Abstract

Here we attempt to show how a good knowledge of the English language is a crucial skill in today's dynamically developing world. We look at opportunities that proficiency in English, in combination with Internet access, provides to individuals – opportunities such as online education and online employment. We then examine some of the key competencies a rapidly advancing world civilization requires from its citizens and how these competencies are tightly interrelated to a working knowledge of English. Finally, the importance of having English language proficiency is considered in the perspective of the challenges our global civilization is faced with.

І. INTRODUCTION

Events in the past 20 years changed the world dramatically. Explosion of access to information, combined with exposure to a wider range of viewpoints, are factors that are impacting the cultural landscape on a daily basis.

Never before in history has there been so much change in such a small time period. Communication and education have been reinvented in the span of a few years. The rapid advancement of technology that makes all of this possible is unlikely to cease. To the contrary, the pace of change is expected to increase, creating a more and more dynamic world where people will need to quickly adapt to new realities. In practice this means that very soon, acquiring new skills throughout one's lifetime is going to become the standard.

The opportunities for individuals opened by these new developments are vast. However, there are two main factors that prevent most people from taking advantage of these opportunities: a) little or no access to the Internet, and b) an insufficient or no knowledge of the English language. While the first factor can be beyond our control, the second one is closely related to what we deem important enough to commit ourselves to.

The present work will take an in-depth look into the mentioned opportunities in an attempt to provide relevant information to individuals, organizations, and policy-makers. The aim is to show the significant benefits that can be gained from putting a high priority on acquiring a working knowledge of English.

ІІ. ONLINE LEARNING

It wouldn't be an overestimation to say that education is currently undergoing a revolution. In the past few years we have witnessed the pioneering work of websites such as www.khanacademy.org, followed by Massive Open Online Courses [1], whose success influenced leading universities to start an effort to make many of their lectures available online free of charge. MIT and Harvard's www.edx.org (now with multiple leading universities as contributors) and Stanford's online.stanford.edu are two prominent examples. To gain a better sense of the scale on which university content is now available for free, the reader can scroll through this webpage that lists 875 free courses from top universities: http://www.openculture.com/freeonlinecourses.

Among the various platforms that are providing such courses, there are some that already offer certificates for completion. Taking trends into account, it doesn't seem to be long into the future before students would be able to earn fully recognized degrees upon completion of these free, online courses.

It is a historical precedent that the average person has such an access to education. This access provides an easy opportunity for individuals to acquire relevant knowledge and to expand their competencies. Unfortunately, most are unable to take advantage due to limited or no knowledge of English.

III. ONLINE WORK

As with everything else, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is also changing the way we work. One of the ways it is doing this is by allowing individuals to work from home for an employer who may be located anywhere in the world. This “online employment” is rapidly expanding and is expected to continue to grow in the coming years [2];[3].

One of the most important benefits of this new development is that it provides significantly extended employment opportunities. Someone offering their skills through traditional media and seeking traditional employment may find that there is little demand for those skills in the given region or even country. But when you can offer your skills to employers from all over the world, there may be substantially more job opportunities available.

In order to make use of this, a person needs to speak the language of the Internet – that is, English. Having a sufficiently good command of English allows job-seekers to expand their reach from only one country to the whole world. One of the reasons this is possible is because a common, barrier-crossing language has been established.

Online employment also has some other advantages, such as no time lost in traveling to work, less carbon footprint due to lack of traveling, and improved efficiencies thanks to the digital nature of the workplace.

ІV. RESPONDING TO A DYNAMIC WORLD

It is often said that today we live in an age of information overload. From a different viewpoint, this can be seen as a state in which there is a lack of skills for handling a high input of information – skills such as an ability to extract the significance from a communicated message. Currently, our culture does not seem to be prepared for the rapidly changing reality. Those who are better adapted to change are in a position to take advantage of new developments and, consequently, to excel.

There are many reasons to think that the innovation we have witnessed in the early 21st century is nothing compared to what is about to happen in the next few decades.[4];[5] This likely means that the problems of lagging behind (e.g., obsolete skills and knowledge) and being unable to respond appropriately to newly established circumstances (e.g., obsolete methodologies) are going to exacerbate. At the same time, those who are better adapted and stay updated are likely to have greater and greater opportunities available to them.

As a case in point we can take a look at digital literacy, which can be explained as “a person’s ability to perform tasks effectively in a digital environment”.[6] Information and Communication Technologies have transformed the processes through which we do many types of work. Someone with little or no digital literacy will not be able to utilize these advancements and will likely be left far behind. While an access to computer and internet is an obvious prerequisite for digital literacy, a better proficiency in English has been found to have a strong relationship to having less computer anxiety [7] and to possessing specific ICT skills.[8]

A working knowledge of English is integral to staying up to date with innovations. The latest developments in any given area are largely communicated in English. It often happens that until the latest developments formally appear in textbooks and other traditional educational materials, they have already been built-upon and expanded, or sometimes have even become obsolete.

