Helping students become independent learners in today’s English mania world

Learning English has become the world’s new mania with about 2 billion people around the world trying to learn this universal language, says Jay Walker in this TED talk. There are many manias, and this one in particular cannot necessarily be categorized as something good or bad. The reasons for learning English are so many nowadays that it ultimately becomes a necessity that people and governments try to find a “solution” for. Some governments do standardized testing, others like in Colombia, demonstrate the use of English either through courses or tests which are requisites for graduating from higher education programs. The standards will continuously increase to the point countries can assure that their citizens are competitive in today’s world. This does not mean that the other languages are being lost, simply that we have a lingua franca that allows us to “solve problems”, as Walker puts it. It is truly a universal language that lets us communicate…