English and Globalization

Nowadays, all businesses are being affected in one way or another by globalization and by the rapid advance of technology, especially in the area of communications.

Some businesses are trying to expand their markets to gain advantage of such process; however, the use of English by entrepreneurs from the United States as the only language to communicate with stakeholders is taken as a ethnocentric attitude throughout the world.

English has become one of the most important languages, but, most of the time its use is limited to politics, international trade or international relations. In other words, most of the people who use it are somehow involved in jobs that require them to use English; the same is not true for those businesses’ consumers, who most of the time only speak their native language. (Strauss, 1997, p. 1)

What is still surprising for many is that even though the majority in the United States is conscious of the continuous globalization process, the US department of education does not facilitate students with courses in other languages during their first years of study. (Crispel, 1997, p.12)

In her article “Speaking other tongues,” Diane Crispel (1997) points out that even though it is easier for a person to learn a foreign language at an early age, students are offered this opportunity at later years during middle school or high school. These classes were not a requirement in any of the States as of 1991. (p. 12)

Nevertheless, the number of students taking foreign language classes in high school or college has been increasing since the early 1980’s; but not all of these students try to continue practicing that second language once they get out of high school. (Crispel, 1997, p. 12)

The need for language skilled people has not just been growing in the business industries but also in the area of education. Crispel mentions that during the years of 1993 and 1994, the demand for foreign language teachers was much bigger than the supply. Around twenty four percent of the schools offering these jobs found it very difficult to fill those vacancies. (Crispel, 1997, p. 13)

This shortage of personnel for the education system might be due in part by the great demand and higher salaries those people receive when working in other industries. (Crispel, 1997, p. 13)

A lot of companies in the United States have passed policies that require the use of only English in the workplace. Some studies have revealed that the fact of having workers with poor English skill is costing around 175 billion per year in loses related to productivity, wages, and unemployment compensation. Furthermore, this makes non-native English speakers remain in low wage jobs. (Strauss, 1997)

There are currently more than 25 million foreign people forming part of the work force, which represent more than 11 percent of the total workforce. Setting policies can become discriminatory acts against these workers and companies have paid millions in legal disputes because of such policies. Even the federal government passed a law instituting English as the only language to be used in this area; but such law did not get approves by the senate. (Cantu, 1998, p. 50)

We need to acknowledge that the process of immigration into the United States has not diminished at all, and in fact the percentage of immigrants is still raising and experts agree that it is not going to stop in the near future. (Strauss, 1997)

While US companies are still trying to force their workers to speak only English, companies in Europe establish learning programs to teach their workers, most of whom speak two or three languages, what