Foreign language is something schools and employers urge students and workers to take up on because it opens up more opportunities for them and helps them relate to more individuals on a broader scale. That’s all well and good, but what about the native language?

English is the dominant language here in the United States and yet so many people have difficulties reading, writing, and speaking English. English is taught at all levels of education. From pre-school to middle school, high school, and even in college.

At every one of those levels of education, English classes are required for almost the entire time you are there. College being the exception. You’ll probably only have one or two years without some type of English class.

Pace requires its students to take three levels of English. English 110 which is Composition. English 120 which is Critical Writing, and English 201 which is Writing in the Disciplines. Each one being more advanced than the last.

It seems like a no brainer that Pace requires its students to do this because after all its English classes and no matter where you go English classes are required. Most students don’t have a problem with the English classes itself, it’s the amount of English classes that they have to take.

Students feel that it is unnecessary that we take so many English classes but I completely disagree. I believe that the more English classes the better. In fact, I’m glad that Pace requires us to take these three English classes.

I had the opportunity to talk with Al Trautwig, a sports commentator with MSG networks, and a piece of advice he left me with was, “keep taking English classes.” In my head, I said this guy is crazy I can’t wait to be done with English.

He then added, “the more English classes you take the more you read and write and that helps with speaking.” After he said that then it hit me. He had a reasonable point. Reading and writing are things that we dread as we get older, reading more than anything and English classes forces us to keep those practice.

The English language is complex. There are subjects, predicates, words that sound the same and are spelled different, words that are spelled the same but are used differently, and so much punctuation that it’s hard to keep count.

We need to continue to refresh our minds with the rules of English and if you leave up to us individually it may or may not get done. Taking multiple English classes ensures that it gets done.