Why Learn English?

This week we begin teaching our own after-school English classes for high school, primary school, and adult students. These are all, of course, optional classes in addition to the required high school English classes.

Unlike second language requirements in US high schools, in Nicaragua English is a required class for all 7^th through 11^th grade students. At the US high school that I went to in Indiana, depending on the diploma you sought, you could get away with taking only two years, or at most three years, of Spanish or French classes. In contrast, Nicaraguans cannot graduate from high school without taking five years of English classes.

It's true that knowledge of English is a pretty crucial skill on a world-wide level, but even as an English teacher myself, I've sometimes wondered why kids in such a remote part of Nicaragua, whose lives are about corralling cattle and harvesting beans, need to know English? English is, after all, only the third most spoken language in the world (after Mandarin and Spanish). And in a town where almost no one speaks passable English, what in the world will these kids do with five years of English lessons under their belts?

One answer, of course, is go to the US, find a job that pays less-than-minimum wages for undocumented immigrants who speak broken English, and spend their lives sending money back to their children in Nicaragua. But the Nicaraguan government can't be training its children in English just so they can leave Nicaragua, can it?

No, especially with the tourist industry growing so rapidly in Nicaragua, there must be a Nicaraguan work sector that requires English. In an effort to incite our students to take learning English seriously (and to figure out why in the world we were teaching them English in the first place), we did some investigating in the city of Esteli, an hour away from San Nicolas.

We went around to various businesses in Esteli that we thought might hire English speakers and talked to the workers who were actually using the English they learned in high school for their jobs. We asked about their wages and their responsibilities and how they used their English, and then we reported back to our students. To give you an idea of how these workers' wages compare to other Nicaraguan wages, the farmers at the agricultural association where we volunteer earn around $110 a month. Teachers at the local public high school earn around $200 a month.

In Esteli we visited Hostal Sonati, a hostel that pays an English-speaking tour guide to show tourists around and do environmental education. We also visited Intur, the government-run tourist agency, where English speakers help put together tourist brochures and literature in English. Both of these tour guides offer a starting salary of around $155 a month.

At Hotel Los Arcos, a nice hotel in Esteli, the receptionist told us that they always have one English speaker to greet guests at the front desk. The receptionist told us that she studied tourism at university and as part of that degree had to take several English classes. A hotel receptionist who speaks English at Los Arcos earns between $190 and $310 a month.

Esteli is known for its tobacco, and we figured that with all the exporting that goes on, the many cigar factories in town must hire English speakers too. At the factory Joya de Nicaragua, we met a young man who spoke almost perfect English. He told us that he studied English intensively for about 2.5 years. At Joya, he deals with international sales and also gives tours to English-speaking visitors. As he was giving us our tour, he threw out English cigar jargon like it was nothing, taking puffs on the huge cigar dangling from his fingers as we went. In such a profitable business, an English speaker like this guy can earn $700 a month.

The man at Joya de Nicaragua also told us that people who speak English and work for a big company have a much better chance of excelling and working their way up the company ladder than people who don't speak English. He said that now is an ideal time to study English, because even though everyone studies English in high school, very few people actually speak it well, so the market is wide open. Right now, it's very easy to find a job for someone who speaks English, and the English job market is only growing. English speakers are needed for all kinds of jobs in the growing tourism industry, and call centers that hire English speakers to troubleshoot over the phone for Americans have recently been introduced in Nicaragua. And now with the Nicaraguan Canal project just on the horizon, for better or worse, Nicaraguans who speak English are becoming invaluable.

All of these jobs, of course, would require our own English students to leave the small town of San Nicolas to find work in a bigger city. And while in some ways it makes me sad to think about some of the brightest San Nicolaseños leaving their beautiful home town to go elsewhere, I think English knowledge can also be a hope for a better life for these students. And this, I hope, is where the value of our English classes lies.