1. Think and discuss.

1. What do you think globalization means?

2. Do you think globalization is a recent trend?

3. What global companies can you think of?

4. What industries are they in?

5. Do global companies do more harm than good?

2. Read the text and translate the sentences with used to. Make up some more sentences with used to. Use the ideas of the text to help you. Text a Globalization

Movement of humans across the globe is nothing new. One of the most obvious characteristics of the movement of people in the current phase of globalization is the speed at which they can travel. Developments in transportation technologies dramatically decrease the limitations that used to determine how fast humans could travel. As methods of travel have developed, distance is less a barrier than it used to be.

The development of communication technologies like video conferencing enables individuals to carry out face-to-face interaction without being physically present.

However, globalistic tendencies have never had such influence on the individual or mass consciousness as they have got after the Cold War andthe final formation of the monopolar world.Now people are less limited by political borders than they used to be. In some parts of the world, people have the ability to live in one country and work in another country. Certainly, the transnational corporations were first to react to those “green lights”, which gave them an opportunity to reach the unlimited sale, financial and job markets. Using the national legislations of the former “Socialist Camp” mostly unadapted to the modern challenges, the over-national giantsattacked massively Terra Incognita of still new markets.

The movement of capital across national boundaries has become critically important. Following the liberalization of capital markets that began in the 1970s, the amount of private capital available for investment in companies and national economies has grown dramatically.

However, the globalization of money and goods has mixed effects. On the one hand, extending markets across political borders creates a need for international regulations and norms, which help stabilize international markets. On the other hand, the rapidity with which private capital can move in and out of a national economy can have a sudden and dramatic destabilizing effect on a country's economy.

Alongside there is also globalization of risk, which involves the extension of the negative effects of actions in one part of the world to remote areas of the globe. In other words, the actions of individuals or organizations in one country may have important effects on the life chances of individuals in a distant country. They can involve health and environmental risk(such as Chernobyl), economic risk (with the liberalization of capital markets, the often unpredictable flow of huge sums of private capital can create financial crises for countries and entire regions very quickly).

Notes: rapidity -speed

3. Answer the questions.

1. What is the most important reason which caused the current phase of globalization?

2. Can you name some other reasons?

3. Why did the end of the Cold War allow for the extension of markets across state boundaries? Comment on it.

4. In what way did communication technologies add to globalization?

5. Why has the amount of private capital available for investment in companies and national economies grown dramatically?

6. What risks does globalization of money and goods hide for a country’s economy.

____________________

Pre-reading tasks: