World Bank demographer John May spoke about population growth and the changing face of the world to the French Honors Society after school Nov. 22.

May, a Belgian native, is a demography professor at Georgetown University and a specialist in public policies and programs. His latest book, “World Population Policies: Their Origin, Evolution and Impact,” will be released March 2012.

In his presentation, May discussed the various factors of population growth, including high fertility rates in certain countries and longer life expectancies. Population growth mostly comes from the forty-nine least developed countries, he said.

Senior Alexander Burnett, who is French Honors Society co-president, helped arrange the guest speaker, who is a colleague of his mother’s.

“I thought the presentation was excellent,” Burnett said. “I had no idea that the world population had grown five billion in only the last 80 years. He did a great job of providing entertaining anecdotes to support the statistics.”

May cited startling statistics to emphasize the problem that population growth poses to the world. If the global community does not stabilize the birth rate in high fertility countries, the global population will be about 16 billion by 2100, he said.

French teacher Genevieve Maloney thought that the experience helped the students, especially those in AP French who are currently studying global problems, and said she hopes that more speakers will come in the future.

“I thought it was great,” Maloney said. “It fit right in because we’re talking about the economy and culture in class. It was helpful, at least for the AP students.”

Though the presentation was entirely in French, the students didn’t seem to have much trouble understanding the material, practicing their French skills.

“Overall, it was a successful experience,” Burnett said. “We look forward to inviting more speakers. Having guest speakers is good because it allows people to listen to French and to learn about a subject they might not be too familiar with.”