Causes Why Muslim Should Learn English

Nowadays, the understanding of learning English is sometimes controversial. Many people still have a mindset that learning English becomes a factor why people leave her/his own culture, language, or even style.  Actually, those kinds of perspective are natural since everybody has their own opinion on facing this issue. However, we cannot let that perspective hamper others who are eager to learn English for their necessity. And this is also influence some institutional education, specifically Islamic education systems, whether Muslim needs to include English on their teaching learning process. There are at least 3 causes why we should keep including English to the Islamic education system.

Firstly, English is a global language that helps us compete the modern era. By having a good skill in English, we are able to do many things more than others. For instance, when somebody has the ability in speaking English while he/she majors in the other subject, of course they can spread their wings by working or studying abroad. This is one of advantage we can take from learning English. We, as the Muslim, are not forbidden to learn any language such as English, Dutch, French, or Arabic. It is no use worrying about how we can learn English which language is dominated by non-Islamic country. As long as we have good intention on learning something useful, I believe everything goes well.

Secondly, not every country which has Islamic education system uses English as their first language, so it is important that they learn it constantly to improve their own ability. Remember that there is a saying we should learn as more as possible. That is why learning others language can be a way to enhance our self-improvement. Our prophet does want us become an educated and intelligent people. There are also a lot of effort we can do to make us eager learning English.

Thirdly, Moslem who learns English doesn’t mean have to follow the culture of English speaking country. This case is the most controversial issue today. Many people get the wrong understanding on it. They believe by learning a new language they also should follow its culture, in fact it should be something we can collaborate with our own culture. Take English for example; it is easy to find Indonesian who learns English lead their life as if they are English.

This is not true, because learning another language is for gaining a new knowledge, not for adopting the culture from that country, so we have to pay attention to this matter, studying is not adopting.

In summary, learning English is good for our own skill. The things we should understand is how can we make that ability without changing our own culture. A good understanding about this really helps us get better in the future. So, worry no more about every controversial opinion, just take the time for studying and be the best generation.