British and American English Module 1 British and American English

Listening

Have you ever be an exchange student? Imagine if you were an exchange student, what problems would you have?

PLease number them in order of importance. A. understanding the language getting on with people food different school subjects and timetable local customs climate PLease number them in order of importance.

Listen to the interviews and answer the questions. 1. Who found the local accent difficult to understand? Samantha.

2. Who didn't find the local accent difficult to understand? Callum. 3. Who gets on well with the other students? Samantha.

4. Who played in a school sports team? Callum. 5. Who discovered a lively music scene? Samantha.

6. Who enjoyed the end-of-year dance? Callum. 7. Who thinks everyone will speak American English one day? Callum.

8. Who thinks it's only natural that there are lots of varieties of English? Samantha.

Listen again and discuss the following questions. 1. Which part of the country is Samantha staying in? 2. How long did it take her to understand what people were saying? The north of England. Two months.

3. What did she notice about the pronunciation of words like dance and bath? 4. What is the last question the interviewer asked Samantha? They’re the same as those in American English. Do you think you’ll go home speaking with a north of England accent?

5. How long did Callum spend in the US? 6. What didn’t he like about the place he stayed in? Ten months. The climate (hot and humid).

7. What did he say about the way people spoke? 8. What did girls like about Callum? It was easy to understand; they spoke rather slowly. His English accent.

Discussion 1. Do you think that in the future everyone will speak American English? 2. Which accent do you prefer, American accent or British accent? And why?

Speaking & Writing

Divide the class into 3 groups and debate. Group A: British English is the best variety to learn. Group B: American English is the best variety to learn. Group C: World English is the best variety to learn.

Which group will you join in? State your reason and debate with your opponent.

The writing system Varieties of Chinese The language today Try to find information about Chinese and prepare a report to introduce the following three aspects of Chinese. The writing system Varieties of Chinese The language today

The writing system There are about 50,000 characters in written Chinese; however, most people know about 20,000 of these. Most of these characters have elements of meaning and information about pronunciation. The most widely used system of writing is Putonghua(“common language”), which became the medium of instruction in all schools from 1956, and almost all publications made are using it.

Varieties of Chinese There are 8 main varieties of Chinese. These are regional and are often called dialects, although they are very different from each other in pronunciation. There is also another classification, however, which gives two varieties: Wenyan, an ancient literary language, and Baihua, a kind of colloquial language. Putonghua, closely similar to the language spoken in Beijing, has been developed since the late of the 1950s.

The language today Pinyin is a 58-symbol writing system which has used since 1958. It has the aims of helping everyone to use Putonghua, and to learn the Chinese characters. In the 1970s a new map of China was printed which standardized the place names of every town, city and village.