Thursday, June 16, 2011

Importance of English

Very interesting article in the Financial Times about how English has become the "world's lingua franca."

Surprised me that:
  • "The majority of conversations in English today are between non-native speakers."
  • "English speakers earn 25 per cent more than colleagues who don’t speak the language. This is the average. In Rwanda, in some jobs the difference can be 181 per cent."
  • "Kent Holiday, chief executive of Eleutian Technology, a US-based teaching company, thinks the state and private English sectors spend $100bn on teaching in China, Japan and South Korea alone."

Definitely have seen first-hand the value placed on learning English in Korea. The article also stated that "English should be the 21st century gold rush." Big opportunities...

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