Summary

The English language that students normally learn in the schools is sometimes called Standard English, but in fact there are many other varieties of English. Of these, American English is becoming more and more important, especially in the computer world. The first text in this unit, then, gives a short description of the two main varieties of English: British and American. In the second section, you will be introduced to the computer networks, describing the types of networks and how computers are linked together; and in the third section, you will read about the Internet, which is the biggest network of all, with a special emphasis on internet security.

In the grammar sections, you will study the modal verbs. These form a special type of verbs which are very similar to auxiliary verbs from a grammatical point of view. Modal verbs are used to express things like obligation, possibility, etc. and they are also used to ask for and give permission, makes requests, etc.; you will also study the different ways of speaking about the future and the corresponding adverbials which are used to refer to the future as well as a form of the verb called ‘imperative’ which we use to give orders and instructions. In the second section, you will study different sentence structures in English. A sentence structure is the way in which we must organize the words in a sentence. You will learn the structure of statements, questions and, most specially, the structure of the passive sentences, which are much more widely used in English than in Catalan or Spanish. Finally, you will also study the English conditional sentences and the relative clauses, each with their own sentence structure.

The ‘everyday language sections’ introduce three other examples of functional language. In the first section, you will learn about the ways of giving and responding to instructions; in the second section, you will study how to make and respond to requests, which is what you do when you want somebody to do something for you; and in the third section, you will learn how to make and respond to suggestions.

Finally, the vocabulary sections include lists of words introducing the most basic concepts related to computers networks, like the different types of networks, the elements that compose a network and words related to the Internet and to internet security.

The unit also includes some information about rewriting a text. This means writing a text in different words, but expressing the same ideas. We may need to do so when we use information from the Internet or from a book in order to write our own text.

There is also a final text which gives some ideas in case you wish to continue learning English after this course.