CHAPTER 6: ENGLISH FOR ICT

 

A.  Reading Text

Instruction: Read the following text silently and loudly!

English may not be the most spoken language globally, but it is the official language in many countries. This language happened to be the main one in lots of influential countries. It is also the dominant business language, and it has become almost a necessity for people to speak English if they are to enter a global workforce. Research from all over the world shows that cross-border business communication is most often conducted in English.

English and ICT

English is essential to information technology for various reasons. IT is used in businesses and is basically the backbone of the commercial world at the moment. English is the international language of trade currently, so these two fields of study are interlinked in terms of operating many systems. It is vital to mention that most IT companies internationally do recruitment and it often leads to some groups have a great variety of nationalities working at the place. Many companies have discovered early in the 21st century that they can cut their production costs by sending their jobs overseas.

Even if we want to access some information about products or make an order, proper language skill is needed. Also, a vast majority of data on the internet is in English. So, in many ways, it's necessary to understand English to understand a lot of that. Native English speakers created most of the most visited websites on the internet, and so are all written in English. Besides, a lot of computer 'jargon' has come from words or is an acronym of an English expression, and so people across the board can understand these terms if they speak English.

What is more, using a single language as the primary IT language has streamlined computer processing. The commands for many programs are in English, and so a program might not respond to other language commands unless it was explicitly reprogrammed to understand those languages. Most IT products are first created with an English interface or user communication and then upgraded with other language support. Even if the user can use a program in another language, it may be programmed in English at the base level.

. The importance of English skills and learning is immense in IT, but so is its reverse. To know English is vital for every educated person, for every good specialist. Learning the English language is not an easy thing. Information technology may assist in facilitating learning or serving as the actual educational structure allowing learning to occur. Information technology benefits both traditional education institutions and online educational models in fundamental ways. For example, multimedia presentations, knowledge-management software, video conferencing, cloud computing, and collaborative document editing are exceptional information technology services benefiting education.

Now information technology has made it easy to study as well as teach in groups or clusters. At the English lessons online, we can be united together to do the desired task. There are different programs, games and they help learn the English language. Many people learned English just via using IT products and surfing the internet sites. English Efficient postal systems, the telephone (fixed and mobile), and various recording and playback systems based on computer technology all have a part to play in educational broadcasting in the new millennium. The Internet and its Web sites are now familiar to many students in developed countries.

 

B.    Questions

Instruction: Answer the following questions based on the text!

1.      Based on your opinion, explain the general reason why English is essential!

2.      Based on the text, why is English significant in the information technology area?

3.      Why is learning English difficult?

4.      How do you learn English?

5.      What are the platforms to learn English at this moment?

 

C.    Vocabulary

Instruction: Pay Attention to the Difficult Words below!

 

No	List of Difficult words	Pronunciaton	Meaning
1	Workforce	ˈwərkfôrs	Tenaga kerja
2	Commercial	kəˈmərSHəl	komersial
3	Interlink	ˌin(t)ərˈliNGkd	Saling terkait
4	Company	ˈkəmp(ə)nē	Perusahaan
5	Discover	dəˈskəvər	Menemukan
6	Cost	Kôst	Biaya
7	Overseas	ˌōvərˈsēz	Luar negeri
8	Command	kəˈmand	Perintah
9	Interface	ˈin(t)ərˌfās	Penerjemah antara 2 perangkat berbeda
10	Upgrade	əp ɡrād	Peningkatan kemampuan perangkat keras
11	Base Level	bās ˈlevəl	Tingkat dasar
12	Specialist	ˈspeSH(ə)ləst	Spesialis
13	Serve	sərv	Melayani
14	Video conference	ˈvidēō ˈkänf(ə)rəns	Tatap muka secara streaming
15	Cloud Computing	ˈkloudē kəmˈpyo͞odiNG	Komputasi awan
16	Service	ˈsərvəs	Layanan
17	United	yo͞oˈnīdəd	Serikat
18	Surfing	ˈsərfiNG	Berselanjar/ menjelajah
19	Recording	rəˈkôrdiNG	Rekaman
20	Broadcasting	ˈbrôdkastiNG	Penyiaran

 

D.    Language Focus: Auxiliary Verb

Instruction: Understanding the following language Focus!

Auxiliary Verb

Just like nouns, verbs are an essential part of any sentence. Without either, you cannot express a complete thought. However, there are some types of verbs whose purpose is to “help” other verbs. These verbs are called auxiliary verbs. Auxiliary verbs cannot exist by themselves in a sentence; they must be connected to another verb. These “helping” verbs can connect to both action and linking verbs in order to add tense, mood, voice, and modality to these verbs.

There are 4 types of auxiliary verbs, that be, do, have, and modals. You must master the four types of verbs because you will use them in the formation of tenses.

 

1.      Aux verb “Be”

The auxiliary verb “Be” consists of “am, are, is, was, and were.” The table below shows the subjects and the forms.

Subject	Present	Past
I	am	was
You/We/They	are	were
He/She/It	is	was

 

Ø  Example:

1.      I am a full-time blogger.

2.      You are an IT programmer.

3.      The computer was cleaned last week.

4.      I am learning English from the website.

 

2.      Aux Verb “Do”

The auxiliary verb “Do” consists of “do, does, and did.” The auxiliary verb is mostly used in negative sentences and questions in verbal sentences, in which the sentence uses a verb. The table below shows the subject and form.

Subject	Present	Past
I/You/We/They	do	did
He/She/It	does

 

Ø  Example:

1.      She does not like this job.

2.      I do not know much about computer programming.

3.      Does she help you to sell this old laptop?

4.      Did you get a high salary in your company last year?

5.      She does not understand cloud computing.

 

3.      Aux verb “Have”

The auxiliary verb “Have” consists of “have, has, and had.” Its function is to make a sentence stating something that is already done (seems like present perfect tense). The table below shows the subject under the auxiliary verb of "have".

Subject	Present	Past
I/You/We/They	have	had
He/She/It	has

 

Ø  Example:

1.      He has been an IT teacher in this vocational high school since 2015.

2.      I have bought this flash disc for ten years.

3.      They had communicated with their friends using English through Facebook.

 

4.      Aux Ver “Modals”

The fourth auxiliary verb is composed of modals “can, must, may, will, should, would, could, might, and others. Its function is to express mental attitudes, such as the ability, necessity, certainty, demand, prohibition, etc.

Ø  Example:

1.      We shall overcome this internet connection.

2.      You should be serious about this job interview.

3.      I will always teach you to create a beautiful design.

4.      If I had a lot of money, I would buy some computers for this laboratory.

5.      You may be right; the exam should be completed soon.

6.      I can help the English teacher to explain these materials.