The Impact of English on Economy (Discussion 2)

According to McGurn, English is the key role in the future success in Asian countries. I partially agree with his opinion. I do not know other Asian countries’ situation but the industrial structure of South Korea is highly depend on manufacturing and exporting goods such as vehicles, electronic and heavy industrial products. More importantly, the major buyer of those is the United States. So English is highly important in business area especially trade. It is common that if people want to get a job in Korean major companies such as Samsung, LG or Hyundai, people have to have high English test score like TOEIC. Not only manufacturing companies based on trade and also the financial service sector requires English skills because foreign investment has been dramatically increasing once Korea has fully opened the financial market and the foreign investment has become enormously important to support Korean economy. As you can see, for Korea, participating in globalization and learning English is not matter of choice. It is matter of survival. Every year, therefore, a lot of students go to overseas countries to learn English, which leads to significant deficit in the education trade. English already became an integral role to Korean economy as well as society before we think whether it is good or bad, so unfortunately it becomes a meaningless argument. It is time to find how to learn English without paying a lot of money.