English for Everyone

The Educational Testing Service (ETS) —the U.S.-based organization that administers the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) and similar exams—says that Eastern European countries and Persian Gulf states like Qatar have also become big growth markets. But they are dwarfed by the hot economies of Asia. In Vietnam, the region's newest "tiger," an estimated 90 percent of all foreign-language learners now study English.

In South Korea, "the hunger for Western—and specifically U.S.—education seems to have no limits," says Bhaskar Pant, head of the ETS's Asia-Pacific operations. Many Korean universities now require all students to pass the TOEFL in order to graduate, and many employers won't hire applicants unless they're similarly qualified—even for jobs where English is not routinely used. More and more South Korean families now pack their young ones off to the United States for expensive English-only summer camps. According to Marilyn Plumlee, the president of Korea TESOL (an organization for English-language teachers), interest in Chinese at Hankuk University where she teaches has spiked, but English majors still outnumber Chinese majors by more than 2 to 1. In fact, China's rise has actually increased the desire to learn English among the country's neighbors, as they seek to maintain a competitive edge. Take Taiwan; 3 million students now study English in its schools, compared with roughly 1 million in 2001. Taiwan is also following South Korea's lead by opening an "English village."

In Japan, Mandarin has surged past French and German to become the second most popular foreign language taught in the country. But Chinese still ranks a distant second to English, which is increasing its lead. According to government statistics, in 2005 there were some 3.6 million high-school students studying English, and just 22,000 studying Chinese. And last year Tokyo created 100 "super English high schools," where core classes are taught exclusively in English.

Farther afield, Mandarin also trails far behind English in influence. David Graddol, the author of last year's British Council report, notes that Chinese is growing more popular in Europe. But he's skeptical it will ever weaken English's hold over the EU. "English has become the lingua franca of Europe ... it's the language of integration." The statistics are telling: from 2002 to 2005, the numbers of German primary-school students studying English soared from 16 percent to 47 percent, and in Greece they've doubled, from 44 percent to nearly 90 percent.

Of course, none of this guarantees that English's current importance will last forever. Graddol, for one, predicts that after peaking at 2 billion in 2010, the number of English students worldwide will begin to drop sharply. Eventually, Mandarin could replace it. But the operative word is "eventually." "Chinese will not challenge English any time soon," says David Nunan, a Hong Kong-based expert on teaching English as a second language. "English will remain the dominant global language for at least the next 50 years because of its pre-eminent position as the language of science, technology, tourism, entertainment and the media."

If study patterns are any guide, even many Chinese agree. More and more of them are heading to English classes wherever they can find them: voting with their feet in the great language election.