The document provides information about English as a global lingua franca. It discusses how English has become the most widely spoken language in the world, with over 1 billion people using it as either a first, second or foreign language. While other constructed languages like Esperanto have been proposed as universal languages, English has organically grown to fill this role due to political and economic factors over centuries. The status of English as the dominant global lingua franca could change in the future depending on worldwide developments, but currently no other language appears poised to surpass English in global influence and use.

1. A year away
1.1 Can you talk about yourself?
Unit1
1 Match the pictures to the texts and 3 Match the questions with the
complete the sentences. answers.
1 2 3
a Do you like playing basketball? 1
a His name’s Jean-Claude, and he’s from Paris. b What do you enjoy doing after dinner?
He doesn’t like studying (not like / study)
English, but he loves playing (love / play) c Don’t you love watching them play?
English video games. He wants to learn d Didn’t you love listening to this rock band
(want / learn) English to meet an American last year?
girl. 1 e Which do you prefer, reading the book or
b Her name’s Katrina, and she lives in watching the film?
Moscow. She (not mind /
study) English. She (love / 1 No, I hate all ball sports!
listen to) music and she 2 Yes, I did, but I don’t like this CD. I prefer
(like / surf) the net in English. She thinks their old style.
English is very important because she 3 Neither! I love writing the story myself!
(want to / go) to university 4 Well, I love playing video games or
in an English-speaking country. watching DVDs.
c Her name’s Carolina, and she’s from Pisa in 5 No, in fact, I hate it!
Italy. She (like / learn)
English and (love / listen to) 4 Circle the correct option.
American rock music. She a I like reading / read horror stories.
(want to / drive) around the USA with her b He hates eat / eating vegetables!
best friend. c They don’t like walk / walking in the rain.
d I don’t mind doing / to do housework, but
2 Unscramble the words to complete the I don’t really like it.
e I prefer eating / eat before eight o’clock.
conversation.
f Do you enjoy study / studying English?
SAM: French / do / want / why / learn / you /
to / ?
Why do you want to learn French? 5 Complete these sentences so they are
FIONA: from / come / my / because / Paris / true about you.
grandparents / . a I love going to concerts.
b I don’t mind
S: wow! / you / do / what / French / like / c I hate
doing / in / ? d My brother/sister doesn’t like
F: I / music / and / watching / like / films / e Our teacher prefers
listening / to / . f I like
g I enjoy
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2. A year away
1.2 Vocabulary
Unit1
1 Complete the missing verbs. 4 Match the answers with the relevant
section in the factfile.
a Name: 1
b Age:
c Nationality:
d Reason for study:
e Home address:
f Length of stay:
g Interests:
h Special requirements:
a I love w_ _ c h _ n g football, and Celtic is
at__ i __
my favourite team.
1 Giorgio Vincetti.
b I enjoy p_ _ _ _ _ _ racing games.
2 To improve my level.
c L_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ to music is my favourite
3 I require a vegetarian diet.
hobby.
4 Italian.
d Late at night, I like r_ _ _ _ _ _ horror
5 Fifteen years old.
stories.
6 Four months.
e I love g _ _ _ _ _ _ up early every morning.
7 Via Venezia 26, Rome, Italy.
f I don’t like d_ _ _ _ housework, especially
8 Reading, travelling, making new friends.
ironing.
g I hate e_ _ _ _ _ vegetables. I prefer pizza.
5 Match the words with the sentence
endings to make definitions.
2 Circle the correct verb.
a I enjoy to go / going to the cinema.
b She wants to learn / learning a new language.
c Bobby hates being / be aggressive.
d Nobody likes dance / dancing on their own.
e I love eating / eat vegetables.
f Maya doesn’t like listening / listen to loud Someone who is …
music. a romantic 1
g Nobody enjoys do / doing housework. b outgoing ___
h We are interested in meeting / to meet new c shy ___
people. d sporty ___
e aggressive ___
f honest ___
3 Circle the different word and say why. g friendly ___
a listen write travel surf world h bored ___
The others are verbs.
b pet where why who how often 1 loves romance.
2 is nervous with people they don’t know.
c English Wales Swedish Irish Italian 3 makes friends easily.
4 hasn’t got anything to do.
d parents best friend pet singer teacher 5 is not at all shy.
6 does a lot of sport.
e labs classes hotel lessons students 7 often fights.
8 always tells the truth.
© Richmond Publishing, 2004 PHOTOCOPIABLE 3

