Listening Chapter 7

 

FUTURE OF ENGLISH

For many years now we have been 1……………….. to English as a global language, as the language of communication and 2………………. Everybody seems to be learning English and it isn’t 3………………… to see English being used as a means of communication between, let’s see, a German 4………………… and an Italian politician. These 5…………, if you don’t know English, you are in 6……………. of being excluded from what’s going on in-education, at work and 7……………… in the world of technological 8……………...

Very soon English will be the second 9………………. of all the people in the world. This is happening while I am speaking to you. We can’t be 10………………. of how long the process will take but there is no 11……………….. that it will happen and my bet is that it will happen 12……………… rather than later. First of all English will be an 13………………. subject on every school curriculum throughout the world. By the year 2010 around two billion people that’s about a 14………………. of the World’s population will speak English as their second language. This isn’t my 15…………………. by the way. This is what the experts say. We can see 16……………… of these changes all the time. Let’s take the Eurovision Song 17…………….. as an example.

Whatever we might think of the contest itself, one thing that has changed 18…………….. is that now countries can opt to sing in English. In the last festival 19……………….. of the twenty-five competing countries asked for the rules to be changed to 20……………….. them to sing in English. They argued that singing in their own language would put them at a 21……………….. I suspect that in a few years time all twenty-five countries will be singing in English. And what 22………………… does all of this mean for native speakers of English? Well, we are already in a 23………………. If the calculations are correct, then in ten years time, 24………………. speakers that is nonnative English speakers will outnumber native English speakers by four to one.

The two most 25……………….. Englishes won’t be British English and American English. 26……………….. be Native English and Majority English. So native English 27…………………will be handicapped. We will be the only people in the world who speak just one language. Because, let’s 28…………., there won’t be much of a reason for native English speakers to 29………………. a second language. We, and not the majority English speakers, will be the 30………………. As more and more people speak English, it makes 31……………… that they will become more competent. They will start to control more of the English 32………………. being produced and to have a say in what should or shouldn’t be 33………………... in dictionaries and language books. This might seem far fetched but it is already starting to happen. 34………………. use Sweden as an example. Their music 35…………..... predominantly

English account for more than thirty per cent of their export 36………………. This exported English is bound to have an 37……………….. on English in general. And this is just one small example. So all of you 38…………………. English speakers out there, get ready to throw away your phrase books. Whether you’re planning to 39…………………. Eastern Europe or the Himalayas, one thing you won’t have to 40……………… about is the language!