Text a British educational and foreign language policy

"English is not enough"; "Young people from the UK are at a growing disadvantage in the recruitment market", "The UK desperately needs more language teachers".

Those, Ladies and Gentlemen, are not my own statements. They are in fact the (1)……… of the Nuffield Languages Inquiry of the year 2000. It is a regrettable fact that for many years, after a strong period in the 1980s, the (2)……… foreign languages, French and German, have been in continuous and sometimes dramatic (3)………. in British schools and universities.

Britain (4)……… the great task of changing this trend. It is absolutely in this country's interest that British young people, now and in the future, should be (5)………. in foreign languages. In January 2002 the House of Lords debated the (6)………. of foreign language learning. All the speakers agreed that in a (7)……… world characterized by international links and intercultural connections, linguistic (8)………. and international experience are crucial for (9)………. and career. International skills should have a major part in every young person's school (10)………..

torecognize, on a voluntary basis, significant, vitally, criticism, an approach, promising developments, compulsory, difference, society, serious

Text B

However, recently the Government's own interim report noted a further (1)……… decline in foreign language teaching. Probably the main reason at this moment is that the ending of (2)………. language learning between ages 14 and 16 is already having (3)……… effects. This issue - whether language teaching should be compulsory teaching - is actually probably the greatest cultural (4)……… between foreign language teaching here and in Germany. In Germany, foreign languages are compulsory from the first school year. In Britain, language learning seems to be more (5)……… and priority is given to other curricular requirements. But that's (6)……… which comes in for a lot of criticism, including in Britain itself.

However, there are also a great many (7)………: for example, the requirement for primary schools to offer foreign languages from 2012 and the creation of Specialist Language Colleges. But at the broadest and deepest level, it's probably also necessary for (8)……… as a whole (9)……… the value of foreign languages and to create an atmosphere and an environment in which language learning is seen as (10)……… important.

Ex 4. What can you say about the foreign language policy in Russia? Use additional sources of information and make a short report on the issue in class. Give examples of foreign languages politics in other countries.

Ex 5. Hold a discussion in class with your group mates on the importance of learning foreign languages.

Unit X

Part 1

The European Union

economic and monetary union (EMU), the European Economic Community (EEC), single market, single currency, European Central Bank (ECB), legal tender, convergence criteria

Text

European Integration

The idea of establishing an economic and monetary union in Europe goes back more than half a century. It was a vision of the political leaders who, in 1952, founded the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), which consisted of six countries – Belgium, Germany, France, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.

1. Gradual expansion of the European Union

Further steps were taken towards European integration in the 1950s and thereafter. The same six countries established the European Economic Community (EEC) and the European Atomic Energy Community (EURATOM) in 1958. This network of relationships strengthened and deepened over the years, becoming the European Communities (EC) and then, with the adoption of the Maastricht Treaty in 1993, the European Union (EU).The number of member countries increased too. Denmark, Ireland and the United Kingdom joined in 1973, followed by Greece eight years later. Portugal and Spain became members in 1986; Austria, Finland and Sweden joined in 1995.This expansion continued on 1 May 2004, when the Czech Republic, Estonia, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Malta, Poland, Slovenia and Slovakia acceded to the European Union. Bulgaria and Romania are the latest members, having joined on 1 January 2007.

2. Criteria for accession to the EU

The conditions to be fulfilled before entering the EU are the Copenhagen criteria. These require the prospective members to have stable institutions guaranteeing democracy, the rule of law, human rights and the respect for and protection of minorities, and to have a functioning market economy as well as the capacity to cope with competitive pressure, in order to be able to take on the obligations of membership, including the aims of political, economic and monetary union.

3. Economic integration

The first attempt to create an economic and monetary union was described in the Werner Report of 1970, which envisaged three stages to be completed by 1980. However, these first plans for an economic and monetary union were never realized amid the considerable international currency unrest after the collapse of the Bretton Woods system in the early 1970s, and the international recession in the wake of the first oil crisis in 1973. To counter this instability, the then nine Member States of the EEC created the European Monetary System (EMS) in 1979. Its main feature was the exchange rate mechanism (ERM) , which introduced fixed but adjustable exchange rates among the currencies of the nine countries.

In the second half of the 1980s the idea of an economic and monetary union was revived in the Single European Act of 1986, which created a single market. But it was realized that the full benefits of a single market could only be reaped with the introduction of a single currency for the participating countries. In 1988 the European Council instructed the Delors Committee to examine ways of realizing Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) . The 1989 Delors Report led to the negotiations for the Treaty on European Union, which established the European Union (EU) and amended the Treaty establishing the European Community. It was signed in Maastricht in February 1992 (so it is sometimes called the Maastricht Treaty) and entered into force on 1 November 1993.

Three stages towards EMU: