Among the many languages we hear in the Bridging Cultures classroom, English is by far the most common. This makes sense, since 1) we try to encourage students to speak English, 2) many students are themselves eager to practice, and 3) English is the only language everyone has in common, so 4) students who come from different linguistic backgrounds use English to communicate.
Lately, however, I've noticed some interesting moments. Like a Haitian student showing off some new greetings a Vietnamese friend taught him. Or a student looking up words in an online Indonesian-Spanish dictionary. Or an emergent English learner hanging on eagerly to Steve's explanation of the pun in the title of the German band Rammstein's song "Du Hast."
So we might start seeing this more and more: students learning not only English, but their friends' languages as well. Students teaching each other their languages using the lingua franca of English. English speakers becoming bilingual, bilingual students becoming polyglots. Common languages can be the best bridges of all.
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Project Bridging Cultures works with high school students who come from all over the world.
