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Anyway, I am an Akan from Ghana. Twi is my native language, and I did not have formal high school education after leaving middle school in 1971. I became a member of ICA (Ghana) by attending evening school and largely studying on my own. I only registered on (or should it be at?) this website on behalf of my teenage son who is writing the ACCA examinations.
Mike: Such students may have no intention or desire to work in an environment where English is spoken or needed and are qualifying as ACCA in order to use accounting skills as well as communication skills.
Dear Mike, Please do initiate a campaign to have ACCA examinations conducted in Chinese (Mandarin or Cantonese?), Tagalog and Farsi, because candidates speaking those languages won’t ever have any intention or desire to work in an environment where English is spoken. You could be sure of one thing if you did: I would be your self-appointed agent in Africa.
Once again, would examiner Mike award full marks for unintelligible or unclear interpretations or answers for no other reason than that the candidate wasn’t born and brought up in Cambridge, Kent or Yorkshire.
We deserve better than this kind of reasoning, Mike, if accountants are to gain the respect we are rightfully entitled to.
Point of note: English is a second language in my own case too.
That you draw attention to this error of your American manager means you’re unhappy with him on this and, therefore, on my side of the issue. I couldn’t be more grateful. Let us aspire for excellence. I would want us to place the greater emphasis on written reports and the negative effects that business entities might suffer because of unintelligible or poorly-written communication.
Probably, I descended a bit too heavily on our friend. Initially, I assumed the person was an African. Then I looked closer and found out he was Asian. Friend, I sincerely apologise to you.
While allowing for the genuine problems of people for whom English is a second or third language, though – and congratulating them for their efforts to communicate in the language – I will only accept the validity of Mike’s proposition of the non-importance of English when ACCA begins to conduct the examinations in languages such asArabic, Hindi, Urdu, Tamil and Sinhalese, or maybe Hausa or Kiswahili. Until then, we must all encourage our students to try and enhance the quality of English they write, for they need it to interprete ratios and trends in financial analysis, besides having to answer in English all the questions in some papers. I’m not too sure Mike, if he were an examiner, would award full marks for unintelligible or unclear interpretations or answers. Let us stop doing our friends this injustice of making them think an enhanced ability to communicate in English is bad in itself.
Anyway, I am an Akan from Ghana. Twi is my native language, and I did not have formal high school education after leaving middle school in 1971. I became a member of ICA (Ghana) by attending evening school and largely studying on my own. I only registered on (or should it be at?) this website on behalf of my teenage son who is writing the ACCA examinations.
I guess you will have to ‘clear’ your English before thinking of the final ACCA paper. I Sincerely, I have serious problems with people who think accountants are not required to speak or write good English. Speaking and writing perfect, or very good English in the least, should be the standard for the accounting profession. Gradually, the thought is growing in me that the professional bodies should begin to include a paper or two testing the ability of students to write and speak good English, and any candidate failing the paper(s) should be graduate as a professional accountant. The first time I read this statement “I left one option paper to clear my ACCA, but I’m thinking of taking 2 option papers in this coming December sitting”, I understood it to mean you were pursuing another course with only one paper left to complete it, but you abandoned it to pursue ACCA. Please read it to any good speaker of English, and this is the interpretation you will hear. To increase your chances of graduating into an accountant who speaks better English, please try to take additional lessons in English language. Please ask: “Will ACCA allow me to do that?” not “Is ACCA allow me to do that?”