American English

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US Education

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University Education in Great Britain

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There are 46 universities in Britain. But not all the universities are equal. They differ from one another in history, tradition, and academic organization. Not all British universities are backed by a well-known reputation.

Oxford and Cambridge, the oldest universities, are world-known for their academic excellence. The University of London has size and breath to rank among the UK’s top universities.

A university usually consists of colleges. The departments of the colleges are organized into faculties.

University teaching in the UK differs greatly at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels from that in many other countries.

An undergraduate program consists of a series of lectures, seminars, tutorials and laboratory classes, which in total account last for about 15 hours per week.

Following a particular program a student takes a series of lecture courses, which may last one academic term or the whole year. Associate with each lecture course are seminars, tutorials, laboratory classes that illustrate the topics presented in the lectures.

Lectures are given to large groups of students (from 20 to 200). Seminars and tutorials are much smaller than lecture classes and in some departments can be on a one-to-one basis (one member of the staff and one student).

Lectures, seminars and tutorials are all one hour in length, laboratory classes last two or three hours. Each student has a tutor whom he can consult on matter whether academic or personal.

The academic year is split into three terms. Formal teaching takes place in the first two terms, which last for twenty-four weeks in total. The third term is reserved for classes and examinations and lasts for six weeks.

After three years of study a university graduate will leave with the Degree of Bachelor of Arts or Science. He can continue to take his Master’s Degree and then the Doctor’s Degree.

Americans place a high value on education. Universal access to quality education has been one of the nation’s historic goals.

America’s first college, Harvard was founded in 1636. In 1865 education was becoming available to all. The peculiar feature of American education is the absence of national administration.

After graduating from secondary school a growing number of Americans go to higher education. American institutes of higher education include: technical training schools, community colleges; colleges offering four-year bachelor degree programs; and universities which contain one or more colleges and graduate school offering masters or doctoral degree programs. The factors determining an institution’s prestige are the quality of the teaching factory; quality of research facilities; the number and competence of applicants for admission.

After the first two years every university student majors in one subject and minors in another. In addition to these major and minor courses he can select other subjects according to his professional interest.

After completing four years of study the students receive a Bachelor Degree (either B.A. or B.S.) with an additional year of study he may receive a Master’s Degree and after two or three years of graduate work and writing of the dissertation he receives a Doctorate Degree.

Britain and America were described as nations divided by a common language. Just what is the difference between the English spoken in Britain and America?

The first English settlers to reach America arrived in Virginia in 1607 and in Massachusetts in 1620. They all spoke English of the early seventeenth century – the language of Shakespeare and Milton. Most of them came originally from the southwest of England. Although some of them had spent some years of exile in Holland they spoke with the accents of the southern part of their home country. To a large extent they kept that form of speech, but they soon learned to give old words new uses. They also took words from the local Indian languages for plants and animals that were new to them.

Until the Declaration of Independence in 1777 over two-thirds of the settlers in what later became the U.S. came from England. After that date many other people came to make a new life for themselves in the New World. These included Irish, French, Germans, Dutch, Italians, Slavs and Scandinavians. All these people gave new words to the language of North America. The Negroes who had been taken from Africa as slaves to work on the rice and cotton plantations added words and structures from their own native languages. Some people today think that the very American expression O.K. comes from a similar expression, which was brought to America by the Negroes. Although all these people contributed in various ways to the language which was to become American English, there is one man who can be singled out as the person who did the most to give American English an identity of its own. He was Noah Webster (1758-1843). He is largely responsible for the differences, which exist between British and American spelling.

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