English Language and English Teaching - Useful background

Why would you want to read a brief history of English? Well, we suppose it’s quite interesting to
read about where your language came from.
However, we continuously focus on practical issues. You may be sitting in the staffroom one
day when a Chinese teacher colleague asks you about this: Have your people always spoken
English? How will you feel if you cannot answer this? Your colleagues-to-be in many countries
will view you as an expert and will believe you know everything about the English language.
Again, this question may come up in an adult learner class. This has happened to us and it
could easily happen to you. So, read this and it will serve two purposes: it will provide interest
and it will get you out of a tricky situation.

Old English (450-1100 AD)

English can be traced back to the British Isles during the 5th century AD, when three Germanic
tribes, the Angles, Saxons and Jutes crossed the North Sea from what are now Denmark and
northern Germany. Previously the regional dialect in the British Isles was a form of Celtic.
During the invasions, many Celtic speakers were driven into Wales, Cornwall, and Scotland.
Old English certainly didn’t sound or look like the English of today. However, about half of the
most commonly used words in Modern English have Old English roots.

Middle English (1100-1500)

In 1066, William the Conqueror, the Duke of Normandy (part of modern France), invaded and
conquered England. The new conquerors, the Normans, brought with them a type of French,
which became the language of the Royal Court, and the ruling and business classes.
For a period of time, there was a kind of linguistic, class division, when the lower classes spoke
English and the upper classes spoke French.
In the 14th century, English became dominant in Britain again, but with many French words
added. This language was called Middle English and it was the language of the great poet
Chaucer (c1340-1400), but it would still be difficult for native English speakers to understand it
today.

Early Modern English (1500-1800)

Towards the end of Middle English, a sudden and distinct change in pronunciation (the Great
Vowel Shift) started, with vowels being pronounced shorter and shorter. From the 16th century
the British had contact with many peoples from around the world.
This, and the Renaissance of Classical learning, meant that many new words and phrases
entered the language.
The invention of printing also meant that there was now a common language in print. Books
became cheaper and more people learned to read. Printing also brought standardisation to
English. Spelling and grammar became fixed, and the dialect of London, where most publishing
houses were, became the standard.

In 1604 the first English dictionary was published.

Late Modern English (1800-Present)

The main difference between Early Modern English and Late Modern English is vocabulary.
Late Modern English has many more words, arising from two principal factors: firstly, the
Industrial Revolution and technology created a need for new words; secondly, the British Empire
at its height covered one quarter of the earth's surface, and the English language adopted
foreign words from many countries.
There, that wasn’t so bad – and it is interesting. That will be enough to see you through any
short discussion on where English came from.

Some Specific Characteristics of the English Language

For the same two reasons cited above, it's also useful to know some specific characteristics of
the English language. But there is also another critical reason. You need to be fully aware that
there will be key differences in language structures, grammar, vocabulary usage etc. in the
native/first language of the learners you will be teaching. You’ll have grasped this already if you
have studied a foreign language at school or university, or if you are a seasoned traveller who
likes to pick up a bit of the native language of the country you are visiting. For example:
English: I have seen the house.
German: Ich habe das haus gesehen. (Literally, I have the house seen)
We’ll come back to this a little bit later.

Fairly easy to learn

English is one of the simplest and easiest natural languages in the world. The only other simple
and easy languages are constructed ones, e.g. Esperanto. Of course, the concept of easiness
is relative, and it depends on which language a learner knows already. However, the concept of
‘fairly simple’ is undeniable. English is a fairly easy language to learn, understand and speak
when compared to a complex language such as Hungarian.

Latin alphabet
The English language uses the Latin alphabet, the most universal, simple and short one (only
the Greek alphabet is shorter and simpler). In addition, in English, the Latin alphabet presents
its most ‘clean’ form as a true alphabet with only 26 basic letters.

Its simple inflection

Inflection is the name for the extra letter or letters added to nouns, verbs and adjectives in their
different grammatical forms. English is considered a weakly inflected language when compared
to, say, French or Russian. Its nouns have only traces of inflection (plurals, the pronouns), and
its regular verbs have only four forms, e.g. look, looks, looked, looking. Even for irregular verbs,
there is almost no variation in person (except 3rd person singular in present tense, e.g. I eat,
you eat, she eats). The English language can indicate the relationship of words in a sentence
with only the minimum of change in their structure. There are other languages which do this, but
this is a strong characteristic of English.

Its receptiveness
A major characteristic of English language is its receptiveness. This is regarded as an
extraordinary feature of the language. It has accepted and adopted words from Asian,
European, African, Indian, Japanese, Chinese and other languages. English has kept an open-
door policy of accepting words from classical languages like Latin, Greek and Sanskrit.

