T E A C H E R ’ S N O T E S A N D K E Y

September 2009

© Pearson Longman 2009

- 1 -

S

TARTING OFF

This task can be done in two parts if you wish, with the first question done in open class and then the second task done

with a time limit in pairs. Key:

1. 1) English - 1800 million 2) Chinese (all dialects) - 1300m 3) French - 700m 4) Arabic - 480m 5) Spanish - 450m

2. Countries where English is an official language: Antigua and Barbuda, Australia, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize,

Botswana, Brunei, Cameroon, Canada, Dominica, Ethiopia, Fiji, Gambia, Ghana, Grenada, Guyana, India,

Ireland, Israel, Jamaica, Kenya, Kiribati, Lesotho, Liberia, Malawi, Malta, Marshall Islands, Mauritius, Micronesia,

Namibia, Nauru, New Zealand, Nigeria, Pakistan, Palau, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Rwanda,

Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Samoa, Seychelles, Sierra Leone,

Singapore, Solomon Islands, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Tuvalu, Uganda,

United Kingdom, United States, Vanuatu, Zambia, Zimbabwe.

B

EFORE YOUR READ

/F

IRST READING

The quiz can be done in groups. You might elicit

teams‘answers to the board and do the reading task as a competition.

The quiz can be answered without the second sheet of the text and I recommend you keep this back until the next

reading task. Key:

1. c (more than a billion)

2. c (75%)

3. d (80%)

4. a (over 75%)

S

ECOND READING

The titles are marked on the Teacher’s Copy of the text.

V

OCABULARY

1

Key:

1. slang

2. comparison

3. native speaker

4. obvious

5. huge

6. borrow

7. collect

8. according to

V

OCABULARY

2

Key:

1. comparison

2. according to

3. native speaker

4. huge

5. slang

6. borrowed

7. obvious

8. collects

T

HIRD READING

Key:

1. False - the text gives approximate figures

2. False -

the text says English has ‘always’...

3. False - there were several others be

fore Johnson’s

4. Slang, regional

5. They are related to technology

6. The fact that there are more second language English

speakers than native speakers

T E A C H E R ’ S N O T E S A N D K E Y

September 2009

© Pearson Longman 2009

- 2 -

V

OCABULARY

3

Give the students time to come up with definitions and time to share their definitions - perhaps displaying them on the wall

- with the rest of the class before you give the answers.

defriend (VERB) /ˑdiːfrend/

to take somebody off your list of friends on your internet site (Facebook etc)

noob (NOUN) /nuːb/

somebody who is new to something and does not know the rules or how

to behave

chiconomics (NOUN) /t

ʃɪkəˑnɒmɪks/

being fashionable in what you buy without spending a great deal of money

V

OCABULARY

4

See the Teacher’s Copy for the key.

S

PEAKING

The speaking task is designed to get the students reflecting on their own language(s) and thinking about the relationship

between language and culture. It lends itself naturally to a presentation, which would be a logical extension.

E

XTENSION

One possible extension task which might be interesting for the students is to get them to come up with proposals for

improving the English language (simplifying spelling or pronunciation, removing tenses etc.). They could work in

small groups to come up with 3-5 proposals which they could then present to the class, who could vote to choose

the best suggestions.

© Pearson Longman 2009

- 3 -

It has more than a

million words, almost two
billion speakers and is
growing all the time. Why
is the English Language so
successful?

A World Language

No other language is

spoken in so many
countries, by so many
people, so often. Probably
around 1.8 billion people
speak English as a first or
second language and it is
the official language in 53
countries.

English is the language

of the internet. Around 75%
of the emails sent in the
world and 80% of the world
wide web is in English.

How English is English

really?

The English language

has always been happy to

collect

words from other

languages and the English
we speak today has words
from hundreds of other
languages.

According to

the linguist David Crystal,
more than three-quarters of
the words in English today
are

borrowed

from other

languages, many from Latin
and French. Take a look at
the list of foreign words in
English on the right.

Bigger and Bigger

How many words are

there in English? Usually, if
we want to find this out we
look in a dictionary, but the
problem with English is that
it is always changing

– new

words are always coming
into the language. The
vocabulary of English is
always growing.

In 1755 Samuel Johnson

wrote ‘A Dictionary of the
English Language’. It was
not the first dictionary of
English but it was easily the
best of the time. The
dictionary took Johnson
nine years to finish. A long
time? Perhaps, but for

comparison

, the French

Academy was writing a
dictionary of French at the
same time; they had 40
writers and it took 40 years.
Johnson not only finished

his dictionary four times
faster, he also wrote it
completely by himself.

Johnson’s dictionary had

almost 43,000 words.
Today, English has over
one million ‘official’ words
and many other unofficial

slang

or regional words.

No other language has
such a

huge

vocabulary.

English Today

English is always

growing; new words are
always coming into the
language. Nowadays, most
new words are connected
with technology, but there
are plenty of others as well:
noob, defriend and
chiconomics, for example.
English has many dialects
and there are many
different specialist kinds of
English (legal English,
financial English and so
on).

English Tomorrow

English will continue to

grow. There will be many
more kinds of English in the
future: internet chat
English, SMS English and
so on. And English will be
international in a new way:
already there are more
second-language English
speakers than

native

speakers

. English will truly

be a world language.

English: The Magpie








Language Like the

magpie, the English
language loves to pick up
things it finds. English has
always happily taken words
from other languages - in
fact, three of every four
words in English come from
other languages. Some are

obvious

, like pizza

(Italian), kindergarten
(German) and astrology
(Greek), but what about the
less obvious ones? Look at
the English words below;
which languages are they
originally from?

alcohol (Arabic)
boss (Dutch)
paper (Egyptian)
sauna (Finnish)
ambulance (French)
dollar (German)
shampoo (Hindi)
anorak (Inuit)
window (Norse)
horde (Polish)
guitar (Spanish)
yoghurt (Turkish)

Samuel Johnson