Transcription
Translator: Omnia Magdy Reviewer: Riyad Almubarak
During the past twenty years, I’ve been helping Malaysians and others from Southeast Asia to speak English better. And through coaching thousands of Southeast Asians, I discovered a very surprising truth. I discovered that how well someone can actually communicate in English is not very much related to their level of English. It’s very much related to how they interact with the English language. There are people with very low levels of English who can communicate very well. One I remember was a student, and a partner of mine, named Faisal. He was a factory supervisor—very low level of English—but this guy could sit and listen to anybody, very patiently, very attentively, and then he could respond and certainly express his ideas beautifully, with a very low level of English.
So, today I want to share with you: first, what’s different about people like Faisal? How do they do it? Second, why is this so incredibly important not only for you, but for your children, for your community, for the future of Malaysia? Third, what’s the one thing you can do, starting today, if you want to speak with that calmness, that clear confidence like Faisal?
So first, what’s different? How do people like Faisal do it? To answer that question, I’m going to take you back about 10 years, okay? I was training employees at the time, and my daughter, at that time, was taking piano lessons. And I started to notice two very strong similarities between my daughter’s attitude or thinking about playing the piano and many Malaysians’ attitude or thinking towards the English language.
First of all, I have to tell you that my daughter absolutely hates the piano, hates the lessons, hates practicing—this is my daughter’s piano practice, okay? This is the best it can get. This is the real thing. She dreads going to piano lessons because for her, going to piano lessons, filled her with this kind of dread. Because it was all about not failing, right? Because like many piano students, for my daughter and her teacher, her success in playing the piano was measured by how few mistakes she made. At the same time, I noticed that many Malaysians go into English conversations with this same dread. This feeling that they’re going to be judged by how many mistakes they make, whether they’re going to mess it up or not.
Now, the second similarity I noticed was related to self-image. My daughter knew what good piano playing was, right? Because we’ve all heard good piano playing. She knew what her level was, and she knew how much time she needed to play like that. I noticed that many Malaysians, they know what correct English is—I see many nodding heads—and how their English sounds, and how far they need to go to reach that level. They felt they were bad—just like my daughter—a bad piano player, a bad English speaker, right? My English is not good, I cannot. Sorry, yes. I cannot. Ah—so I could see these similarities, but I still couldn’t understand, okay, what about those people like Faisal, who are totally different, who can do this smoothly, calmly, confidently?
One day, I discovered that answer. I discovered it by accident. It was the day when my computer broke down, and I had to go to an Internet café. Okay, it was my first time, and I discovered that Internet cafés are disgusting places, okay? They’re really disgusting places. They smell bad, they’re full of boys. They play loud, violent games. They’re just disgusting places. But I had to go there. So I sat down, and I started noticing this young guy sitting next to me. And I became very interested in this young guy. Now, this young guy is playing this game which is based on shooting people until they die. That’s all it is. (laughter) That’s the game, right? And I noticed that this young guy is not very good. In fact, he’s terrible, okay. Because I’m looking and I’m seeing a lot of shooting and… not a lot of dying, right? (laughter) What really caught my attention behind this bad player were three of his friends, watching him play. What I really noticed is that despite being terrible, despite his friends watching him, there was no embarrassment. He didn’t feel he was being judged. There was no shame. In fact, it was quite the opposite. The young guy was focused on those bad guys, a smile on his face. All he’s thinking about is killing those guys, right? And I’m watching him. I suddenly realized: this is the secret. It’s the same way people like Faisal have when they speak English, exactly like this young guy. When Faisal goes into an English conversation, he doesn’t feel like he’s being judged. He’s completely focused on the person he’s talking to and the outcome he wants. He has no self-consciousness, no thoughts about his mistakes.
