TED演講:你不必沉迷英語
Okay. Now this is the major change that I've seen -- how teaching English has morphed from being a mutually beneficial practice to becoming a massive international business that it is today. No longer just a foreign language on the school curriculum. And no longer the sole domain of mother England. It has become a bandwagon for every English-speaking nation on earth. And why not? After all, the best education -- according to the latest World University Rankings -- is to be found in the universities of the U.K. and the U.S. So everybody wants to have an English education, naturally. But if you're not a native speaker, you have to pass a test.
言歸正傳,我見過最大的改變,就是英語教學(xué)的蛻變?nèi)绾螐囊粋€(gè)互惠互利的行為變成今天這種大規(guī)模的國際產(chǎn)業(yè)。英語不再是學(xué)校課程里的外語學(xué)科,也不再只是英國的專利。英語(教學(xué))已經(jīng)成為所有英語系國家追逐的潮流。何樂而不為呢?畢竟,最好的教育來自于最好的大學(xué),而根據(jù)最新的世界大學(xué)排名,那些名列前茅的都是英國和美國的大學(xué)。所以自然每個(gè)人都想接受英語教育,但如果你不是以英文為母語,你就要通過考試。
Now can it be right to reject a student on linguistic ability alone? Perhaps you have a computer scientist who's a genius. Would he need the same language as a lawyer, for example? Well, I don't think so. We English teachers reject them all the time. We put a stop sign, and we stop them in their tracks. They can't pursue their dream any longer, till they get English. Now let me put it this way, if I met a monolingual Dutch speaker who had the cure for cancer, would I stop him from entering my British University? I don't think so. But indeed, that is exactly what we do. We English teachers are the gatekeepers. And you have to satisfy us first that your English is good enough. Now it can be dangerous to give too much power to a narrow segment of society. Maybe the barrier would be too universal.
但僅憑語言能力就拒絕學(xué)生這樣對(duì)嗎?譬如如果你碰到一位天才計(jì)算機(jī)科學(xué)家,但他會(huì)需要有和律師一樣的語言能力嗎?我不這么認(rèn)為。但身為英語老師的我們,卻總是拒絕他們。我們處處設(shè)限,將學(xué)生擋在路上,使他們無法再追求自己的夢(mèng)想,直到他們通過考試?,F(xiàn)在容我換一個(gè)方式說,如果我遇到了一位只會(huì)說荷蘭話的人,而這個(gè)人能治愈癌癥,我會(huì)阻止他進(jìn)入我的英國大學(xué)嗎?我想不會(huì)。但事實(shí)上,我們的確在做這種事。我們這些英語老師就是把關(guān)的。你必須先讓我們滿意,使我們認(rèn)定你的英文夠好。但這可能是危險(xiǎn)的。把太多的權(quán)力交由這么小的一群人把持,也許會(huì)令這種障礙太過普及。
Okay. "But," I hear you say, "what about the research? It's all in English." So the books are in English, the journals are done in English, but that is a self-fulfilling prophecy. It feeds the English requirement. And so it goes on. I ask you, what happened to translation? If you think about the Islamic Golden Age, there was lots of translation then. They translated from Latin and Greek into Arabic, into Persian, and then it was translated on into the Germanic languages of Europe and the Romance languages. And so light shone upon the Dark Ages of Europe. Now don't get me wrong; I am not against teaching English, all you English teachers out there. I love it that we have a global language. We need one today more than ever. But I am against using it as a barrier. Do we really want to end up with 600 languages and the main one being English, or Chinese? We need more than that. Where do we draw the line? This system equates intelligence with a knowledge of English which is quite arbitrary.
于是,我聽到你們問"但是研究呢?研究報(bào)告都要用英文?!钡拇_,研究論著和期刊都要用英文發(fā)表,但這只是一種理所當(dāng)然的現(xiàn)象。有英語要求,自然就有英語供給,然后就這么循環(huán)下去。我倒想問問大家,為什么不用翻譯呢?想想伊斯蘭的黃金時(shí)代,當(dāng)時(shí)翻譯盛行,人們把拉丁文和希臘文翻譯成阿拉伯文或波斯文,然后再由拉伯文或波斯文翻譯為歐洲的日耳曼語言以及羅曼語言。于是文明照亮了歐洲的黑暗時(shí)代。但不要誤會(huì)我的意思,我不是反對(duì)英語教學(xué)或是在座所有的英語老師。我很高興我們有一個(gè)全球性的語言,這在今日尤為重要。但我反對(duì)用英語設(shè)立障礙。難道我們真希望世界上只剩下600種語言,其中又以英文或中文為主流嗎?我們需要的不只如此。那么我們?cè)撊绾文媚竽?這個(gè)體制把智能和英語能力畫上等號(hào)這是相當(dāng)武斷的。
And I want to remind you that the giants upon whose shoulders today's intelligentsiastand did not have to have English, they didn't have to pass an English test. Case in point, Einstein. He, by the way, was considered remedial at school because he was, in fact, dyslexic. But fortunately for the world, he did not have to pass an English test. Because they didn't start until 1964 with TOEFL, the American test of English. Now it's exploded. There are lots and lots of tests of English. And millions and millions of students take these tests every year. Now you might think, you and me, those fees aren't bad, they're okay, but they are prohibitive to so many millions of poor people. So immediately, we're rejecting them.