Znam šta mislite. Mislite da sam se izgubila, i da će neko uskoro doći na binu i otpratiti me nazad do sjedišta. (Aplauz) To mi se stalno dešava u Dubajiu. "Jeste li ovdje na odmoru?" (Smijeh) "Došli ste posjetiti djecu? Koliko dugo ostajete?"
I know what you're thinking. You think I've lost my way, and somebody's going to come on the stage in a minute and guide me gently back to my seat. (Applause) I get that all the time in Dubai. "Here on holiday are you, dear?" (Laughter) "Come to visit the children? How long are you staying?"
Zapravo, nadam se da ću još biti tu. U Zaljevu živim i podučavam preko 30 godina. (Aplauz) I za to vrijeme sam vidjela mnoge promjene. Statistički podaci tih promjena su prilično šokantni. Danas vam želim pričati o gubitku jezika i globalizaciji engleskog jezika. Ispričati ću vam o mom prijatelju koji je u Abu Dhabiju podučavao engleski odraslim osobama. Jednog lijepog dana je odlučila da ih izvede u baštu da ih nauči nešto vokabulara iz prirodnog svijeta. Ali je na kraju ona naučila sve arapske riječi za domaće biljke, kao i upotrebu -- u medicini, kozmetici, kuhanju, uzgoju. Kako su ti studenti znali toliko o biljkama? Od djedova i baka, naravno čak i od pra-djedova i pra-baka. Nema potrebe da vam govorim koliko je važna komunikacija kroz generacije.
Well actually, I hope for a while longer yet. I have been living and teaching in the Gulf for over 30 years. (Applause) And in that time, I have seen a lot of changes. Now that statistic is quite shocking. And I want to talk to you today about language loss and the globalization of English. I want to tell you about my friend who was teaching English to adults in Abu Dhabi. And one fine day, she decided to take them into the garden to teach them some nature vocabulary. But it was she who ended up learning all the Arabic words for the local plants, as well as their uses -- medicinal uses, cosmetics, cooking, herbal. How did those students get all that knowledge? Of course, from their grandparents and even their great-grandparents. It's not necessary to tell you how important it is to be able to communicate across generations.
Ali nažalost, danas, jezici izumiru brzo kao nikad prije. Jedan jezik nestaje svakih 14 dana. U isto vrijeme engleski je svjetski jezik bez osporavanja. Postoji li neka povezanost? Ne znam. Ali znam da sam svjedočila mnogim promjenama. Kada sam prvi put došla u Zaljev, posjetila sam Kuwajt. u vremenu kada je još uvijek bilo mjesto mnogih tegoba. Zapravo, to nije bilo tako davno. To je prerano. Međutim, Britanski Savjet me je zaposlio zajedno sa još 25 učitelja. Mi smo bili prvi ne-muslimani koji su podučavali u državnim školama u Kuwajtu. Došli smo tamo da podučavamo engleski jer je vlada htjela da modernizira zemlju i da osnaži građane kroz obrazovanje. Naravno da je Ujedinjeno Kraljevstvo imalo korist od tog divnog naftnog bogastva.
But sadly, today, languages are dying at an unprecedented rate. A language dies every 14 days. Now, at the same time, English is the undisputed global language. Could there be a connection? Well I don't know. But I do know that I've seen a lot of changes. When I first came out to the Gulf, I came to Kuwait in the days when it was still a hardship post. Actually, not that long ago. That is a little bit too early. But nevertheless, I was recruited by the British Council, along with about 25 other teachers. And we were the first non-Muslims to teach in the state schools there in Kuwait. We were brought to teach English because the government wanted to modernize the country and to empower the citizens through education. And of course, the U.K. benefited from some of that lovely oil wealth.
U redu. Ovo je najveća promjena kojoj sam svjedočila -- kako je podučavanje engleskog prešlo iz obostrano korisne prakse u veliki međunarnodni posao što je i danas. Više nije strani jezik u nastavnom planu i programu. I više nije jedini domen majke Engleske. Postao je cilj svake države iz engleskog govornog područja na zemlji. Zašto ne? Na koncu, najbolje obrazovanje -- prema najnovijem rankiranju svjetskih univerziteta -- se nudi na univerzitetima u Ujedinjenom Kraljevstvu i Sjedinjenim Američkim Državama. Stoga je prirodno da svako želi da ima takvo obrazovanje. Ali ako vam engleski nije maternji jezik, morate da položite test.
Okay. Now this is the major change that I've seen -- how teaching English has morphed from being a mutually beneficial practice to becoming a massive international business that it is today. No longer just a foreign language on the school curriculum, and no longer the sole domain of mother England, it has become a bandwagon for every English-speaking nation on earth. And why not? After all, the best education -- according to the latest World University Rankings -- is to be found in the universities of the U.K. and the U.S. So everybody wants to have an English education, naturally. But if you're not a native speaker, you have to pass a test.
