English in Schools and Business

ENGLISH IN SCHOOLS AND BUSINESS

The article, “Why English should be the medium of instruction(2000)”, is about the defects of English education system and the advantages of English in the business life. The writer, Bernardo Villegas, in this article indicates the importance of English language both in schools and business. He thinks that the English language in secondary schools and universities attach more importance to reading and grammar rather than speaking; therefore, schools do not help students’ speaking ability. At this point I agree with the writer, however, I believe that the writer’s opinion, English is the most useful and valid language in business life, is not true.

In the article, Bernardo Villegas claims that the English lessons in neither secondary schools nor the universities do not give enough education to students on speaking(par.1). He believes that in both of them students are just obliged to memorizing grammar rules and doing some reading exercises. I completely agree with the writer. In almost all of the secondary schools there are at least eight hours of English lessons in a week; however, their speaking English does not improve due to the memorization-based system. Students are just encouraged to read and write, not speak and listen. In universities the situation does not change, too. In most universities the education language is English; i.e. students study mathematics, physics, chemical, history and etc. in English. However this system also does not help students to improve their speaking English. Moreover in so many universities, which are shown as English medium universities, the education language is still Turkish. When we graduate from such universities, our employers expect us to speak English smoothly and able to contact foreigners perfectly. However, when we start working, they see that we can just read and understand the English documents, instead of transferring out knowledge to other people and presenting our ideas. Therefore, at this point the wrongness of the so called English education system appears.

The writer also indicates in this article that English is the most useful and valid language in business life(par.8). Bernardo Villegas shows being able to speak English is the only way to be successful in business, even though there are two important and common exceptions, Japan and France which gain their economical and