Articles

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http://www.english.language.ru/lessons/lesson_6/test_61.html
http://www.homeenglish.ru/test13.htm

Applying for a job

APPLYING FOR A JOB The happiness of any person largely depends on having suitable job. One may learn about a job vacancy in a newspaper, from a friend, from the employment agency or TV advertisement. To apply for a job you are interested in, it is necessary to convince the prospective employer of your ability to do this job well. The first thing you should do is to prepare a resume (curriculum vitae – BrE). A resume should contain a summary of essential facts from your background: personal data, career objective, work experience, education, and references. You should emphasize your strong points in your resume. For example, if you have no job experience, stress your personal qualities (sociability, honesty, reliability, efficiency etc.) or educational background. A well-composed resume will make the prospective employer understand what abilities make you a suitable person for a particular job. If you interest the employer he will invite you for an interview. Interviews are conducted on the various patterns: there are traditional one-to-one and group interviews, board or panel interviews (where

an applicant is interviewed by a panel of interviewers), «deep-end» interviews which give a candidate the opportunity to demonstrate his skills and apply his knowledge. To make a good impression on the interviewer it is important to find some information about the company you are going to work in. Besides, there are some rules of behaviour at an interview. For instance, when greeting the interviewer you should wait until he shakes your hand. Also, you shouldn’t sit down until he offers you to do that. In the interview it is common to avoid discussing personal, domestic or financial problems if you are not asked about.Interviewers can’t check applicant’s professional skills immediately, so, the first thing they are attracted to is the agreeable personality and friendly attitude of the interviewee. You shouldn’t criticize your former colleagues or employer: criticisms help to reveal your own negative qualities. Interviewers are usually interested in qualifications of the candidate, his/her previous job experience, motivation and the reasons of applying for that job. In the interview you may ask questions too – about salary, probationary period, social guarantees, transport facilities to or from job, chances of promotion. But you should discuss the subject you are interested in after the interviewer introduced it. It is clear that a job interview is a stress situation for any applicant. The majority of interviewees feel nervous, and not everyone is able to show his worth in the interview. But it is necessary to concentrate oneself for some time because the conclusion about the candidate is made within the first ten minutes of the interview.

Vocabulary "Youth Work"

1. adolescent - подросток
2. to meet a challenge - решать задачу
3. centre-based youth work - работа в молодёжных центрах
4. detached youth work - работа вне молодёжных центров
5. outreach youth work - информационно-пропагандистская работа с молодёжью
6. school-based youth work - работа с молодёжью в школах
7. statutory youth worker - офицальный представителей соц. службы, работающий с молодёжью
8. non-statutory youth worker - волонтёр
9. outdoor education - дополнительное образование
10. social educaton - социальное обучение
11. informal education - неформальное обучение
12. personal and socal development - личностное и социальное развитие
13. to engage - вовлекать
14. to encourage - поощрять
15. managerial, analytical and consultng actvities - управленческая, аналитическая и консультативная деятельность
16. to require - требовать
17. requirement - требование
18. to take place - происходить
19. to support - поддерживать
20. new and existing centres - новые и существующие центры
21. distinction - отличие
22. health service - сфера здравоохранения
23. social services - социальные службы
24. experiene - опыт
25. to deal with - иметь дело с 
26. public sector - государственная служба

Внеаудиторное чтение № 1 для первого курса

The Origins of English

     English is basically a Germanic language with a lot of Latin words in it. In simple terms, that means that the grammar and many of the most frequent words are Germanic, and the more formal or technical vocabulary is Latinate. There is much of this Latinate vocabulary that English is sometimes called a semi-Romance language.

     This linguistic mixture is a result of historical events. But the simple historical facts appear not to explain everything about the development of the language. One interesting question is why did the British not learn Latin from the Romans? After all, France, Spain, Portugal and Romania all kept the imperial language after the end of the Roman Empire. The answer may be the distance from Rome; the province of Britannia was on the wild and uncooperative margins of Europe. Although the Romans were here for 400 years, they did not leave very much behind them. It is hard to know how much the Celtic language of the Britons took on a Latin flavour. Actually its living descendant, Welsh, has a lot of Latin roots in it, so perhaps in the 3^rd and 4^th centuries AD they were on their way to creating another great Romance language. But it was not to be. The Anglo-Saxons who took over from the Romans in Britain were relatively untouched by Latin influences, so Celtic was replaced by Germanic, and the British romance with Romance was, temporarily, over.

     In 1066, the French-speaking Normans invaded England. Over the next 300 years, their French merged with Anglo-Saxon to create a new language: the writing of Chaucer (1343-1400) is not very far from modern English. As in the rest of Europe, Latin, especially in its written form, remained for a long time the language of science, philosophy and the Church. But English was growing stronger; it was soon not only the language of everyday life but also that of a flowering literature. Caxton introduced printing into the country in 1476, and that did much to standardize forms – spelling was very inconsistent at that time. Latin and Greek classics and the Bible were translated into English. By the time of Shakespeare (1564-1616), the language was highly developed.

ENGLISH

The World’s Biggest Brand

Imagine a brand bigger than Nike, bigger than Gap, bigger than Coca-Cola. Imagine a brand used by 1.5 billion people the world over.

