WHY ENGLISH IS IMPORTANT IN MY LIFE

My name is XXXXX IB MBA student from XXXXX University, Thailand. I have finished my first degree since 1992 and left my class rooms and schools for 15 years. Now I started again my learning at a campus.

Business courses were forgotten by many activists and politicians for a long time. In deed, - - -
business is foundation layer while others are in higher infrastructures such as politic, education, etc. Therefore no one ought to ignore business field to build and modernize his or her country. In last recent years, many world leaders looked back to the economic sector and sent their new generation to business schools since they understand that business is major requirement in nation building. After gaining democracy in Burma, we must need to reestablish many sectors including business to reach modern nation and to be able to maintain the democracy we achieved. On this point of view, I want to learn some kinds of business subjects. The MBA course I planned to study is formed with many useful subjects such as organization and management, financial management, international human resources management, etc. Obviously, this course is very similar with the Community Management course I am working for. Therefore I chose to learn this course as my further study.

If some one take a glance to my country, (s)he will find that at the moment Burma is in political deadlock. This problem was rooted before gaining independence on 4 January 1948. Unfortunately, Burmese people achieved the independence with political disputes and ethnic conflicts leading civil war 60 years long. I was born under control of Burmese Socialist Programme Party. In my childhood, I saw some student movements, worker movements, but I didn’t know the reasons creating such chaos.

I passed ten-standard in 1983 and attended Mathematic major in 1983-84 academic year at Mandalay University. While I was learning in university, I started to read some books as well as the Mathematic course books. As a result I recognized mismanagement of ruling government. In addition I started to worry my future carrier after the university course. At this time many graduates were unemployment and further study was out of their reach.

In 1992, I finished my first degree with Mathematics from YASU Yangon Art and Science University. Although our course was just four years long because of school closure since end of 1988 with political reasons, my learning years took nearly nine years.

After the school I tried to get proper job but unfortunately, I didn’t get. It occurred for two reasons first was uncertainty for graduate students and second was my competencies. Although I had learned nine years in my university academic years, I did not gain enough knowledge and skills including English language skill.

From 1995 to 1998, I performed as school teacher at a secondary school in Kayah State. During the years I worked as school teacher, I started to learn my further study to fulfill my competencies with distance learning course “Community Management Certificate III from TAFE-SA” and found myself very poor in English language skills. But I realized that English is very important in my life for prosperity. Then, I extended my thinking how about for others including native speakers and non-native speakers. I found that English is important not only for me but also others.

Nevertheless, I wondered why English is so important. I started to dig to seek sound answers for my question. My friend told me that after Mandarin, English is the language the most people speak and it is the native language of more than 350 million people. Besides, English is the international language of diplomacy, business, science, technology, banking, computing, medicine, aviation, UN & NATO armed forces, engineering, tourism, Hollywood films and arguably the best pop and rock music in the world.

I know that the English is one of strongest language in the world. In my country, there are over hundred ethnic groups and they are speaking their mother tongue. Most languages are weak and are not able to articulate their intension. As a result, there are lot misunderstandings among them. Some times it leads them to ethnic conflict. For English there are plenty of words to choose from. It supports us to express our feeling and meaning with 500,000 to 1000000 words including technical and scientific terms. Fortunately, I have learned that most English speakers do very well with a vocabulary of around 20,000 words.

The English is communication tool and medium between valuable knowledge sources and me. In my country, I can read only translation versions for my outside reading so I had to learn some subjects and new thinking with translator’s wording. After learning English for Intermediate level, I could explore new world freely via books with assistance of English language. Moreover, the English language skills give chances to gain good grade in my study, to get good relation with my classmates, advisors, instructors, etc. In deed, English is a key to open the door of treasure cave.

I would like to state some benefits that came out from English learning. I have completed ‘Community Management Certificate III and IV’, I could communicate with other people who speak different language from mine, I gained higher position in my job, I have been able to write business letters including proposal, report, memo, etc. For opportunity benefits, I receive many advantages in my life from time to time. To sum up, I can affirm that English has reborn me with plenty of advantages to survive in the changing world.