Patricia Ryan was rounded up by the British Council, along with 25 other English teachers, and sent to Kuwait to teach their students English. She states: "We were brought to teach English, because the government wanted to modernize the country and to empower the citizens through education." She was part of the first group of teachers to be a non-Muslim teacher. The British gained oil in exchange for the teaching of English.
Patricia agrees that we should keep a universal language that everyone understands, but disagrees that languages should just disappear to assimilate to the English or Mandarin. "Do we want to end up with only 600 languages, and the main one ending up being English, or Chinese?"
As one of her opening statements, Patricia mentions that a language dies every 14 days. Every 14 days. She also mentions that we encourage everyone to learn English, but we make the tests impossibly high in price. The top 5 Universities in the world, are all located in either the UK or the US.
Patricia agrees that we should keep a universal language that everyone understands, but disagrees that languages should just disappear to assimilate to the English or Mandarin. "Do we want to end up with only 600 languages, and the main one ending up being English, or Chinese?"
As one of her opening statements, Patricia mentions that a language dies every 14 days. Every 14 days. She also mentions that we encourage everyone to learn English, but we make the tests impossibly high in price. The top 5 Universities in the world, are all located in either the UK or the US.
Don't Insist on English. Dir. Ted Talks. Perf. Patricia Ryan, Patricia Ryan:. Ted, Dec 2010. 22 May 2014.