Shadowing Practice: [Luyện nghe tiếng Anh] Hãy học ngoại ngữ như thể bạn chơi Games vậy - Marianna Pascal -TEDxTalks - Learn English Speaking with YouTube
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Reviewer Gopalco
238 sentences
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Reviewer Gopalco
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So, for the past 20 years,
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I've been helping Malaysians and other Southeast Asians to speak better English.
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And through training thousands of Southeast Asians,
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I've discovered a very surprising truth.
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I've discovered that how well somebody communicates in English actually has very little to do with their English level.
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It has a lot to do with their attitude towards English.
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There are people out there who have a very,
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very low level English and they can communicate very very well.
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One of them that I remember was a student,
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a participant of mine named Faisal.
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He was a factory supervisor.
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English level very very low,
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but this guy could just sit and listen to anybody very calmly,
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clearly, and then he could respond absolutely express his thoughts beautifully at a very low level of English.
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So today I want to share with you what is so different about people like Faisal?
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How do they do it?
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And second of all, why is this so important not only to you but to your children,
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to your community and to the future of Malaysia?
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And third of all, what's one thing you can do starting today if you want to speak with that calm,
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clear confidence that people like Faisal has?
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So first of all, what is so different?
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How do people like Faisal do it.
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So to answer that question I'm going to take you back about 10 years.
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Okay, so I was training staff at that time
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and my daughter at that time was taking piano lessons
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and I started to notice two really strong similarities between my daughter's attitude
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or thinking towards playing the piano and a lot of Malaysians thinking or attitude towards English.
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Now first of all I should my daughter absolutely hated piano,
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hated the lessons, hated practicing.
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This is my daughter practicing piano, okay?
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This is as good as it got.
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This is the real thing.
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And she dreaded going to piano lessons because to my daughter,
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going to piano lessons, she was filled with this sort of dread because it was all about not screwing up, right?
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Because like for a lot of piano students,
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to both my daughter and her teacher,
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her success in piano was measured by how few mistakes she made.
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Now at the same time,
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I noticed that a lot of Malaysians went into English conversations with the same sort of feeling of dread,
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this sort of feeling that they were going to be judged by how many mistakes they were going to make,
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and whether or not they were going to screw up.
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Now, the second similarity that I noticed was to do with self-image.
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You see, my daughter, she knew what good piano sounded like, right?
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Because we've all heard good piano.
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And she knew what her level was,
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and she knew how long she'd have to play for to play like that.
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And a lot of Malaysians,
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I noticed, had this idea of what good,
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proper English is supposed to sound like,
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and what their English sounded like,
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and how far they'd have to go to get there.
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And they also felt like they were,
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like my daughter, just bad.
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Bad piano player, bad English speaker, right?
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My English is not so good,
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I cannot, sorry, I cannot.
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So I could see these similarities,
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but I still couldn't figure out,
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okay, what is it about these people like Faizal,
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that are so different, that can just do it smoothly, calmly, with confidence?
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And one day I discovered that answer,
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and I discovered it quite by chance.
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It was a day when my computer broke down and I had to go to a cybercafe.
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Now, okay, it was my first time,
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and I discovered cybercafés are disgusting places, okay?
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They're really gross, they're smelly,
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and they're filled with boys,
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and they're all playing noisy, violent games.
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They're just disgusting places.
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But I had to go there.
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I sit down and I start noticing this guy beside me and I become very,
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very interested in this guy next to me.
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Now this guy is playing this game that is basically,
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it's like shooting people until they die.
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And that's it, right?
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That's the game, right?
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And I'm noticing that this guy is not very good.
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He's like, in fact, terrible, right?
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Because I'm looking and I'm seeing like a lot of shooting and not much dying, right?
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But what really interested me was,
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behind this lousy player were three of his friends sort of standing there watching him play.
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And what I really noticed was,
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even though this guy was terrible,
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even though his friends were watching him,
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there was no embarrassment, there was no feeling of being judged,
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there was no shyness.
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In fact, quite the opposite this guy is like totally focused on the bad guy,
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smile on his face.
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All he can think about is killing these guys, right?
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And I'm watching him and I suddenly realized this is it.
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This is the same attitude that people like Faisal have when they speak English,
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just like this guy.
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When Faisal goes into an English conversation, He doesn't feel judged.
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He's entirely focused on the person that he's speaking to and the result he wants to get.
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He's got no self-awareness, no thoughts about his own mistakes.
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Now, I want to share with you a real,
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true example, to paint a picture of somebody who speaks English like they're playing piano
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and someone who speaks English like they're playing a computer game.
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And this is a true story.
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Happened to me.
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A while ago, I was in a pharmacy.
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I had to buy Omega.
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My doctor said I should get Omega.
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And I go to the shelf, there's tons of Omega.
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There's Omega that's high in DHA,
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Omega that's high in EPA,
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and I don't know which one to buy.
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Now, the sales rep happened to be there,
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and I saw she was like this well-dressed professional woman.
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I walk over to her,
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and I see this look as she sees me,
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she sees me, this sort of,
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it's a look I recognize very well.
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Her eyes go all wide.
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It's sort of that panic,
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oh my God, I've got to speak to a native speaker and she's going to judge me and notice my mistakes.
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I go up to her and I explain my situation,
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which omega do I get?
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And she starts explaining to me everything about DHA and EPA you could possibly imagine.
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She speaks very quickly, goes all around in circles.
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and when she finishes, no idea what to buy.
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So I turn to the girl behind the counter.
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Now the girl behind the counter,
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I heard her before, her English level is very low.
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But when I walk over to her this girl
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there's no fear in fact she's just looking at me you know
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that look like yeah okay so how yeah I've been in Malaysia a long time
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so I go up to her
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and I explain the problem EPA DHA she looks at me
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she says okay up EPA for heart DHA for brain your heart okay
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or not I said yeah yeah I said my heart is
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really it's I think it's pretty good she says your brain okay or not I said yeah No,
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no, my brain is not as good as it used to be.
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She looked, she said, O'kela, you take omega-10, Ken?
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Problem solved, right?
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So we've got two different kinds of communicators.
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We've got the one who's got a high level,
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but totally focused on herself and getting it right, and therefore very ineffective.
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We've got another one, low level,
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totally focused on the person she's talking to, and getting a result.
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Effective.
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And therein lies the difference.
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Now, why is this distinction so important,
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not just to you, to your children,
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but to the future of Malaysia and countries like Malaysia?
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And to answer that, let's take a look at who actually is speaking English in the world today.
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Okay?
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So, if we looked at all of the English conversations in the whole world taking place right now on planet Earth,
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we would see that for every native speaker,
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like me, there are five non-native speakers.
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And if we listen to every conversation in English on planet Earth right now,
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we would notice that 96% of those conversations involved non-native English speakers.
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Only 4% of those conversations are native speaker to native speaker.
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This is not my language anymore.
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This language belongs to you.
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It's not an art to be mastered.
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It's just a tool to use to get a result.
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And I want to give you a real-life example of what English is today in the world,
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real English today.
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This is another true story.
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I was at a barbecue a little while ago.
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This was a barbecue for engineers,
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engineers from all over the world,
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and they were making hot dogs.
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Now, some of the hot dogs were regular hot dogs,
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and some were these cheese hot dogs,
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with the cheese in the middle.
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French engineer is cooking the hot dogs,
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and he turns to this Korean engineer and he says,
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Would you like a hot dog?
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And the Korean guy says, Yes, please.
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He says, do you want the cheese?
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And the Korean guy looks around at the table.
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He says, I no see cheese.
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French guy says, ah, the hot dog contains the cheese.
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Korean guy doesn't understand him, right?
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So the French engineer tries again.
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The hot dog is making from, with the cheese.
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Korean guy still doesn't understand.
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He tries again.
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He says, The hot dog is coming from...
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No, the cheese is coming from the hot dog.
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Korean guy cannot understand.
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Now, this Japanese engineer, who's been listening to this conversation turns to the Korean engineer and he says,
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Ah, ah, a chisa integrator.
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He understands.
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Everybody understands.
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So this is what English is today.
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It's just a tool to play around with to get a a result,
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like a computer game.
