WEBVTT 00:00:01.000 --> 00:00:03.000 I know what you're thinking. 00:00:03.000 --> 00:00:05.000 You think I've lost my way, 00:00:05.000 --> 00:00:07.000 and somebody's going to come on the stage in a minute 00:00:07.000 --> 00:00:09.000 and guide me gently back to my seat. 00:00:09.000 --> 00:00:15.000 (Applause) 00:00:15.000 --> 00:00:18.000 I get that all the time in Dubai. 00:00:18.000 --> 00:00:20.000 "Here on holiday are you, dear?" 00:00:20.000 --> 00:00:22.000 (Laughter) 00:00:22.000 --> 00:00:25.000 "Come to visit the children? 00:00:25.000 --> 00:00:27.000 How long are you staying?" NOTE Paragraph 00:00:27.000 --> 00:00:30.000 Well actually, I hope for a while longer yet. 00:00:30.000 --> 00:00:33.000 I have been living and teaching in the Gulf 00:00:33.000 --> 00:00:35.000 for over 30 years. 00:00:35.000 --> 00:00:39.000 (Applause) 00:00:39.000 --> 00:00:43.000 And in that time, I have seen a lot of changes. 00:00:43.000 --> 00:00:45.000 Now that statistic 00:00:45.000 --> 00:00:47.000 is quite shocking. 00:00:47.000 --> 00:00:49.000 And I want to talk to you today 00:00:49.000 --> 00:00:51.000 about language loss 00:00:51.000 --> 00:00:54.000 and the globalization of English. 00:00:54.000 --> 00:00:56.000 I want to tell you about my friend 00:00:56.000 --> 00:00:59.000 who was teaching English to adults in Abu Dhabi. 00:00:59.000 --> 00:01:01.000 And one fine day, 00:01:01.000 --> 00:01:03.000 she decided to take them into the garden 00:01:03.000 --> 00:01:05.000 to teach them some nature vocabulary. 00:01:05.000 --> 00:01:07.000 But it was she who ended up learning 00:01:07.000 --> 00:01:09.000 all the Arabic words for the local plants, 00:01:09.000 --> 00:01:11.000 as well as their uses -- 00:01:11.000 --> 00:01:14.000 medicinal uses, cosmetics, 00:01:14.000 --> 00:01:17.000 cooking, herbal. 00:01:17.000 --> 00:01:19.000 How did those students get all that knowledge? 00:01:19.000 --> 00:01:21.000 Of course, from their grandparents 00:01:21.000 --> 00:01:24.000 and even their great-grandparents. 00:01:24.000 --> 00:01:27.000 It's not necessary to tell you how important it is 00:01:27.000 --> 00:01:29.000 to be able to communicate 00:01:29.000 --> 00:01:31.000 across generations. NOTE Paragraph 00:01:31.000 --> 00:01:33.000 But sadly, today, 00:01:33.000 --> 00:01:35.000 languages are dying 00:01:35.000 --> 00:01:37.000 at an unprecedented rate. 00:01:37.000 --> 00:01:40.000 A language dies every 14 days. 00:01:41.000 --> 00:01:43.000 Now, at the same time, 00:01:43.000 --> 00:01:45.000 English is the undisputed global language. 00:01:45.000 --> 00:01:47.000 Could there be a connection? 00:01:47.000 --> 00:01:49.000 Well I don't know. 00:01:49.000 --> 00:01:52.000 But I do know that I've seen a lot of changes. 00:01:52.000 --> 00:01:55.000 When I first came out to the Gulf, I came to Kuwait 00:01:55.000 --> 00:01:58.000 in the days when it was still a hardship post. 00:01:58.000 --> 00:02:00.000 Actually, not that long ago. 00:02:00.000 --> 00:02:03.000 That is a little bit too early. 00:02:03.000 --> 00:02:05.000 But nevertheless, 00:02:05.000 --> 00:02:07.000 I was recruited by the British Council, 00:02:07.000 --> 00:02:09.000 along with about 25 other teachers. 00:02:09.000 --> 00:02:11.000 And we were the first non-Muslims 00:02:11.000 --> 00:02:14.000 to teach in the state schools there in Kuwait. 00:02:14.000 --> 00:02:16.000 We were brought to teach English 00:02:16.000 --> 00:02:20.000 because the government wanted to modernize the country 00:02:20.000 --> 00:02:23.000 and to empower the citizens through education. 