From The American Scholar:
I asked five young scientists, born elsewhere but now living in the United States, whether they thought being a non-native English speaker had affected their careers. The pages I received in response can be boiled down to, well, yes….Only one of the scientists I contacted — Joachim Vandekerckhove, a native of Belgium and an assistant professor at University of California, Irvine — argues that the language barrier has not personally affected him. He even offers an upside to his non-native status: “access to a tiny but possibly relevant literature” that has never been translated into English. But Vandekerckhove is the first to attribute his success to his fluency. “I doubt I would be where I am now if I struggled with English,” he says. It was a dislike or fear of English that discouraged some of his former classmates from pursuing their master’s degrees.

For the full story, please visit http://theamericanscholar.org/no-english-no-career/#.UZ454tiGf-4.