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Hundreds of millions of people around the world are trying to learn English for career. The number of institutions teaching foreign languages is increasing day by day. Well, have you ever wondered why so many students or white-collar office workers are trying to learn that language? Or, we wonder if you have ever thought about whether English is a must for your career. Since we think that this issue needs to be clarified with real-life examples, we would like to emphasize how important it is for your career with the true life stories below.
We would like to emphasize that in the global world, where digitalization and artificial intelligence increase in importance and scope every day, one of the two languages of technology is mathematics and the other is English. In other words, knowledge of mathematics and foreign language is indispensable in almost every field of technology and artificial intelligence, from the mobile applications you use on your mobile phones to the games you are familiar with on our tablets and computers.
Why Is English Important for Career Advancement?
In this context, we must point out that learning a foreign language is now at the centre of all of our lives. In line with that, every evening we hear on the news how much the annual fees for private schools have increased. The main reason why these private schools are so expensive is that they provide foreign language education starting from kindergarten and the average class size is 20-25 people.
In other words, parents actually pay these high fees to ensure that their children learn a foreign language in general and English in particular. In addition, both university students and employees intensively participate in preparation courses for English proficiency exams such as TOEFL and IELTS. Because everyone knows that if you have a good command of that language, your chances of studying at a university abroad increase and the salary you receive at your current workplace will be higher than those who do not speak a foreign language.
In light of this information, we must now accept that those who have young children try to learn English through private schools and those who are older try to improve their language ability through private courses. All of this is actually because knowing a foreign language has become a prerequisite for having a better standard of living. In this context, according to research, if China and India are included, almost 1 billion people in the world are actively learning or trying to learn English for career. You are very aware of your competitors, right?
At this stage, we will tell you a few career real life stories about the benefits of knowing English for your career below.
Key Areas Where English Impacts Your Career
“Before I started to work at my current job, I had knew that foreign language at upper-intermediate level, but I had not have a TOEFL certificate. Sometime after I started working, I witnessed a conversation my colleagues had among themselves. In their talk, I learned that the monthly salaries of my friends who have a good level of English and who could document this good level with proficiency exams were more than me.
In other words, my friends who knew a good foreign language and documented this with one of the Proficiency exams were earning better than me. After learning this, I immediately enrolled in a course and focused on the TOEFL exam. After a certain period of time, when I felt ready and sufficient, I decided to take the TOEFL (since the exam is expensive).Then, I got enough points from the exam and my salary increased by a certain amount. I have to admit, while I was at university, I regretted why I didn’t improve my English and take the good enough TOEFL score.
While I had a lot of free time at the university, I had to do this after I got a job and I lost a lot of time. As you have already understood you should handle this English issue in your senior year at last. Finally, I should say that it is necessary to know English for career and, in some cases, to get a better salary :)”
Apart from such positive examples, there are also some negative examples, especially for middle-aged employees. In our next example, we will read about the struggle of a friend of ours whose English level is quite low, with a foreign language.
Success Stories: How English for Career Opens Doors
“I have been working in a logistics company for many years. In fact, I have an important role in the company’s accounting department and I am happy with my title. But recently, the issue of selling our company to an international company has come to the fore. Frankly, when I heard about this issue during tea and coffee conversations among employees, it did not interest me much.
However, when things turned into reality and our company was sold to foreigners, the manager of the department I worked for decided to retire. After this incident, it was decided to merge the accounting department and the international relations department. To replace my retired manager, our senior management started looking for a manager who was both knowledgeable in accounting and fluent in English.
I was now in the middle of this purchasing issue, which did not attract my attention at first. I was good at the technical side of the job and I think I was the most suitable candidate for this position. With this confidence, I asked for an appointment with our finance director, and when the appointment date arrived, I knocked on the door and entered his room.
When I left the room, I was completely devastated. Since I did not know and speak English well, I was told to my face that someone from outside the company would be appointed to the position even though my technical knowledge was high. In other words, it was said to me that foreign language skills were essential since the position required make meetings abroad. With this bitter experience, I have experienced how wrong my thought was that “I am an accountant and I do not need to learn English for career.”
When I left the room I decided to learn it.”
Tips to Improve Your English for Career Success
Whether you are a student or a white-collar office worker, your knowledge of a foreign language could become very important one day. As we have seen in our example real life stories, when we talk about English for career, regardless of age and profession, your knowledge of a foreign language will always take you one step ahead of other candidates or colleagues in terms of salary and job satisfaction. By the way, it should be noted that everyone generally makes a mistake when asked about foreign language knowledge in workplaces. For example, in the job application form, we generally mark “intermediate” in the foreign language level section. This is wrong behaviour.
The foreign language level required in those forms or during the job application phase is at least an intermediate level of “speaking”. In other words, if you do not have enough language skills to continue the interview in a foreign language when the conversation turns to English during the interview, we do not recommend that you write intermediate level on that form. Let’s make a general summary after mentioning this mistake that is generally made during the job application phase when it comes to English for career. Please learn a lesson for yourself based on similar examples above that our editors have experienced or witnessed.
So, whether you are a freshman or a senior at university, start working now to reach a level of that language that you can document and speak with proficiency exams.
English is Essential for Artificial Intelligence!
On the other hand, if you are currently a white-collar office worker, you should understand that English is important for your career and try to learn or improve your foreign language from now on.
To sum up, as we have emphasized before, with the latest artificial intelligence developments, the world is becoming increasingly digital and robotic technologies are gradually pervading every aspect of our lives. We would like to reiterate that the two languages of technology and generative artificial intelligence (See OpenAI article) are mathematics and English. So, it is clear that knowledge of mathematics and the language will be very advantageous for countries that want to lead the world and individuals who want to have a good career in the future. The decision is yours 😊