00:02:23.000 --> 00:02:25.000 And of course, the U.K. benefited 00:02:25.000 --> 00:02:28.000 from some of that lovely oil wealth. NOTE Paragraph 00:02:28.000 --> 00:02:30.000 Okay. 00:02:30.000 --> 00:02:33.000 Now this is the major change that I've seen -- 00:02:33.000 --> 00:02:35.000 how teaching English 00:02:35.000 --> 00:02:37.000 has morphed 00:02:37.000 --> 00:02:41.000 from being a mutually beneficial practice 00:02:41.000 --> 00:02:44.000 to becoming a massive international business that it is today. 00:02:44.000 --> 00:02:48.000 No longer just a foreign language on the school curriculum, 00:02:48.000 --> 00:02:50.000 and no longer the sole domain 00:02:50.000 --> 00:02:52.000 of mother England, 00:02:52.000 --> 00:02:54.000 it has become a bandwagon 00:02:54.000 --> 00:02:57.000 for every English-speaking nation on earth. 00:02:57.000 --> 00:02:59.000 And why not? 00:02:59.000 --> 00:03:02.000 After all, the best education -- 00:03:02.000 --> 00:03:05.000 according to the latest World University Rankings -- 00:03:05.000 --> 00:03:07.000 is to be found in the universities 00:03:07.000 --> 00:03:11.000 of the U.K. and the U.S. 00:03:11.000 --> 00:03:15.000 So everybody wants to have an English education, naturally. 00:03:15.000 --> 00:03:17.000 But if you're not a native speaker, 00:03:17.000 --> 00:03:19.000 you have to pass a test. NOTE Paragraph 00:03:19.000 --> 00:03:21.000 Now can it be right 00:03:21.000 --> 00:03:23.000 to reject a student 00:03:23.000 --> 00:03:25.000 on linguistic ability alone? 00:03:25.000 --> 00:03:27.000 Perhaps you have a computer scientist 00:03:27.000 --> 00:03:29.000 who's a genius. 00:03:29.000 --> 00:03:32.000 Would he need the same language as a lawyer, for example? 00:03:32.000 --> 00:03:35.000 Well, I don't think so. 00:03:36.000 --> 00:03:39.000 We English teachers reject them all the time. 00:03:39.000 --> 00:03:41.000 We put a stop sign, 00:03:41.000 --> 00:03:43.000 and we stop them in their tracks. 00:03:43.000 --> 00:03:45.000 They can't pursue their dream any longer, 00:03:45.000 --> 00:03:48.000 'til they get English. 00:03:49.000 --> 00:03:52.000 Now let me put it this way: 00:03:52.000 --> 00:03:56.000 if I met a monolingual Dutch speaker 00:03:56.000 --> 00:03:58.000 who had the cure for cancer, 00:03:58.000 --> 00:04:01.000 would I stop him from entering my British University? 00:04:01.000 --> 00:04:03.000 I don't think so. 00:04:03.000 --> 00:04:06.000 But indeed, that is exactly what we do. 00:04:06.000 --> 00:04:09.000 We English teachers are the gatekeepers. 00:04:09.000 --> 00:04:12.000 And you have to satisfy us first 00:04:12.000 --> 00:04:15.000 that your English is good enough. 00:04:16.000 --> 00:04:18.000 Now it can be dangerous 00:04:18.000 --> 00:04:21.000 to give too much power 00:04:21.000 --> 00:04:23.000 to a narrow segment of society. 00:04:23.000 --> 00:04:26.000 Maybe the barrier would be too universal. NOTE Paragraph 00:04:26.000 --> 00:04:28.000 Okay. 00:04:28.000 --> 00:04:31.000 "But," I hear you say, 00:04:31.000 --> 00:04:33.000 "what about the research? 00:04:33.000 --> 00:04:35.000 It's all in English." 00:04:35.000 --> 00:04:37.000 So the books are in English, 00:04:37.000 --> 00:04:39.000 the journals are done in English, 00:04:39.000 --> 00:04:42.000 but that is a self-fulfilling prophecy. 00:04:42.000 --> 00:04:44.000 It feeds the English requirement. 00:04:44.000 --> 00:04:46.000 And so it goes on. 00:04:46.000 --> 00:04:49.000 I ask you, what happened to translation? 00:04:49.000 --> 00:04:53.000 If you think about the Islamic Golden Age, 00:04:53.000 --> 00:04:56.000 there was lots of translation then. 00:04:56.000 --> 00:04:59.000 They translated from Latin and Greek 00:04:59.000 --> 00:05:01.000 into Arabic, into Persian, 00:05:01.000 --> 00:05:03.000 and then it was translated on 00:05:03.000 --> 00:05:05.000 into the Germanic languages of Europe 00:05:05.000 --> 00:05:07.000 and the Romance languages. 