EDITORIAL: Is English enough?

There have been calls after calls for decades now for Barbadians to enhance their language skills, but those calls seem to have fallen on deaf ears as most Barbadians still only speak English.

But one would think that this would not be the current state of affairs, seeing that both academia and politicians across the political divide have both been pushing the idea. It is therefore unfortunate that despite their seeming willingness to see the idea come to fruition, we have failed to actually do so and Barbados by extension has been the poorer for it.

While we live in a region populated by Spanish, French and Portuguese-speaking nations, today most of us only speak English. This is unacceptable and one has to wonder if perhaps the time has not come for the powers that be to work at changing that. Indeed, the time has come to not only offer some instruction in relation to Spanish at the level of the primary schools, if we are to really take advantage of the opportunities that exist. If we can offer language courses to children right through the education system, starting at the nursery level, in 10 to 20 years we will have a generation of people who are at least bilingual, and hopefully multilingual.

To ensure too that they get a firm grasp on their chosen language or languages, we would suggest that the study of a foreign language is made compulsory at the level of Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate, rather than leaving it as an option for our students. By giving them that choice, we are reducing the marketability of these future workers and hindering their potential, especially given that we are seeking to encourage even greater movement of CARICOM nationals going forward. Admittedly, the way languages are taught in the school setting is not useful in real life, and in that vein we think it important that the curriculum is developed to be more practical.

The fact is, this country could benefit significantly from its workforce becoming bilingual or even multilingual, especially given the fact that we are a country that relies so heavily on tourism. We are a country that prides itself on having a sound tourism product that attracts millions of people from all over the world, and even though our international business sector may look a little different than it did in previous years, that too could benefit from a workforce that is able to effectively communicate with persons whose native tongue is not English.

Now while the inclination is often for people to pick up Spanish as a second language, and indeed Barbadians should develop a solid oral and practical knowledge of it, equally important is learning other languages such as Chinese. If we acknowledge that in excess of 130 million Chinese tourists travelled across the world in 2017, we cannot deny that the Chinese tourism market is a formidable one, and one we have to work harder at getting into.

It would therefore serve us well, if we seek to go after this market even more, to have a solid base of persons at our ports of entry, hotels, stores and restaurants who can communicate with them in their native tongue. It makes no sense attracting these persons to the island and then denying them the best vacation possible, because of the language barrier.

But it is not all about earning money and exploiting opportunities. An interesting tidbit regarding this topic, is that becoming bilingual or multilingual is said to make you smarter and can even improve your English. It is also suggested that such can stave off dementia and Alzheimer’s, which would no doubt be a benefit for a country like ours that has a growing ageing population.