World Population Clock Live - Population of the World Today - The World Counts

World Population Clock Live - Population of the World Today - The World Counts

Is He Going to Make It?

The question is whether president Obama will manage to fix the USA's broken immigration system or not. Last night he gave a speech where he pointed out that illegal immigration was at it lowest since the 1970s. In addition, he told the nation what he intended to do to make the immigration system work. He mentioned three steps that he would take, one of them being, "Requiring undocumented parents of U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents who’ve been here 5+ years to pass a background check and pay taxes in order to temporarily stay in the U.S." He also asked Congress to pass the bill that they had delayed for one and a half year - he asked the members of the House of Representatives to not forget that "we are all immigrants". Listen to Obama's speech here.

A Break from Politics?

Let's take a break from politics, war and global challenges! Taking a look at how the English language has developed into a World Language, and why it is the most used lingua franca today will be a relief - or will it really? Is language politics as well? English rules in international education, international business and trade, in international diplomacy, in art and entertainment, and in science and technology.  It does so even though it is just number four on the list of top ten languages in the world by native and second language speakers (Access p 17). According to David Crystal, "A language becomes a global language because of the power of the people who speak it. It has nothing to do with the structure or the grammar (...) It's all about political power". So, it seems we'll have to deal with politics even though we are going to look at language! Check out week 47 in First Term.