David Crystal - the future of English

 

Pre-listening - possible research questions based on the title of the talk:

 

 Will English continue to be the international language in the future?

What language/s might replace English as a world language?

Summary

• The speaker (David Crystal) argues that people only learn languages to improve their work prospects, so in the future nobody knows whether we may all be learning Chinese. Spanish or Arabic - it depends which countries become more influential and prosperous.

•  English around the world is spoken by non-native speakers. There are around 400 million English speakers in India alone. The brand of English spoken there may be different, but it is valid in its own context and may influence the language spoken in the future, just as American has influenced British English.

•  It is not possible to predict whether English will continue to be the world language. Nobody could have predicted a thousand years ago that Latin would no longer be around, so we cannot assume that the same will not happen to English

Further research questions:

What obstacles do people face to learning English in different parts of the world?

 

Can technology help to break down barriers to language learning?

Ken Robinson - Do schools kill creativity?

Title of the talk: Do schools kill creativity?

Pre-listening research questions:

How is creativity taught in schools?

What are the barriers to teaching creativity?

Summary

• The education system in most countries throughout the world is geared towards maths and languages in order to prepare people for the industrial workplace.

• This approach is out of date as it does not prepare students for the challenges of the future. 

• We need to give equal importance to the arts, in order to embrace the richness of human capacity and educate the 'whole child'.

Possible future research questions:

Does competition from other countries influence the need to prioritise sciences to the detriment of more creative subjects?

Can the skills that people will need in the workplace of the future be anticipated? How?

Natives: Race, Class in the Ruins of Empire - By Akala

 

'Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire'

Research questions before listening:

How does the legacy of empire affect race and class in British society?

What is the future of race and class in British society? Will it be more homogeneous?

You can access the recording here, through BBC Sounds:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p067g765

Summary

• This talk discusses policies towards slave trading in the Brtish empire, and how genocide was viewed as being preferable to the emancipation of slaves.

• The speaker asks: why do we hold the Japanese or Germans accountable for attempted genocide in the second world war and not the British Empire for the way they treated slaves?

• history is subjective and can be manipulated according to what people want us to hear. 

• if this information were included in school curricula, it would make history more interesting for many people, and would help them to understand that anyone can be guilty of discrimination and treating others unfairly. 

Possible future research questions: 

 

Will slavery under the British Empire be included in school books in the future?

 

Why do countries whitewash their own misdeeds in the past?

Brexit and the End of the British Empire

Pre-listening research questions:

What is Brexit?

How is it connected to the British Empire?

 

 

 

 

• The media makes people from the UK feel different than other countries in Europe about their place in the world. 

• The British education system does not inform British subjects of the true history of empire. 

•  Xenophobia has been used historically.

•  Social progress has been attained through the aftermath of disastrous events like war.

•  The history of empire is linked with the reasons why the UK voted to leave the European Union,
  

•  The conservative government used Brexit as a means to get support, relying on exploiting people's fear of foreigners and gaining votes from extremist, far-right parties.

• Demographic statistics show some ome surprising results, such as the relationship between obesity and voting for Brexit.

Further research questions:

Have people's attitudes to Brexit changed since the UK has lost all its low-paid workers?

 

Is this form of isolationism peculiar to the UK, or are all countries susceptible to it in the age of identity politics?

 

Teaching English witout Teaching English

Pre-listening research questions:

Why is it necessary to try to teach English in a non-traditional way?

How does the speaker teach English without explicitly teaching it?

 

Summary

• The speaker, Guzman, outlines how he encourages his students to adopt critical thinking skills in filtering out which information is valuable. 
• He points out typical signs that tell us when a person lacks authority. or doesn't know what they are talking about. These include obfuscation, never answering a direct question or providing detail or clarification and 'ad hominem', which means resorting to personal attacks which may not be related to the argument.

Further research questions:

Does this style of learning suit all learners? 

How can it be exported to different contexts?