Universität Koblenz-Landau
Campus Koblenz
Institut für Anglistik/IFA
SS 05
Children’s Literature/Area studies
Isabel Martin
Students: Milan Hoferichter, Verena Sempff, Stephanie Weinand, Katharina Edelmann
17.06.2005
English speaking countries
There are worldwide over 6,000,000,000 people speaking English. 400,000,000 of them speak it at
first language.
In Australia, New Zealand, Guyana, Falkland Islands, Saint Helena, Ascension Island, Tristan de
Cunha, Antigua, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, Cayman Islands, Jamaica, Saint Vincent,
Trinidad, Tobago, USA, UK and Eire English is spoken as main language by native people.
There are also countries, where English is used as an official language, or one of the official
languages, (mostly in a multi-language country), and it is used in parliament, business, colleges, etc..
These countries are for example: Gambia, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Nigeria, Liberia, South Africa,
Namibia, Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland, Kenya, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Malawi, Sudan, Fiji,
Tonga, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Gilbert Islands, Ellis Islands, India, Pakistan, Singapore, HongKong, Philippines, Seychelles, Mauritius, Saint Lucia, Puerto Rico, Canada, Gibraltar, Malta.
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USA
The United States of America—also referred to as the United States, the USA, the U.S., America, the
States, and (poetically) Columbia—is a democratic federal republic of 50 states located primarily in
central North America. The United States proper has land borders with Canada and Mexico.
Its official population is 296,361,695 million people. (http://www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html)
The capital is Washington in the District of Columbia. The United States has numerous major cities,
including several important cities that have been classified as world cities: Chicago, Los Angeles and
New York City.
As the world's third largest country (by total area), the United States landscape varies greatly:
temperate forestland and rolling hills on the East coast, mangrove in Florida, the Great Plains in the
center of the country, the Mississippi-Missouri river system, the Great Lakes which are shared with
Canada, the Rocky Mountains west of the plains, deserts and temperate coastal zones west of the
Rocky Mountains and temperate rain forests in the Pacific Northwest. Alaska's tundra and the
volcanic, tropical islands of Hawaii add to the geographic and climatic diversity.
The United States does not have an official language at federal level; nevertheless, English is spoken
by the vast majority of the population and serves as the de facto language: English is the language
used for legislation, regulations, executive orders, treaties, federal court rulings, and all other official
pronouncements.
Twenty-seven individual states have adopted English as their official language, and three of those—
Hawaii, Louisiana, and New Mexico—have also adopted a second official language (Hawaiian, French
and Spanish, respectively). Spanish follows English as the second-most spoken language in the
United States, primarily due to the influence of recent Latin American immigrants, and it is a primary
spoken language in some areas of the Southwest.
As of 2004, the United States was the home of approximately 336 languages (spoken or signed), of
which 176 are indigenous to U.S. territory.
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Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is the sixth-largest country in the world by area,
and the only country to occupy an entire continent. Part of the region of Australasia, it also includes a
number of islands, the largest of which is Tasmania. Australia has been inhabited for about 50,000
years, originally by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Eastern Australia was claimed by the
British in 1770, and officially settled as a British colony on January 26, 1788.
Its official population is 20,180,878 million people. The capital is Canberra. Other major cities are:
Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide and Hobart.
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Australia consists of six states and several territories.
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New South Wales (NSW)
Queensland (QLD)
South Australia (SA)
Tasmania (TAS)
Victoria (VIC)
Western Australia (WA)
The two major territories are the Northern Territory (NT) and the Australian Capital Territory (ACT).
Australia also has several inhabited external territories: Norfolk Island, Christmas Island, Cocos
(Keeling) Islands, and several largely uninhabited external territories: Ashmore and Cartier Islands,
Coral Sea Islands Territory, Heard Island and McDonald Islands and the Australian Antarctic Territory.
English is the national language. The Australian English is some kind of slang. In addition to English,
there are other languages of the immigrated nations as well as of the Aborigines.
Because of the early separation from the other continents Australia has an enormous and specific
variety of animals (marsupials) Dingo, Kangaroo, Wallaby, Koala, Shark, Whale, Jelly – fish, Wombat,
Possum, Tasmanian Devil, Kookaburra, Emu, Platypus, etc.
The Commonwealth Coat of Arms:
The country ´s symbols, the kangaroo and the emu, were chosen because they are the only two
animals which cannot run backwards. Like their country, they can only go forward.
