Is English or Mandarin the language of the

future?
By Jennifer Pak BBC News, Kuala Lumpur
22 February 2012

In today's Magazine
English has been the dominant global language for a century, but is it the language of
the future? If Mandarin Chinese is to challenge English globally, then it first has to
conquer its own backyard, South East Asia.

In Malaysia's southernmost city of Johor Bahru, the desire to speak good English has driven
some children to make a remarkable two-hour journey to school every day.

Nine-year-old Aw Yee Han hops on a yellow mini van at 04:30. His passport is tucked
inside a small pouch hung around his neck.

This makes it easier for him to show it to immigration officials when he reaches the
Malaysian border.

His school is located on the other side, in Singapore, where unlike in Malaysia, English is
the main language.

It's not your typical school run, but his mother, Shirley Chua thinks it's worth it.
"Science and maths are all written in English so it's essential for my son to be fluent in the
language," she says.

An estimated 15,000 students from southern Johor state make the same bus journey across
the border every day. It may seem like a drastic measure, but some parents don't trust the
education system in Malaysia - they worry that the value of English is declining in the
country.

Since independence from the British in 1957, the country has phased out schools that teach
in English. By the early 1980s, most students were learning in the national language of
Malay.

As a result, analysts say Malaysian graduates became less employable in the IT sector.

"We've seen a drastic reduction in the standard of English in our country, not just among
the students but I think among the teachers as well," says political commentator Ong Kian
Ming.

Those who believe that English is important for their children's future either send their kids
to expensive private schools or to Singapore, where the government has been credited as
being far-sighted for adopting the language of its former colonial master.

Nearly three-quarters of the population in Singapore are ethnic Chinese but English is one
of the national languages and very widely-spoken.

Many believe that this has helped the city state earn the title of being the easiest place to do
business, by the World Bank.

However, the dominance of English is now being challenged by the rise of China in
Singapore.

The Singapore Chinese Chamber Institute of Business has added Chinese classes for
business use in recent years.

Students are being taught in Mandarin rather than the Hokkien dialect spoken by the older
Chinese immigrants.

These courses have proved popular, ever since the government began providing subsidies
for Singaporeans to learn Chinese in 2009 during the global financial crisis.

"The government pushed to provide them with an opportunity to upgrade themselves so as

to prepare themselves for the economic upturn," says chamber spokesperson Alwyn Chia.

Some businesses are already desperate for Chinese speakers.

Lee Han Shih, who runs a multimedia company, says English is becoming less important to
him financially because he is taking western clients to do business in China.
"So obviously you need to learn English but you also need to know Chinese," says Mr Lee.

As China's economic power grows, Mr Lee believes that Mandarin will overtake English.
In fact, he has already been seeing hints of this.

"The decline of the English language probably follows the decline of the US dollar.

"If the renminbi is becoming the next reserve currency then you have to learn Chinese."

More and more, he says, places like Brazil and China are doing business in the renminbi,
not the US dollar, so there is less of a need to use English.

Bilingualism
Indeed, China's clout is growing in South East Asia, becoming the region's top trading
partner.

But to say that Mandarin will rival English is a "bit of a stretch", says Manoj Vohra, Asia
director at the Economist Intelligence Unit.

Even companies in China, who prefer to operate in Chinese, are looking for managers who
speak both Mandarin and English if they want to expand abroad, he says.

"They tend to act as their bridges."

So the future of English is not a question of whether it will be overtaken by Mandarin, but
whether it will co-exist with Chinese, says Vohra.

He believes bilingualism will triumph in South East Asia.

It is a sound economic argument, but in Vietnam's case, there is resistance to learning

Mandarin.

The country may share a border with China, but the Vietnamese government's choice to not
emphasise Mandarin is an emotional one, says leading economist Le Dang Doanh.
"All the streets in Vietnam are named according to generals and emperors that have been
fighting against the Chinese invasion for 2000 years," he says.

Tensions flared up again last May over the disputed waters of the South China Sea.

Anti-Chinese sentiment means that young Vietnamese are choosing to embrace English -
the language of a defeated enemy. Many families still bear the psychological scars from the
Vietnam War with the United States.

Yet there is no animosity towards English because the founding father of Vietnam, Ho Chi
Minh, made a clear distinction between the so-called American imperialists who were
bombarding Vietnam and the American people, says Le Dang Doanh.

