Do immigrants to the UK need to learn English?

Hello, I’m Jane at DailyStep English and welcome to my Audio Blog.

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This week, I want to tell you about something unexpected that happened to me last week.

On Friday morning, about nine o’clock, I received a telephone call from BBC Radio 2 asking me to be a guest on one of their programmes, speaking about Government proposals about English learning.

I was pretty surprised, of course, but it was great to be asked, and I had to really rush to get there, very …it’s about one hour from where I live but I had quite a lot of things to do before going, so it was a busy day. But it was also a really interesting experience and a very interesting subject.

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So my Audio Blog today is about that and you can also hear the interview as well.

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So, let’s move on now and look at the subject of learning English in the UK.

Learning English in the UK 
by Jane Lawson at DailyStep.com

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Should immigrants coming to the UK, or who already live in the UK, have to learn English? Or can you manage to live in a country without ever really speaking the language?

This is a hot topic in the UK at the moment. Last week the Labour Party leader, Ed Milliband, proposed that anyone who works in a publicly funded job and works with members of the public should have to have a certain standard of English.

He also said that we should reduce the amount that we spend on translation of public documents, because this makes it easier for people to avoid learning English.

Of course, it is only the first generation of immigrants who don’t speak English. Their children, who attend school along with other English kids, quickly pick up the language.

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The UK National Health Service currently spends around twenty three million pounds a year on providing interpreters for situations such as hospital appointments.

Ed Milliband is proposing that this money should be cut, and the money that is saved should be spent on improving access to English classes.

Last Friday, on 14th December, I was asked to give my opinion about this on BBC Radio 2. You can hear the interview by clicking the link at the bottom of this article.

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I think it is essential to have at least a basic standard of English if you live in the UK, or in any English speaking country.

How can you possibly manage without it? I remember a trip to Bulgaria a few years ago, and I speak no Bulgarian at all, when I was trying to buy a train ticket with only a phrasebook in my hand.

I could read the phrases with poor pronunciation, but I had no idea what the man at the ticket desk was saying to me! It made me think how difficult it is for people to come to the UK and suddenly have to speak English!

But, as you will hear if you listen to the BBC Radio 2 discussion, some people have relatives who speak English and they only mix with people from their own country, so in that case it can be easy to avoid learning the language.

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Of course, it can also be hard to find the time and energy to learn English, especially if you are working hard and perhaps supporting a family as well. That’s why it is important to learn how to study in your own time and at your own pace, and to practise a little English every day if you can.

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