Necessity of English in Schools

Language is defined as a method of communication. In order to extend this ability and reach more facilities, people learn new languages. The total speaker of the English language is 1.1 billion people around the world, while the world population is 7.8 billion (Anil, n.d.). The number of people who speaks a language has a significant role in determining the strength of it, so it can be inferred that English is one of the best choices. However, Statistics of the Europian union (2015) illustrates that approximately 60% of lower secondary school students learn two or more foreign languages. Results bring a question that, why the rates are not so high namely education is not compulsory even in the most advanced European countries? In Turkey, compulsory English education starts in 2nd grade in primary school (Wikipedia, 2020). In this article, we will examine why English language education should not be compulsory in schools.

Firstly, the obligation comes with some gaps. Not all people need a foreign language in their life for various reasons. For instance, there can be someone who does not use English throughout their life. Education may be seen as a right from all perspectives, so it should be provided to everyone. However, compulsion restricts free will, hence making it necessary for everyone seems not acceptable since not all people desire it. Multilingual, minor groups might want to learn their language as a second language, or people study specific domains in which the sources are mostly written in another language.

Secondly, even if English is the most spoken language, there are also commonly used languages as an alternative, such as Chinese, Spanish, Arabic, or Russian. Schools should provide an opportunity for students to choose what they will learn, which is excluded by making English obligatory. According to the statistics, 1.1 billion people speak Chinese, 534M Hindi, 513M Spanish, 285M French, 274M Arabic, and 265M Russian. All these languages have unique references and societies. Consequently, learning other languages might also provide relatively less but still a considerable amount of facilities.

Thirdly, language also provides a logical platform for the mind, and each language has its specifications, which affects the character and thought. Israeli linguist Deutscher asserts that language influences worldview. Besides, each language brings with its unique culture (“The importance of culture, language, and identity”, n.d.). Therefore teaching someone a language means also transferring logical patterns and foreign culture to some rate, which might cause internal conflict, particularly in children's minds because, in early childhood, the self doctrine of local notions, unique culture, and national identity are not entirely digested by personality. Tasew concluded from the research of Northwestern University in Qatar that multilingual sometimes face issues about their cultural backgrounds. Furthermore, he affirms that "language conveys culture, identity, and family ties" (Tasew, 2020, para. 1).

Fourthly, it requires a lot of effort and time to learn a new language. For many people, it takes years, and at last, the level of language accuracy may not be enough to communicate or read an original context comprehensibly. According to the research, the average time to reach a B1 level in English is 720 hours, and it increases up to 50% if the native language of a person is quite different from English, such as Chinese, Arabic, or Japanese. Moreover, the majority of people who learned the English language has not satisfactory proficiency. Europe has a 56% epi average with the highest results, which may not be adequate for reading books, journals, and news, or writing and speaking properly. (EF, 2019) These lead to a question that, if learning a new language does not enable us to utilize it effectively, might the efforts be useless that do not produce profitable results? People may want to utilize their time and effort by another profitable activity such as reading a book, making habit, or study another field.

Considering counter-arguments and negating them consists of cruciality. 54% of online sources and more than 50% of technical and scientific periodicals are written in English (Shi-Xu, 2018). Therefore, it might be claimed that many sources available in English and reaching them may satisfy our needs. However, the target population of those sources is only the minority. Usually, people who want to improve themselves in specific fields want to read those texts. As a result, still, the obligation is not a correct solution. Nevertheless, there is a significant group that needs to research or solve their daily problems and cannot find any source in its native language but want to extend its foresight to a broader information facility. Even if this situation is the reality, accepting it leads to some unproductivity and weakness in mental strength since the necessity of it disappears, but we can evaluate this circumstance as an opportunity. Developments primarily arise from needs and difficulties. Therefore, if someone does not struggle to achieve and have solutions by already created by some else, the chance of producing their way decreases. Today, in the informatics era, peoples, companies, and states obtain their power mainly from producing knowledge. Hence, losing the ability to creating information means losing power. So, this principle works similarly for society since language usage indicates nations, and it is valid for evaluating the productivity of nations; if one nation consumes the information which is afforded by other nations, it weakens and dominated by powerful. In the article, It is supported that suppression of the languages has been used as a strategy to overcome minorities. (NSW Department of Education, n.d.) Therefore, trying to conceive their sources is a more logical way.

All in all, it may not appropriate for all people to learn the English language for various reasons. Alternatives to the English language should be regarded. It seems appropriate to contemplate whether the English satisfy specific needs for people and will the person be able to reach the proficiency level, which makes English useful. Although there are more sources in English, using another language may cause degeneration of local values and language inadequacy in creating references in the native language.

References

Anil. (n.d.). English Language Statistics – an Exhaustive List. Retrieved from

https://lemongrad.com/english-language-statistics/

Bisrat Tasew. (n.d.). Speaking of Identity: The Effects of Language on Cultural Identity.

Retrieved from https://thedailyq.org/9640/features/speaking-of-identity-the-effects-of-
language-on-cultural-identity/

EF. (2019, January 25). How long does it take to learn English?. Retrieved from

https://www.ef.com/wwen/blog/faq/how-long-to-learn-english/


EF. (2019). Regional Ranking of Countries and Regions. Retrieved from

https://www.ef.com.tr/epi/


Eurostat. (2020, March 11). Being young in Europe today – education. Retrieved from

https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics- explained/index.php/Being_young_in_Europe_today_-_education


NSW Department of Education. (n.d.). The importance of culture, language and identity.

Retrieved from https://www.racismnoway.com.au/about-racism/understanding-racism/the-
importance-of-culture-language-and-identity/


Shi-xu, Kwesi Kwaa Prah, & María Laura Pardo. (2018). Discourses of the Developing
World: Researching properties, problems and potentials (1st ed.). New York, NY:
Routledge Tailor and Francis.


Wikipedia. (2020, March 26). Linguistic determinism. Retrieved from
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_determinism#Conclusions


Wikipedia. (2020, February 15). Türkiye'de yabancı dil öğretimi. Retrieved from
https://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Türkiye%27de_yabancı_dil_öğretimi