As far as I see it, “Brexit” will cause a seismic shift in how we communicate with Europe. French and German are almost as widely spoken in Europe. The question is, for how long will British English remain number one in the EU institutions? And how is Brexit going to affect English language teaching and learning?
It's
obvious people will continue to study English for many different reasons: Almost
2 billion people around the world speak English; British pop music spread
English worldwide and faster than any other source. Even multinational
companies like Samsung have adopted English as a language to improve
communication for their business endeavours.
American
culture has played a significant role in spreading the English language too,
and many students want to be able to watch films and TV shows in American
English.
My first
guess is that American English will eventually be the leading variety of
English, and that the English spoken in Europe as "lingua-franca"
will continue evolving on its own, creating sort of a "Euro-English".
On the
other hand, Ireland will become the only English native-speaking member state,
which could make Ireland a more attractive location for foreign students, – something which will affect positively the Irish economy. Without the support of a
grant from the Erasmus programmes, EU school and university students will no
longer be able to afford a cultural exchange year in Great Britain, so I assume they will try to go to Ireland instead.
Should
we all start studying French or German now?
