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I get that all the time in Dubai,

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"Here on holiday are you dear?"

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(Laughter)

4
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"Come to visit the children?"

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(Laughter)

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"How long are you staying?"

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Well, actually I hope
for a while longer yet.

8
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I have been living and teaching
in the Gulf for over 30 years

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(Cheers) (Applause)

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and in that time I have seen
a lot of changes.

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That statistic is quite shocking,
and I want to talk to you today

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about language loss
and the globalization of English.

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I want to tell you about my friend,

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who was teaching English
to adults in Abu Dhabi

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and one fine day, she decided
to take them into the garden

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to teach them some nature vocabulary.

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But it was she who ended up learning
all the Arabic words

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for their local plants,
as well as their uses:

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medicinal uses, cosmetics,
cooking, herbal.

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How did those students get
all that knowledge?

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Of course, from their grandparents
and even their great-grandparents.

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It's not necessary to tell you
how important it is

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to be able to communicate
across generations.

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But sadly, today, languages are dying
at an unprecedented rate.

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A language dies every 14 days.

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I don't know how they know that
but that's what they say, right?

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At the same time, English
is the undisputed global language.

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Could that be a connection?
Well, I don't know.

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But I do know that
I have seen a lot of changes.

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When I first came out to the Gulf,
I came to Kuwait,

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in the days when it was still
a hardship post.

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Actually, not that long ago;
that is a little bit too early.

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But nevertheless, I was recruited
by the British Council

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along with about 25 other teachers,

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and we were the first non-Muslims to teach
in the state schools there, in Kuwait.

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We were brought to teach English,

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because the government wanted
to modernize the country,

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and to empower the citizens
through education.

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And of course, the UK benefited
from some of that lovely oil wealth.

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OK.

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This is the major change that I have seen:

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how teaching English has morphed

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from being a mutually beneficial practice

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to becoming
a massive international business

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that it is today.

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No longer just a foreign language
on the school curriculum,

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and no longer the sole domain
of mother England.

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It has become a bandwagon

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for every English-speaking nation
on Earth.

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And why not, after all?

51
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The best education,

52
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according to the latest
world university rankings,

53
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is to be found in the universities
of the UK and the US.

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So, everybody wants to have
an English education, naturally.

55
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But if you are not a native speaker,
you have to pass a test.

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Now, can it be right to reject a student

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on linguistic ability alone?

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Perhaps you have a computer scientist
who is a genius.

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Would he need the same language
as a lawyer, for example?

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Well, I don't think so.

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We, English teachers,
reject them all the time.

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We put a stop sign,
and we stop them in their tracks;

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they can't pursue their dream
any longer till they get English.

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Let me put it this way,

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if I met a monolingual Dutch speaker,

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who had the cure for cancer,

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would I stop him from entering
my British university?

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I don't think so.

69
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But indeed, that is exactly what we do.

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We, English teachers,
are the gatekeepers,

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and you have to satisfy us first

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that your English is good enough.

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It can be dangerous to give too many...

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(Laughter) (Applause)

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to give too much power
to a narrow segment of society,

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maybe the barrier would be too universal.

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But, I hear you say,

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"What about the research?
It's all in English."

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The books are in English,

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the journals are in English,

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but that is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

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It feeds the English requirement,
and so, it goes on.

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I ask you what happened to translation?

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If you think about the Islamic Golden Age,

85
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— there were lots of translation then —

86
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they translated from Latin and Greek

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into Arabic, into Persian,

88
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and then it was translated on
into the Germanic languages of Europe,

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and the romance languages,

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and so light shone upon
the Dark Ages of Europe.

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Now, don't get me wrong,

92
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— I am not against teaching English,
all you English teachers out there —

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I am fine with it, I love it
that we have a global language,

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we need one today more than ever.

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But, I am against using it as a barrier.

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Do we really want to end up
with 600 languages

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and the main ones
being English or Chinese?

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We need more than that.

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Where do we draw the line?

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This system equates intelligence

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with a knowledge of English —

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(Laughter)

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— which is quite arbitrary.

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(Cheers) (Applause)

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And I want to remind you

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that the giants upon whose shoulders
today's intelligentsia stand,

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did not have to have English,

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— they didn't have
to pass an English test —

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case in point, Einstein.

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He, by the way, was considered
remedial at school,

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because he was in fact dyslexic.

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But fortunately for the world,
he did not have to pass an English test

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because they didn't start until 1964

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with TOEFL, the American test of English.

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Now it's exploded.

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There are lots
and lots of tests of English,

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and millions and millions of students
do take these tests every year.

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You might think, you and me,

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that those fees are not that bad,
they are OK,

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but they are prohibitive
to so many millions of poor people.

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So immediately we are rejecting them.

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(Applause)

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It brings to mind a headline
I saw recently,

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"Education: The Great Divide."

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I get it, I understand why people
would want to focus on English.

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They want to give their children
the best chance in life,

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and to do that, they need
a western education,

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because, of course, the best jobs go

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to people out of the western universities
that I put on earlier;

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it is a circular thing.

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Let me tell a story about two scientists,
two English scientists.

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They were doing an experiment
to do with genetics,

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and the forelimbs
and the hind-limbs of animals.

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But they couldn't get
the results they wanted,

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they really didn't know what to do,

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until along came a German scientist
who realized

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that they were using two words
for 'forelimb' and 'hindlimb',

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whereas genetics does not differentiate,
and neither does German.

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So, bingo! Problem solved!

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If you can't think a thought,

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you are stuck.

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But if another language
can think that thought,

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then by cooperating, we can achieve
and learn so much more.

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My daughter came to England from Kuwait.

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She had studied science and mathematics
in Arabic at an Arabic Medium School.

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She had to translate it into English
at her Grammar School,

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and she was the best in the class
at those subjects,

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which tells us that when students
come to us from abroad,

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we may not be giving them
enough credit for what they know,

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and they know it in their own language.

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When a language dies,

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we don't know what we lose
with that language.

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This is a lovely —

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I don't know if you saw it
on CNN recently,

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they gave the Heroes Award

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to a young Kenyan Shepard boy

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who couldn't study at night in his village
— like all the village children —

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because the kerosene lamp
it had smoke and it damaged his eyes,

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and anyway, there was never
enough kerosene

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because what does
a dollar a day buy for you?

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So, he invented a cost-free solar lamp,

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and now, the children in his village
get the same grades at school

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as the children
who have electricity at home.

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(Applause)

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When he received his award,
he said these lovely words:

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"The children can lead Africa
from what it is today,

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a dark continent, to a light continent."

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A simple idea, but it could have
such far-reaching consequences.

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People who have no light,

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whether it's physical or metaphorical,

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cannot pass our exams,

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and we can never know what they know.

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Let us not keep them,
and ourselves, in the dark.

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Let us celebrate diversity.

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Mind your language!

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Use it to spread great ideas!

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(Applause)