3. A year away
1.3 Can you meet new people?
Unit1
1 Unscramble these questions. 4 Complete the e-mail with these words.
looked away once a month romantic shy
I’m sure sporty unfriendly usually
E-mail
➧ X
File Print Send Attach Reply Forward Cancel Address
a here / you / do / often / how / come / ?
➧
How often do you come here? Hey, Sandy, how’s it going?
Last night I went to Linda’s school dance. It was
b you / are / from / where / ? boring at first, nobody spoke to me and everyone
was really (a) unfriendly . I don’t (b)
c music / your / favourite / is / what / ? enjoy dancing, but this good-looking boy was
looking at me, and I (c) at first because
d out / go / weekend / do / often / you / I felt (d) , but after five minutes
he asked me to dance and I said yes! He was very
at / the / ?
(e) , quite outgoing and friendly. He’s
very (f) ; he’s on the school football
e yourself / by / here / are / you / ? team and is a good snowboarder, too. One of his
friends is a DJ who plays in the Tumbly Club
f a / phone / mobile / got / you / have / ? (g) ! I have two invitations. What do
you think? Let me know because (h)
my parents won’t be happy if I go out alone!
Jess XXX
2 Match these answers with the
➧
questions in Activity 1.
1 Not much. a 5 Circle the correct verbs.
2 Victoria, Australia. JESS: How often do you (a) go / going out
3 Yes, usually every week. with Jake, Maria?
4 Yes, I have. Why? MARIA: Not very often during the week, but
5 I love listening to anything danceable! we (b) going / go out every Saturday
6 Why? That’s none of your business! night. How about you and Ben? Do
you (c) go / going out often?
JESS: Yes! We usually (d) go / going out
3 Complete these sentences so they are twice a week. By the way, what’s Jake
true about you. (e) do / doing at the moment? Is he at
a I never do my homework in my room. home?
MARIA: Yes, he is! He (f) watches / ’s watching
b Sometimes I
tennis right now, with Ben actually!
JESS: What? But Ben (g) isn’t / doesn’t
c My family usually
watching tennis now, he
(h) does / ’s doing his college project
d My brother/sister doesn’t always with my brother!
MARIA: No, he isn’t! My brother just sent me
e Twice a week we a text message with a photo. Look!
They are all sitting in front of the
f I every day. television: Ben, Jake …
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4. A year away
1.4 Reading and writing
Unit1
1 Read the text of the tour guide and match the pictures to the paragraphs.
1 And now ladies and gentlemen … Can you all hear me? Now we come to one
of the most interesting parts of the tour. We are walking down one of the
oldest streets in the whole country. The street we are standing on is over three
thousand years old. We know this because only the Greeks used the kind
of stone patterns you can see in the ground. Archaeologists are still studying
the roads in this part of the city. They think there are many buildings that have
this stone pattern somewhere inside them, perhaps under stone, wooden
or other kinds of floor. It is very difficult to find them all, but it really is very
exciting.
2 In fact, the building we are looking at now has got a very interesting history. The Greeks built it
in 500 BC and historians think it was originally a school, and then a hospital and then a kind of
government building. The local people are trying to get money from the government because they
want to make a museum here for all the tourists that come. You can see there are many places
where they are cleaning and making everything look more attractive. They are working very hard,
but it is a big job.
a b
3 And now we are crossing the first bridge this city ever had. Look down
into the water — can you see where the stone is breaking? It is a very
old bridge, but don’t worry, it is safe. Again, the Greek population
constructed this bridge in 300 BC and people are still using it.
2 Now answer these questions.
a Who is speaking? A tour guide.
b How old is the street? c
c How do they know that the Greeks built
the street? 3 Imagine you are a tour guide in your
d What did the Greeks build in 300 BC? town. Write about some interesting
things you could tell a group of
e What was the building before it was tourists or visitors.
a government building? And now we are this
city ever had. Look
f Why does the city need money? . Can you see
? It is a very
g What is happening to the bridge? . The local
population constructed this
h Why? in the century.
© Richmond Publishing, 2004 PHOTOCOPIABLE 5

5. A year away
1.5 Culture
Unit1
English as a lingua franca
lingua franca /'lIgw2 'fraek2/ 1 Can you answer these questions?
*noun (pl lingua francas) a Which is the most common lingua franca today? English
a language used as a common b What is Esperanto?
language between speakers whose c Who was Queen of England in 1968?
native languages are different.
— origin Italian, ‘Frankish tongue’,
d How many people in the world use English: 25%, 50% or
in reference to a language formerly
75%?
used in the eastern Mediterranean,
consisting of Italian mixed with
e What will the world’s next main lingua franca be?
French, Greek, Arabic and Spanish.
2 Now read these texts. Were you right?
A world language
There are many different languages in the world and sometimes communication
between different countries is very difficult. To solve this problem, some people
have tried to invent artificial universal languages. One of the best known is
Esperanto, invented by a Polish doctor and based on a combination of Latin,
Romance and Germanic languages. Esperanto is sometimes used at international
conferences, and there are newspapers in the language. There are also
translations of the Bible and the Koran. However, Esperanto has not got official
status as an international language. In fact, the most common lingua franca
in the world today is not an artificial language. It is a real language: English.
The growth of English
In the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603), there
were probably between five and seven million English
speakers in the world. When Queen Elizabeth II
started her reign in 1952, that number had multiplied 3 Answer these questions alone or with
by fifty: 250 million people spoke English as a a partner. Make notes in your
mother tongue and another 100 million had learned notebook.
it as a foreign language. a What do you know about your language?
Over fifty years later, it seems that English is
everywhere. There are more than 400 million native b How many people speak it?
speakers, but over 1,000 millon people use it as a
foreign or second language. A quarter of the world’s c In which different countries is it used as a
population uses English at some time or other in their first language?
lives. It is used widely in business, politics and in the d Can you name any countries where it is
world of science and technology. Much of the used as a second or third language?
information on the internet is also in English.
The status of English could change in the future, of e Is it easy to find information in your
course. A lot will depend on political and economic language on the internet?
developments. It is an interesting question: what will
the world’s next main international language be? f Do you think Esperanto is a good idea?
At the moment, nobody knows.
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