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Now the challenge is that we know in schools all around the world,
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right, English is not really being taught like it's a tool to play with.
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It's still being taught like it's an art to master.
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And students are judged more on correctness than on clarity.
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Some of you might remember the old comprehension exam in school.
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Does anybody remember in school when you would get a question about a text that you read?
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You'd have to read through some text, right?
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And then answer a question to show that you understood the text.
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And this may have happened to you that you showed that you understood the text,
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but you got a big X because you made a little grammar mistake.
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Like this student.
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Now this student clearly understood paragraph four,
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but no, not correct, because he left the letter N off the word environment.
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But in the real world, what would matter?
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In the real world, what would matter is,
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did you understand the email,
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or did you understand your customer,
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so that you can go ahead and take action?
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Now the problem that I see here,
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over and over, is that people take the attitude they developed about English in school
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and they bring it into their adult life and into their work.
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And if you're in a stressful situation and you're having a conversation
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and you're trying to give a result to someone and say it correctly,
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your brain multitasks, it cannot do two things at once.
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And what I see is the brain just shutting down.
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And you may recognize these three symptoms of the brain shutting down.
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The first one is that your listening goes.
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Someone is talking to you and you're so busy thinking about how you're going to respond and express yourself correctly,
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you don't actually hear what the other person said.
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And I can see a lot of nodding in the audience.
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The second thing to go is your speaking.
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your mind sort of shuts down and that vocabulary you do know just disappears
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and you the words don't come out the third thing to go is your confidence
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and the worst thing about this is you may only be confident
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because you cannot express yourself clearly
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but to the person talking to you they may misunderstand this
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as a lack of confidence in your ability to do the job to perform.
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So if you want to speak English like Faisal with that great confidence,
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here's the one thing that you can do.
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When you speak, don't focus on yourself.
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Focus on the other person and the result you want to achieve.
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Imagine a next generation of Malaysians all with that wonderful confidence in communication that Faisal has at any level of English.
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Because let's remember that English today,
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it's not an art to be mastered.
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It's just a tool to use to get a result.
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And that tool belongs to you.
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Thank you.
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Context & Background
In the insightful TEDx Talk by Marianna Pascal, we delve into the crucial connection between attitude and language proficiency, particularly with English as a second language. With over two decades of experience training individuals in Malaysia, Marianna shares her observations that communication effectiveness often stems more from personal attitude than from the mastery of complex grammar or vocabulary. This is particularly evident in her anecdote about Faisal, a factory supervisor with a minimal grasp of English who communicates with exceptional clarity and confidence, reminding us that speaking a language well is often more about mindset than experience.
Top 5 Phrases for Daily Communication
Enhancing your daily English conversations can be achieved by mastering specific phrases that not only reflect common usage but also help in building your confidence. Here are five essential phrases extracted from the transcript that can serve as building blocks for effective communication:
- “Can you help me with this?” – A polite way to ask for assistance.
- “I understand what you’re saying.” – This phrase conveys your engagement in the conversation.
- “Let me think about it.” – Perfect for giving yourself time to respond thoughtfully.
- “That sounds interesting!” – A great way to show interest in the other person’s ideas.
- “Could you explain that again?” – A confidence-building question that facilitates clarity in communication.
Step-by-step Shadowing Guide
To improve your English pronunciation and overall speaking skills using the shadowing technique, follow this structured guide while watching Marianna Pascal’s talk:
- Watch the Video: Start by watching the video without sound to familiarize yourself with the flow and body language of the speaker.
- Listen to the Audio: Play the video and focus on the audio. Pay close attention to how Marianna pronounces words and phrases.
- Repeat Aloud: Use shadowspeak by mimicking her speech immediately after you hear it. This helps in developing rhythm and pronunciation.
- Record Yourself: Record your shadowing attempts. Listening to yourself can highlight areas for improvement in your pronunciation.
- Practice Regularly: Incorporate this exercise daily. Consistent practice will lead to noticeable improvements in your English speaking abilities.
By embracing the shadowspeaks method, you can cultivate a more positive outlook toward learning and improve your communication in English. With patience and dedication, you can achieve a level of fluency that allows you to express your thoughts clearly, just like Faisal.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.
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