THE PROJECT OF THE 9 – TH GRADE STUDENTS OF

SECONDARY SCHOOL № 6 OF THE TOWN OF

ALEXANDROV OF VLADIMIR REGION .

THEME : Conflicts. How to Avoid

Them?

TEACHER: VED GALINA ALEXANDROVNA.

2010

Our Plan:

• Definition of the word “conflict”. • Classification of conflicts.• Reasons of conflicts.• Conflicts in our life.• Conflicts in literature and cinema.• How to avoid conflicts.• How to resolve conflicts.• Conclusion.

Some definitions of the word «conflict»: -A struggle or fight; a battle.-A quarrel.-A strong disagreement.-A difference of opinions, feelings, interests.(The Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English by A. S. Hornby). -Fighting.-A confrontation.-Disagreement of opinions, etc.(Oxford Progressive Colour Dictionary. Oxford University Press, 1993).

Classification of conflicts:1.political;2.economic;3. social;4. religious;5. ecological.

Social conflicts can be between:1.the members of the family;2.relatives;3.two loving people;4.friends;5.neighbours;6.fellow workers;7.employers and employees;8.classmates;9.teachers and students;10.people of different generation;11.people with different interests;12.people of different social position.

Conflicts in our life. Conflicts happen very often in our life. They happen when people have different nationalities and religions, different values, culture and interests, when people don’t listen to each other’s point of view and are not ready for a compromise.

Conflicts happen every day. We, students, often have conflicts too. Some of us would like to share our own experience of the resolution of different kinds of conflicts. Here are our stories: Kondrashova Olga, 9 «B»

CONFLICTS WITH MY SISTER. Usually there are many conflicts in our life. Conflicts happen between friends, schoolmates, parents, and teachers. I think that it is necessary to solve conflicts

peacefully. As for me, I often had conflicts withmy elder sister because we could not decidewho would clean our room. We often foughtbecause of it. On one of such days, when wequarreled again, our mum suggested makingthe scheme of our duties and cleaning the room inturns. I and my sister liked this idea very much.We accepted this idea with pleasure. We tookan album sheet of paper and drew a scheme of ourduties. We glued different bright pictures on it. Itlooked nice! We hung up the scheme of duties on thewall in our room. Since then we have not quarreled

anymore, because of this reason. I try to solveconflicts in a peaceful way. If people resolveconflicts peacefully, they will not have conflictsin the future; they will have better relations withpeople around them. I think that people mustresolve conflicts in a peaceful way, because itsaves our nerve system and helps us to have amuch happier life.

Krooglikov Mikhail, 9 «B» CONFLICTS WITH MY BROTHER. From time to time there are conflicts in my life. Sometimes I have conflicts with my relatives and my friends. I have conflicts with my teachers very rare. For example, I and my brother often do not understand each other. His behavior irritates me.

I become nervous. I am not always right.Sometimes I start conflicts myself. I cannot keepfrom playing tricks on him. It makes him cry. Mymother and my grandmother punish me for it.They are angry with me. Such conflicts lead tobad relations. I suffer from it. And my experience tellsme that it is better to suppress my feeling and emotions at the very beginning of a conflict so as not tosuffer later. I try to live without conflicts, but if there isa conflict- I usually try to solve it in a peaceful way.

Anonym, 9 «B» CONFLICTS WITH MY TEACHERS.

I wouldn’t like to tell my name, because conflicts, I will tell you about are not very pleasant for me. I have conflicts with my teachers. Usually they get angry with me, because I am not well prepared for my lessons.

They scold me very often and give me bad marks. Iknow that I am guilty myself, because I am notvery attentive at the lessons and I don’t listen tothe teachers properly. As a result, it is verydifficult for me to do my home tasks.I understand that I am not right, so I don’t try toprotect myself. I don’t argue with the teachers. I domy best to be attentive at the next lesson and toprepare my home task well next time.As you see, I am not aggressive, so I always resolve myconflicts peacefully, but, it would be better for me todo my home tasks and not to have any problems.

Conflicts in literature. The problem of conflicts isreflected in a lot of books - classical andmodern. One of the most famous of them is « Romeo and Juliet» byW. Shakespear. The writershows us what can aconflict lead to.

