Sergio Calle A.

Professor Christopher Minster

Writing and Rethoric

5 April 2020

Should all students in Ecuador be required to learn English?

Language, more than a means of communication, is part of the culture and way of being of every

society, writer Natalia Brophy assures “While there is still some debate whether the particular

language influences people’s thought process or it is indeed people’s culture that influences the

language, there is no doubt that language and culture are closely connected.” (Brophy) Language

lets us express to the world what is going on in our minds, lets us exteriorize our deepest

emotions and helps as the glue that maintains civilization together. How a language is taught to

us and how we assimilate it is a real demonstration on how human, in the need to communicate,

has evolved and learned to integrate it since its first years of life and nowadays, parents

conscious of how modern world works and recognizing that only one language is not enough for

these globalized times, know the importance of encouraging their children learn a second

language since a very young age.

The fact that learning a new idiom is difficult has no discussion, especially for children, but the

benefits of accomplishing this are innumerable, it opens a world of information that we couldn’t

access otherwise. In past times this may have not been so relevant as it is today, with technology

growing and improving at an outstanding speed, social platforms that connect the entire world,

and many other reasons have made so that if we want to stay relevant in this world, we need to
know at least two languages fluently and what better dialect to learn than English; the world’s

most spoken language (as a second language) with an estimated of 1.121 billion speakers around

the globe (ESL Stories), especially in occidental world where the biggest global power is The

United States of America, the benefits from learning this language are truly worth the effort, as

philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein once said “The limits of my language mean the limits of my

world.”

There are some idioms that have disappeared through the pass of time and many have existed

since dates before common era, evolving through the ages but maintaining their core

characteristics. The English language is one these dialects that has its origins many centuries ago,

it started with the Germanic tribes that invaded Britain, they spoke similar idioms that developed

into what is called Old English, which did not sound or look like English today, however, half of

the most used words in modern English have roots on this antique tongue (EnglishClub.com).

This is not the case for innumerable languages that have disappeared through history; in our

country we can perceive how our own ancestors languages like Kichwa, Shuar, Shuar Chicham,

etc. are becoming less and less popular (despite many attempts from governments to fight against

this), although it is a truly sad statement as we lose our identity, it is inevitable because of

modern globalization and the many factors that go into maintaining a language alive.

Any person that has tried to learn a second language, knows just how difficult this task is, thus

this requires proficiency in many skills like writing and reading, speaking, listening,

pronunciation, and many other brain functions that go into assimilating a tongue that is not native

to us; consequently it is necessary to have a motivation, patience and effort to achieve this goal.

Like anything in this wolrd, learning a language is more difficult for some than for others,

moreover the fact that some are more complex to learn than others. Writer Bernadine Racoma
mentions in her article Why learning a language is difficult for some people? that the U.S

Department of States Foreign Services Institute (FSI) has data of the length of time it usually

takes a learner to achieve level 3 in speaking and reading; based on their records, Category 1

idioms such as Spanish or Italian take around 24 months of study; nevertheless Category 3

dialects like Swahili or Greek, that are distinctly different culturally and linguistically to English,

take about 44 weeks, not to mention Mandarin or Korean that show record of demanding 88

weeks to learn. (Racoma)

Based on this information we can assure that learning a language means that the learner has to be

motivated to spend a great of time in to the subject, to some this can be the opportunity of a

scholarship, a promotion, a job in another country or to be more relevant in worldwide

businesses; what ever the motivation is doesn’t matter, but there has to be one. English opens the

world for us as all of the motivations mentioned before (and many others) are situations that,

especially in occidental world, are presented to us in cases where we mandatorily need to defend

ourselves in this dialect. This has been more notorious in the past years and in schools, both

students and teachers have grown aware of this, so the mentality of English being a necessary

school subject has been accepted in these two groups because of the benefits it may bring.

There is pride in one’s nationality, in the identity that has been given to us by our ancestors, in

the story that they passed and the memories that can not be taken for granted. Hugo Carrillo,

congress of Peru states that the heritage of our native languages have more value than any other

archeological rest, in fact in Peru it is the only heritage from their ancestor that is not in ruins; in

addition to this we have to consider the linguistic rights of native communities, they need to

receive health services, education and in general all public services in the native idiom order to

keep true to their human rights. This is why educators and governments have tried to establish
the teaching of native languages in schools, so students keep their identity to the country they

were born in.

Although this is an important point of view, there are many unfortunate that impede this cultural

bonding resolutions, Doctor in Linguistics Isabel Garcia Ponce affirms that in cases where it was

mandatory for schools to teach native languages, far from helping with our necessity of identity

can in fact affect this in a negative way. Many points have to be considered like qualified

teachers that can efficiently impart these classes, the need of good quality learning tools like

books and didactic material, etc. one of the most important factors is the objective of this

teaching, are the students going to learn native idioms for the sake of maintaining cultural

identity or to comuunicate and interact with people who speak these languages, this will affect

there motivation and as mentioned before, this is key in learning a language. We can also

consider the fact that in the past, several governments of different pluricultural countries, like

Juan Velasco´s presidency in Peru, have tried to establish the teachings of ancient dialects in

schools and have failed because of poor judgment while thinking these measures through.

The subject in hand is delicate due to conflict between cultural identity and modernization, thus

we have to keep in mind that the objective of learning a second language is to communicate,

express ourselves to the world, be able to defend ourselves when we have to travel to other

countries, to all this there is no better idiom than English with which you can trust that somebody

in virtually any place in the world will understand you, even if it is in the most remote way.
Works Cited

Racoma, Bernadine. “Why learning a language is difficult for some people” Day Translations.

11 June, 2018. https://www.daytranslations.com/blog/why-language-learning-is-difficult/.

Accessed 09 Apr. 2020

Kitao, Kenji. “Why do we teach English” iteslj.org. The Internet TESL Hournal, Vol. II. 4 Apr.

1996. http://iteslj.org/Articles/Kitao-WhyTeach.html. Accessed 4 Apr. 2020

English Club. “History of English” https://www.englishclub.com/history-of-english/ Accessed

09 Apr. 2020

El Comercio. “Debate: ¿Se debe exigir la enseñanza del quechua” El Comercio. 10 July 2015.

https://confirmado.net/2014/02/21/en-ecuador-existen-catorce-lenguas-ancestrales/.

Accessed 4 Apr. 2020