McKay, Chapter 1 "English as an International Language"

I'm reading McKay and all these things are popping into my head.

First, the International data base estimated the worlds population in 1997 at (we'll say) around 5.9 billion people. If Crystal estimated 1300 million people to be "reasonably competent" in English, that means, that at the time, 22 percent of the worlds population is reasonably competent in English. That's a lot of people. So, if almost 1/4 of the words population speaks one language, I would say, yeah, it's an international language. But this raises a question that McKay touches upon, what's happening to all the other languages? I would hate to see languages die (even though they do) because of the English language's influence.

I like McKay pointing out why the spread of English happens and its negative effects. I think this is a good thing for us all to look at and understand. I'm (obviously) a supporter of people learning another language (English in my case) but I don't think the learning should take over a culture and change their native language. That actually makes me not want to become and ESL teacher. I enjoy going to different countries and not knowing what other people are saying. It makes it interesting and fun. It also represents the culture that you're in.

I was really disturbed when I went to Holland and herd more NATIVE people speaking English than tourists. My boyfriend and I left our bags in the taxi at the airport. We were freaking out because we didn't know Dutch and had no way of communicating with the taxi service until the customer service woman informed us that "Everyone in Holland speaks English." I was floored when she said that but it was true. After I thought about it, I realized that we went ALL OVER Holland and never had a problem communicating with anyone. Even the older generations knew English enough to answer our questions. It's kind of sad.

Anyways.

McKay points out that learning English is a sign of social prominence. I'll agree with this because you need to have a means to educate yourself, and generally that means is money (take it from me, I'm $80,000 in debt for my education but it's money well spent). It's a shame that education is hindered by money. Everyone should be afforded the right of an education. As future teachers, we should advocate for equal education standards across all borders.