The Belarusian state University of Informatics and Radioelectronics

 

The Belarusian State University of Informatics and Radioelectronics, the former Minsk Radioengineering Institute, was founded in 1964. In 1964 2,5 thousand students began studies at two faculties, those of radioengineering and automatics and computer science separated from the Belarusian Polytechnic Institute.

Today this University trains engineers in 24 specialities and 26 specializations in the field of computer science, microelectronics, radioengineering, communication, computeraided systems of information processing, electronic instrument-making, broadcasting, medical electronics, economics.

The overall number of students is more than 10 thousand. The teaching staff consists of academicians, Corresponding members of the Belarusian Academy of sciences, two full members of New York Academy of Science, professors, assistant professors and experienced teachers.

The students study at 9 faculties; the Faculty of Radioengineering and Electronics; the Faculty of Information Technologies and Control; the Faculty of Computer Systems and Networks; the Faculty of Telecommunication; the Economic Faculty, the Faculty of Computer-aided Design; the Military Faculty and The Correspondence Faculty; the Faculty of Professional orientation. The University has all the necessary facilities for teaching. A number of computer classes are equipped with modern computers owing to the support of world-known companies, such as PHILIPS, INTEL, IBM and their Belarusian partners.

A large library with reading halls is at the disposal of the students.

Different subjects are taught at the University depending on the faculty and the course. The first-year students study physics, higher mathematics, descriptive geometry, technical drawing, social sciences. Later they acquire profound knowledge in electronics, cybernetics, computing machinery, etc. Special attention is given to such subjects as impulse technique, analog and digital computers, theoretical fundamentals of electroengineering.

Four foreign languages are taught at the University. Professionally-oriented teaching of English, German, French and Spanish is carried on by two departments with the use of advanced teaching methods and introducing intensive technique.

The University presents its latest developments at Belarusian national expositions as well as at world-famous fairs and exhibitions in Germany, China, India, Iran, Egypt, Vietnam, United Arab Emirates, Syria.

Over 1300 professors and students of the University went abroad on exchange programs, and over 270 of them went on scientific probation.

The course study at University lasts five years. The academic year is divided into two terms. The students financially covered by the government are granted studentships. Students from other cities lodge in the halls of residence of total capacity of 2100 people.

The University teams regularly win the leading positions of student sports in athletics and keep-fit activities. Belarusian best athletes had their trainings in the gymnasiums of the University, among them the Olympic Champion, basketball player I. Edeshko and vice-chairman of the National Olympic Committee of Belarus, three times Olympic Champion, seven times World Champion A. Medved The major form of physical practice are obligatory classes in physical training, held at all faculties 4 hours a week. The students are free to choose between athletics, soccer, basket-ball, volley-ball, hand-ball, swimming, freestyle wrestling, body-building, shaping, etc. There are all necessary facilities available like swimming pool, fitness – center, open playgrounds, ski depot, summer camp at the Braslav Lakes.

The Student Club of the University organizes parties, discos, festivals of amateur art. The University takes special pride in its brass band, vocal group “Tutashiee”, the ballet dance group, the group of acrobatic rock-n-roll, the bard song club, etc.

 

7. Answer the following questions:

 

1) When was the Minsk Radioengineering Institute founded?

2) How many students study at the University?

3) What faculties are there at the University?

4) What subjects are taught at the University?

5) How long does the course of study last?

6) When are terminal exams held?

7) Where do the students from different cities lodge?

8) What does the students Club organize?

9) Does the University have the right to be proud of the graduates? Why?

10) In what way is the University’s cooperation with foreign colleagues realized?

11) Where does the University present its latest developments?

 

Post-reading

 

Pair-work

1) Convince your friend who doesn’t believe in University education that University is the best place to study law, history, computing…

2) Interview your friend about his University experience.

3) Your friend believes that teaching will soon be done by computers. Challenge the statement that a teacher can’t be replaced by machines.

UNIT 4. English as a world language

 

Pre-reading

 

1. Discussion Point

Answer the questions using the list on p. 30:

 

1) Which language in the world is spoken by most people?

2) Which language has the largest vocabulary?

3) Which is the oldest written language?

4) Which sub-continent has the largest number of languages?

5) Which language has no irregular verbs?

6) Which language has the most letters in its alphabet?

7) In which language is the largest encyclopedia printed?

 

Is it … Spanish - Cambodian – English – Egyptian – Esperanto - Mandarin Chinese – Indian?

2. Work in pairs. Do you think the following statements are true or false?

8) English was already an important world language four hundred years ago.

9) It is mainly because of the United States that English has become a world language.

10) One person out of seven in the world speaks perfect English.

11) There are few inflections in modern English.

12) In English, many words can be used as nouns.

13) English has borrowed words from many other languages.

14) One-third of the world’s population speaks English.

15) German is a promising language in the world.

16) In the future, all other languages will probably die out.

 

Reading

 

1. Scanning. Read the article on “English as a World Language”. Find out the answers to the true/false statements.

 

ENGLISH AS A WORLD LANGUAGE

 

English is one of the major languages in the world. In Shakespeare’s time, though, only a few million people spoke English, and the language was not thought to be very important by the other nations of Europe, and was unknown to the rest of the world.

English has become a world language because of its establishment as a mother tongue outside England, in all the continents of the world. The exporting of English began in the seventeenth century, with the first settlements in North America. Above all, it is the great growth of population in the United States, assisted by massive immigration in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, that has given the English language its present standing in the world.

