English Is Not Enough

English is the national language of America. However, it is important to be bilingual or even trilingual in the New World Order. Learning a second and third language is more important for American children than any other subject ─ especially if America wants to continue to be a global leader in the 21st century. All high school and university graduates should be required to speak, read and write either Spanish or Chinese fluently, preferably both. Admittedly, once students have had a brief look at what is involved in each, there may be an overwhelming choice for one option, amigo. Only then will Americans be true global citizens able to survive in the 21st century.

Chinese officials are prepared to learn English to better serve their country ─ and do. Norman Pritchard is an English teacher living in China who has produced multimedia teaching materials at China Central Radio and TV University and Beijing Foreign Studies University for more than 10 years and has the privilege of teaching Chinese officials English. One characteristic that he observed that was shared by the Chinese officials he taught, all of them I might add, is their enormous intense motivation, 15 hour a day motivation to work hard and learn English. “Westerners have a generally cynical view of politicians, and here in China sometimes the phrase ‘officials’ is more often described with adjectives like ‘greedy’ and ‘corrupt’ than ‘sincere’ and ‘diligent.’ I did not expect to be touched at the emotional level by a group of trainees at the National School of Administration” said Pritchard who spent an intense three months teaching government officials. “I think I learned more about China and the Chinese in the last three months than I had in the previous 10 years as a teacher in China” Pritchard added. “I think my fellow foreign expert and I were privileged to gain an insight into the quality of some of the people who govern China in a way that only a few foreigners share, and the West in general is completely ignorant of. These were valuable men and women. They were cultivated and honorable, diligent and sincere. They represent truly the ideal of the good public official. I came to a closer understanding that this belief in education for its ministers is a central tenet of the Chinese government,” Pritchard continued unabashedly. “China demands excellence in their officials, and they are prepared to invest heavily in it. There is no analogue to this practice in Western democracy that I know of. I think China is the stronger for it, and the West the weaker for its absence,” Pritchard concluded.

The Pentagon is including Chinese studies in its long-overdue 21st- century linguistic arsenal ─ the National Security Language Initiative ─ which also includes Arabic, Farsi, Korean and Swahili. Students who take the Chinese course are paid a $1,000 stipend and competition for admission is fierce. More than 1,000 students apply for 69 places.

The languages involved skew heavily toward current or potential global conflict spots. The initiative aims to direct U.S. foreign language education away from European languages towards languages that are perceived to be more useful in the 21st century. At the U.S. Military Academy, where future Army officers are educated, the number of students taking introductory Chinese has steadily risen, from 65 in 2000 to 94 in 2007. The Pentagon has identified about 5,000 service members who speak Chinese in 2007, up from just 1,400 in 2000.