Over 60﹪of pupils in South African schools choose English for learning and teaching, but only 7﹪of pupils speak English as their home language, a recent South Africa survey shows.
Out of the country’s 12.2 million pupils only 851,536 speak English at home, yet 7.6 million pupils choose English as their favorite language of learning and teaching. Zulu is the most widely spoken home language, spoken by over 3.1 million pupils. However, less than a third of them choose to be taught in Zulu. The same thing is true of Pedi-speaking pupils, only a third of such pupils choosing to be taught in their home language. Besides English,
Afrikaans is the only language that has more pupils choosing it as their language of instruction than it has pupils who speak it at home. In primary schools, most pupils will choose African languages. As early as grade four, many would choose English or Afrikaans in their lessons.
The rising number of English-learning pupils is mainly caused by social and cultural reasons. English is the most mon spoken language in official and public life in South Africa, the survey reports. In April 2011, the leaders of higher education and training said that they would take some steps to improve the university teaching and prevent the continuing decline of African languages. They suggested that in future every South African university student could be required to learn at least one African language in order to plete their studies at school.
【小题1】 We can learn from the passage that most South African pupils .A．speak English both at home and at schoolB．are required to learn two languages at schoolC．choose English as their primary school languageD．are expected to speak their native language at home.【小题2】 It can be inferred from the passage that .A．Afrikaans is the most popular home language in South AfricaB．it’s easier for South African pupils to learn Afrikaans at school.C．the number of South African pupils learning Afrikaans has increasedD．many South African pupils use Afrikaans at school instead of at home.【小题3】 The underlined word “decline” in the last paragraph is closest in meaning to “ ”.A．going downhillB．spreading widelyC．growing upwardsD．developing further【小题4】 What is the survey in the passage mainly about?A．The use of native languages in South African families.B．The language choice and use among South African pupils.C．The progress in South Africa’s language teaching educationD．The spread of English at schools in South Africa.C
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(答案→)C
解析：文章主要介绍了非洲一些国家更多孩子选择英语教学，致使母语教学的需求越来越低的现象。这些国家的相关部门正准备着手缓解这一状况。
【小题1】主旨大意题。根据文章主要内容可知大多数的南非小学生都会选择英语作为自己在学校的教学语言，所以选择C
【小题2】细节题。根据第三段的Afrikaans is the only language that has more pupils choosing it as their language of instruction than it has pupils who speak it at home可知Afrikkan这门语言有更多学生会在学校使用而不是在家里，所以选D
【小题3】词义推断题。根据上下文，可知这句话的意思是“遏制非洲本土语音选择人数的下降”，decline意为下降，所以选A
【小题4】推断题。根据文章大意可知这个调查主要是询问非洲小学生的教学语言和家庭用语的选择，所以选B较为合适。