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United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is usually known simply as the United
Kingdom, the UK, or as Great Britain or Britain,which is not correct. The term “Great Britain”, for
example, just means the part on the “main island” and not Northern Ireland on the island of Ireland.
The UK is situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe, and has a land border with the
Republic of Ireland, but is otherwise surrounded by the North Sea, the English Channel, the Celtic
Sea, the Irish Sea, and the Atlantic Ocean.
The population of the UK is round about 60.000 people, and its area has about 250.000 km², which
makes it the 77th largest country in the world. (In comparance: Germany has about 360.000 km².)
The UK has four constituent parts. Three of these — the ancient nations of England, Wales and
Scotland — are located on the island of Great Britain. The fourth part is Nothern Ireland, which is
located on the island of Ireland and is a providence of the United Kingdom. The border between
Nothern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland forms the United Kingdom's principal international land
border, although there is also a nominal frontier with France in the middle of the Channel Tunnel.
The United Kingdom has no official language. English is the main language and the de facto official
language, spoken monolingually by an estimated 95% of the UK population.
In Wales, English and Welsh are both widely used and in Northern Ireland people speak English, Irish
and Ulster Scots (also known as Scotch- Irish, Scotch or just Scots). The Outer Hebrides, which are
also called Western Isles use English and Scottish Gaelic.
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United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (English)
Teyrnas Unedig Prydain Fawr a Gogledd Iwerddon (Welsh)
Ríocht Aontaithe na Breataine Móire agus Thuaisceart Éireann (Irish)
Unitit Kinrick o Great Breetain an Northren Ireland (Ulster- Scots)
An Rìoghachd Aonaichte na Breatainn Mhòr agus Eirinn a Tuath (Scottish Gaelic)
Canada
Canada is a sovereign state in North America. In the South and the Northwest Canada borders on
Alaska, which belongs to the USA. In the West it borders on the Pacific Ocean and in the East on the
Atlantic Ocean.
Canada is the world’s second-largest country in the world, after Russia, covering approximately 41%
of the North American continent. Its official population is 32.2 million people. The capital is Ottawa.
Other major cities are: Montreal, Quebec, Vancouver, British Columbia and Calgary, Alberta.
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Canada is divided into ten provinces and three territories. The provinces have a large degree of
autonomy from the federal government, while the territories have somewhat less. Each has its own
provincial or territorial symbol.
The use of the maple leaf as a Canadian symbol dates back to the early 18th century, and is shown
on its flags, the penny and on the coat of arms. Canada is known for its huge forests and mountain
ranges (e.g. the Rocky Mountain) and the wild animals that reside within them, such as moose,
beavers, polar bears and grizzly bears. Canada is also well known for products which are made from
the country’s natural resources, such as maple syrup. Canada’s official winter sport hockey is also
often used as a national symbol of unity and pride.
Originally a union of former French and British colonies, Canada is a member of La Francophonie. It’s
a bilingual and multicultural state, where two official languages are spoken: English and French.
French is mostly spoken in Quebec, Ontario, New Brunswick and southern Manitoba. In the 2001
census, 6,864,615 people listed French as there first language, of whom 85% lived in Quebec, and
17,694,835 people listed English as there first language.
On July 7, 1969, French was made equal to English. Since that day both languages have an equal
status in the Parliament of Canada, in federal courts and in all federal institutions. Official language
minority groups in most provinces and territories have the right to be educated in their language. While
multiculturalism is official policy, somebody who wants to become a Canadian citizen must be able to
speak either English or French and for that reason more than 98 percent of Canadians speak either
English or French.
Why using authentic material in primary school?
Learning English in priamary schools is not just learing English but also learning something about
every-day-life and life situations in different countries (for example habits, eating habits, typical
celebrations, typical songs and rhymes, cultural specialties). Using authentic material gives a good
condition for intercultural learning. Here they don’t only face a new language but a whole new world.
Authentic learning is also learing a language as real as it really is used in these countries.
One other important aspect is, that chidren learn easier by using all there senses.
How to introduce vocabulary in primary school?
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authentic material
flash cards
games (for example memory)
songs and rhymes
short stories (children bring a story into the right order or narrate it with the help of pictures,
play it by using authentic material, gestures and mimicry)
draw pictures
wordgames (hangman)
story telling
Sources:
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Rahmenplan Fremdsprache Rheinland-Pfalz
Klippel, F. (2000). Englisch in der Grundschule. Reihe: Lehrbücherei Grundschule. Berlin: Scriptor
(ISBN: 3-589-05057-8)
www.wikipedia.org
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