Friday, August 08, 2008

A "Country Profile" I



According to research by the British Council, "English has official or special status in at least seventy-five countries with a total population of over two billion. English is spoken as a native language by around 375 million and as a second language by around 375 million speakers in the world. Speakers of English as a second language will soon outnumber those who speak it as a first language. Around 750 million people are believed to speak English as a foreign language. One out of four of the world's population speak English to some level of competence. Demand from the other three-quarters is increasing.



Being such an important foreign language, and so as to learn more about it, I asked my 9th grade students to choose one of those countries (see Worksheet) and create a "File" about it. Well, the results were not bad at all. See my next post...

1 comment:

Marco Malmann said...

Ainda que seja a lingua comercial mais usada no mundo são poucos os paises que a falam, ainda assim é uma ideia interessante mostrar como os diversos paises falam inglês.

Creio que esta é uma boa oportunidade de se ensinar mais do que uma lingua, mas também a cultura e as modificações que acabaram ocorrendo na lingua.
Aproveitando este material, seria interessante mostrar como a lingua evolui, e como palavras foram incorporadas a lingua inglesa provenientes dos dialetos originais dos diferentes paises onde hoje se fala o inglês.