so I put up in a household immersed with
the Spanish culture in the language and
I loved it now when I got to my first
day of high school Spanish class I sat
down so you learn and my teacher goes
grouse when we go around the room and
say why are you here today
why are you taking Spanish as your
foreign language girls start going
around the room and they start saying
things like I was forced to be here
Spanish is the easiest language or I
didn’t feel like taking Latin so when it
got to me it was awkward to say that I
wanted to be there and I was excited
learn after the class was over I walked
out and I was wondering why did this
happen
and I realized because it was it’s
because of a huge concept that most of
you don’t even know of yet you’re all a
part of and this concept is called
English superiority an example of
English superiority is a child who grows
up in a house where there’s only English
being spoken now this child goes on to
elementary school middle school with
only English being spoken to the child
with no influences of any other
languages so this kid grows up thinking
that all he needs to know is English and
doesn’t feel the need of another
language and I mean nowadays you’re able
to go anywhere in the world and there’s
bound to be somebody who can speak
English but how did it English get
everywhere well in the 17th and 18th
century there was something called the
Age of Exploration and so countries were
scrambling to get Lyn because with this
land they were able to have more
colonies and with more colonies was more
people and with more people was more
power to the country now Britain played
a huge role in this in fact Britain
Britain played a huge role of this in
fact at one point Britain had 23 percent
of the world’s population under their
power and Britain was able to get a lot
of power from these people Britain would
go to these countries and they would
force them to learn English which flash
forward to today 83 countries have
English as its primary language in a
hundred and five other countries /
regions have English
it’s one of its main languages so by the
time that we get to here today so with
the five 105 languages that’s a lot now
here’s a little side note a language to
culture or country is very important
because it’s what’s holds its culture
together for example China isn’t famous
for speaking Italian they’re famous for
speaking Chinese Sweden is a famous
famous for speaking Icelandic but
they’re famous for speaking Swedish so
let’s say an example where a country was
to lose their language it would be
devastating and it would they would lose
their sense of culture and their sense
of pride for the country and so what has
to happen if the opposite happened a
country was to gain more speakers and
more people and more culture and now
what I believe is that we’ve gained a
lot of pride but I believe that we’ve
gained a little bit too much pride and
let me ask you a question do you feel as
if learning a second language you lose a
sense of your patriotic pride now let’s
get into some data there are the three
most known languages in the world
English is third Spanish is second and
chinese is first now I just said that
Chinese is the first most known language
yet from a young age Chinese students
are required to learn English yet I’m an
English speaker and I’m not required to
learn Chinese so about 600 million
people about are learning English today
and 200 to 350 million of those people
are from China according to a Canberra
study so I was wondering how how they
felt about being forced to learn English
and I’m lucky to go to in a school where
we host international students and one
of the students ginseng she’s a freshman
and she grew up in China and I asked her
you know how is your Spanish class was
easier was it hard and she told me that
the class was hard due to the difficult
grammar reading and pronunciation of the
English language I then asked her how
did she feel about being forced to learn
English and she did said that she didn’t
feel as if she was forced she felt as if
there was a need
and wearing look English because it was
everywhere in America is a huge force
and she is right America is a huge force
but we are lacking in our foreign
language education system today in fact
Arne Duncan Secretary Arne Duncan said
of the foreign language summit that the
United States is a long way from being a
multilingual society that many of our
economic competitors are today so
America is the biggest link of the
biggest country with America with
English as its first primary language so
if we’re teaching children if so we have
bad education system with our children
with foreign languages we’re basically
telling them that it’s okay that you owe
me that no another language we’re the
biggest country and we have a huge force
so why is the need so in America we also
have the requirement in high school
about to take two years of foreign
language but I believe that the reason
why we also may be lacking is because in
high school it’s too late due to the
fact of something called the critical
age hypothesis the critical age
hypothesis is basically a hypothesis
that states that after the age of
puberty h-12 it is hard and sometimes
very difficult for the brain to deal
with learning a second language so if
you start high school at age fourteen
there’s some clashes right there and in
fact in an article written by Penn State
it states that the critical age
hypothesis states that there is a
critical age before puberty that one
must learn a language and if one has not
learned how to speak this language
before puberty it is sometimes difficult
and sometimes impossible to learn this
language and speak it in a meaningful
way so as I said that once we get to
high school we have these teenagers
learning this language and getting
frustrated and I’m a teenager I can say
this whenever I’m frustrated I get angry
whenever I’m angry I blame something and
what’s the first the blame the first to
blame is why we’re in the language if
I’m not going to go to this country why
learn the language if I’m not going to
live there when I get older but that’s
the one thing ladies and gentlemen that
our education systems today are
forgetting to teach us it’s that you
don’t need to learn a language because
you’re planning on traveling to this
country but to learn a language so that
we can have a sense of a world culture a
sense of you can learn somebody else’s
culture and you can identify with
somebody just across the world and that
is what the systems are forgetting the
