitting that boys are sensitive is hard for the male parent.

D. parents and teachers must be encouraged to help boys.

Завідувач кафедри __________ Т.І. Крехно Викладачi _______________І.С. Лученцова

_______________ А.О. Пікалова

_____________ C.О. Тимошенко

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