Ali da li je pravilno da se odbije student samo prema lingvističkim sposobnostima? Možda je pred vama kompjuterski inženjer koji je genije. Da li će njemu trebati isti jezik kao i advokatu, naprimjer? Mislim da neće. Mi profesori engleskog jezika ih odbijamo konstantno. Stavimo stop znak, i zaustavimo ih na njihovom cilju. Više ne mogu ostvariti svoje snove, dok ne nauče engleski. Recimo ovako, ako ja upoznam nekoga ko zna samo nizozemski ko ima lijek za rak, hoću li ga spriječiti da pohađa moj Britanski Univerzitet? Naravno da neću. Doduše, to mi upravo radimo. Mi profesori engleskog jezika smo čuvari kapije. Mi moramo biti zadovoljni sa vašim poznavanjem engleskog jezika. Može biti opasno dati veliku ovlast ograničenom segmentu društva. Možda bi barijera bila preuniverzalna.
Now can it be right to reject a student on linguistic ability alone? Perhaps you have a computer scientist who's a genius. Would he need the same language as a lawyer, for example? Well, I don't think so. We English teachers reject them all the time. We put a stop sign, and we stop them in their tracks. They can't pursue their dream any longer, 'til they get English. Now let me put it this way: if I met a monolingual Dutch speaker who had the cure for cancer, would I stop him from entering my British University? I don't think so. But indeed, that is exactly what we do. We English teachers are the gatekeepers. And you have to satisfy us first that your English is good enough. Now it can be dangerous to give too much power to a narrow segment of society. Maybe the barrier would be too universal.
Uredu. "Ali," vi se pitate, "šta je sa istraživanjem? Sve je na engleskom." Knjige su na engleskom, časopisi su na engleskom, ali to je samoispunjujuće proročanstvo. Tako potvrđuje potrebu za poznavanjem engleskog jezika. I tako redom. Šta se desilo za prevođenjem? Za vrijeme Islamskog Zlatnog doba mnogo se prevodilo. Prevodili su sa latinskog i grčkog na arapski i perzijski, a onda se prevodilo dalje na germanske i romanske jezike Evrope. I tako je Evropa izašla iz mračnog doba. Nemojte me pogrešno shvatiti; ja nisam protiv podučavanja engleskog jezika, svi vi profesori engleskog jezika. Volim što imamo globalni jezik. Danas nam jedan takav treba više nego ikada. Ali ja sam protiv njegovog korištenja kao barijere. Zar stvarno želimo da na kraju imamo 600 jezika a da glavni bude engleski, ili kineski? Treba nam više od toga. Gdje ćemo povući granicu? Ovakav sistem izjednačava inteligenciju sa poznavanjem engleskog jezika a takvo izjednačavanje nema osnove.
Okay. "But," I hear you say, "what about the research? It's all in English." So the books are in English, the journals are done in English, but that is a self-fulfilling prophecy. It feeds the English requirement. And so it goes on. I ask you, what happened to translation? If you think about the Islamic Golden Age, there was lots of translation then. They translated from Latin and Greek into Arabic, into Persian, and then it was translated on into the Germanic languages of Europe and the Romance languages. And so light shone upon the Dark Ages of Europe. Now don't get me wrong; I am not against teaching English, all you English teachers out there. I love it that we have a global language. We need one today more than ever. But I am against using it as a barrier. Do we really want to end up with 600 languages and the main one being English, or Chinese? We need more than that. Where do we draw the line? This system equates intelligence with a knowledge of English, which is quite arbitrary.
(Aplauz)
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Želim vas podsjetiti na to da velikani na čijim ramenima stoji današnja inteligencija nisu morali znati engleski jezik, nisu morali položiti test. Uzmimo za primjer, Einsteina. On je pohađao dopunsku nastavu u školi jer je zapravo bio disleksičan. Ali na sreću nije morao polagati test o poznavanju engleskog jezika. Tek nakon 1964 su počeli sa TOEFL-om (test o poznavanju engleskog kao stranog jezika), američkim testom engleskog jezika. Danas su se testovi proširili. Postoji mnogo testova engleskog jezika. I milioni studenata polažu ove testove svake godine. Mi možda smatramo da cijene testova nisu loše, razumne su, ali sprečavaju milione siromašnih ljudi. Mi ih smjesta odbacujemo.
And I want to remind you that the giants upon whose shoulders today's intelligentsia stand did not have to have English, they didn't have to pass an English test. Case in point, Einstein. He, by the way, was considered remedial at school because he was, in fact, dyslexic. But fortunately for the world, he did not have to pass an English test. Because they didn't start until 1964 with TOEFL, the American test of English. Now it's exploded. There are lots and lots of tests of English. And millions and millions of students take these tests every year. Now you might think, you and me, "Those fees aren't bad, they're okay," but they are prohibitive to so many millions of poor people. So immediately, we're rejecting them.
