Pratica di Shadowing: IELTS Listening Section-4(Four Business Values) with answers - Impara a parlare inglese con i video

Creazione lezione...
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Section 4 You will hear part of a lecture for business students about business values.
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First, you have some time to look at questions 31 to 40.
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Thank you.
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Now listen carefully and answer questions 31 to 40.
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In public discussion of business,
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we take certain values for granted.
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Today I'm going to talk about four of them.
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collaboration, hard work, creativity and excellence.
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Most people would say they're all good things.
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I'm going to suggest that's an oversimple view.
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The trouble with these values is that they're theoretical concepts removed from the reality of day-to-day business.
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Pursue values by all means,
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but be prepared for what may happen as a result.
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they can actually cause damage which is not at all the intention.
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Business leaders generally try to do the right thing,
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but all too often the right thing backfires if those leaders adopt values without understanding and managing the side effects that arise.
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The values can easily get in the way of what's actually intended.
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Okay, so the first value I'm going to discuss is collaboration.
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Let me give you an example.
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On a management training course I once attended,
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we were put into groups and had to construct a bridge across a stream using building blocks that we were given.
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The rule was that everyone in the team had to move at least one building block during the construction.
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This was intended to encourage teamwork.
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But it was really a job best done by one person.
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The other teams tried to collaborate on building the structure and descended into confusion with everyone getting in each other's way.
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Our team leader solved the challenge brilliantly.
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She simply asked everyone in the team to move a piece a few centimetres to comply with the rule
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and then let the person in the team with an aptitude for puzzles like this build it alone.
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We finished before any other team.
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My point is that the task wasn't really suited to team working so why make it one?
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Teamwork can also lead to inconsistency,
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a common cause of poor sales.
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In the case of a smartphone that a certain company launched,
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one director wanted to target the business market and another demanded it was aimed at consumers.
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The company wanted both directors to be involved
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so gave the product a consumer-friendly name
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but marketed it to companies the result was
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that it met the needs of neither group it would have been better to let one director
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or the other have his way not both Now, industriousness or hard work.
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It's easy to mock people who say they work hard.
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After all, a hamster running around in a wheel is working hard and getting nowhere.
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Of course, hard work is valuable,
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but only when properly targeted.
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Otherwise, it wastes the resources that companies value most,
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time and energy, and that's bad for the organisation.
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There's a management model that groups people according to four criteria.
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Clever, hard-working, stupid and lazy.
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Here, lazy means having a rational determination not to carry out unnecessary tasks.
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It doesn't mean trying to avoid work altogether.
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Most people display two of these characteristics and the most valuable people are those who are both clever and lazy.
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They possess intellectual clarity and they don't rush into making decisions.
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They come up with solutions to save the time and energy spent by the stupid and hard-working group.
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Instead of throwing more man-hours at a problem,
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the clever and lazy group looks for a more effective solution.
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Next, we come to creativity.
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This often works well, creating an attention-grabbing TV commercial,
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for example, might lead to increased sales.
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But it isn't always a good thing.
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Some advertising campaigns are remembered for their creativity without having any effect on sales.
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This happened a few years ago with the launch of a chocolate bar.
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Subsequent research showed that plenty of consumers remembered the adverts,
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but had no idea what was being advertised.
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The trouble is that the creator derives pleasure from coming up with the idea,
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and wrongly assumes the audience for the campaign will share that feeling.
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A company that brings out thousands of new products may seem more creative than a company that only has a few,
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but it may be too creative and make smaller profits.
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Creativity needs to be targeted to solve a problem that the company has identified.
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Just coming up with more and more novel products isn't necessarily a good thing.
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And finally, excellence.
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We all know companies that claim they strive for excellence,
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But it takes a long time to achieve excellence.
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In business, being first with a product is more profitable than having the best product.
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A major study of company performance compared pioneers,
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that is, companies bringing out the first version of a particular product,
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with followers, the companies that copied and improved on that product.
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The study found that the pioneers commanded an average market share of 29%,
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while the followers achieved less than half that,
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only 13%, even though their product might have been better.
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Insisting on excellence in everything we do is time-consuming,
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wastes energy and leads to losing out on opportunities.
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Sometimes second-rate work is more worthwhile than excellence.
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Make sure it's excellent sounds like a good approach to business,
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but the just-get-started approach is likely to be more successful.
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That is the end of Section 4.
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You now have half a minute to check your answers.
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Thank you.

