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Foreign Language is Indispensable | Jillian Axelrod | TEDxUpperDublinED | TEDx Talks | YouTubeToText
YouTube Transcript: Foreign Language is Indispensable | Jillian Axelrod | TEDxUpperDublinED
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hi
everyone I want to take you back on a
little trip to a seventh grade classroom
my seventh grade classroom was not your
typical seventh grade classroom and I'm
gonna talk to you about my Spanish class
now we only had about ten kids in our
Spanish class but one day we were all
gathered around the computer screen to
make sure we were all on the camera and
looking on the screen I saw about a
dozen faces that looked very different
from ours and they were all waving and
shouting hola como estas and with six
months of Spanish under our belts the
class from suburban Philadelphia met the
one from rural Honduras for the next 45
minutes we talked about music movies
school and food we bonded with these
kids then the next year we each got a
pen pal from Israel we would correspond
back and forth with them every couple of
months writing in Hebrew and then in
eighth grade we got the chance to go to
Israel to meet our pen pals we bargained
in the shook we slept in Bedouin tents
and we even celebrated holidays with the
locals today
I still keep in touch with my pen pal on
Facebook watching as all of them join
the army and trek through desert
mountains watching from the safety of my
home these
experiences talking with people
thousands of miles away have been some
of the most valuable moments of my
education as a whole well I was having a
great time but what I didn't realize was
that my brain and my future were reaping
incredible benefits that no one could
see in 2009
psychologist Ellen Bialystok conducted a
study comparing bilinguals and
monolinguals performance on a variety of
different tasks involving the executive
control centers of the brain these
control centres are called the CEO
networks because they deal with judgment
and analysis memory and achievement and
what she found was that the bilinguals
outperformed the monolingual on every
single one of these cognitive tasks
especially the ones involving multitask
and then there was neuroimaging
researcher Kathy Price who found
something incredible in the brains of
bilinguals she found that they had more
gray matter in the parts of the brain
that are associated with vocabulary
acquisition now why did this happen she
explains that these areas of the brain
actually get a workout while learning
another language just like any other
muscle in the body that you could go and
workout at the YMCA right now the
difference is that gray matter in this
part of the brain makes this area of the
brain work more efficiently and function
faster now
of course all of this science is very
important but I would say that the most
overwhelming amount of data exists for
what knowing another language can do for
us in today's globalized workforce the
Department of Education z' language IDI
arm found that one in five jobs today
are somehow linked to international
trade and recruiter Korn ferry
international took a survey that found
that nine out of ten headhunters in
Europe Latin America and Asia say that
knowing another language is critical for
success in today's job market and
finally Ryan McMunn the CEO of Bri C
language systems says that in 2014 those
who entered the workforce with dual
language fluency could expect up to ten
to fifteen percent increase in pay so
learning one just one other language can
make us more efficient help us learn
vocabulary faster make us more valuable
in the workforce along with a host of
other benefits so
with all of these incredible outcomes I
want to ask you a question how how
could it possibly be that between the
years of 2009 and 2013 language
enrollments in higher education dropped
by 111 thousand spots and why why
why
are only 7 percent of college students
in America currently enrolled in a
language course when
I moved to public high school I was
exposed to many shocking realities that
most of our country considers normal and
my old school learning another language
took priority over almost anything else
but what I found is that in the majority
of the country this is not the case now less
less
than 1% of adults who learned a language
in a u.s. classroom would say that
they're still proficient in that
language now now here in the audience
today can you please do a show of hands
if you learned a language in a u.s.
classroom in middle school or high
school raise your hand raise your hand
all right that's a nice showing now I
want you to keep your hands up if you
would still call yourself proficient in
that language today okay
pretty much everyone's hands went down
so what we see here and what I've
experienced firsthand is whatever we are
doing in public schools in America to
teach languages it
is not working while
considering what I would speak about
today I decided to think back over the
past four years of public school
education and I decided to try to hone
in on where I saw that public schools
might be failing us so
I settled on two key challenges the
first is that I noticed that fear is the
enemy of growth and learning in the
classroom with our current system we've
inspired a monstrous fear of being wrong second
second
talking to many students I found that
most students think school is like a
bubble where the real world is hardly
acknowledged classes teach all the time
about what's going on inside of those
walls but rarely what's going on outside so
what if we use world languages as a
vehicle to improve all of these issues
with the current education system it
opens up a world for our students which
will be hugely important later in life
it's in the workforce and it instills a
sense of compassion when our students
learn what it's like for the rest of the
world to learn English so this comes in
two key steps first we need to bring
language learning to the forefront of
Education as a whole second we need to
alter and revamp the way that languages
comes the need to prioritize language
studies currently in u.s. classrooms
languages are treated as an afterthought
now in 2014 let's think about the AP
exams the amount of students that took
the AP psychology exam was more than the
amount of students that took every
single language exam combined next
next 53%
53%
of Europeans would say that they are
proficient in another language not just
English as you can see here on this
chart but
a mere 18 percent of Americans are
proficient in another language in
today's modern globalized society this
is the time that we need to be
emphasizing world languages why are we
shying away from them if done well
learning another language in a classroom
will teach students that failure is not
only acceptable but failure is quite
necessary when learning new words
students will find that failure is
absolutely vital to them becoming more
proficient in another language but our
current system doesn't work this way our
current system hones in on memorization
in the current u.s. language classroom
students are forced to memorize dozens
of isolated words and phrases and
conjugations that don't necessarily help
them converse now this type of learning
instills a fear of being wrong which is
the same fear that exists in a history
classroom when asked about the date of a
battle that happened hundreds of years
ago now I know that it seems daunting to
try and change the status quo but the
truth is that there are some all steps
that each of us can take in order to
reap the true benefits of language
learning well
we find ourselves in quite a difficult
position because
we're going to need teachers to teach
the next generation world languages but
right now our system is not preparing
these students to become the next
teachers they're not equipped to do this
so we find ourselves in the classic
chicken or the egg situation we're at a standstill
standstill
alright so here's what we need to do we
need to look at what we can do now
within the confines of our broken system
how can we make this better for the
do not accept these classes as they are
if your language teacher talks to you in
English you know what respond back in
the language that you're learning do not
be afraid to make mistakes because these
mistakes are how you will ultimately
learn this language and become better
talk to your friends in this language as
much as you can whenever you get the
opportunity language
lobbyist bill rivers once said it's not
that people don't think learning another
language is important they do it's that
they don't think it's possible but
it is now more than ever before in
history I'm optimistic that we can take
this into our own hands look at this
technology with apps like duolingo and
slow Spanish news technology
has given us a gift the ability to Skype
at will with friends and family in other
countries whenever we want technology
has given us these tools that if we use
them can revive revamp and completely
change the world language aspect of
what
would happen if we release the
expectation that students needed to
speak perfectly what
would happen what would happen if we
stopped relying on text books what would
happen if we started relying on
conversation drawing pictures
getting it out conversing with their
students about things that are important
to them all too often these curriculums
even the ones that I've said in the
classrooms of have been riddled with
passages about ancient artwork and
convoluted Wars and even worse stories
fit for toddlers what would happen if
the teachers brought in articles about
current events in the country that
speaks the language that these students
are learning about let's
engage the students and they will begin
to care too and los
los
años de colegio UT Lazaro estos días
para aprender de entender idiomas
different test translation in my years
of high school I've used these very
tactics to help learn and tell myself
learn and understand different languages Anamika
Anamika
Vashem Maureen Fatah mediums shone MOT a
chef Bichette Amy Odom she's of iodine
she'll ahem Letta Kenneth hikita translation
translation
I hope that the teachers and the
students across the nation hear what I'm
saying they hear my message and they
understand that it is in our hands to
alter the course of these classrooms I want
want
to say one final thing this
is important not just because it matters
in the classroom this is not an isolated
topic this is important because it
matters in the real world this matters
because of the two women I met at the
airport last year who were on the verge
of tears because they were about to miss
their flight and no one could understand
them they were speaking Spanish I went
up and talked to them gave them
directions to their gate and they made
it with time to spare this
matters because on my Israel trip two
years ago there were two Ethiopian
immigrants to Israel who didn't speak a
word of English and they were left out
of every single conversation until my
friends and I who spoke Hebrew in
English went over to them sat by them
and translated every single word so they
felt included this matters because of
the connections you will make this
matters because the world it can open
and most of all this matters because it
is accessible to each and every person
sitting in this room right now thank you [Applause]
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