EducationHQ – KURT MULLANE
“More than a decade ago, Professor Tony Liddicoat responded to the same discourse by stating that “we in the English-speaking world seem to have lost sight of languages as educationally important”. We have replaced this idea with the view that languages are educationally useful and we have seen this view increasingly undermined by the argument that “everyone speaks English” (Babel 2002). The problem is, they don’t. English actually trails Chinese and Spanish as the third most commonly spoken language in the world…The view that ‘English is enough’ fails to acknowledge that being bilingual or multilingual is an increasingly necessary passport to personal mobility, opportunity and prosperity…Indeed it can help them [students] hold their own in a globalised job market and develop the skills needed to live comfortably with diversity.”(more)