It is worth noting that the rate at which industries get changed is going to become faster and faster, in large part due to the exponential advancement in computational technology.[9];[10] What this means in practice is that, due to the nature of exponential growth, the amount of change that happened in the last 20 years may now take only ten years to happen, and after that only five.

V. PARTICIPATION IN THE GLOBAL COMMUNITY

This may be the most important reason for putting a high priority on relevant and effective English language education. With 2.4 billion people already on the Internet [11], and the number expected to reach 3.5+ billion in 2017 [12], we can say that for the first time in history there is a global community residing in one place. This community has just begun to voice its opinion on relevant matters.

It has been increasingly recognized that the world at large faces significant challenges in the next few decades. According to a large body of research, the global industrial civilization may be heading towards collapse, brought about by a “perfect storm” of environmental and economic disasters.[13] A common thing between all of these problems is that they are not national, but global. Their solution requires that nations work together with each other in order to implement the necessary structural changes.

Just as addressing the thinning of the ozone layer required a worldwide effort [14], so too the coming challenges need to be well-understood by a large number of people throughout the world before policies can be shifted. It is evident that the bulk of information on any of these problems is and is going to be in English, making informedness about them interrelated with having proficiency in English. Equally important, participation in the policy-shaping global dialogue is carried out in English. Having a voice in this dialogue depends upon being able to express yourself in this language.

VІ. CONCLUSION

We have seen how the modern world can empower individuals in significant ways if certain conditions are present, most importantly Internet access and English language knowledge. The observation was made that in an increasingly dynamic world, one does not become 'educated' but rather has to continuously stay up-to-date with innovations in order to remain relevant. This updating is heavily dependent on being able to understand English.

Additionally, it was recognized that in order to overcome our global challenges, the citizens of the world need to be able to receive and share information that allows them to influence policies in a meaningful way. This global dialogue is carried out in English, which serves as the one language common to all nations.

While this writing may have helped in better understanding the essential value of knowing English in our day and age, it has not addressed the low level of efficiency in traditional language instruction. It is the subject of further investigation to show how language education can be carried out with much greater effectiveness, by presenting the learner with specific language tasks that build practical skills – as opposed to education by learning things in theory.

REFERENCES:
[1]. MOOC: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massive_open_online_course
[2]. https://www.elance.com/q/online-employment-report. Retrieved March 2014.
[3]. https://www.odesk.com/info/about/press/releases/odesk-reaches-1-billion-spent-cumulatively-its-online-workplace/.
[4]. McKinsey Global Institute, Disruptive technologies: Advances that will transform life, business, and the global economy, 2013. Available online at: http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/business_technology/disruptive_technologies. Retrieved March 2014.
[5]. Toffler, Alvin and Heidi Toffler, Revolutionary Wealth. New York, Knopf, 2006.
[6].http://www.library.illinois.edu/diglit/definition.html. Retrieved March 2014.
[7]. Rahimi, M. and S. Yadollahi, Success in learning English as a foreign language as a predictor of computer anxiety, 2010. Available online at: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877050910004059. Retrieved March 2014.
[8]. Mahmood, K., Relationship of Students’ Perceived Information Literacy Skills with Personal and Academic Variables, 2013. Available online at: https://www.academia.edu/4472268/Relationship_of_Students_Perceived_Information_Literacy_Skills_with_Personal_and_Academic_Variables. Retrieved March 2014.
[9]. Bowden, M., Moore’s Law and the Technology S-Curve. Stevens Alliance for Technology Management, Issue 1, Volume 8, 2004. Available online at: https://www.stevens.edu/howe/sites/default/files/bowden_0.pdf. Retrieved March 2014.
[10]. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore's_law
[11].http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm. Retrieved March 2014.
[12]. Cisco's Visual Networking Index Forecast Projects Nearly Half the World's Population Will Be Connected to the Internet by 2017: http://newsroom.cisco.com/release/1197391/.
[13]. Beddington, J., Food, Energy, Water And The Climate: A Perfect Storm Of Global Events? Available online at: http://www.bis.gov.uk/assets/goscience/docs/p/perfect-storm-paper.pdf. Retrieved March 2014.
[14]. Sagan, Carl, Billions and Billions. New York, Random House, 1997. Chapters 10 and 13.

First published Apr 2014 on academia.edu.

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