We continue with our brief overview about the language market in general, its size and value.

Presently, there are varied reports on the actual size of the language learning market, however according to a recent article found in Time Magazine, the language learning market is currently valued at $83 Billion USD.  Currently 90% of this spending is spent outside of the U.S.; the U.S. market is estimated to be worth to be $5 billion USD ( Time.com )

Currently English is the dominate language, in second language acquisition market.  The current spending estimated within the global market for English as a second language, and various training products and services is worth $50 billion USD ( FP Foreign Policy )

The importance of fluency in English is becoming increasingly more important for international trade.  Vietnam has recently committed to a $1 billion USD spending program to help reach second language proficiency by 2010.  The program has also made provisions for Russian, Mandarin and French because of strong economic relationships between Russia, China, and France. ( ABC.net.au )

Spending from international students also contributes significantly to a country’s economy.  For example, in New Zealand, the number of students learning English has continued to rise over the last 3 years to their current annual spending of $142 million USD towards tuitions and related fees. ( Scoop Education ) Similarly, Canada is also experiencing significant spending from international students, which currently amounts up to $745 million CDN, which makes up nearly half of Canada’s $1.5 billion CDN language training industry. ( Languages Canada )

In 2006, President George W. Bush enacted The National Security Language Initiative, which set a budget of $114 million USD for expanding foreign language education in the United States, which had 3 key goals ( NSLI )

1.    Increase the number of Americans mastering critical need languages (Arabic, Chinese, Russian, Hindi, and Farsi )
2.    Increase the number of advanced-level speakers of foreign languages, with an emphasis on critical need languages
3.    Increase the number of teachers of critical need languages and provide resources for them.

So, to all teachers: the world is waiting for you to share your knowledge and help students in all the Countries to start and master foreign languages.

Marina

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 29th, 2009 at 9:31 am and is filed under Language Facts. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site. Your comments will appear immediately, but I reserve the right to delete innapropriate comments.