00:05:07.000 --> 00:05:11.000 And so light shone upon the Dark Ages of Europe. 00:05:12.000 --> 00:05:14.000 Now don't get me wrong; 00:05:14.000 --> 00:05:16.000 I am not against teaching English, 00:05:16.000 --> 00:05:18.000 all you English teachers out there. 00:05:18.000 --> 00:05:20.000 I love it that we have a global language. 00:05:20.000 --> 00:05:23.000 We need one today more than ever. 00:05:23.000 --> 00:05:25.000 But I am against using it 00:05:25.000 --> 00:05:27.000 as a barrier. 00:05:27.000 --> 00:05:30.000 Do we really want to end up with 600 languages 00:05:30.000 --> 00:05:33.000 and the main one being English, or Chinese? 00:05:33.000 --> 00:05:36.000 We need more than that. Where do we draw the line? 00:05:36.000 --> 00:05:38.000 This system 00:05:38.000 --> 00:05:41.000 equates intelligence 00:05:41.000 --> 00:05:44.000 with a knowledge of English, 00:05:44.000 --> 00:05:46.000 which is quite arbitrary. NOTE Paragraph 00:05:46.000 --> 00:05:52.000 (Applause) NOTE Paragraph 00:05:52.000 --> 00:05:54.000 And I want to remind you 00:05:54.000 --> 00:05:57.000 that the giants upon whose shoulders 00:05:57.000 --> 00:05:59.000 today's intelligentsia stand 00:05:59.000 --> 00:06:01.000 did not have to have English, 00:06:01.000 --> 00:06:03.000 they didn't have to pass an English test. 00:06:03.000 --> 00:06:06.000 Case in point, Einstein. 00:06:07.000 --> 00:06:10.000 He, by the way, was considered remedial at school 00:06:10.000 --> 00:06:12.000 because he was, in fact, dyslexic. 00:06:12.000 --> 00:06:14.000 But fortunately for the world, 00:06:14.000 --> 00:06:17.000 he did not have to pass an English test. 00:06:17.000 --> 00:06:20.000 Because they didn't start until 1964 00:06:20.000 --> 00:06:22.000 with TOEFL, 00:06:22.000 --> 00:06:24.000 the American test of English. 00:06:24.000 --> 00:06:26.000 Now it's exploded. 00:06:26.000 --> 00:06:29.000 There are lots and lots of tests of English. 00:06:29.000 --> 00:06:31.000 And millions and millions of students 00:06:31.000 --> 00:06:33.000 take these tests every year. 00:06:33.000 --> 00:06:35.000 Now you might think, you and me, 00:06:35.000 --> 00:06:37.000 "Those fees aren't bad, they're okay," 00:06:37.000 --> 00:06:39.000 but they are prohibitive 00:06:39.000 --> 00:06:41.000 to so many millions of poor people. 00:06:41.000 --> 00:06:43.000 So immediately, we're rejecting them. NOTE Paragraph 00:06:43.000 --> 00:06:46.000 (Applause) NOTE Paragraph 00:06:46.000 --> 00:06:49.000 It brings to mind a headline I saw recently: 00:06:49.000 --> 00:06:51.000 "Education: The Great Divide." 00:06:51.000 --> 00:06:53.000 Now I get it, 00:06:53.000 --> 00:06:56.000 I understand why people would want to focus on English. 00:06:56.000 --> 00:06:59.000 They want to give their children the best chance in life. 00:07:00.000 --> 00:07:03.000 And to do that, they need a Western education. 00:07:03.000 --> 00:07:05.000 Because, of course, the best jobs 00:07:05.000 --> 00:07:08.000 go to people out of the Western Universities, 00:07:08.000 --> 00:07:10.000 that I put on earlier. 00:07:10.000 --> 00:07:12.000 It's a circular thing. NOTE Paragraph 00:07:12.000 --> 00:07:14.000 Okay. 00:07:14.000 --> 00:07:16.000 Let me tell you a story about two scientists, 00:07:16.000 --> 00:07:18.000 two English scientists. 00:07:18.000 --> 00:07:20.000 They were doing an experiment 00:07:20.000 --> 00:07:22.000 to do with genetics 00:07:22.000 --> 00:07:25.000 and the forelimbs and the hind limbs of animals. 00:07:25.000 --> 00:07:27.000 But they couldn't get the results they wanted. 