teachers today and since they don’t now
we just have frustrated teenager stuck
in classes so I wondered if this
affected my high school and out a poll
that I conducted at a northwestern
all-girl mayor oh hi oh high school 82%
of the girls said that they enjoyed
taking the Spanish class they’re taking
the foreign language class 57% said that
they would take that they they are
taking the class because they wanted to
and not because they were forced and
another 72% of the people taking a
foreign language class said that they
would still take it if it was a
mandatory now that was probably really
confusing that what I just said didn’t
support what I just said what I stated
previously but it’s to tell you that a
small number doesn’t generate a big
number and although it’s not happening
and I’m very happy that it’s not
happening at my high school that English
superiority is happening across the
world in mostly in America now it’s time
to give you some bad news what is our
future if we continue on this path in
our future with this doesn’t look too
good if you don’t want English to be the
only language left we can see English
being the only language left due to
three reasons reason number one
technology now today you are able to put
on headphones where I can say something
to you in English and it spits out
German within the next second so if we
have this then English speakers will
continue to grow up they mean that there
is no need to learn another language
because we have all this technology so
why bother reason number two according
to the UN es co or the United Nations
Educational Scientific Cultural
Organization they state that
by the end of the century we will have
lost a lot of languages and so
metaphorically we are losing language
every 14 days so if you do the math and
you keep on crossing off there soon to
be a day where we are left with one
language and I believe that is to be his
English due to my third reason the power
of our language the English language is
called the world language the business
language in the universal language
French used to be called the world
language but as you can tell them
English knocked that right off the table
and because of that now more and more
people are learning the ink learn are
starting to learn English which causes
again more people thinking that there is
no need to learn another language
because everybody knows English but we
can change this because there’s two
things that you can do you can teach and
you can learn teach others would I have
told you teach our new generations tell
them that you don’t need to learn
language because you’re planning on
going to this country or that you’re
planning on living there but to be able
to learn some new culture be able to
identify who knows there could be
somebody just like you across the world
but a language barrier is what hole is
holding you guys together and to learn
go out and learn a language go out and
learn Swedish and go and talk to
somebody in Swedish because you because
I want to leave you off with this
question and think about it how would
you feel if hundreds and hundreds of
years from now why we spoke in languages
like today like French and German or
foreign memories and are gone how would
that make you feel thank you for
listening to me
the Spanish culture in the language and
I loved it now when I got to my first
day of high school Spanish class I sat
down so you learn and my teacher goes
grouse when we go around the room and
say why are you here today
why are you taking Spanish as your
foreign language girls start going
around the room and they start saying
things like I was forced to be here
Spanish is the easiest language or I
didn’t feel like taking Latin so when it
got to me it was awkward to say that I
wanted to be there and I was excited
learn after the class was over I walked
out and I was wondering why did this
happen
and I realized because it was it’s
because of a huge concept that most of
you don’t even know of yet you’re all a
part of and this concept is called
English superiority an example of
English superiority is a child who grows
up in a house where there’s only English
being spoken now this child goes on to
elementary school middle school with
only English being spoken to the child
with no influences of any other
languages so this kid grows up thinking
that all he needs to know is English and
doesn’t feel the need of another
language and I mean nowadays you’re able
to go anywhere in the world and there’s
bound to be somebody who can speak
English but how did it English get
everywhere well in the 17th and 18th
century there was something called the
Age of Exploration and so countries were
scrambling to get Lyn because with this
land they were able to have more
colonies and with more colonies was more
people and with more people was more
power to the country now Britain played
a huge role in this in fact Britain
Britain played a huge role of this in
fact at one point Britain had 23 percent
of the world’s population under their
power and Britain was able to get a lot
of power from these people Britain would
go to these countries and they would
force them to learn English which flash
forward to today 83 countries have
English as its primary language in a
hundred and five other countries /
regions have English
it’s one of its main languages so by the
time that we get to here today so with
the five 105 languages that’s a lot now
here’s a little side note a language to
culture or country is very important
because it’s what’s holds its culture
together for example China isn’t famous
for speaking Italian they’re famous for
speaking Chinese Sweden is a famous
famous for speaking Icelandic but
they’re famous for speaking Swedish so
let’s say an example where a country was
to lose their language it would be
devastating and it would they would lose
their sense of culture and their sense
of pride for the country and so what has
to happen if the opposite happened a
country was to gain more speakers and
more people and more culture and now
what I believe is that we’ve gained a
lot of pride but I believe that we’ve
gained a little bit too much pride and
let me ask you a question do you feel as
if learning a second language you lose a
sense of your patriotic pride now let’s
get into some data there are the three
most known languages in the world
English is third Spanish is second and
chinese is first now I just said that
Chinese is the first most known language
yet from a young age Chinese students
are required to learn English yet I’m an
English speaker and I’m not required to
