English as Colonization

I teach ESL to foreign students.  These foreign students come from all over the world to learn English so that they can return to their countries and get better jobs.  Being able to afford to send you child to Canada or England or the States or Australia, is considered a status symbol and many parents are working 80-100 hours a week, sacrificing their health and wellbeing, so that their children can leave home to learn English.  When those children leave home, often at the age of 18 or younger, they pay international student fees which are significantly higher than the subsidized fees the local students pay.  Colleges and Universities see these students as a new revenue stream and are welcoming them in the thousands.  Nearly every college and university now has some kind of ESL program to prepare students to enter the program of their choice. 

What some of the students don't understand is that it takes time to learn a language.  What they especially don't understand is that it takes a LOT of time to learn enough of a language to go to school and learn in that language.  Academic English could be considered a dialect of English.  It is vastly different from the English we use in our day to day communications.  Many of these students arrive in Canada thinking that their English is strong enough to go directly into a college or university program only to find out that they are going to have to complete 2 months - 1.5 years of ESL training first.  And for most of them, their goal isn't to learn English, it is to get a degree or diploma from a Canadian school.  They see learning English as just something to get through as quickly as possible.

My question is- Why do they have to learn English?  How has English become the international language of business?  In this time of mass globalization, why aren't English speakers learning other languages?  Shouldn't it be us who have to learn to communicate in other languages?  Shouldn't we at least make an effort? 

I often apologize to my students that they have to learn English.  Claiming rights to English as the language of business and trade is just one more way of gaining power and control.  Until we realize that there is no need for power over, and that power with is a much better way to live, we will continue to struggle with violence and war.