WELCOME TO THIS VIRTUAL CLASS

English nowadays 

DID YOU KNOW IT?

"ENGLISH has evolved from a language spoken by a few people into the most widely
spoken language in the world."

LET`S SEE HOW THIS HAPPENED

BEFORE WE START, THINK ABOUT THESE QUESTIONS

.
 How much do YOU know about the English-speaking world?
 Do you know how many people in the world speak English?
 Which, as far as you know, is the most spoken language in the world today? And
the most widely spoken and learnt language?

In this lesson, we will be discussing all these issues

Let´s start by taking a look at the many countries in the world where English is
spoken, at least , by more than 1 million people. 

The curious fact is that English is not the first or native

language of all these people, but it plays an important social,
cultural or educational role in many of their countries.

 Let´s watch a short video clip to learn about this ...

“WORLD ENGLISHES: 30 COUNTRIES WITH A MILLION ENGLISH

SPEAKERS”
Click this link

https://youtu.be/OwQNFaID1Iw

English has become a global language.There´s no doubt about this. Although it is not
the most spoken language in the world today , because Mandarin Chinese is first on the
list mainly because the number of Chinese people; that is, Mandarin Chinese is 
basically spoken as a native language by Chinese people in China), but English is the
most widely spoken and learnt language in the world! What´s more, English is
spoken as a first language by people whose countries are very powerful, and this makes
it a very powerful language as well. 

As lingüist David Crystal once said, "the power of a language does not depend on how
many people speak it, but on who those people are."
TIME TO WORK- YOUR TASK   

WATCH the video and:

✎Write down the countries you hear. How many could you understand? How many
did you count?
- Australia - The Philippines - Nepal - Nigerian.
- New Zealand - Malaysia - Zambia - Ghana.
- Papua New Guinea - Sri Lanka - Tanzania - South Africa
- Singapore - India - Liberian - Uganda
- Jamaica -Zimbabwe - Pakistan - Trinidad and Tobago.
- Kenya - Ireland - Bangladesh -Cameroon
- The UK - Hong Kong - Sierra Leona - Canada
- The USA
I could understand twenty – seven countries. I count twenty – nine countries.

🔉  Practise reading them out loud. Easy? Difficult?  Which one did you find the most
difficult to pronounce? Were any of the countries unknown to you?

Some of them are easy to pronounce but some others are a bit difficult. The difficult
ones for me are Papua New Guinea and Bangladesh. Yes, the ones I did not know
were, Papua New Guinea, Bangladesh and Uganda

✎Which continents do these countries belong to?

They belong to, Oceania, Asia, Africa, Europe and America.

It is important to understand that the role English has in these

countries is definitely not the same:
Let`s see:

English can be a first language is these countries

or

it can be made an official or semi-official language in places where it is not a first

language

or

it can just play an important role in business and/or education where English is a foreign
language
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

GLOBAL ENGLISHES

 In 1985, an Indian linguist called Braj Kachru studied the different Englishes spoken in
the world and developed the following three concentring circles to show them.

Global Englishes (Kachru 1985)

Included among Inner Circle nations are countries where English is spoken as a first
language, let`s call it language 1 (L1). Englishes in the Inner Circle, such as UK
and USA, are often the model for other Englishes to follow. 
Outer Circle nations are countries where English is often an official language, mostly
the nations which were previously colonised by Britain. Therefore, these nations usually
develop distinctive varieties of the norms of English, e.g. India, Singapore, Malaysia,
etc. 
Expanding Circle nations, e.g. Thailand, Japan, Nepal, etc. are those where citizens
learn English as a Foreign Language and English does not serve a crucial
communication functions within the countries (Mooney & Evans, 2013, p. 200). 
In many environments, the pronunciation of expanding-circle Englishes is often
characterized by a mixture of the innercircle accents (British and American), and also
derived from the speaker"s mother tongue.

* Retrieved from: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Global-Englishes-Kachru-1985-
Included-among-Inner-Circle-nations-are-countries-where_fig1_331397802

To Reflect..
Which of these concentric circles does Argentina belong to? Why?

Argentina belongs to the Expanding Circle because in this country, English is not the
first and second language. We learn it at school but we do not use it to communicate
each other, or even at home. The function of the language in our country is for
business or maybe travelling but we have our mother tongue and English is just other
language that it is taught.

 Over to YOU

Before watching
Englsih has evolved from a language spoken by a few people into the most widely
spoken and learnt language in the world. Why do you think this is so?
Reflect upon your ideas before you watch this second video.

“Why did English become the international language?”

https://youtu.be/iqDFPU9YeQM

After watching 

✍ Take down notes of all the things you did not know and have now learnt about
English.

 Find out the meaning of the term "lingua franca". Had you ever heard it before?  

The meaning of Lingua Franca could be, that it’s a language that can facilitate the
communication among the linguistics diverse population.
Yes, I have heard about it.

  Answer:

1- English is the language of preference in many different situations. Name them.

- It’s the language of global commerce.

- It’s the main language of international diplomacy.
- It’s the language of air traffic control.
- It’s the most common language of academic journals.
- It’s the most common language on the Internet.
 - It’s the language that international travellers with different native languages
use to communicate.

2-According to the information we get from the video (bare in mind that the figures
presented in this video may have already changed....), how many native speakers of
English are there in the world today? 

Today in the world there are three hundred and sixty million native speakers.

3- How many people use it as a second language?

Over a billion people use it as a second language.

4- What´s the estimated figure for non-native speakers of English in the world today?
 
Some people say that estimated there are two billion non-native speakers of English
around the world.

You can go over it as many times as you need. Make sure you complete all the
suggested activities.
KEEP A RECORD of all the activities and the things you´ve learnt in this lesson!!