People who speak English fall into one of three groups:

- those who have learned it as their native language in the US, Canada, Great Britain, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa;

- those who have learned it as a second language in a society that is mainly bilingual: in more than 70 countries, such as Ghana, Nigeria, India, Singapore and Vanuatu;

- and those who are forced to use it for a practical purpose – administrative, professional or educational. One person in seven of the world’s entire population belongs to one of these three groups. Incredibly enough, 75% of the world’s mail and 60% of the world’s telephone calls are in English.

Although estimates vary greatly, some 1.5 bln are thought to be competent communicators in English. That’s a quarter of the world’s population.

So, can English be a global language when three out of four people don’t use it? Given the areas of world influence where it has become to have a pivotal role, the answer has to be yes. Evidence suggests that English is now the dominant tongue in international politics, banking, the press, news agencies, advertising, broadcasting, the recording industry, movies, travel, science and technology, knowledge management and communications. No other language has achieved such a widespread profile – or is likely to in the foreseeable future.

Other languages have an important international presence, of course. Both Mandarin Chinese and Spanish have more mother-tongue speakers than English, according to a 1999 survey. Although there is uncertainty about statistics, Spanish is growing faster than any other language, especially in the Americas.

The reason for the global status of English has nothing to do with its number of first-language speakers. Three times as many people speak it as a second or foreign language, and this ratio is increasing.

Old English, like modern German, French, Russian and Greek, had many inflections to show singular and plural, tense, etc., but over the centuries words have been simplified. Verbs now have very few inflections. Without inflections, the same word can operate as many different parts of speech. Many nouns and verbs have the same form, for example swim, drink, walk, kiss, look, process, smile, record. We can talk about water to drink and to water the flowers; time to go and to time a race; a paper to read and to paper a bedroom. Adjectives can be used as verbs. We warm our hands in front of afire; if our clothes are dirtied, they need to be cleaned and dried. Prepositionstoo are flexible. A sixty-year old man is nearing retirement; we can talk abouta round of golf, cards, or drinks. This involves the free admission of words from other languages and the easy creation of compounds and derivatives. Most world languages have contributed some words to English at some time, and the process is now being reversed. Purists of the French, Russian, and Japanese languages are resisting the arrival of English in their vocabulary.

Standard English is the chief force, existing as an international reality in print, and available as a tool for national and international communication. Its position is being reinforced by new technologies. Satellite television is beaming standard English down into previously unreachable parts of the world, thereby fostering greater levels of mutual intelligibility. And the Internet currently has a predominantly (80%) English voice – though this figure is falling as other languages come online.

But nothing is entirely predictable in the world of language. At the start of the millennium, it would have been hard to believe that few would know Latin 1,000 years later. It takes only a shift in the balance of economic or political power for another language, to move centre stage.

 

2. Read the text in more depth and write down the key sentences for retelling.

 

Post-reading

 

1. Read some amazing facts about English today, fill in the gaps with suitable numbers.

1) One billion people speak English today. That’s … of the world’s population.

2) … million people speak English as their first language. For the other 600 million it’s either a second language or a foreign language.

3) The number of Chinese people learning English today is bigger than the population of the USA.

4) There are more than … words in the Oxford English Dictionary.

5) … % of all information in the world’s computers is in English.

6) Nearly … % of all the companies in Europe communicate with each other in English.

7) English is just one of over … languages in the world today.

8) … % of all international letters and telexes are in English.

9) … % of all English vocabulary comes from other languages.

10) When the American spaceship “Voyager” began its journey in … it carried a gold disc. On the disc there were messages in … languages. Before all of them there was a message from the Secretary General of the United Nations — in English.

11) It is said that William Shakespeare used about … words in his works.

12) An average English-speaking person uses several thousands of words; a poorly educated person can do with as little as… words in his everyday life.

 

a) 1,000 b) 29,000 c) 400 d) 55 e) 15% f) 500,000 g) 80% h) 1977 i) 50% j) 80% k) 3,000 i) 75%

 

2. Read and say why English has become an international language of scientific publishing.

SCIENTIFIC PUBLISHING

English is now the international currency of science and technology. Yet it has not always been so. The renaissance of British science in the 17^th century put English-language science publications such as the “Philosophical Transactions” instituted by the Royal Society 1665, at the forefront of the world scientific community. But the position was soon lost to German, which became the dominant international language of science until World War I. The growing role of the US then ensured that English became, once again, the global language of experiment and discovery.

Journals in many countries have shifted, since World War II, from publishing in their national language to publishing in English. Gibbs (1995) describes how the Mexican medical journal “Archivos de Investigacion Medica” shifted to English: first publishing abstracts in English, then providing English translations of all articles, finally hiring an American editor, accepting articles only in English and changing its name to “Archives of Medical Research”.

This language shift is common elsewhere. A study in the early 1980s showed nearly two-thirds of publications of French scientists were in English. All contributions in 1950 to the “Zeitschrift fur Tierpsychologie” were in German, but by 1984 95% were in English. The journal was renamed “Ethology” two years later.

 

3. Read the article and match suitable topic sentences with the paragraphs of the text.

a) lawyers must be trained to understand legal agreements written in English

b) lingua franca provides joint ventures with internationally recognised terms, obligations and rights

c) a newly established company headquartered in any country of the world needs specialist with the skills in the local language

d) joint ventures tend to use English as an international language

e) importing and exporting processes of a joint venture requires English-speaking personnel

f) a transnational corporation uses English for external trade