Its heterogeneousness
A big word! Heterogeneousness means a mixed form or the lack of purity. The English language
contains words from so many other languages that it has become the most mixed language.
Original words from other languages have crept into English. Some words have retained their
original meanings and some words have changed their meanings. The spellings and
pronunciations have also changed. For example, the word ‘tur’ from French has become ‘tower’
in modern English.

Its (generally) fixed word order

Another characteristic of English language is its (generally) fixed word order. Most English
sentences (clauses) conform to the SVO word order. This means that the Subject comes before
the Verb, which comes before the Object. Examples:
I (S) bought (V) a new computer (O).
She (S) doesn't like (V) dogs (O).
Why did you (S) do (V) that (O)?
There are other word orders in English but this is by far the most used, making it easy for
learners to grasp.
No markings on letters
There are no diacritics (a mark that is placed over, under, or through a letter in some languages
to show that the letter should be pronounced in a particular way) such as the umlaut in German
or the circumflex in French. The exception is words imported from other languages, e.g. naïve
from French.

Pronunciation
The pronunciation of English words such as this, thin, clothes, thirteenth, months inevitably
causes problems for learners who do not need to use the tip of the tongue to produce words in
their own language.
Further difficulties for learners attempting to produce spoken English that sounds natural are the
unpredictability of English word stress, e.g. yesterday – tomorrow. We will come to word stress
later.

Continuous tense
Many languages do not have a continuous tense form, so English learners may make mistakes
such as: "I had a bath when the phone rang"; instead of "I was having a bath when the phone
rang."

Articles (a, an, the)

The article system is another feature of English grammar that causes some students enormous
difficulties; particularly, of course, those whose native languages do not use articles.

Phrasal verbs
A phrasal verb is an idiomatic phrase consisting of a verb and another element, typically either
an adverb, as in break down, or a preposition, for example see to, or a combination of both,
such as look down on. These phrasal verbs are a significant feature of English vocabulary and
can cause severe difficulties for learners. Sentences such as I put it down to the weather, or I
made it up with my sister, are usually gobbledegook to beginner non-native speakers.
Unfortunately for the English language learner, phrasal verbs are extremely common in
colloquial language

Non-tonal
English is a non-tonal language. Thus, it sounds very different from tone languages such as
Chinese or Vietnamese. In tone languages, pitch (the degree of highness or lowness of a tone)
is used to distinguish word meaning. Therefore, a word said with a high pitch may have a
different meaning than the same word said with a low pitch. In English, changes in pitch are
used to emphasise or express emotion, not to give a different word meaning to the sound. It is
not surprising that native speakers of tonal languages often have strong accents when speaking
English.

Sound and spelling

Miscellaneous: A final feature of English that is enormously problematic for non-native learners
and some native-speakers, is the unpredictable correspondence between word sound and word
spelling. Compared to a language such as Turkish, it is often impossible for learners to predict
the spelling of a word they first encounter in speech, or the pronunciation of a word they first
encounter in writing. In fact, the majority of English words do conform to spelling patterns. The
difficulty for the learner, however, is that the words which don't conform are the most common
words in the language, and thus the ones that learners encounter first.

Why is English Language Learning and the Teaching of English in High Demand?
Here are some key reasons, not in any order:
Overwhelmingly, English is at the core of international communication. It is now the language of
global business. International communication is critical in many fields, and to many roles, and
skilled and confident users of the English language are increasingly sought. In light of this, being
able to speak and write English puts an individual at a clear advantage in many ways.
It is now the lingua franca of global business. A lingua franca (or working language, bridge
language, or vehicular language) is a language used to make communication possible between
people not sharing a mother/native language. For example, a Chinese person who does not
know Spanish and a Spanish person who does not know Chinese, may be able to communicate
if they both use English. In this case, English is called the lingua franca.

Why is English Language Learning and the Teaching of English in High Demand? Pt 2
Also, most software programmes are written in English. Those seeking to communicate
electronically will find the ability to read and write the English language invaluable.
In addition, the ability to speak the English language fluently is exceedingly beneficial if a person
is seeking job opportunities with international companies. Often, English is a prerequisite in the
selection process.
Students may also study in any one of a variety of English for Specific Purposes (ESP)
programmes. ESP courses focus on specific English skills and abilities needed for certain
environments and professions, such as English for Business, English for Medicine, English for
the Automobile Industry, and so on. For example, in India, where many people use English to
conduct customer service and support for international companies, there are many private
schools that offer ESP courses for customer service.