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Koko, the gorilla who knew sign language, dies at 46

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Baseball’s hit king Pete Rose to visit F.M. Kirby Center in Wilkes-Barre

<p>The English language straddles the world.</p><p>There are more than 7.5 billion people on this planet, and an estimated 1.5 billion of them speak English, <a href="https://www.babbel.com/en/magazine/how-many-people-speak-english-and-where-is-it-spoken/" target="_blank">according to Babbel.com</a>. That&#8217;s 2o percent of the Earth&#8217;s population.</p><p>What&#8217;s more remarkable is that most of those people aren&#8217;t native English speakers, as only about 360 million people claim it as their first language. That is testament to the amazing spread of English as a truly global language.</p><p>It&#8217;s not surprising then that English as a Second Language (ESL) courses are popular around the world. And it makes perfect sense that Luzerne County Community College is rolling out a new full-time ESL program starting this fall.</p><p>There are those who wring their hands over the thought that English is on the decline. That&#8217;s not true, although it has some serious rivals in several categories.</p><p>The various forms of Chinese have the largest number of native speakers by far, between 1.2 and 1.4 billion, though the bulk of them are in China and neighboring countries.</p><p>Worldwide, Spanish has more than 400 million native speakers &#8212; more than native English speakers &#8212; but only about 572 million total speakers, <a href="https://elpais.com/elpais/2017/11/29/inenglish/1511950198_079424.html" target="_blank">as Spanish newspaper El Pa&#237;s points out</a>.</p><p><a href="https://www.ethnologue.com/statistics/size" target="_blank">A study by Ethnologue researchers</a> shows that there are 38 countries where Chinese is spoken and 31 countries where Spanish is spoken.</p><p>By that criterion, it&#8217;s no contest: Ethnologue finds that there are 118 countries where English has an established presence.</p><p>The United States has never formally established English as its official language, but 80 percent of Americans &#8212; or about 238 million people &#8212; still speak English only at home.</p><p>Spanish is clearly on the rise, with 41 million native speakers in the country. Chinese comes in third, with about three-and-a-half million speaking it at home here.</p><p>Clearly, though, it makes sense for anyone who wants to be successful in this country &#8212; or in many parts of the world &#8212; to understand and be able to communicate in English.</p><p>In Luzerne County, where 10.7 percent of the 317,000 residents were Hispanic or Latino as of 2017, the need for ESL classes will only continue to grow.</p><p>&#8220;Education is the great equalizer,&#8221; <a href="https://www.timesleader.com/news/708607/lccc-rolls-out-new-english-as-a-second-language-program" target="_blank">LCCC vice president of academic affairs Cheryl Lesser said this week</a>. &#8220;With education and the ability to speak English, you have the ability to achieve whatever you want.&#8221;</p><p>&#8220;I can speak to this being a former ESL student myself,&#8221; said Rosana Reyes, LCCC&#8217;s vice president of enrollment management and student development, who with Lesser has been active in promoting the new program. They led Tuesday&#8217;s presentation about it.</p><p>&#8220;This for me is a realization of what I was hoping for when I was struggling with the language,&#8221; Reyes added. </p><p>English is alive and well in America and around the world, but we as a nation would be foolish to pretend that every immigrant comes prepared to speak it with the proficency of a native. Helping them adapt to life in this country and contribute to American society by learning to speak this amazing and powerful language is simply the right thing to do.</p><p>We have nothing but praise for LCCC&#8217;s initiative, which will fill an obvious need in the community and makes good business sense for the Nanticoke-based college.</p><style>
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Our View: Luzerne County Community College ESL program much needed