Today’s society is steeped in globalization; almost every aspect of life has been touched by it—in the modern world, one cannot help but think of international integration when discussing language. This is particularly true in the context of the global educational system. In the rapid proliferation of this system, English has emerged as the global language, the dialect virtually everyone across the world wants to speak. Children learn it at a tender age so that by the time they reach maturity, they are fluent. Schools teach it as a foreign language to those who do not have it as their mother tongue. Nations that cannot find sufficient numbers of English teachers pay to have native speakers come into their countries to help them find a path to English-language fluency.
Furthermore, acquiring a foreign language equips children with an essential ability they will need to take part in worldwide events. This involvement is not just about being able to communicate; it is also about being able to carry out the kinds of tasks that international organizations demand. Such performance requires confidence, independence, and the kind of casual ease one develops when working with people from all sorts of different cultures. … In working with people from all kinds of different cultures, language allows individuals to work with the kind of ease that comes from knowing the cultures you’re working with. It also allows insight into the kinds of different cultures you might not work with but are still important to know about.
These days, summer camps and international exchange programs for children are frequent government initiatives. They are vehicles for providing our kids avenues for cultural interaction and learning about one another in what sometimes feels like a return to a lost summer camp model of international relations.
In addition to these government-push kids’ programs, high schools and universities now more than ever see the value of sending their students abroad and bringing foreign students to their campuses as a means of enriching the educational experience of their domestic and international student bodies. So now we have kids camp programs, government-mandated bodies of students, and the half billion or so global citizens learning in their respective languages.