Why be bilingual?

When we talk about being bilingual, it used to be an advantage for some immigrants to
leave their country or for people who needed a second or third language for a job or for
people in countries, such as Switzerland, that do not have a specific language in their
country, for what they need to learn French, Italian and German.

The effects of globalization on education

today, with common international travel around the world for work and pleasure, with
globalization making outsourcing work to other countries, and with English increasingly
becoming the lingua franca of the world of science, computing, business, medicine., best-
selling music, movies and novels, bilingualism is essential for economic, professional and
social success.

Why Have a National Plan?

Three goals are in mind with the National Plan:
1. To establish a program of studies in English
2. To define and offer programs and texts which are congruent to the philosophy and objectives of
second language acquisition
3. To contract and develop many more English teachers

Teaching English in our schools in Mexico is not new. some private schools for two generations
have included English in the curricula.an example is our public schools in Mexican, twenty-one
states have been offering English to the public schools, some of them for more than 15 years.

A state in Mexico like Coahuila, for example, started its English program as a project in 100 primary
schools. schools, in the 1995-96 school year with approximately 59 English teachers. Currently,
the English program is an official program, not a project. Coahuila has expanded its program to
include preschool and secondary levels