Informazioni su questa lezione

In questa lezione, gli studenti esploreranno le nozioni fondamentali legate ai valori aziendali attraverso il tema del lavoro di squadra, dell'impegno e della creatività. Ascoltando una parte di una conferenza per studenti di business, avrai l'opportunità di affinare le tue abilità di ascolto e comprensione in inglese, affrontando argomenti pratici e reali. Questa lezione ti permetterà di riflettere su come i valori aziendali possano influenzare le dinamiche lavorative e il successo di un'organizzazione, oltre a fornire spunti utili per la tua pratica di conversazione in inglese.

Vocabolario chiave e frasi

  • collaborazione – l'atto di lavorare insieme per raggiungere un obiettivo comune.
  • impegno – la dedizione e l'attività necessaria per completare un compito.
  • creatività – la capacità di generare idee nuove e originali.
  • eccellenza – il raggiungimento di standard molto elevati.
  • consistenza – l'abilità di mantenere un livello uniforme di qualità o di prestazione.
  • efficienza – la capacità di raggiungere risultati ottimali con il minor spreco possibile di risorse.
  • vulnerabilità – la predisposizione a subire danni o a fallimenti in un contesto aziendale.

Consigli per la pratica

Quando pratichi l'ascolto, in particolare durante il shadowing in inglese, è fondamentale prestare attenzione alla velocità e al tono della narrazione. In questa lezione, il relatore usa un ritmo moderato e un'enunciazione chiara, il che lo rende ideale per il shadow speech. Ti consiglio di riprodurre la registrazione e seguire le seguenti fasi:

  • Ascolta attentamente: Fai un primo ascolto senza tentare di ripetere. Concentrati su come il relatore presenta i concetti.
  • Ripeti in tempo reale: Durante il secondo ascolto, prova a ripetere immediatamente dopo il relatore. Questo è un ottimo modo per migliorare la tua fluidità.
  • Annota: Scrivi le parole o le frasi che trovi più difficili. Esercitati a pronunciarle e a usarle in contesti diversi.
  • Usa shadowspeaks: Integra le frasi apprese nella tua pratica di conversazione in inglese. Creare dialoghi con altri studenti o durante sessioni di studio può rinforzare la tua comprensione.

Segui questi suggerimenti per trarre il massimo dal tuo shadowing site e migliorare significativamente le tue competenze linguistiche.

Cos'è la tecnica dello Shadowing?

Shadowing è una tecnica di apprendimento delle lingue supportata da studi scientifici, originariamente sviluppata per la formazione dei traduttori professionisti e resa popolare dal poliglotta Dr. Alexander Arguelles. Il metodo è semplice ma potente: ascolti un audio in inglese di madrelingua e lo ripeti immediatamente ad alta voce — come un'ombra che segue il parlante con un ritardo di solo 1–2 secondi. A differenza dell'ascolto passivo o degli esercizi di grammatica, lo shadowing costringe il tuo cervello e i muscoli della bocca a elaborare e riprodurre simultaneamente i modelli di discorso reale. La ricerca dimostra che migliora significativamente la precisione della pronuncia, l'intonazione, il ritmo, il discorso connesso, la comprensione dell'ascolto e la fluidità del parlato — rendendolo uno dei metodi più efficaci per la preparazione alla prova di speaking dell'IELTS e per la comunicazione reale in inglese.