Two Italian families, the Montagues and the Capulets,were enemies and often crossed their swords. One dayRomeo, the son of the Montagues , saw the daughterof the Capulets, whose name was Juliet. The youngpeople fell in love with each other. They had to meetsecretly, because their parents were strongly against it.Then they found a priest, who agreed to merry themwithout their parents’ blessing. Accidently, youngRomeo killed Juliet’s cousin and had to run away. Thattime the Capulets decided to find a husband for theirdaughter. Juliet asked the priest to give her some

sleeping liquid. She wrote a letter to Romeo andtold him about her plan to take it, so as all herrelatives thought she was dead, but the letterwas not got in time. Juliet’s parents were veryunhappy and put her in the family’s vault. WhenRomeo learnt about the death of his young wife,he came to Verona at once. Romeo understoodthat he would not be able to live without Julietand, thinking she was not alive, he decided to die too. He drank some poison near Juliet’s body.When Juliet awoke, she saw that Romeo had died.

She didn’t want to live any longer. She tookRomeo’s dagger and killed herself. The great tragedywas over. The Montagues and the Capulets learned aboutthe young people’s love. Their death reconciled them.The families decided to build a monument to Romeoand Juliet’s love, which was stronger than death. In Shakespear’s tragedy «Romeo and Juliet» we can seethe conflict between the two families –the Montagues and the Capulets. Their conflictled to fights, violence, bad relations and even to

the death of their children. We do not know thereason of the conflict, but I am sure that it waspossible to avoid, prevent or resolve this conflictby peaceful means. It’s impossible to prevent allconflicts, but the Montagues and the Capuletshad to stop their struggle for their children’ssake. Romeo and Juliet shouldn’t have hidden theirfeelings from their parents. Probably, theMontagues and the Capulets wouldhave reconciled, seeing their love, and the conflict would have stopped.

The conflict situation in the film by Rolan Bykov according to the book by Vladimir Zheleznikov «Scarecrоw». The events of this story took place in a small town on the bank of the river Oka, between Kaluga and Serpukhov. The main character of the story is Lena Bessoltseva , a girl of twelve. She arrived there to her grandfather Nikolay Nikolayevich Bessoltsev. In autumn Lena went to school in the sixth form.

Her new classmates considered her to beridiculous and not nice because of her funnysmile ‘from one ear to the other’. Lena got anickname of Scarecrow. Lena liked Dima, a boyfrom her class. He was the only one, who didn’tlaugh at Lena. Once, on the last school day, all of Lena’s classmatesran away from their lesson to the cinema. Dimabetrayed them and gave them out to the teacher. Allthe pupils got the punishment and were not taken onthe excursion to Moscow, which they dreamt aboutvery much. Lena felt sorry for Dima and claimed that

she had told the teacher the truth. Since that timethe pupils stopped talking to her and beganoffending her. In the end of this story Lena leftthe town and her classmates began to feel sorryfor their behavior, because they found out thetruth. Lena’s classmates began to hate the girl and to hurther, because they got the punishment and were nottaken to Moscow. I think, that the children were ableto avoid this conflict. Lena should have told herclassmates the truth or they should have tried toforgive her.

In my opinion, it would have been better not tobreak school rules and not to run away from thelesson anyway. I am glad that the situation in myclass is quite different. This film makes us thinkabout the problems of friendship, love andtolerance, but it doesn’t give us any ideas aboutthe way out of the conflict. Everybody shouldfind them on their own.

Some Tips on How to Avoid Conflicts :

• Treat people as you want to be treated yourself.• Respect the rights of other people.• Be patient.• Be polite.• Be attentive and careful to everybody.• Remember : all people are different.• Respect other people’s religion, political and social

points of view.• If you don’t agree – prove your idea politely.• If you are angry – count to 10 and only then speak.• Don’t be indifferent.

Some Tips How to Resolve Conflicts:

• Learn more about the source of a conflict.• Learn more about the people, who are involved into

it.• Study your opponents’ points of view attentively.• Prepare your arguments to prove your ideas.• Prove that you are right, using convincing facts.• Do it in a low voice.• Don’t interrupt your opponents, even if you don’t

agree.• Ask someone, whose opinion is appreciated, for

help, if you see no way out of the conflict.

CONCLUSION: The problem of conflicts isvery important for all ofteenagers and we have tofind the way out of conflictsituations, because theymake our lives morestressful. However, not allthe conflicts can be resolvedpeacefully. If there isviolence in conflicts likeaggressive war actions toyour country,

attacks of terrorists or something of this kind - the onlyway out is to defend your country and compatriots. If it is a conflict between Man and Nature, which leadsto the environmental crisis, the only means to stop it isto put an end to progress. Nobody is ready for it andnobody can find really useful methods to protect our planet from the consequences of progress. So, as far as we are concerned, the mankind is notprepared yet to resolve some burning problemspeacefully.If we go on our communication with the Earth in such away, we should be prepared for it’s revenge.