ENGLISH without doubt is the undisputed, acknowledged and unarguably the most widely-used language in the world not in terms of the number of persons using it though but in terms of the wideness of its scope used all over the globe. In fact, the only acknowledged language of aviation is English, not Farsi or Mandarin. So everybody needs to learn English. Here in Salamanca, Spain for example, a lot of people here especially in the hospitality industry are fluent speakers in English. They need to be so because there are lots of British tourists here all year round even during winter simply because the Iberian Peninsula where Spain is located has a very temperate climate all throughout the year. But since Salamanca has just been the set of a Hollywood movie, a lot of American actors and actresses trooped here last year. And people who acted as extras in the various scenes of Vantage Point are happy to know that they could learn to speak English the American way complete with the rhotic accent thanks largely to the competent English dialogue coaches of Vantage Point. The only English they have learned so far prior to the movie shooting was the non-rhotic form which is largely used in Britain. For now, English language schools here have already inculcated both non-rhotic and rhotic accents in their curriculum; the former with British or Australian instructors at the helm while in the latter, the instructors must be American. If you like to emulate what you have been seeing on Sky News, then take the British English program but if you like to emulate what you have been seeing on Fox, then take the American English program.

But it is not just here in Salamanca that English has gained a strong following as the most acquired second language among its residents. In such beaches as Palma de Mallorca, English is used by resort staff. These staff has been competently trained by Swiss hotel schools and Spanish resorts as we know them only apply the best standards in the industry. After all, many students from England troop there in Palma de Mallorca every summer and Christmas vacation because of largely erratic weather patterns in their place.

In Mexico, a lot of residents there especially the entrepreneurial ones are struggling to learn English. With the business climate of Mexico now open to international trading since the turn of this decade in 2000 and with most of these businessmen coming from their northerly neighbor United States via El Paso and Laredo, a lot of Mexican businessmen are negotiating with their American counterparts and they admittedly have the edge if they know English.

In the United States itself, there are lots of non-English speakers especially the Hispanics and the immigrants coming in from Finland, Estonia and Taiwan and it is where current basic education efforts are focused especially with the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act in 2002.