English Language example essay topic

The Importance and Difficulty of Teaching EnglishByJeffrey Dobson Period 36/1/00 Part 1: The Importance of English "In the world were over seven thousand languages have, one language had become dominate. This dominant language is English."In the majority of countries throughout the world speak English as their second or first language, no longer just America or England". English has taken many forms, American English, the Queen's English, Australian, Canadian English, and several others. Even American English has taken several types of English, Jersey English, East Coast English, West Coast English, Southern English, slang English, and Ebonics. All of these languages have major variants between them, but are all of them are still understood aboard. Without English the world couldn't operate, because there would be no one language that could be understands all over the world.

Due to cultural and economic backgrounds English is slightly different in each area, therefore there no one exact English. American English is the most common and broad type of English. American English spreads widely throughout the world, because of the wide spread traveling that many American dos. American English itself breaks apart into almost fifty types of spoken English. Each type of spoken American English is changed depending on the type of music that area listens to, the life styles they live, and the background of that area.

For example, southerners speak faster and more rapidly then most "Idahodians" do. "As A result of this, many southerners slur their words together so that they can speak faster, creating such words as Y'all, , and yes " um. Y'all is the two word you and all slurred together. Yun kto is three words slammed together. These words are you, want and to.

It would be used in a sentence such as, "Y'all go to dinner? Meaning, do you all want to go to dinner? And yes " um is a combination of yes and ma " am". All though, these words vary from what many other regions would use, most of other areas of English speaking people would understand what this person would have been saying. This difference between American English and the Queen's (British) English is much more dramatic.

"Where American English vary in itself is just slurs, contractions, and different pronunciation of word, the difference between American and the Queen's English is by entire words". British English would use words like Bobby, flat, petrol, and lorry. Bobby is what the British call the police. Flat is their homes or apartments; petrol is the British word for gasoline.

In addition, lorry is their word for a truck. While their words are greatly differently then American words people from both countries would understand what the other was saying. While many of these of the types of English vary as much as American and British English, it is still understood around the world. Without there being English many of the Presidents, dictators, tyrants, and terrorist couldn't understand each other. At all of their meeting there would have to be someone that spoke all of the languages that the members of the meeting spoke, or several translators which would make the it even more difficult. Also, with all the types of ethnic groups that are in America, there was to be one common language that everybody can understand.

If America didn't speak English, everybody in America, and around the world, would have to find one common language for the entire world to learn to speak. English was merely the easiest for everybody to pick up. "English can be traced back as far as the early 1100's B.C."The Anglo-Saxons in England spread their language as many different enemies tried to take over England, but failed. They would force their prisoners to learn their language, and inter-grade themselves into society". The language grew even more steadily as the criminals of England were being sailed all the way around the world to Australia. The criminals would be dropped off there and forced to learn to survive on their own.

With an increasingly large number of criminals being put on this vacant island, they learned and continued to speak English. As technology and other advances were made, these former English citizens left the island and visited the other Asian countries; they spread English to more people and areas. This was also just the beginning of the spread of English throughout the world. The major spread of English happened during World War I and World War II. After several years of fighting during World War I Germany finally decided to surrender. After they surrendered both Americans and British soldiers put to into Germany to help rebuild it as it paid the British and American debt from the war.

Inter-grading English speaking citizens in with the Germans made it possible for Germans to pickup and accept more English words into their vocabulary. "Next, after World War II Americans were put into more countries that didn't speak English. For example, American soldiers were put into Japan for six years after the war to help reconstruct the cities from the damage that the atomic bomb caused". With Japanese being forced to work so closely with Americans, they, as well as the Germans did, learned words and the language that the American re constructors were using. With the Japanese and Germans picking up some of our language, they would have never understood half of what we were telling them.

While they may have picked up some of what we were saying through osmosis, there wouldn't have been anyway for the citizens of two different nations to understand each other. English was also being took back to Japan by the Japanese that came to America and wrote they families and visited them back in Japan. While English has taken many forms and shapes, it is the most important language still in use. Without English, the world couldn't operate properly. Part 2: The Difficulty of Teaching English "I decided to become a teacher because I thought that I could do it better then my teachers did. I quickly learned that teaching isn't as easy as I thought it would be".

Dr. Proser quickly learned that teaching English would be as easy as he thought it may have been. He may be a better teacher then his were, many CHS students would agree, but also found out that why it was so hard to teach English. There are many reasons why teaching English is difficult. First and major reason is the constant changing, and new words that are being brought into the language. While many of these words that are being are classified as slang, these words may become more and more common. In addition, many of the forms of languages that were used in the writing that students read are no longer used.

Also, the change in styles of writing which have occurred make it hard for any student to completely understand what each writer is trying to say. Thousands of new words are brought into the English language each year. Just a few examples are dude, chic, cool, homes, and tubular. "Dude was brought into by many of the hippies of the sixty's.

Dude has many means, a person who someone is referring to can be taken into contexts as awesome". When many people refer to a chic, they are no longer talking about a baby chicken, but a female who is found somewhat attractive. This word also becomes very popular during the sixties. Homes and tubular is probably the most recent of slang words.

Homes is mostly used by gang-bankers and blacks of the southern area. When people say homes they are referring to one of their male friends. Not just a friend, but a male friend who would fight for the person. Tubular is just a new word for awesome or cool. It means really sweet (high quality of awesome) or awesome. In addition, words are used with a different context then before.

Many new words are created this in America. The words sweet and fine have taken some of the largest changes in context of words. "Sweet no longer means have a sugar taste or pleasing to the senses". If one was to ask a teenage what sweet meant to them, they would probably tell "really nice or awesome."The word fine has also completely change in context.

If one asked a teenager what fine meant they mostly would tell you that it meant really cute or handsome; pretty if it was a guy was referring to a girl". Another reason for such difficulty is language that is used in many of the stories that students are required to read. For example, Julius Caesar is required to be read by all students by the time that they are in eleventh grade. Many students find it hard to understand because the language that Shakespeare wrote in is completely different from that of today. Words such as shalt and thou is not commonly heard among teenagers, or even elders anymore. With students constantly hearing these words and being forced to understand them, Shakespearean plays and novels actually become obsolete.

Another example is Beowulf and Canterbury Tales. Students have so little knowledge of what is being taught to them that it takes months for a teacher to get an entire class through one Shakespearean book. Teachers having to constantly having to stop and explain what the author is saying. This is true all the way through the twelfth grade. It becomes even hard to teach a student these books when they are not in class.

If a student starts to fall behind it is ten times hard to try to get them caught back up, because a teacher can not stop an entire class's progress just to try to get one student caught up. SO, that student that missed a day is reading farther ahead then that student already is, and gets lost in the story. The next major reason it is difficult to teach English is there have been so many different types of styles of writing throughout history, that there is no way only six year of schooling can go through all of them. The style of writing would change as the mood of society at the time would change.

It would also change depending on the economic circumstances, and political rule. This also makes it more difficult because one school doesn't cover any certain type of writing, then if a student transfers to a different school, they can fall even farther behind because they have not experienced this type of writing at all. Also, many students realize that because the style of language used in many of the stories that they read is obsolete, that they don't really need to read that story; they realize that whether or not they have read that story most likely not effect whether or not that person get a job. The largest reason it is difficult to teach English is that there are so many different types of English. American English alone is broken into almost one hundred different types.

Just a few types are: Jersey English, East Coast English, West Coast English, Southern English, slang English, and Ebonics. With so many types of English, no teacher can teach all of them. There are many reasons why English is hard to teach. "It has more variants then any other language in existence.".