This is an exercice I wrote for an exam, that's why it is a bit long to read. Thanks in advance for reading it, it will help me improve my pronunciation. Please don't talk too fast, it will be easier for me to practice.
spaces and exchanges
Globalization is not a new phenomenon, but it has been growing faster in the last decades. It results in the exchange of goods, thanks to free trade, but also in the migration of many people.
I’m going to talk about immigration to illustrate the notion, and I’ll start with the example of the United Kingdom.
The United Kingdom has always been a multicultural country, with four nations that are quite distinct: England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland (or Ulster). Then after the second world war, legal immigration started. Both Britain and the immigrants had an interest in this immigration: Britain needed them for the reconstruction of the country after the war, and the immigrants were looking for work and better conditions of life.
In the text entitled ‘Black Briton’, the author says that the people who came in that first immigration wave never fully integrated into the country. He gives the example of people from Jamaica and says that the link with their native country was still very strong. They still felt like Jamaicans living in Britain rather than Britons and kept their traditions and way of life.
Things were different for their children who grew up in the 60s. They were all aware of the Civil Rights movement in the US and the fight against discrimination. We must remember it was the time when Martin Luther King pronounced his most famous speech, I have a Dream (in 1963), in which he demanded equality between blacks and whites. There was also the black power movement. All this also had an impact on black people in Britain too, according to the text. This second generation of immigrants considered themselves as being black people first, and then British.
Today things have changed and most people of Caribbean origin consider themselves as fully British. They were born and raised in Britain, educated in British schools with other British people of foreign origin and feel integrated in the British society.
Strangely enough, the children or grand-children of these immigrants feel more British than some of the British themselves. The text mentions people in Britain who feel they are Scottish or Welsh for example , before being British. The trend is so strong that there was a referendum in 2014 in Scotland to decide whether it should become independent from Britain. A strong minority, about 45% of the Scottish people were in favour of independence.
We also worked on a text entitled ‘Changing India’. It’s about people leaving India, another country that was part of the former British Empire to go to more developed countries like Britain or the US to find a better life. The text shows that the first generation of migrants left their native country and settled for good in their host country. However today, the children or grand-children of these people are going back to India to start a new life there. This is explained by the fact that India is an emerging country, that is developing very quickly. India today is a modern country, a country of opportunities where people can find jobs very easily, particularly in high tech. And so today, some people are making the same journey as their grand parents, but the other way round.
To conclude, immigration is still a very current subject. The reasons why people leave their native country are still the same: political, economic and social reasons. However, there is one big difference: today’s immigration is mostly illegal because the countries that attract immigrants have closed their borders. Everyday, thousands of immigrants are risking their lives to reach Europe from Syria for example, but most are rejected. Fences have been built in some European countries to stop this new wave of immigrants. Even the US, a country of immigrants, has a fence on part of the Mexican border and Donald Trump is intends to build a wall all along the border.
If the current recording is too fast for you, it would be my pleasure to send you a slower version.
Have a good day.
Ortwin.