To help develop our communication skills. To help develop our literacy skills. To gain some proficiency in speaking another language. To help develop our skills in flexible thinking and problem solving. To broaden our job skills and career options.
Language is one of the chief ways in which people show who they are and where they belong.
It is important not to forget the fact that, even if one third of the world is now regularly exposed to English, this still means that two thirds are not. We need only to walk up a side street in a city, or pause at a village on our way to a destination, to experience the world's remarkable linguistic diversity.