I want to give you a real, true example to paint a picture, of someone speaking English like playing the piano and someone speaking English like playing a computer game. This is a true story. This happened to me. A while ago, I was in the pharmacy. I had to buy Omega-3; my doctor told me I should get Omega-3. I went to the shelf, tons of Omega-3, there’s Omega-3 rich in DHA, Omega-3 rich in EPA, and I don’t know which one to buy. Now, there was a pharmacist there. I found her a professional, elegant lady. I went to her, and I saw her looking at me, that look I know very well. She was looking away with her eyes. That look of fear, oh my God! I must talk to someone whose mother tongue is English; she will judge me and notice my mistakes. So I went to her, and I explained my situation: which type of Omega-3 can I get? And she started explaining everything you can imagine about DHA and EPA. Speaking very fast, going in circles. And when she finished speaking, I had no idea which one to buy. (laughter) I went to the girl standing behind the counter. Now, that girl, I’ve heard her before, her level of English is very low. But when I went to her, this girl, she wasn’t afraid. In fact, she was just looking at me. You know this look? Like… yes? Okay… So, how? (laughter) Yes, I’ve been in Malaysia for a long time. (laughter) So, I went to her and explained the EPA, DHA problem. She looked at me, and she said, "Okay, yes." "Oh, EPA for the heart." "DHA for the brain." (laughter) "Your heart okay or not?" (laughter) I said, "Yes, yes," I said, "My heart, yes, I think it’s okay." She said, "Your brain okay or not?" (laughter) I said, "No, no, my brain not so good as usual." She looked and said, "Okay, take DHA Omega!" (laughter) Problem solved, right? So we have two different types of speakers. We have the high level, completely focused on themselves and getting it right, therefore uselessly. We have the low level, completely focused on the person they’re talking to and getting a result, therefore effective. That’s the difference.
Now, why is this difference so incredibly important not only for you, for your children, but for the future of Malaysia and countries like it? To answer that, let’s look at who speaks English in the world today, okay? If we look at all the English conversations in the whole world, happening right now on planet Earth, we’ll see that for every native English speaker, like me, there are five non-native speakers. And if we listen now to every English conversation on planet Earth, we’ll notice that 96% of those conversations involve non-native English speakers—only 4% of those conversations are between native speakers of the language. It’s not my language anymore; this language belongs to you. It’s not a skill to master; it’s just a tool to use to get a result.
I want to give you a real-life example of English today in the world, real English today. This is another true story… A short while ago, I was at a barbecue. It was a barbecue for engineers, engineers from all over the world. They were preparing sausages. Some of these sausages were plain sausages, some were cheese sausages, you know, with the cheese in the middle. There was a French engineer cooking the sausages, and he turned to this Korean engineer, and he said, "Do you like sausages?" And the Korean guy said, "Yes, please!" He said, "Do you want cheese?" The Korean guy looked at the table, and said, "I don’t see cheese." The French guy said, "The sausages have cheese." (laughter) The Korean guy didn’t understand, right? So the French guy tried again. "The sausages… made of… with cheese." Still the Korean guy didn’t understand. He tried again, he said, "The sausages come from—no, the cheese comes from the sausages." (laughter) The Korean guy couldn’t understand. There was a Japanese engineer listening to this conversation, he turned to the Korean engineer and said, "Ah! Cheese… integrated system!" (laughter) Understood, okay. (laughter) Everybody understood. That’s English today. It’s just a tool to manipulate to get a result, like the computer game.
And now, the danger is we know that in schools all over the world, English is not taught as a tool to play. It’s still taught as a skill to master. Students are assessed on mastery more than clarity. Some of you might remember the old comprehension test in school. Does everyone remember in school when you’re asked about the text you’ve read, you have to read some texts, right? And then answer the question to show that you understood the text? And you might have shown that you understood the text, but you got a big X because you made a small grammatical mistake. Like this student. This student clearly understood paragraph four. But no, not correct! Because he dropped the N from the word environment. But in the real world, what matters? In fact, what matters is did you understand the email, or did you understand your client so you can move on and take action?
Now, the problem I see here, again and again, is that people take what they’ve developed in English in school, and they bring it into adult life and into their work. And if you’re in a stressful situation, and you’re having a conversation, and you’re trying to give an outcome to someone and say it correctly, your multitasking mind, it cannot do two things at once. And what I see is that the mind completely shuts down. And you might recognize these three symptoms of a shutdown brain. First is your listening goes. Someone’s talking to you, and you’re so busy thinking about how to respond and express yourself correctly, you’re actually not hearing what the other person said. And I can see a lot of nodding. The second thing that goes is your speaking. Your mind is kind of shut down, the vocabulary you know very well completely disappears, you cannot retrieve the words. The third thing that goes is your confidence. The worst thing is that you’re not confident because you cannot express yourself clearly, but to the person who is talking to you, it might be misconstrued as a lack of confidence in your ability to do the job, to perform.
So if you want to speak English like Faisal with that great confidence, here’s the one thing you can do. When you speak, don’t focus on yourself. Focus on the other person and the outcome you want to achieve. Imagine the next generation of Malaysians, with all that wonderful confidence in communication that Faisal has, at whatever level of English. Because let’s remember that English today is not a skill to master; it’s just a tool to use to get a result. And that tool belongs to you. Thank you. (applause)