00:07:27.000 --> 00:07:29.000 They really didn't know what to do, 00:07:29.000 --> 00:07:32.000 until along came a German scientist 00:07:32.000 --> 00:07:35.000 who realized that they were using two words 00:07:35.000 --> 00:07:37.000 for forelimb and hind limb, 00:07:37.000 --> 00:07:41.000 whereas genetics does not differentiate 00:07:41.000 --> 00:07:43.000 and neither does German. 00:07:43.000 --> 00:07:45.000 So bingo, 00:07:45.000 --> 00:07:47.000 problem solved. 00:07:47.000 --> 00:07:49.000 If you can't think a thought, 00:07:49.000 --> 00:07:52.000 you are stuck. 00:07:52.000 --> 00:07:54.000 But if another language can think that thought, 00:07:54.000 --> 00:07:56.000 then, by cooperating, 00:07:56.000 --> 00:07:59.000 we can achieve and learn so much more. NOTE Paragraph 00:08:01.000 --> 00:08:03.000 My daughter 00:08:03.000 --> 00:08:06.000 came to England from Kuwait. 00:08:06.000 --> 00:08:09.000 She had studied science and mathematics in Arabic. 00:08:09.000 --> 00:08:12.000 It's an Arabic-medium school. 00:08:12.000 --> 00:08:15.000 She had to translate it into English at her grammar school. 00:08:15.000 --> 00:08:17.000 And she was the best in the class 00:08:17.000 --> 00:08:19.000 at those subjects. 00:08:19.000 --> 00:08:21.000 Which tells us 00:08:21.000 --> 00:08:23.000 that when students come to us from abroad, 00:08:23.000 --> 00:08:25.000 we may not be giving them enough credit 00:08:25.000 --> 00:08:27.000 for what they know, 00:08:27.000 --> 00:08:30.000 and they know it in their own language. 00:08:30.000 --> 00:08:32.000 When a language dies, 00:08:32.000 --> 00:08:35.000 we don't know what we lose with that language. NOTE Paragraph 00:08:35.000 --> 00:08:39.000 This is -- I don't know if you saw it on CNN recently -- 00:08:39.000 --> 00:08:41.000 they gave the Heroes Award 00:08:41.000 --> 00:08:44.000 to a young Kenyan shepherd boy 00:08:44.000 --> 00:08:47.000 who couldn't study at night in his village, 00:08:47.000 --> 00:08:49.000 like all the village children, 00:08:49.000 --> 00:08:51.000 because the kerosene lamp, 00:08:51.000 --> 00:08:53.000 it had smoke and it damaged his eyes. 00:08:53.000 --> 00:08:56.000 And anyway, there was never enough kerosene, 00:08:56.000 --> 00:08:59.000 because what does a dollar a day buy for you? 00:08:59.000 --> 00:09:01.000 So he invented 00:09:01.000 --> 00:09:04.000 a cost-free solar lamp. 00:09:04.000 --> 00:09:06.000 And now the children in his village 00:09:06.000 --> 00:09:08.000 get the same grades at school 00:09:08.000 --> 00:09:12.000 as the children who have electricity at home. 00:09:12.000 --> 00:09:18.000 (Applause) 00:09:18.000 --> 00:09:20.000 When he received his award, 00:09:20.000 --> 00:09:22.000 he said these lovely words: 00:09:22.000 --> 00:09:25.000 "The children can lead Africa from what it is today, 00:09:25.000 --> 00:09:27.000 a dark continent, 00:09:27.000 --> 00:09:29.000 to a light continent." 00:09:29.000 --> 00:09:31.000 A simple idea, 00:09:31.000 --> 00:09:34.000 but it could have such far-reaching consequences. NOTE Paragraph 00:09:35.000 --> 00:09:37.000 People who have no light, 00:09:37.000 --> 00:09:40.000 whether it's physical or metaphorical, 00:09:40.000 --> 00:09:43.000 cannot pass our exams, 00:09:43.000 --> 00:09:46.000 and we can never know what they know. 00:09:46.000 --> 00:09:49.000 Let us not keep them and ourselves 00:09:49.000 --> 00:09:51.000 in the dark. 00:09:51.000 --> 00:09:54.000 Let us celebrate diversity. 00:09:54.000 --> 00:09:57.000 Mind your language. 00:09:57.000 --> 00:10:01.000 Use it to spread great ideas. NOTE Paragraph 00:10:01.000 --> 00:10:08.000 (Applause) NOTE Paragraph 00:10:08.000 --> 00:10:10.000 Thank you very much. NOTE Paragraph 00:10:10.000 --> 00:10:13.000 (Applause)