ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND EMPLOYABILITY IN THE ERA OF GLOBALIZATION: AN OVERVIEW

Westernization or modernisation ushered in by colonization and the later developments of globalisation are the causatives for English gaining priority in India. The failure to evolve Hindi as a national language and also as a link-language is another reason for our dependency on English. In the era of globalisation with easy and inevitable necessity of trans-national crossing over for reasons of education, business, employment, tourism etc our dependency on English has further increased. It is no longer the language of convenience but also the language of empowerment; psychologically, economically and socially. The topic becomes important in the light of the fact that the Policy makers caught in between the traditionalists and the liberals as to the importance of English have failed to evolve a right language learning policy for the country. They have also failed to evolve a sustainable language formula for primary and secondary education to the whole of India. Against this problem the paper aims to discuss the relation between business, employability and English language in the contemporary society of India. The changing trends in employees’ attitudes towards employment and employers parameters of demands from the employees in all walks of business activity; production, marketing and sales-an individual’s employability is as much decided by English language skills along with vocational skills. The paper will discuss the problems related to English acquisition skills in our youths and the modes of overcoming it.