When I was in class V, I was admitted to an English medium school from Kannada medium. In the beginning of those days, I was literally confused and striving hard to survive in English medium. The worst thing was that I was unaware of the spellings and did not even know the difference between ‘I’ and ‘E’.
The very first day in the class, my English teacher started to dictate the notes. She asked the class to write ‘is’ but I had written it as ‘es’. After seeing my book, she started laughing. I was embarrassed. Later she called me separately and told me not to feel bad. She assured me to teach the language.
After this, when I started to learn the language, I came to know that English was not so difficult a language. If we made concentrated and consistent effort surely we will learn it in no time. My teacher suggested me to watch English movies, and read English books. In the process of my reading books written by William Shakespeare, my fascinated with the language great. Moreover, his all works are fantastic though many of them have a tragic ending. I remember his King Lear play till today.
Today in the morning my mobile phone showed the notification – April 23 as William Shakespeare’s birth and death anniversary and that it is observed as World English Day. And here I am writing about the language.
English is a widely spoken language in the world. Around 952 million people are speaking English and 603 million people are using English as their second language.
The theme of the World English Day 2023 is ‘English as a Global Language’ and ‘English and Creativity’. The focus is on the role of English’s influence on global communication, culture and education.
World English Day’s significance lies in its capacity to unite people from diverse culture and background through a shared language. Furthermore, it presents an opportunity to foster multilingualism and encourage individuals to learn and utilise more than one language, resulting in a more comprehensive understanding and appreciation of distinct cultures.