1. WhyEnglish? José A. Alcalde López Somefactstounderstand whyEnglishistoday’snumberoneinternationallanguage

2. Lingua franca BeforeEnglish, otherlanguageswerealsointernationalorlingua franca. Latin, French orevenSpanish,wereveryimportant and commoncenturies and years ago.

4. Spanish

5. English

7. Officiallanguage In 53 countries(shown in green) English istheofficiallanguage

8. Extension of English English wasborn in Britain and lateritexpandedtoothercountrieslikeIreland, the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand… Colonialismwasveryimportantfortheexpansion of English.

9. Power of English Itis no coincidencethatEnglishistheofficiallanguage of manyverypowerfulcountries and worldeconomieslikethe USA, Canada, the UK, Australia, etc.

11. International OlympicCommittee

12. NATO

13. UnitedNations

15. Travelling around… Peoplewhotraveltheworldneed a single languagetovisitdifferent and distantcountries. Airlines, car rentals, bus companies, trainstations, customs… Englishisusedeverywhere.

16. English in the media Englishis in songs, TV series, films, the Internet, computerprogrammes, video games, …

17. StudyEnglish English isstudiedallovertheworldbymillions of people (academies, privatelessons, courses, schools, on-line webs,…) TheBritish Council istheofficialorganisationforthis.

18. English in education Englishisalsopresent in education: internationalstudents, bilingualdegrees, mobilityprogrammes (Comenius, Erasmus…), grants, etc.

19. Neutral language In somecountrieswith a lot of languages, races, ethnics, communities…, English isseen as a neutral languagethatbelongstonobody.

21. AllabouttheEnglishlanguage

22. Englishspeakingcountries