The brand is English.

How did English achieve global dominance? And what does it mean for the future of English and the rest of the world’s languages?

Past

Why English became the number 1 language:

1. Empire

     At its height, the British Empire included over one quarter of the world’s population and landmass. “Britain’s colonial expansion established the preconditions for the global use of English, taking the language from its island birthplace to settlements around the world,” says David Graddol, author and Open University lecturer.

2. Adaptibility

     “We don’t just borrow words,” says writer James D. Nicoll. “On occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.”

     The fact that it came into contact with a multitude of other languages turned it into a kind of linguistic mongrel. English “borrowed” (some say stole) words from over 350 other languages, making it richer and more adaptable than other well-established tongues.

3. America

     Even as the British Empire declined, the rise of the U.S. as a global superpower ensured that the English language continued on its path to world domination. TV, Hollywood, rock ‘n’ roll, and now the Internet are all foot soldiers in the march of the new lingua franca.

Present

Why English is still number 1:

                                                                                               

1.  It’s the language of technology

     As the old joke goes, the international language of technology is “broken English”. And it’s true that technology plays an important role in the language’s continuing dominance. 80% of electronically stored information in the world is in English. According to the British Council, 66% of the world’s scientists read in English; and, of course, it’s the language of international air traffic control.

2. It’s the language of business

     Whether you’re a Japanese executive on business in Brazil, a Mexican computer scientist at a conference in India, or a Norwegian tourist haggling in a Moroccan street market, you’re probably speaking English.

     There’s never before been a language that’s been spoken by more people as a second than a first language,” says English-language expert David Crystal, author of English as a Global Language.

3. It’s a big business

     Britain alone boasts a 1.3 billion pounds English Language Teaching industry. It is predicted that by 2020 it will be the UK’s biggest export, earning 20 billion pounds a year.

     One of the fastest expanding markets is China. Although Chinese is the world’s top language in terms of the number of native speakers, the Chinese themselves are gripped by English Fever – they even have their own term for it: Yingwen re.

     “Crazy English” – a method developed by ex-newsreader, Li Yang – is taught in huge sports stadiums to classes of thousands. As one 12-year-old Chinese student puts it: “If you can’t speak English, it’s like you’re deaf and dumb.”

Future

Two future consequences of English being the number 1 language:

a)      The impact on other languages

     “While there are obvious benefits in terms of global intelligibility,” says David Crystal, “on the other side of the coin, when you have one language that is so dominant, the other six and a half thousand languages in the world will naturally feel under threat.”

     Crystal has little sympathy for the anti-English sentiments of already-healthy languages such as French, Spanish and German, which are worried about the influx of English words into their lexicons. After all, openness to foreign-language influences is one of the factors that has resulted in English’s amazing growth.

     However, the threat of extinction is very real for other languages. “Something like half the languages of the world are so seriously endangered that they are almost certainly going to die out in the course of the present century,” warns Crystal. These languages must be protected for the same reasons we protect endangered animal species.

b)      The impact on English itself

     As for native speakers of English, their mother tongue has ceased to be under their control. Three quarters of English speakers are non-native, and that proportion is growing. “The population growth in countries where it is a mother tongue, like Britain, America and Australia, is about a third of the rate of the population growth in countries where it is a second language, like India, Ghana and Nigeria,” Crystal points out.

     The result of this is hard to predict, but it seems clear that these new English speakers are not simply learning the language – they are shaping it. If some Asians have trouble making that “th” sound, why spend hours trying to master it when they will be perfectly well understood saying “one, two, tree”? If you keep forgetting to add “s” in the third person, why not dispense with it altogether? Nobody is going to misunderstand you if you say: “My mother work in an office” – indeed, leaving out the “s” is perfectly well acceptable in the grammar of Jamaican patois.

     So does this mean that the next time you get your English homework back and it’s covered in red-pen corrections, you can explain to your teacher that you didn’t actually make any mistakes – that, as a non-native speaker of global English, you were shaping the language? We wouldn’t recommend it.

     But it is true that the international language belongs to you as much as anyone else. English is yours to keep. Try not to break it!

Пересказ "English as a world language"

English as a World Language

       

English is spoken as a mother tongue in England, the USA, Canada, Australia, India. Today, when English is one of the major languages in the world.

English has become a world language because of its establishment¹ as a mother tongue outside England. Geographically, English is the most widespread language on Earth, second only to Chinese in the number of people who speak it. It is the language of business, technology, sport, and aviation.
People learn English as their native language or  as a second language in a society that is mainly bilingual. Some people learn it for a practical purpose – administrative, professional or educational. 

Basic characteristics of English are simplicity of form, flexibility and openness of vocabulary. 
Verbs now have very few inflections, and adjectives do not change according to the noun.

 Many nouns and verbs have the same form, for example,  walk, look, smile.

We can talk about water to drink and to water the flowers; a paper to read and to paper a bedroom. Adjectives can be used as verbs. Sometimes even prepositions  can operate as verbs

Openness of vocabulary involves the free admission of words³ from other languages and the easy creation of compounds and derivatives.