Many Vietnamese who have lost family members during the war are now studying in
America, he says.

"We never forget any victim in the past but in order to industrialise and normalise a
country, Vietnam needs to speak English."

The Vietnamese government has an ambitious goal to ensure all young people leaving
school by 2020 will have a good grasp of the English language.

But it's not hard for young Vietnamese to accept English. For some, the language offers a
sense of freedom in Vietnam, where the one-party communist state retains a tight grip on
all media.

In a public square in central Hanoi, a group of young men are break-dancing to the pulsing
beats of western hip hop. Ngoc Tu, 20, says he only listens to English music.

"The Ministry of Culture has banned a lot of [Vietnamese] songs and any cultural
publications that refer to freedom or rebellion but... English songs are not censored."
It is debatable whether English or Mandarin will dominate in South East Asia in the future.
There are arguments for both on the economic front.

But culturally, there is no dispute.

Even Mandarin language enthusiasts like Singaporean businessman Mr Lee, says that
English will remain popular so long as Hollywood exists.

The success of movies such as Kung Fu Panda, an American production about a Chinese
animal, has caused a lot of anxiety in China, he says.

There have been many cartoons in China about pandas before, but none had reached
commercial success, says Mr Lee.

"The moment Kung Fu Panda hit the cinemas everybody watched it. They bought the
merchandise and they learned English.
 Spanish: the global language of the future
May 25, 2015

Though English remains, for the moment, the primary language of international commerce
and pop culture, there’s another language that’s shooting to the top of the popularity charts
– and no, it’s not Mandarin.

Spanish is currently one of the most popular languages for students and professionals alike
– and it’s only becoming more useful, especially in the United States.

A 2013 report by the British Council, titled “Languages for the Future“, identified Spanish
as the most important language for people in the UK to learn, above Arabic, French and
Mandarin. There’s certainly plenty of room for improvement, as the report states that just 4
percent of adults in the UK say they speak Spanish well enough to hold a conversation.

There are more than 400 million native Spanish speakers in the world, making it the second
most widely spoken language, with official language status in 21 different countries. An
additional estimated 60 million people speak Spanish as a second language, bringing the
total number of speakers to well over 500 million.

More than 20 million students study Spanish as a second language. Many of them are in the
United States, where Spanish is by far the most popular language studied.

But the interest in studying Spanish isn’t only growing among university students. Research
conducted for the Telefónica Foundation found that bilateral trade increases by almost 300
percent when Spanish is the common language of commerce, suggesting that it is in the
best interest of countries and companies looking to expand into the fast-growing Latin
American markets to ensure they have Spanish-speaking employees and representatives.

Spanish is so important in the US that it has become part of the conversation for the 2016
presidential candidates. Democrat Hillary Clinton has produced videos and content for her
campaign website in Spanish, while Republicans Marco Rubio, who is bilingual, and Jeb
Bush, who is fluent in Spanish, have made media appearances speaking in Spanish and
even used some Spanish in speeches.
Though the US is the biggest source of Spanish learners – which makes sense, considering
its proximity to Latin America as well as the demographics of the country, where Hispanic
and Latinos account for 17 percent of the population – it’s not the only country with its
eyes and textbooks swiveling toward Latin America.

According to a Chinese government official, demand for Spanish language instruction in

China has “increased 30-fold” over the last 15 years. Lu Jingshen, the government’s
National Coordinator for Spanish, told the audience at the Foro Internacional del
Español that there are many job opportunities for Spanish speakers, particularly teachers, in
China.

“The increased demand is dizzying, besides the Chinese government has decided to extend
its policy of liberalising the economy and Spanish is able to obtain greater benefit from it”,
he said.

With several official state visits and multiple trade deals announced in recent years, China
has been making inroads into Latin America, a policy move that may help explain why
Spanish has suddenly become so popular.

Some experts simply see the growing global interest in Spanish as an indicator of major
geopolitical and economic shifts.

“The axis of communication and, therefore, culture has shifted from the Atlantic to the
Pacific where most of the world’s population is concentrated”, said Jesús Juan Ciro Martín
Sanz, president of Plataforma del Español, a network of Spanish-speaking companies,
speaking at the same forum.

“The 21st century is the era of the Pacific, that’s why the Spanish language should have a
more prominent presence in the region.”
MANSFIELD (CBSDFW.COM) – A Mansfield ISD program to teach Arabic language and
culture in schools is on hold for now, and may not happen at all.

