AIS Student Shares Her Views on Language Learning

At the recent Global Language Convention, which featured a student panel on Saturday, April 18, seven multi-lingual high school students from metro-Atlanta schools shared with conference attendees the personal impact their language-learning experiences have had on them. Three AIS students formed part of the panel. The following speech was delivered by AIS student, Shiva Rouhani, grade 11:

We have been asked to come here today, to explain what language means to each one of us. Now, the initial thoughts that came into mind were the languages I have learnt English, Farsi and French fluently. Each one of them, unique to themselves gives me a broader international perspective. Although, I was born here in Atlanta, I still can identify myself as an Iranian, merely because I can speak Farsi.

Learning French has been such an incredible leisure because each and every time I enter the country, I can forget of my background and become one with their people. And with the literature courses we take at school, I feel as though I have been handed a gift of some sort because I am able to analyze and appreciate French and English literature, without having a proper lineage to any of these countries in which these languages are fluently spoken. And finally, taking a course in the Chinese language for three years was possibly my favorite past-time. My peers and I enjoyed the feeling of empowerment we would get, because we were able to speak and write of just about anything without most people in our school being able to understand a word of what we were speaking or writing about.

In essence, language is power and the more languages I have been able to master over the past sixteen years of my existence, the more I have been to grasp and understand the myriad cultures which make up our world. But I have pondered the prospect of what would become of me if I did not have such gifts in my life. And I realized languages do not merely provide me a means of communication, languages control my thoughts and dreams. I can express every emotion, I can read and sing and scream and exist in society because of it. Without it, I would be leading a rather solipsistic lifestyle.

So I have come to notice this mode of communication is not given enough credit because what it does essentially is unite us as individuals. We can sit here today as a community because of this unifying stream of understanding, language. All I know is that wherever the future will take me, I will always strive to gain a greater knowledge in different languages, in hopes of gratifying my need to broaden my horizons.