English, which has attained the status of a lingua franca, continues to have its sway as a dominantlanguage of power in global commerce, science, technology and communication. Hence the need forlearning and teaching English has become inevitable. In the wake of the twenty-first century, an alarmof economic crisis has been sounded at the global level. In this scenario, those nations which havebeen blessed with abundant natural resources enjoy greater potential for economic affluence thanother countries. If they make use of English as a powerful tool for their commercial interactions withother countries, greater advantages could be achieved. Hence nations which are aware of thisopportunity, including the Arab countries, have designed their academic curricula of teaching Englishto gear up their economic development. Libya is one of the Arab countries where the government hasinvested a large amount of money for education, with special thrust on ELT in schools anduniversities, with the sole aim of enhancing its economic, social and educational status. For theachievement of this target of economic prosperity, appropriate syllabi, effective learning strategies andteaching methodologies have been evolved to tap the resources and to bring out the specialcapacities of Libyan students. But there are hurdles to cross in the acquisition of the four basiclanguage skills in English along with the cultivation of soft skills. However, this Herculean task needsto be done for the growth and prosperity of Libya. Hence this paper focuses on the importance ofEnglish Language Teaching (ELT) for the economic development in Libya, in the context of its socio -economic conditions with suggestions for further progress.
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