III. Comprehension check.

1. Suggest the English for:

ім’я по батькові; прізвище; родинний стан; вік; міцні та слабкі напої; лікер; шампанське; улюблена їжа (книга, спорт, фільм, колір, квітка, телепрограма); знаки зодіаку; рідна та іноземна мова; улюблені та нелюбі справи; анкета; життєпис; заява; конвалія; бузок; займатися спортом (легкою атлетикою, фехтуванням, плаванням); дивитися телевізор; слухати музику; прати; прасувати; мести підлогу.

2. Decide which is the odd word in each group.

1. mineral water, juice, tea, liqueur.

2. pancake, beef, pork, chicken.

3. football, basketball, boxing, rugby.

4. red, ashy, pink, coral.

5. cauliflower, carnation, daffodil, camomile.

6. polite, hard-working, attentive, arrogant.

3. Complete the story using the active vocabulary. Make sure you can speak about yourself using the clues.

Let me introduce myself. My surname is ….., my first name is …. and my patronymic is ….. . I was born on the …. of …. in …. . My sign of zodiac is … . I’m …… by nationality. I’ve just left school. At the moment I’m a first-year student at ……. university, …… faculty.

I speak some languages. My native language is ….. . My knowledge of …… is excellent and …… is good (fair).

I like cooking very much. I’m crazy about ice-cream and ….. . As for drinks I prefer ……

I’ve got a lot of interests: sport, books, films, music, TV, I’m quite good at sports particularly ……. .

When I have free time I enjoy doing a lot of things. I’m fond of reading …... books and watching TV. My favourite TV programmes are ………. .

I like music and prefer listening to ….…. . I’m interested in ….…. .

My favourite colours are ..…. . I adore such flowers as ..…. .

I have some likes and dislikes. I enjoy ……. and can’t stand ..….. . I’m quite easy-going and like to make new friends. People who are ……. appeal to me. At the same time I disgust ……. people.

4. Match a line in a with a line in b.

A	B
marital telephone full zodiac foreign strong talk soap folk free	name language music number show opera time drinks status sign

5. Choose an adjective from the box. Write it next to its opposites.

good-natured polite hard-working communicative shy

beautiful tidy modern quiet interesting

6. Put one of the words in the box into each gap.

1. My elder sister isn’t married yet. She is ….. .

2. Are they of the same ….. ? No, Ann is 2 years younger than Jim.

3. I’m Ukrainian by ….. .

4. What is your cousin’s ….. ? He is a sociologist.

5. I was born in December, so my ….. is Sagittarius.

6. I prefer ….. to strong ones. Most of all I like juices and stewed fruit.

7. Agatha Christie is considered to be the queen of …… stories.

8. I live with my mother. You see, my parents ….. .

IV. Speaking activities.

1. Interview one of your fellow-students to get information about him/her.

Ask:

- what his/her full name is;

- where he/she comes from;

- how old he/she is; when and where he/she was born;

- what his/her marital status (occupation) is;

- how many languages he/she speaks;

- what his/her favourite pastime (colours, drinks, food) is (are);

- what his/her likes and dislikes are;

- what personalities appeal to him/her;

- what traits of character he/she dislikes in people.

2. Find five things you have in common with the student you have interviewed and five differences.

3. Describe one of your friends (relatives).

Speak about his/her background, interests, likes and dislikes.

Unit 2.

I. Pre-reading activities.

1. You are going to read the text about the spread of English throughout the world.

• What other languages besides English are used for international communication?

• What English-speaking countries do you know?

• Do you think it’s necessary to know at least one foreign language?

2. Read the following international words. When in doubt refer to the dictionary.

operate, economic, cultural, globe, international, communication, debate, variable, territory, calculate, dominant, popularity, historical, factor, religion, colonization, empire, control, problematic, administration, commerce, phenomenon, politician, demonstrate, airport, announce, journal, situation, regular.

3. Underline the one word in each group that is different.

1. language, dictionary, translator, art

2. astrophysics, zoology, tourism, history

3. similar, different, diverse, various

4. academic, professor, lecturer, citizen

5. Europe, Asia, New Zealand, America

II. Reading activities.

1. Read and translate the following text.

The world of English.

