ENGLISH SECOND LANGUAGE
How popular is English and how its learnt as 2nd language?
Well, almost 300 million people around the world speak and consider English Second language and there are 100 million expert users of English as a foreign language. Because there are various levels of English language based on its usages.
As a matter fact there are thriving communities with English native speakers with English as their mother tongue in many countries all over the world. While many learn English language as a second Language or as a foreign language.
English language has changed tremendously from the time it was first brought to the land by Germanic tribes- Anglo, Saxons and Jutes in AD 450….....what many consider as old English; period between AD 1150-1500 as Middle English and after 1500 it is modern English.
English language is of various kinds- American Language, Australian, Canadian, UK Scotland, and Wales. These countries are in a way traditional/ original bases and English language is their mother tongue.
Then there are countries that witnessed historical spread of the language because of colonization. Over the years English language has become part of these countries’ leading institutions. Here English language or any other language gets the status of L-2. English language plays a second language role in multilingual society. i.e. India, Malawi, Singapore and others.
The third category of English language users consists of countries that have no history of colonization. In these countries English language has no special administrative status but is acknowledged as international language, e.g. Japan, China, Poland and other countries. Here English is known as foreign language.
Nevertheless, English language learning is a specialized field. There are various levels of English language learning such as:
1. English for Beginners
2. Intermediate to advanced EGP (English for General Purpose) courses with a focus on particular skills.
3. English for General Academic Purposes/ English for General Business Purposes. Here, the focus is on core language skills and is not related to any specific discipline.
4. English language for specific purpose, e.g. Report writing for scientists and engineers, Medical English, Legal English, negotiation/ Meeting skills for business people, research writing for scholars etc.
5. An English language academic support course for specific academic course and business English for particular requirement
Irrespective of how you use English second language or foreign language, you would need to know good number of words in the language to be able to self-express and do well in academics and career.
Here is a list of words in English which occur very frequently in English texts and academic books. It is actually a good idea to learn these words if you consider yourself to be English second language user.
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bit bucket n. An An imaginary trash location, example, "it fell into the bit bucket" means the data was lost.
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