WEBVTT

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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.

00:14:12.684 --> 00:14:14.320
Your mind sort of shuts down,

00:14:14.345 --> 00:14:18.099
and that vocabulary you do know
just disappears,

00:14:18.124 --> 00:14:19.988
and the words don't come out.

00:14:21.534 --> 00:14:23.615
The third thing to go is your confidence.

00:14:24.022 --> 00:14:26.037
The worst thing about this is

00:14:26.062 --> 00:14:31.523
you may only be [un]confident because
you cannot express yourself clearly,

00:14:31.665 --> 00:14:33.745
but to the person talking to you,

00:14:33.770 --> 00:14:35.842
they may misunderstand this

00:14:35.842 --> 00:14:40.887
as a lack of confidence
in your ability to do the job, to perform.

00:14:42.980 --> 00:14:47.678
So if you want to speak English
like Faizal with that great confidence,

00:14:48.255 --> 00:14:50.869
here's the one thing that you can do.

00:14:51.909 --> 00:14:54.678
When you speak, don't focus on yourself.

00:14:55.416 --> 00:14:59.472
Focus on the other person
and the result you want to achieve.

00:15:00.478 --> 00:15:03.848
Imagine a next generation of Malaysians,

00:15:03.873 --> 00:15:09.771
all with that wonderful confidence
in communication that Faizal has,

00:15:09.796 --> 00:15:11.415
at any level of English.

00:15:12.523 --> 00:15:13.825
Because let's remember

00:15:13.850 --> 00:15:17.437
that English today
is not an art to be mastered,

00:15:17.437 --> 00:15:21.236
it's just a tool to use to get a result.

00:15:21.451 --> 00:15:24.411
And that tool belongs to you.

00:15:26.904 --> 00:15:27.911
Thank you.

00:15:27.936 --> 00:15:29.309
(Applause)