Patricia Ryan Don't insist on English!

I know what you're thinking. You think I've lost my way, and somebody is going to come on the stage in a minute and guide me gently back to my seat. I get that all the time in Dubai.
"Here on holiday are you, dear?"
"Come to visit the children? How long are you staying?"
Well actually, I hope for a while longer yet. I have been living and teaching in the Gulf for over 30 years. And in that time, I have seen a lot of changes. Now that statistic is quite shocking. And I want to talk to you today about language loss and globalization of English.
I want to tell you about my friend who was teaching English to adults in Abu Dhabi. And one fine day she decided to take them into the garden to teach them some nature vocabulary. But it was she who ended up learning all the Arabic words for the local plants, as well as their uses – medicinal uses, cosmetics, cooking, herbal.
How did those students get all that knowledge? Of course, from their grandparents and even their great-grandparents. It's not necessary to tell you how important it is to be able to communicate across generations.
But sadly, today, languages are dying at an unprecedented rate. A language dies every 14 days. Now, at the same time, English is the undisputed global language.
Could there be a connection?
Well I don't know. But I do know that I've seen a lot of changes. When I first came out to the Gulf, I came to Kuwait in the days when it was still a hardship post. Actually, not that long ago. That is a little bit too early. But nevertheless, I was recruited by the British Council along with about 25 other teachers. And we were the first non-Muslims to teach in the state schools there in Kuwait. We were brought to teach English because the government wanted to modernize the country and to empower the citizens through education.
And of course, the U.K. benefited from some of that lovely oil wealth.
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.
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.
Okay.
"But," I hear you say, "what about the research? It's all in English."