One of the simple facts of life in the present time is that the English language skills of a good proportion of it citizenry are seen as vital if a country is to participate actively in the global economy and to have access to the information and knowledge that provide the basis for both social and economic development.
This worldwide expansion of English means that it is now one of the most widely spoken languages in the world. Estimates of the numbers of speakers of English vary widely, but even the modest of these agree that there are well over 400 million speakers for whom English is a native language and many more whom English is a second or foreign language.