Springboard for Talent - Why is Language Learning so Important?

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Dec 13, 2017
by Tomas De La Rosa and Mirva Villa
Springboard for Talent - Why is Language Learning so Important?

Participants weigh in on the first Hot Topic of Salzburg Global session Springboard for Talent: Language Learning and Integration in a Globalized World

Participants gathered in Parker Hall during Session 586 - Springboard for Talent: Language Learning and Integration in a Globalized World

“It’s through language acquisition that young people make sense of their world. It’s how they contribute positively to their world. For language learners themselves, it’s interesting to note that students who have a second or third language at a national level – when looking at results – perform extremely well on other standardized tests. So there’s an interesting possible correlation between language acquisition and deeper learning in science, math, and other areas.

For language learners there’s also the development of empathy, as students are in a position to consider a point of view beyond their own. As we know language is an artifact of culture, so in learning a language you are learning a culture, and understanding an alternative viewpoint to the dominant viewpoint that you may have had from birth.

It opens up access to a world of information, perspectives, opportunities, both social as well as employment-based, for young people who are able to navigate life and live in a multi-language society.”

Mark Sparvell
Thought Leader for Education Marketing, Microsoft, USA

“I myself am a non-native ‘attempted’ speaker of Arabic, and have watched the language grow in influence and impact in the US since I started learning, which was over 30 years ago... For me, it’s really about... thinking differently about the world, because you’ve had the opportunity to do something in particular to do with a country that people think they know through headlines. The language was really just opening the door, it wasn’t the whole journey – it helps begin a journey.”

Maggie Mitchell Salem
Executive Director, Qatar Foundation International (QFI), USA

“Formal language learning gives people the opportunity to find out about each other, and people need to find out about each other if they’re going to learn well together. For Learner A and Learner B to be able to help them in a classroom setting, they have to have some kind of common language. To move to a place where they understand each other’s language enough, they may need to learn that language. It’s a strategic way that a teacher can bring together the linguistic resources different of learners in a classroom.

Informal language learning, on the other hand, goes on all the time. We’re constantly picking up bits of these different communicative practices that people use. … The point is that when people move, either great or small distances, suddenly they’re in a new communicative context, and they will naturally and instinctively start to learn the different language resources of other people.
What happens there, is language is much more mixed and there’s a big difference between what we do informally and often what teachers do formally and I would like to see more informal use in the classroom to help learners learn formally.”

Tony Capstick
Lecturer in Applied Linguistics, University of Reading, UK

“I live in the UK, where there’s a lot of monolingual people who think “This is not important for me” … For some people this is not a choice, because they’re learning a language for survival: you don’t get a job unless you can communicate, you don’t get health care, and you’re really going to have problems in a host country. These people wouldn’t even ask this question, they just do it, and they do it fast and are quite motivated.

I was really thrilled to be sharing their experience [learning in Denmark with other migrants]; I was far slower than them and they made a good job of it, and really helped them integrate because they started to read newspapers and understand the society. This question will be answered differently by different people, but I think it also opens your mind, you open up beyond your own culture, and that helps you understand others more.”

Gabrielle Hogan-Brun
Senior Research Fellow, School of Education, University of Bristol, UK

“Language learning is fundamental, because…it teaches us to see the world in multiple ways. I still remember the change that it made for me when I first learned a language. I have this sentence that has been stuck in my head ever since I was a child and I started learning French. I had this moment that I called “la perdita dell’ovvio” – things were not obvious any longer. Suddenly I realized that there wasn’t a complete adherence between the world and how we see it, because it can be seen in so many different ways.

I think that just by learning languages we learn to be plural and we learn to understand in different ways, and we learn to understand other people.”

Loredana Polezzi
Professor of Translation Studies, School of Modern Languages, Cardiff University, UK

Have an opinion on our HOT TOPIC? Tweet @SalzburgGlobal with the hashtag #SGSedu

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The session, Springboard for Talent: Language Learning and Integration in a Globalized World is part of Salzburg Global Seminar multi-year series  Education for Tomorrow’s World. The session is being held in partnership with ETS, the Qatar Foundation and Microsoft. This project was also supported by The Erste Foundation. To keep up to date with the conversations taking place during the session, follow #SGSedu on Twitter and Instagram.