English Maniac

English Maniac

              In 2009 Jay Walker talk about English mania, Walker starts with Beatle mania,  hysterical teenagers, crying, screaming. Then, pandemonium Sports mania deafening crowds all for one idea get the ball in the net.  Next, religious mania. There's rapture there's weeping there are visions. Mania can be good manias, can be alarming or manias can be deadly.

            The world has a new mania, that’s a mania for learning English listen. As Chinese students practice their English by screaming it, for example, the words: “I don't want to let my parents down, I don't ever want to make my country guy mouthing constantly, I don't want to let myself down.”

            How many people are trying to learn English worldwide two billion of them in Latin America in India in Southeast Asia and most of all in China? If we're a Chinese student we start learning English in the third grade by law, that's why this year China will become the world's largest English-speaking country.

           With English, there is an opportunity for a better life, a job, to be able to pay for school or put better food on the table.  Imagine, a student taking a giant test for three full days her score on this one test literally determines her future, she studies 12 hours a day for three years to prepare 25% of her grade is based on English, it's called the  GaoKao and 80 million high school Chinese students have already taken this grueling test.

         The intensity to learn English is almost unimaginable unless we witness it. Walker said:  English is the world's second language your native language is our life but with English, we can become part of a wider conversation a global conversation about global problems, like climate change or poverty or hunger or disease the world has other Universal languages.

        Mathematics is the language of science, music is the language of emotions and now English is becoming the language of problem-solving, not because America is pushing it but because the world is pulling it. So, English mania is a turning point like the harnessing of electricity in our cities or the fall of the Berlin Wall, English represents hope for a better future, a future where the world has a common language to solve its common problems.