“ENGLISH AS A UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE AS A RESULT OF GLOBALIZATION

Nowadays, English is the lingua franca in the world. It means that English is the language systematically used to make communication possible between people not sharing the same mother tongue.
English is an official language in many international organizations such as the United Nations, the European Union, the International Olympic Committee, World Bank, UNESCO, UNICEF, World Health Organization and the International Atomic Energy Agency.
According to research by the British Council, "English has official* or special status in at least seventy-five countries with a total population of over two billion. English is spoken as a native* language by around 375 million and as a second language* by around 375 million speakers in the world. Speakers of English as a second language will soon outnumber those who speak it as a first language. Around 750 million people are believed to speak English as a foreign language*. One out of four of the world's population speak English to some level of competence.

Reasons why English is a universal language

Historically, the British, who conquered most widely the new continent, spoke English. They colonized North America - most North Americans were descendants from the colonists and spoke English. They conquered parts of South America, and those parts speak English. They conquered Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and India.

Currently, Modern English, sometimes described as the first global lingua franca, is the dominant international language in communications, science, business, aviation, entertainment, radio and diplomacy.

Because unlike other languages, English is taught in every country in the world and many people can understand English.

Positive and negative aspects?
We all know that language gives us a view of the world but having a lingua franca has its advantages and disadvantages.







Advantages


It helps us to communicate with foreign people and understand each other easily without knowing their language.
It gives us the opportunity to travel around the world and even find jobs in other countries.
We have many easy ways of learning it such as watching movies, TV programmes and listening to music.
It brings unity to the world.
It facilitates the international organization to understand each other without wasting money in translations.

Disadvantages

Because English is a lingua franca, many people think it’s more valuable than their mother tongue. While learning it, people integrate the culture too, which is the beginning of losing the own language and culture.
Minority languages can be in danger, and meanly, languages that have a reduced number of speakers.
A global language might cultivate an elite class with native speakers , who take advantage of the possibility to think and work quickly in their mother-tongue.
It makes the people whose native language is the lingua franca become very poor in learning other languages.
People who don’t speak the lingua franca can be discriminated.



My personal opinion on having English as an official languages

English is the official language in Ghana, but Akan is our native language. However, that doesn't mean that we all speak in English. The education in Ghana is in English which means that young people speak English while old people speak the native language because they haven’t gone to school.

I love the fact that I can speak English, because it's the international language of communication. English has a positive and negative influence on my native language as well as other countries that have English as an official or second language.

In my opinion, speaking English has more advantages than disadvantages.
The advantages are that English helps me to travel to other countries without having problems in communication, Speaking English I could have the opportunity to study abroad. When I listen to music, I can understand the lyrics. I can also watch films and read books in the original version. And I have many friends at school in my English class.

The main disadvantage is the growing importance of English that has make me forget how to write my native language and some ancient traditions.

Cultural diversity in schools

Cultural diversity in schools can be seen as both an advantage and a problem.
All around the world moving from one place to another has become relatively easy, which means languages travel around the globe with the people who speak them.
This affects the dynamics of teaching languages in schools everywhere.
Teachers worldwide now find themselves facing various challenges when teaching a language to a group of students: due to the vast increases in migrations it can no longer be assumed that each student is fluent in the official language of the country they are in, as well as it can no longer be assumed that each student comes from the same cultural background; teachers have to adapt their teaching methods to this increased cultural diversity amongst their students, a cultural diversity that wasn’t nearly as noticeable, for example, 50 years ago.
There are many things to keep in mind when living with this linguistic diversity, but the essence of it all is this: the teaching of a language must not invade the knowledge of another (or a cultural background) – it should embrace and complement it.
The questions we might ask ourselves concerning the current situation on language diversity in schools are these:
Could it be that this diversity is causing a difficulty when it comes to teaching and learning languages? Do many languages and cultural backgrounds all in one school create confusion, or do they, contrarily, make up for a richer cultural knowledge amongst the students?
These changes in society and the questions that arise from them accentuate the importance of having a common language (English) to be taught everywhere, for communication’s sake, while still valuing the importance of languages around the world as a cultural feature of where it is spoken.

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Quotes on LANGUAGES and CULTURAL DIVERSITY

If you want to make peace, you don't talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies.

~Mother Teresa of Calcutta

If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head.

If you talk to a man in his own language, that goes to his heart.

~Nelson Mandela

If you hate a person, you hate something in him that

is a part of yourself. What isn't part of ourselves doesn't disturb us.

~ Herman Hesse

We All Smile in The Same Language.

Variety is the spice of life. Proverb

Our true nationality is mankind. H.G. Wells

Those who know nothing of foreign languages, knows nothing of their own.

Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749-1832)

I am always sorry when any language is lost, because languages are the pedigrees of nations.

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)

If you can speak three languages you're trilingual. If you can speak two languages you're bilingual. If you can speak only one language you're an American.

The language of truth is simple.

Euripides (BC 480-BC 406) Greek tragic poet.

languages around the world