The school district wanted students at selected schools to take Arabic language and culture
classes as part of a federally funded grant.

The Foreign Language Assistance Program (FLAP) grant was awarded to Mansfield ISD
last summer by the U.S. Department of Education.

As part of the five-year $1.3 million grant, Arabic classes would have been taught at Cross
Timbers Intermediate School and other schools feeding into Summit High School.

Parents at Cross Timbers say they were caught off-guard by the program, and were
surprised the district only told them about it in a meeting Monday night between parents
and Mansfield ISD Superintendent Bob Morrison.

The Department of Education has identified Arabic as a ‘language of the future.’ But parent
Joseph Balson was frustrated by the past. “Why are we just now finding out about it?”
asked Balson. “It’s them (Mansfield ISD) applying for the grant, getting it approved and
them now saying they’ll go back and change it only when they were caught trying to
implement this plan without parents knowing about it.”

Trisha Savage thinks it will offer a well-rounded education. “I think its a great opportunity
that will open doors. We need to think globally and act locally.”

Mansfield ISD says in addition to language, the grant provides culture, government, art,
traditions and history as part of the curriculum.

Some parents had concerns over religion. “The school doesn’t teach Christianity, so I don’t
want them teaching Islam,” said parent Baron Kane. During Monday’s meeting Morrison
stressed the curriculum would not be about religion, but about Arabic language and culture,
similar to the Spanish curriculum already in place in the district.

Kheirieh Hannun was born in the Middle East but raised in the U.S. She believes giving
students the option to learn Arabic will give her son and others like him the option to learn
more about their culture. “It was surprising, but I think it’s okay, and it will help come
down on the stereotype.” Hannun says she is hopeful the class could broaden the minds of
not only students, but also parents.

The FLAP grant was awarded to only five school districts across the country, including
Mansfield. The district says the plan is on hold so it can hear from more parents. After that
evaluation is over, the district says it is possible they might return the grant.

Forget French and Mandarin - Arabic is

the language to learn
Richard Garner
Saturday 11 July 2015

With more than 300 million people speaking it, no wonder the British Council is promoting
its teaching in schools

The 10-year-old was looking at the card in front of him which showed an image of a fish.
“Samak,” he said decisively.

He and his classmates at Horton Park primary school, in Bradford, have been learning
Arabic for three years now, courtesy of a drive by the British Council to boost the take-up
of the language in state schools.

His teacher, Saleh Patel – one of the few Arabic teachers working full-time in a British
primary school - had told the class to link the pictures on the cards with the correct word in
Arabic to describe them.

Later in the lesson they were set the task of writing a sentence in Arabic. “I find it
difficult,” said another 10-year-old, “but I try my hardest.” (Arabic is written from right to
left – try doing that in English and you will understand how hard it can be.) There is,
though, an enormous sense of enthusiasm in the classroom as the pupils try to master the
language.

The project is one of eight initiated by the British Council, which was spurred by its
research that rated Arabic as the second most important language for workers of the future
(Spanish was rated the most important).

The study took into account Britain’s export links, government trade priorities, diplomatic
and security priorities and the most popular holiday destinations.

“There are more than 300 million Arabic speakers across the world – in the Middle East
and North Africa,” said Faraan Sayed, who has been working on the programme for the
British Council.

In eight clusters of schools around the country 1,000 pupils study Arabic as part of the
curriculum while a further 500 are learning the subject in lunchtime and after-school clubs.
These are in Belfast, Sheffield, Manchester, London (where there are two), Barnstaple in
Devon, Blackburn and Bradford.

In Manchester, the independent Manchester Grammar School asked some of its Syrian
pupils to help with the recruitment of an Arabic teacher. They recruited an Iraqi-born
teacher with the result that the school’s development plan now has Arabic GCSE provision
planned from 2016.
The drive to teach Arabic will be stepped up when the British Council sends out a
“language and culture” pack to around 5,000 primary schools in September, in an attempt
to persuade them to take up the subject – and give their pupils an insight into the culture of
the Arabic world.

Top ten tongues

The top 10 languages for the future, according to a British Council report, are predicted as
being: 1 Spanish, 2 Arabic, 3 French, 4 Mandarin Chinese, 5 German, 6 Portuguese, 7
Italian, 8 Russian, 9 Turkish, 10 Japanese.