When you write English for academic purposes, there are some particular words, phrases and styles that we don't use very often with English speaking. Read the short essay below. How many mistakes or problems can you see?

'Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of a global one-world language, giving examples.'
Nowadays, everyone learns English. It's very important. Because lots and lots of people need to communicate with other people who don't speak the same language, so it's a very hot topic. I want to talk about this problem and tell you what we can do about it. The first thing is people around the world now communicate by the internet. But when people communicate they must have a language. Right now, that language is English. If we don't have a common language, then people will not be able to do business or co-operate with studies.
As someone says, 'an increasing number of people do business across countries and continents, the demand will increase for a common tongue that can ease the process and promote greater business opportunities. Combining this with a process such as localization can be extremely beneficial for a business in expanding and reinforcing its commercial gravitas. Undoubtedly, it is such companies that are today enjoying greatest success in the market place.' I will also say that if everyone can speak the same language, then there will not be so many wars because countries would communicate better.
On the other side of the argument, lots of languages are disappearing. This may be because people want to learn English rather than their mother tongue. As Jonny says (2008), the number of languages that become extinct increases every year. If this is true, then if everyone is learning English it must be a big thing, you know what I mean? Not only that, but losing languages is terrible, it means we lose culture. The history and culture of different groups is connected with the language, so if the language disappears, the history and culture might also disappear. That's a lose-lose situation.

Click on Activity 1.1 (on the left) to see the teacher make some corrections to paragraph 1. Did you see the same problems as the teacher?