(Aplauz)
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To me podsjeti na novinski naslov koji sam vidjela nedavno: "Obrazovanje: Velika granica." Sada shvatam zašto ljudi se fokusiraju na engleski jezik. Oni žele svojoj djeci pružiti najbolje u životu. A za to im je potrebno zapadno obrazovanje. Jer najbolja radna mjesta se daju ljudima koja su pohađali univerzitete na zapadu, koje sam spomenula ranije. To je začarani krug.
It brings to mind a headline I saw recently: "Education: The Great Divide." Now I get it, I understand why people would want to focus on English. They want to give their children the best chance in life. And to do that, they need a Western education. Because, of course, the best jobs go to people out of the Western Universities, that I put on earlier. It's a circular thing.
Uredu. Ispričati ću vam priču o dva naučnika, dva engleska naučnika. Vršili su eksperiment iz genetike o prednjim i stražnjim udovima životinja. Ali nisu dobili željeni rezultat. Zaista nisu znali šta da rade, dok nije došao njemački naučnik koji je shvatio da su koristili dvije riječi za prednje i stražnje udove, međutim u genetici nema razlike kao ni u njemačkom jeziku. I eto ga, problem je riješen. Ako ne možete doći do ideje, nema izlaza. Ali ako drugi jezik može doći do ideje, onda, uz pomoć suradnje, možemo postići i naučiti mnogo toga.
Okay. Let me tell you a story about two scientists, two English scientists. They were doing an experiment to do with genetics and the forelimbs and the hind limbs of animals. But they couldn't get the results they wanted. They really didn't know what to do, until along came a German scientist who realized that they were using two words for forelimb and hind limb, whereas genetics does not differentiate and neither does German. So bingo, problem solved. If you can't think a thought, you are stuck. But if another language can think that thought, then, by cooperating, we can achieve and learn so much more.
Moja kćerka je došla u Englesku iz Kuvajta. Studirala je prirodne nauke i matematiku na arapskom u jednoj arapskoj srednjoj školi. U gimnaziji je to morala prevesti na engleski. Bila je najbolja u razredru iz tih predmeta. To nam govori da, kada učenici dođu iz inostranstva, mi im ne dajemo dovoljno priznanja za ono što znaju, a to znaju na svom maternjem jeziku. Kada jezik izumre, mi ne znamo šta gubimo zajedno sa tim jezikom.
My daughter came to England from Kuwait. She had studied science and mathematics in Arabic. It's an Arabic-medium school. She had to translate it into English at her grammar school. And she was the best in the class at those subjects. Which tells us that when students come to us from abroad, we may not be giving them enough credit for what they know, and they know it in their own language. When a language dies, we don't know what we lose with that language.
Ne znam jeste li gledali nedavno na CNN-u -- Nagradu za junaštvo je dobio mladi pastir iz Kenije koji u svom selu nije mogao noću učiti kao druga seoska djeca, jer je petrolejska lampa od dima oštetila njegove oči. Uostalom, nikada nije bilo dovoljno petroleja, a šta bi mogao kupiti za dolar dnevno? Stoga je izumio besplatnu solarnu lampu. Sada djeca u njegovom selu imaju iste ocjene u školi kao i djeca koja imaju struju u svojim domovima. (Aplauz) Kada je primio nagradu, rekao je ovim lijepim riječima: "Djeca mogu povesti Afriku iz tame kakva je danas, u svijetli kontinent." Ovo je jednostavna ideja, ali mogla bi imati dalekosežne posljedice.
This is -- I don't know if you saw it on CNN recently -- they gave the Heroes Award to a young Kenyan shepherd boy who couldn't study at night in his village, like all the village children, because the kerosene lamp, it had smoke and it damaged his eyes. And anyway, there was never enough kerosene, because what does a dollar a day buy for you? So he invented a cost-free solar lamp. And now the children in his village get the same grades at school as the children who have electricity at home. (Applause) When he received his award, he said these lovely words: "The children can lead Africa from what it is today, a dark continent, to a light continent." A simple idea, but it could have such far-reaching consequences.
Ljudi koji ne vide svijetlo, fizički ili metaforično, ne mogu položiti naše ispite, a mi nikada nećemo saznati šta oni znaju. Nemojmo ih držati u tami a ni same sebe. Slavimo raznolikost. Pazite na svoj jezik. Koristite ih za širenje velikih ideja.
People who have no light, whether it's physical or metaphorical, cannot pass our exams, and we can never know what they know. Let us not keep them and ourselves in the dark. Let us celebrate diversity. Mind your language. Use it to spread great ideas.
(Aplauz)
(Applause)
Hvala vam puno.
Thank you very much.
(Aplauz)
(Applause)