Lesson Plan 1 Course title: English as an International Language (Culture)

Task: Match the given explanations A-F to appropriate words 1-6:
1) Economy: there was a shift from a static, self-sufficient feudal economy to a more competitive economy through commerce and industry and notions of profit and the like.
2) Religion:
3) Society:
4) Politics:
5) Education:
6) Psyche:


A. the Mediaeval Period was characterised by a very strong notion of Christendom, with the European nations united by allegiance to the Pope in Rome. This began to be questioned, and the Protestant Reformation opened the way to the development of national economies. In the Protestant nations, this was also accompanied by the translation of the Bible to the vernacular languages.


B. this period saw the emergence of nation states and nationalism; the political centre was now London, rather than Wessex.


C. social mobility gave rise to the middle class; and the sense of a divinely-ordained social order based on birth was on its way out.


D. there was an emerging schooling system; and the old universities Cambridge and Oxford had been established – Oxford University is the oldest English-speaking university in the word, being established in the 11th century, and Cambridge began later in the 13th century.


E. notions of the individual (as opposed to the collective whole) begin to be emphasised more; the rise of the rationalist modes of thought (which questioned notions, and asked for evidence for claims) took over from the old scholastic modes of thought (based on faith).


F. there was a shift from a static, self-sufficient feudal economy to a more competitive economy through commerce and industry and notions of profit and the like.


Lesson 17
Diversity of English
English is spoken today on all five continents as a result of colonial expansion in the last four centuries or so. The colonial era is now definitely over but its consequences are only too clearly to be seen in the presence of English as an official and often native language in many of the former colonies along with more or less strongly diverging varieties which arose in particular socio-political conditions, so-called pidgins which in some cases later developed into creoles. Another legacy of colonialism is where English fulfils the function of a lingua franca. Many countries, like Nigeria, use English as a lingua franca (a general means of communication) since there are many different and mutually unintelligible languages and a need for a supra-regional means of communication.
English has also come to play a central role as an international language. There are a number of reasons for this, of which the economic status of the United States is certainly one of the most important nowadays. Internal reasons for the success of English in the international arena can also be given: a little bit of English goes a long way as the grammar is largely analytic in type so that it is suitable for those groups who do not wish to expend great effort on learning a foreign language.