Problem with TED talk

What I find disturbing about this TED talk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpILR21GWao

Usually I enjoy watching TED talks, don't really question their content. 
But this one is different. And here are a few things that I don't like about it.

First of all, I don't get why the presenter compares the trend for learning English to the Nazi movement, or the Beatles fans, and calls it a mania. As for me this word represents a phenomena that is for us something bad, something not really the way it should be. (I guess the big part of my feeling about this word comes from the mental illness described with this word too) Whereas learning English isn't a bad thing, which he later admits.

The second thing that struck me was the generalization Jay Walker uses - He says that the whole world is obsessed about English, while only talking of China. He gives us shocking examples of how English is being taught in China, without adding a single word about the rest of the world, which I find annoying, because if he refers to world as a whole, why does he limit to giving examples from only one region? Also following this thought, why call the talk "World's mania" If you only talk about Chinese approach to it, and give examples of opportunities that it gives to the Chinese? 

The third and last thing that I don't agree with is presenting English as a World's Problem Solving language. I see it as Language that is used for multinational contact, Science research results unification, or diplomacy. I see here so many more common uses to the language other than problem solving, so why label it with such name?

Komentarze

  1. englishdiary9 października 2017 10:43

    Very perceptive comments, I appreciate especially you second observation. China is indeed a rather peculiar place, hardly representing the whole world.

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