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Transcriber: Phuong Cao
Reviewer: Peter van de Ven
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For the past 20 years,
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I've been helping Malaysian
and other Southeast Asians
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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
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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 low level of English,
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and they can communicate very, very well.
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One of them that I remember was a student,
a participant of mine named Faizal.
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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,
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very calmly, clearly,
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and then he could respond,
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absolutely express
his thoughts beautifully,
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at a very low level of English.
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So, today I want to share with you
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what is so different
about people like Faizal?
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How do they do it?
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And second of all,
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why is this so important not only to you,
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but to your children, to your community,
and to the future of Malaysia?
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And third of all,
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what's one thing you can do,
starting today,
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if you want to speak
with that calm, clear confidence
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that people like Faizal have.
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First of all,
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what is so different?
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How do people like Faizal do it?
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To answer that question,
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I'm going to take you back
about 10 years, okay?
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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
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between my daughter's attitude
or thinking towards playing the piano
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and a lot of Malaysians' thinking
or attitude towards English.
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First of all, I should tell you
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my daughter absolutely hated piano,
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hated the lessons,
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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
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because to my daughter,
going to piano lessons,
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she was filled with this sort of dread.
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Because it was all
about not screwing up, right?
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Because like 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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At the same time,
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I noticed that a lot of Malaysians
went into English conversations
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with the same sort of feeling of dread.
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This sort of feeling
that they were going to be judged
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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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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, I noticed,
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had this idea of what good proper English
is supposed to sound like,
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and what their - I see a lot of you nod -
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and what their English sounded like,
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and how far they
would have to go to get there.
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And they also felt like they were -
like my daughter - just bad,
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bad piano player,
bad English speaker, right?
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My English not so good, lah.
Cannot. Sorry, yah. Cannot. Ah -
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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, that are so different,
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that can just do it smoothly,
calmly, with confidence?
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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,
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and I had to go to a cybercafe.
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Okay, it was my first time,
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and I discovered cybercafes
are disgusting places, okay?
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They're really gross.
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They're smelly,
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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So I sat down,
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and I started noticing this guy beside me.
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And I became very interested
in this guy next to me.
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Now, this guy is playing this game
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that is basically, it's like
shooting people until they die.
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And that's it.
(Laughter)
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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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In fact, he's terrible, right?
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Because I'm looking,
and I'm seeing, like, a lot of shooting
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and ... not much dying, right?
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(Laughter)
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What really interested me was
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behind this lousy player
were three of his friends,
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sort of standing there watching him play.
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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.
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There was no feeling of being judged.
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There was no shyness.
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In fact, quite the opposite.
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This guy's totally focused
on the bad guys,
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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.
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And I suddenly realize: this is it.
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This is the same attitude
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that people like Faizal have
when they speak English,
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just like this guy.
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When Faizal goes
into an English conversation,
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he doesn't feel judged.
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He is entirely focused
on the person that he's speaking to
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and the result he wants to get.
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He's got no self-awareness,
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no thoughts about his own mistakes.
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I want to share with you
a real, true example, to paint a picture,
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of somebody who speaks English
like they are playing piano
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and someone who speaks English
like they are playing a computer game.
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And this is a true story.
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It 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,
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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's like
this well-dressed, professional woman.
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I walk over to her,
and I see this look as she sees me,
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this sort of - 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;
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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
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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,
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no idea what to buy.
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(Laughter)
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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,
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this girl,
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there's no fear.
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In fact, she's just looking at me.
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You know that look?
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Like...Yeah?
Okay...So, how?
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(Laughter)
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Yeah, I've been in Malaysia a long time.
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(Laughter)
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So, I go up to her and I explain
the problem, EPA and DHA.
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She looks at me, she says,
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"Okay, yeah. "
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"Ah, EPA for heart."
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"DHA for brain."
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(Laughter)
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"Your heart okay or not?"
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(Laughter)
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So I said,
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"Yeah, yeah,"
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I said, "my heart is really,
I think it's pretty good."
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She says,
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"Your brain okay or not?"
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(Laughter)
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I said, "No. No, my brain
is not as good as it used to be."
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She looks and says,
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"Okay lah, you take Omega DHA!"
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(Laughter)
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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,
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and therefore, very ineffective.
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We've got another one,
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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
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
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at who actually is speaking English
in the world today, okay?
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So, if we looked at all of the English
conversations in the whole world,
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taking place right now on planet Earth,
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we would see that for every
native speaker, like me,
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there are five non-native speakers.
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And if we'd listen to every conversation
in English on planet Earth right now,
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we would notice
that 96% of those conversations
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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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Some of the hot dogs
were regular hot dogs,
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and some were these cheese hot dogs,
you know, with the cheese in the middle.
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A French engineer is cooking the hot dogs,
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and he turns to this Korean engineer,
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and he says, "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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The French guy says,
"The hot dog is contains the cheese."
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(Laughter)
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The 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 hotdog is coming from -
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No, the cheese is coming
from the hot dog."
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(Laughter)
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Korean guy cannot understand.
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Now there's a Japanese engineer
who's been listening to this conversation,
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turns to the Korean engineer
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and he says, "Ah! Cheese ... integrator!"
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(Laughter)
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He understands, okay.
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(Laughter)
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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 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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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 everybody remember in school
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when you'd 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 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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This student clearly
understood paragraph four.
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But no, not correct!
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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
did you understand the email,
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or did you understand your customer
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,
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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,
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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 multi-tasks,
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
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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,
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and that vocabulary you do know
just disappears,
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and the words don't come out.
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The third thing to go is your confidence.
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The worst thing about this is
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you may only be [un]confident because
you cannot express yourself clearly,
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but to the person talking to you,
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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 Faizal 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,
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all with that wonderful confidence
in communication that Faizal has,
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at any level of English.
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Because let's remember
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that English today
is 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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(Applause)
