Is only speaking English enough to compete in the jobs market?

English may be a world language, but is it really enough to compete in the global job race?

• Loksan Harley  Guardian Professional, Friday 19 July 2013 03.30 EDT

 

      Photograph: Patrick Hertzog/AFP/Getty Images

 

Language skills boost career prospects. 

 

English is the world language, the dominant lingua franca in commerce and media. The language cruises at the apex of globalisation, technology and pop music, and is arguably at its most dominant position in its history. But is this a blessing or a curse for the people who speak it as a native language, rather than a second language? And is there any point of learning another language?

Graduates in the UK are facing stiff competition in this seemingly never-ending economic slump. Carl Gilleard, former chief executive of the Association of Graduate Recruiters (AGR), says: "Businesses require talent to compete at a global level, and the fact that the UK is lagging behind its competitors in developing graduates who fit the bill is a real cause of concern."
According to Eurostat, 54% of Europeans can converse in at least one foreign language. In comparison, just 39% of Brits claimed the same. In fact, only a 1% lower score for Ireland saves us from being labelled the most monolingual country in Europe. Aside from the slight PR boost from Nick Clegg's Dutch and Boris Johnson's French, if language is the "dress of thought", then our wardrobes are bare.

Having contracted a serious case of wanderlust on my gap year, I moved to the French-Canadian metropolis of Montréal. For me, living there while studying Chinese and economics helped push my proficiency in French far beyond my flailing GCSE level. It also helped me unshackle myself from the sluggish UK graduate jobs market by opening up opportunities in alternative countries and growth markets.

The Confederation of British Industry's Education and Skills Survey 2012 concluded that almost three quarters of businesses value foreign language skills among employees, and nearly 70% are not satisfied with young peoples' linguistic skills. German tops the list of languages rated as most useful, followed by French, Spanish, Mandarin and Polish.

A separate survey of 1,000 UK graduates revealed that 14% lost out on a job in the digital sector because they did not speak another language.
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Speaking one language gets you onto the racetrack, but two will knock down half the hurdles.  Communicating in a foreign tongue can be the most exhilarating experience. And it will probably help you get a job too.


Loksan Harley works for Kreab Gavin Anderson, an international communications consultancy.

Learning German in Ireland

The Irish Times - Monday, March 4, 2013

An Irishman's Diary

Derek Scally

There’s a little-known link between the Irish economy and the German language – something I call (Willy) Brandt’s Law.

The former West German chancellor Willy Brandt once explained the laws of linguistic engagement thus: “If I am selling to you I will speak English, but if you are selling to me, dann müssen Sie Deutsch sprechen.”

Brandt’s Law when applied to Ireland means that, when the Irish economy hits the skids, people start learning German to help find work and new opportunities. When the economy recovers, attitudes reverse and the Irish think Germans – and all others – should learn English.

Instead of seeing German as a language of culture, thought, or even love, many Irish view German as a  ... "rescue ring" to fling at schoolchildren to keep them afloat in choppy economic waters.

In the grim 1980s, German language classes boomed as emigrants headed off to the BMW plant or a beer garden job. Three decades on, as the economy follows fashion back to the 1980s, .... Irish eyes have once again settled their gaze again on Germany and German.

A new promotional campaign and website – germanconnects.ie– is an attempt by the German, Austrian and Swiss embassies to explain the benefits of learning Europe’s most commonly-spoken native tongue – spoken by almost 120 million people daily.

Conscious of its audience, however, the new website front-loads the economic benefits. At this minute there are more than 1,000 job vacancies for German-speakers in Ireland, with many more positions for skilled, German-speaking staff in continental Europe.

So is the “German Connects” website a clever attempt to tap the Zeitgeist...?  At the recent launch of the website, Dublin secondary school students presented their thoughts on the matter. Many gave unconscious nods to Brandt’s Law, saying they hoped learning German would improve their career prospects and earning potential. A few took the broader view, saying learning German “gives a better taste for Europe”.

“People think German is hard,” said Aindrias Ó hEachteirn, in fifth year at Coláiste Eoin in Booterstown. “But it’s actually a lot easier than Irish.”

Remarks like that might come as a surprise to many in Ireland, where stereotypes about the “hard” German language are stubbornly difficult to shift.

One of the greatest difficulties for Irish students learning German – or any other modern language – is facing a daunting crash course in grammar, thanks to the removal of English grammar teaching from the Irish school syllabus. Compulsory Irish lessons have caused further collateral damage.

Adding to the difficulties are special, German-only burdens. It has played second fiddle to French, which Minister for Education Ruairí Quinn suggested last month was linked to religious orders’ preference for Romance languages. Rather than learn French because the long-vanished nuns wanted to teach it, perhaps the time has come to look to German. If nothing else, it’s worth finding out what they think of us by learning their language, visiting their country and asking them directly.

Aindrias Ó hEachteirn already did that. At the website launch he brandished a well-thumbed, dual-language copy of Goethe’s epic tragedy, Faust. It’s a daunting read but, just back from a school exchange, Aindrias is anxious to learn German for more than just economic gain.

“With every language you learn,” he said, “you take off a pair of blinkers you didn’t even know you were wearing and suddenly see much more.” So is the German language hard to learn? It’s not easy but, then again, neither is watching monolingual children emigrate to far-flung English-speaking lands in search of work.

There is an emigration alternative to 23-hour flights to Sydney and watching grandchildren grow up on Skype. Learning German takes time but, long-term, the effort can open doors to new home and new opportunities just a two-hour flight from Ireland.

Before the shock of recent years passes, it’s worth learning one lesson of the economic crisis: speaking only English in a globalised world is as much a risk as it is a benefit.