> If you're an ESL speaker or something thinking this will be useful, I'd suggest caution (heh, changed that from 'very wary').
I will suggest one more thing. Define an acronym, abbreviation once before usage.
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I think it's widely known by English as a Second Language speakers, and it was only an example anyway, but sure, fair enough, thanks.
Just to give my experience, I actually didn't know what that acronym meant. I tried googling it but "ESL speaker" only gave results about loudspeakers and just "ESL" was mostly about some German Company.
I even thought it had to do with sign language at first but didn't get the meaning of the sentence in that case!
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A little off-topic but that makes me think of another HN thread some months ago talking about acronyms like "SRE" or "SWE" (and some others I since forgot), that many HNers assumed to be understood by everyone. Many non-american/english developers actually never encountered those (including I, I've been software engineer since at least 8 years and never saw those terms beside HN, like I would think most in my country) and it led to the same kind of incomprehension.
I tried googling all three + "abbreviation" so for example "SRE abbreviation" and the first result for all three was the actual term for the abbreviation.
I thought so (as an english-as-first-language), but I've met a bunch of people around the world who didn't know what ESL meant. I get the feeling the phrase is most known in American.
ESL is standard in English english too.
Never heard it in England as a foreign student in a British university.
Well, my first wife was a schoolteacher, and my daughter is a schoolteacher. My second wife was a careers adviser. My son taught English as a second language for a while. So perhaps it's "trade jargon" that I have integrated.
For me, ESL is the Electronic Sports League :-) Good old times!
I thought it was video game tournament production company
first link I get