learn Chinese so about 600 million
people about are learning English today
and 200 to 350 million of those people
are from China according to a Canberra
study so I was wondering how how they
felt about being forced to learn English
and I’m lucky to go to in a school where
we host international students and one
of the students ginseng she’s a freshman
and she grew up in China and I asked her
you know how is your Spanish class was
easier was it hard and she told me that
the class was hard due to the difficult
grammar reading and pronunciation of the
English language I then asked her how
did she feel about being forced to learn
English and she did said that she didn’t
feel as if she was forced she felt as if
there was a need
and wearing look English because it was
everywhere in America is a huge force
and she is right America is a huge force
but we are lacking in our foreign
language education system today in fact
Arne Duncan Secretary Arne Duncan said
of the foreign language summit that the
United States is a long way from being a
multilingual society that many of our
economic competitors are today so
America is the biggest link of the
biggest country with America with
English as its first primary language so
if we’re teaching children if so we have
bad education system with our children
with foreign languages we’re basically
telling them that it’s okay that you owe
me that no another language we’re the
biggest country and we have a huge force
so why is the need so in America we also
have the requirement in high school
about to take two years of foreign
language but I believe that the reason
why we also may be lacking is because in
high school it’s too late due to the
fact of something called the critical
age hypothesis the critical age
hypothesis is basically a hypothesis
that states that after the age of
puberty h-12 it is hard and sometimes
very difficult for the brain to deal
with learning a second language so if
you start high school at age fourteen
there’s some clashes right there and in
fact in an article written by Penn State
it states that the critical age
hypothesis states that there is a
critical age before puberty that one
must learn a language and if one has not
learned how to speak this language
before puberty it is sometimes difficult
and sometimes impossible to learn this
language and speak it in a meaningful
way so as I said that once we get to
high school we have these teenagers
learning this language and getting
frustrated and I’m a teenager I can say
this whenever I’m frustrated I get angry
whenever I’m angry I blame something and
what’s the first the blame the first to
blame is why we’re in the language if
I’m not going to go to this country why
learn the language if I’m not going to
live there when I get older but that’s
the one thing ladies and gentlemen that
our education systems today are
forgetting to teach us it’s that you
don’t need to learn a language because
you’re planning on traveling to this
country but to learn a language so that
we can have a sense of a world culture a
sense of you can learn somebody else’s
culture and you can identify with
somebody just across the world and that
is what the systems are forgetting the
teachers today and since they don’t now
we just have frustrated teenager stuck
in classes so I wondered if this
affected my high school and out a poll
that I conducted at a northwestern
all-girl mayor oh hi oh high school 82%
of the girls said that they enjoyed
taking the Spanish class they’re taking
the foreign language class 57% said that
they would take that they they are
taking the class because they wanted to
and not because they were forced and
another 72% of the people taking a
foreign language class said that they
would still take it if it was a
mandatory now that was probably really
confusing that what I just said didn’t
support what I just said what I stated
previously but it’s to tell you that a
small number doesn’t generate a big
number and although it’s not happening
and I’m very happy that it’s not
happening at my high school that English
superiority is happening across the
world in mostly in America now it’s time
to give you some bad news what is our
future if we continue on this path in
our future with this doesn’t look too
good if you don’t want English to be the
only language left we can see English
being the only language left due to
three reasons reason number one
technology now today you are able to put
on headphones where I can say something
to you in English and it spits out
German within the next second so if we
have this then English speakers will
continue to grow up they mean that there
is no need to learn another language
because we have all this technology so
why bother reason number two according
to the UN es co or the United Nations
Educational Scientific Cultural
Organization they state that
by the end of the century we will have
lost a lot of languages and so
metaphorically we are losing language
every 14 days so if you do the math and
you keep on crossing off there soon to
be a day where we are left with one
language and I believe that is to be his
English due to my third reason the power
of our language the English language is
called the world language the business
language in the universal language
French used to be called the world
language but as you can tell them
English knocked that right off the table
and because of that now more and more
people are learning the ink learn are
starting to learn English which causes
again more people thinking that there is
no need to learn another language
because everybody knows English but we
can change this because there’s two
things that you can do you can teach and
you can learn teach others would I have
told you teach our new generations tell
them that you don’t need to learn
language because you’re planning on
going to this country or that you’re
planning on living there but to be able
to learn some new culture be able to
identify who knows there could be
somebody just like you across the world
but a language barrier is what hole is
holding you guys together and to learn
go out and learn a language go out and
learn Swedish and go and talk to
somebody in Swedish because you because
I want to leave you off with this
question and think about it how would
you feel if hundreds and hundreds of
years from now why we spoke in languages
like today like French and German or
foreign memories and are gone how would
that make you feel thank you for
listening to me
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