Michele just sent this:
Hey Ben – thought you’d like this as much as I do:
“Here is one quantifiable measure of the advantage of being multilingual: imagine if other children were given twice as much time to prepare for a high-stakes exam as your own kid. You would scream unfair bias. But that is exactly what is happening when young people around the world are studying foreign languages throughout their elementary and secondary education in preparation for future work and leisure, and U.S. schools’ emphasis on student language acquisition are statistically trailing far behind. Understanding one’s counterparts’ native tongue also draws tremendous confidence, regardless if the issue in question requires competition or cooperation.”
It’s from a speech by the Asia Society’s Jeff Wang on this web page:
http://asiasociety.org/education-learning/chinese-language-initiatives/human-capital-us-china-relations
Michele
The Problem with CI
Jeffrey Sachs was asked what the difference between people in Norway and in the U.S. was. He responded that people in Norway are happy and
