Unit 1
Reading activities
Prior to reading a passage entitled ‘English
as a World Language’, students work
in pairs to do the pre-reading task. They
then skim the test to get the answers to the
true/false questions. Finally they read the
text more carefully, and answer the Comprehension
Check/Language Work questions.
The aim of the activity seems to be
to develop students’ reading abilities and
to provide some background information
about the English language. Students need
to exploit their prior knowledge and also
practise skimming to do this activity.
Listening activities
Students listen to a radio program (an
interview) about Esperanto, the artificial
language. After listening to the tape, they
are asked to fill in the two charts: Advantages
of Esperanto as a world language
and Disadvantage of English as a world
language. The purpose seems to be to train
the students to listen for specific information.