Although English is not the language with the largest number of native or 'first' language speakers, it has become a lingua franca. A lingua franca can be defined as a language widely adopted for communication between two speakers whose native languages are different from each other's and where one or both speakers are using it as a 'second' language. Many people living in the European Union, for example, frequently operate in English as well as their own languages (where these are different), and the economic and cultural influence of the United States has led to increased English use in many areas of the globe. Like Latin in Europe in the Middle Ages, English seems to be one of the main languages of international communication, and even people who are not speakers of English often know words such as bank, chocolate, computer, hamburger, hospital hot dog, hotel, piano, radio, restaurant, taxi, telephone, television, university. Many of these words have themselves been borrowed by English from other languages of course (e.g. chocolate, hamburger, taxi, etc.), and speakers of Romance languages are likely to have a number of words in common with English. But there are many 'false friends' too, where similar sounding words actually mean something quite different, for example, Italian eventualmente (= in case) contrasts with English eventually (= in the end).

Whatever the spread of English across the globe and whatever its overlap with other languages, there has been an intriguing debate over the years as to how many people speak English as either a 'first' or a 'second' language. Estimates of speaker numbers are somewhat variable. For example, Braj Kachru (1985) suggested between 320-380 million people spoke English as a first language, and anywhere between 250-350 million as a second language. On the other hand David Crystal (1995 and 1997) takes 75 territories where English 'holds a special place' (territories which include not only Britain, the USA, Australia, Canada, etc. but also places such as Hong Kong, India, Malaysia and Nigeria) and calculates around 377 million first language speakers of English and only 98 million speakers of English as a second language.

In 1983, however, Kachru made a prediction which, if correct, means that there are now more second language than first language speakers.

It is not necessarily the case that English will remain dominant among world languages. However, there is no doubt that it is and will remain a vital linguistic tool for many business people, academics, tourists and citizens of the world who wish to communicate easily across nationalities for many years to come.

There are a number of interlocking reasons for the popularity of English as a lingua franca. Many of these are historical, but they also include economic and cultural factors which have influenced and sustained the spread of the language:

A colonial history: when the Pilgrim Fathers landed on the Massachusetts coast in 1620 after their eventful journey from Plymouth, England, they brought with them not just a set of religious beliefs, nor only a pioneering spirit and a desire for colonization, but also their language. Although many years later the Americans broke away from their colonial masters, the language of English remained and it is still the predominant language of the world's greatest economic and political power.

It was the same in Australia, too. When Commander Philip planted the, British flag in Sydney Cove on 26th January 1788, it was not just a bunch of British convicts and their guardians who disembarked (to be rapidly followed by many free settlers of that land), but also a language.

In other parts of the British Empire, English rapidly became a unifying/dominating means of control. For example, it became a lingua franca in India, where a plethora of indigenous languages made the use of any one of them as a whole-country system problematic. The imposition of English as the one language of administration helped maintain the colonizer’s power.

Economics: a major factor in the spread, of English has been the spread of commerce throughout the world, and in particular, the emergence of the United States as a world economic power. Of course other economic blocks are hugely powerful too, but the spread of international commerce has taken English along with it. This is the twentieth-century phenomenon of 'globalization’ described by the journalist John Pilger as '...a term which journalists and politicians, have made fashionable and which is often used in a positive sense to denote a "global village" of "free trade", hi-tech marvels and all kinds of possibilities that transcend class, historical experience and ideology' (Pilger 1998: 61).

Travel: much travel and tourism is carried on, around the world, in English. Of course this is not always the case, as the multilingualism of many tourism workers in different countries demonstrates, but a visit to most airports on the globe will show signs not only in the language of that country, but also in English, just as many-airline announcements are glossed in English, too, whatever the language of the country the airport is situated in.

So far, English is also the preferred language of air traffic control in many countries and is used widely in sea travel communication.

Information exchange: a great deal of academic discourse around the world takes place in English. It is often a lingua franca of conferences, for example, and many journal articles in fields as diverse as astrophysics and zoology.

The first years of the Internet as a major channel for information exchange have also seen a marked predominance of English (though such a situation may not continue). This probably has something to do with the Internet's roots in the USA and the predominance of its use mere in the early days of the World Wide Web.

Popular culture: in the western world, at least, English is a dominating language in popular culture. Pop music in English saturates the planet's airwaves. Thus many people who are not English speakers can sing words from their favourite English songs. Many people who are regular cinemagoers (or TV viewers) frequently hear English in subtitled films coming out of the USA.

Digest, 2005, № 4.