English as a bridge to international universities.

María Ahumada Meza.

The world is constantly evolving and many factors as education within it, as there has been

an extensive curriculum reform in the search of preparing learners to work in a globalized

world, this means that over the years, schools and universities have had to improve their

educational offers in order to have more people prepared for what companies would need in a

near future, and some universities are increasing the opportunities for foreigners to study with

them in many different ways, for example, by implementing blended learning method so

students will not need to travel there in order to enroll in a program. In this essay, we will

first compare education in the 19th century and nowadays, secondly we will talk about how

high education (colleges/universities) has adapted to globalization, thirdly we will talk about

the use of English in some non-English speaking universities and finally a conclusion.

First, taking a look back to the 19th century, Education was seen as a privilege that only

people in high stations could have, as according to the author (Graddol, 2006) ‘there were

many critics who feared that allowing working-class children to acquire literacy would give

them ambitious above their social station’ (p. 70) and so was seen the learning of a foreign

language, meaning that very few people were able to acquire certain knowledge, such as

math, science, languages and so on; most of these people were in a high social status and had

the resources to afford it. Nowadays, we can still see that some people are not able to receive

an education. However, there is a larger amount of students than in the past as it is now

highly important in people’s lives. Johan, 2014 said ‘Education plays an important role in

the development of a country. If a country does not have proper education, it may be left

behind by other countries which support education.’ therefore, we can say that there is an

increment in the interest of people in receiving an education.

Secondly, as education is now a highly important aspect of countries’ development, many

schools and universities have rapidly globalized and expanded their boundaries, by

reinventing them as global elite institutions.

Following that idea, over the ’00s universities have become aware of people’s searching for

better education in order to be able to obtain job opportunities whether at home or outside

their native country. As a result, they have had to enhance their offers in order to increase the

number of students they have, and the competition among higher education institutions is

now international wide or worldwide. One of the strategies these universities implemented

was to create an eLearning institution, in order that students living in a different and far

country will not miss the chance of enrolling in. However, within 4 years, the global

adventure was over Gradoll, 2014. Meaning that the bomb of e-Universities failed in the try

of offering their courses and accreditations online. In spite of the failures, English-speaking

universities came up with another strategy to continue gaining international students, they

decided to open campuses overseas.

Thirdly,

As mention before, high education institutions are now competing internationally and

according to Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJT) and the QS Quacquarelli Symonds survey

for the UK’s Times Higher Education Supplement, the world’s top 100 universities are

located in English-speaking countries. This is one of the most important factors that are

taking people to learn English as academics and students aspire to enroll and receive

accreditation from the best universities. Furthermore, these universities are offering the

possibility to study online, in one of their campuses overseas or to study abroad, giving the

future student the chance to decide the one that fits better to their preferences or needs.
In conclusion, education is now playing a highly important role in people’s lives, regardless

of where they come from, and comparing the number of students that there are nowadays

against the ’90s, there is a large increase; the same has happened to English, as it is not only

seen as a foreign language learned from high society people but as a language needed in order

to be more competitive in the market. This, of course, has had an impact on international

courses or universities where the first language is English, and they had taken advantage of it

and continue offering courses to countries.