In the globalized world of 2022, dominating English as a second language is indispensable to maintain competitiveness. Some 1.5 billion people speak it worldwide, despite being a native language only for just 400 million.
60% of the internet content is in English and the 100 most important scientific journals in the world are edited in this language. This is stated by Rosemary Salomon, professor at the University of St. John, in her book “The Ascent of English: Global Policy and the Power of Language”.
That is why there is good news for Latin America in the latest Report English Aptitude Index (EPI) of the Global Language Training Company ‘Education First’ (EF). The region, in addition to having a country with “high fitness” for English, 10 countries in the region improved their performance and achieved a “moderate aptitude” in language management. And, in addition, 3 capitals emerge in the performance in Shakespeare’s language.
And how are Costa Rica and San José?
If we compare the figures with the same 2014 report, we see that there were 10 countries in the region that managed to improve their management of English as second language: Costa Rica, Cuba, Paraguay, Bolivia, Chile, Honduras, Uruguay, El Salvador, El Salvador, Peru, Brazil, and Guatemala.
“Latin America continued to improve its management of English this year, with almost all countries increasing their scores”, says the report. “The admirable progress of the region, in the last decade, saw it change from a region of ‘low aptitude ’to a majority of ‘moderate aptitude”, he explains.
As in 2014, Argentina was the only country in the region to appear with “high fitness” in the management of English. According to the report, Argentina is the country of Latin America with the best mastery of English. This puts it in the same category of European countries such as Spain, France, and Ukraine.
What is striking is that none of the Latin American countries -despite being in the US geographical circle of influence- appeared with a “very high fit”. In this category are nations such as Netherlands, Singapore, or South Africa.
High Aptitude- Argentina
ModerateAptitude-Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Costa Rica, Cuba, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Paraguay, Uruguay, Peru
LowAptitude- Colombia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Panama, Venezuela
Very low aptitude- Mexico, Haiti
Cities with better English
Given the differences so marked that exist between the educational quality of urban and rural areas -in addition to the greatest foreign influence that businesses and tourism bring to cities- the report also included listings of cities.
Here the panorama of the region changes a bit. For example, in the list of cities with “high fitness” appear: Buenos Aires, San José, Santiago.
Latin American citieswith “ModerateAptitude”: Asunción, Bogotá, Caracas, Guatemala City, Mexico City, Panama City, Lima, Managua, Montevideo, San Salvador, Santo Domingo, Sao Paulo, Tegucigalpa.
Other findings
The report discovered another peculiarity in relation to Latin America and English: it has the largest generational gap in the world in a matter of mastery of the language. “Since 2015, Latin American adults over 25 have made significant advances, with those in their 30 having the most pronounced improvement”, says the report. “During that same period, those between 20 and 25 are maintained with stable scores, and the scores of those between 18 and 20 have fallen 60 points”.
‘Education First’ says that the gap in the management of English between men and women in the region is “unusually homogeneous”, with the scores of men with between 10 and 25 points more than those of women. “Only Haiti and Uruguay have small gaps in the English domain that favor women”.
