Of course English is perhaps the most widely accepted international language. But actually any language, including Japanese, can be an international language. I personally experienced this about 15 years ago on a business trip to Taiwan for a design meeting with our Taiwan supplier who was to make a charger stand for our my company’s cellphones. The meetings went well but when it came time to talk with the company president I found out that English was not an operable international language. However, he and I both spoke Japanese well so we were able to use it as our “international language”. He was Chinese and I was American but Japanese language served us well as an international language. That was a great experience and made me realize that an international language, in general, is just a language that can be used by people from two different countries to communicate. In this particular case Japanese became our international language and I was glad that I had taken the time to learn it many years before.
But of course, English is the most often used for international communication. I have also experienced using English in dozens of meetings with German engineers in Germany. I initially bought a German course to study German but discovered that my German colleagues and our customers’ engineers all spoke English very well and of course much better than my German. So I just gave up learning German. English was used in meetings in Japan and Germany and the US with Japanese, American and German Engineers. Right now every second of every day someone who is not a native speaker is using English to communicate in an email or speaking in a meeting. So I know from my experience how important being able to speak, listen to, read and write English can be. So I am passionate to help people become good users of English.
I am sure that all of the Smith’s teachers share my passion. Our students’ progress is essential to our success too as school owners and teachers.
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