Page 48 - In Focus (demo)

UNIT 1

3 Reading skills

A Pre-reading questions

h?
1 How many people around the world do you think are learning English?
2 Why do you think English has become an international language?

B Reading

Read the text and check your answers to the pre-reading questions above. Then
highlight an interesting idea in each paragraph.

English is widely spoken in many countries around

the world and is an official language in more than
50. Many of these countries are former colonies of
Britain and retained English after independence.
5 But even former colonies of France and Belgium,
such as Madagascar and Rwanda, have adopted
English as an offi cial language. websites are being created at a rate of 500 per
minute, and more than half of the world’s websites
English has truly become an international are in English. Eighty percent of international
language. Researchers at the British Council organizations use English as an offi cial language,

10 estimate that it is spoken as a first language by including the United Nations, the European Union, 40
375 million people and as a second language and the International Olympic Committee. English
by another 375 million. Meanwhile, over 750 is the most important language in science: half the
million people speak it as a foreign language, and world’s scientific papers are written in it. Finally,

this number is rapidly growing. In China alone, in the world of entertainment, it is impossible to
15 120 million grade school students are learning avoid exposure to English. Hollywood movies sell 45
English. According to the British Council, two the most tickets in cinemas, and popular songs in
billion people around the world are attempting to countries from Sweden to Japan are sung
acquire English, and one in four can speak in English.
some English.
English is an international language because 50
20 When the captain of a Mexican passenger plane of two main regional infl uences. The first is the

flies into an airport in France or Germany, he or rule of the British Empire, which at its peak in
she communicates with the air traffi c controller 1922 governed a fourth of the world’s area and
in English. It is easy to understand why: the a fifth of its population. The second is the power

pilot may not speak French or German, the air of American companies that spread around the

25 traffic controller may not speak Spanish, and it world after World War ll. 55

is necessary to confirm details about the fl ight.
However, in the equivalent situation, when the English is not just an international language
same plane lands in Argentina or Colombia, the because it is spoken all over the world. English
pilot again communicates with the ground in now belongs to the world. People all over the
30 English, even though he and the ground controller world do not just struggle to learn it in order to 60
both have Spanish as their mother tongue. This get better jobs. They add words and expressions
is just one example of how English is used as of their own, and they are changing the language
the standard international language around the in multiple ways, thus helping to make English a
world. Today, three-quarters of the world’s mail, true world language. English as a world language
35 most books, and half of the world’s newspapers allows all countries to be part of the world 65

and magazines are written in English. English community, and this benefits us all.
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