Do you want to speak English like a native? (with Heather Hansen)

it's a sad fact that the English that millions of people learn in classrooms all over the world doesn't often match the reality of English outside the classroom one person who knows the reality of English as a global language is Heather Hansen she teaches professionals from the world's biggest companies how to successfully communicate in English all over the world and the secret to successful global communication well it's not about speaking like a native speaker or having an RP accent or using standard English this is a powerful interview and I hope that it will make teachers and students question their assumptions this is an edited version of our interview if you would like to listen to the full version you will find a link down in the description box where you will also find a link to Heather's TED talk and her website I hope you enjoy it Heather Hansen thank you very much for taking the time to talk to me today thank you thanks for having me I'm really excited to discuss all of this with you the moment that somebody says to me I work in a communications kind of company that specializes in like corporate training of course all of the immediate associations are she's the kind of person who wants people to speak perfect English with with with like the the posh accent and you know with perfect grammar but actually that's not what you're about at all right not at all but I wasn't always that way Christian it was actually one of my clients that woke me up a little bit when I at first I was about two years into my business out here in Singapore he was president of Greater Asia of a large American multinational and I he had called me in to help him with pronunciation and presentation skills so in our consultation and everything we talked about that and you know I noticed a lot of grammar errors right big no noes and I thought ooh this is very bad and I said now what about your grammar you know do you you know very tactfully what about your grammar you know is there anything you'd like to talk about with that or look at and he just looks at me like what's wrong with you you get my grammar I don't care about my grammar as long as people understand me that's good enough and I mean for an English teacher and this is me you know over ten years ago it was like getting stabbed in the heart like what do you mean you don't care about grammar you know you just can't be right you have to speak properly right but that was when my eyes were opened in that one statement where I thought you know what you're right it really doesn't matter as long as you're understood that's all that matters you're sitting here the president of Greater Asia for an American multi-national you bring in more money in your region than actually the whole American company and yeah obviously your grammar doesn't really matter does it because everybody understands you they know what you want and what you need and you're an effective leader you are effective in your communication and that is what is important and that was what really took me off in another direction where I started really seriously studying English as a lingua franca as a common language how we were using English across borders how English was really being used in real life business because it isn't spoken out of a textbook I don't speak with a narky accent I I don't even know what my accent is I go home and they tell me I talk funny so who knows right yeah exactly and I think some of the interesting things that you talk about like on your website and and also in the videos that I've seen you in is is the fact that now that English is a global language nobody kind of owns it anymore and and maybe that's a difficult concept for a lot of teachers and you know to kind of accept it's so it's such a complex issue it's really a whole industry issue and I know that you've said this as well in some of your previous videos and statements but it is it's from the top down the whole industry is broken we've been enculturated to think a certain way we've been told by our teachers by our bosses by our parents that speaking proper English in a certain kind of English is the only way to be successful and to a certain degree in our societies because we've all been raised with those ideas it also we see it mirrored in society so yes the hiring manager is only going to hire you if you have good grammar and you have the right accent we within our own native languages within the u.s. of course there are we have so many different accents and we know that if you have the southern belle accent and you try to make it in New York I have a close colleague who now lives in the UK she lived in New York in a very male-dominated business with a very strong Southern Bell accent and she said no one took her seriously this isn't just a native speaker non-native speaker kind of thing we do it in our own languages and I think every language does it to some degree we have this massive almost invisible discrimination going on around accent what it means and what kind of identity you have whether you're educated or not whether you're rich or not what kind of socioeconomic status you have and and it's so deeply ingrained that we don't even know it's there and that's the whole problem because teachers then take it into the classroom without realising it's there when a student comes and says I want to sound like a native speaker I want to speak like a native speaker they don't even realize the underlying discrimination and how dangerous that statement is and then they end up doing things and saying things that reinforce it and and they don't even realize it because this isn't really being talked about there are those of us in the know the researchers the people in the ivory towers are talking about this you know the people at the top levels of the teaching associations we talk about this all the time but there are thousands if not millions of teachers out there who who have just you know going off to get their CELTA or whatever teaching credential and and maybe haven't ever learned that actually out in the big wide world it's a little bit different and but everything is context specific as well a learner learning English in America or in the UK is going to have different needs and wants than an english learner in Singapore or somebody you know in India or anywhere in Europe for example so so it is a very complex topic subject discussion we could be here all day talking about this yeah I mean I think another thing that maybe would be surprising for people to learn is the ratio between the amount of people who are native English speakers and the amount of people who who use English every day as a second language yeah yeah and it's basically five to one I mean we have about 400 million native speakers and we're now estimating around 2 billion non-native who are learning the language and even even these statements of native and non-native there is so arbitrary now and technically according to textbooks we would consider Singaporeans to speak to be non-native English speakers but that's kind of ridiculous because if you ask any of them they'll say that's their best language they've grown up with three four five languages dialects everything else they operate in English it's their business language their education language and yet they're classified linguistically as non native speakers well who exactly creates those classifications just because they weren't born speaking English and they started using English when they went to daycare or started in kindergarten then that means actually no they're not native it's very very arbitrary so I don't even like using the terms but unfortunately we don't have any new terms to use instead and and we need to come up with that sometimes I'll say you know advanced speakers versus intermediate or learners or I don't know it's it's a difficult we still don't have words for it but if the people who are learning English as a second third fourth fifth language we know that there are about two billion of those and the great great majority of English conversations in the world today are between people who do not have English as their first language we know that we know that in business any room I walk into in Singapore it is truly English as a lingua franca it is people with with maybe five different ethnic backgrounds five different first languages and we're using English as our common language to communicate and when that is a situation the rules are very different than what you learned in your textbook and I think that we're shortchanging our students and our learners when we aren't making that very clear to them and preparing them for the real world and international English and global English settings but what about the the critics and and that for me these are the voices that I see all the time whenever I make you know content about this subject is they say well we can't just accept bad English because then it's going to kind of ruin English or if we accept that people can kind of speak however they want then how we are going to understand each other yeah it's like the doomsday scenario right like nobody's going to be able to speak English anymore yeah this is I've had a lot of negative feedback about this as well especially after my TEDx which is titled two billion voices how to speak bad english perfectly and everybody says oh but we can't accept bad english it's like well listen to the talk because that's not what I'm saying I'm saying that when people come to me and say how they're fixed me my English is so bad it's so horrible and and I sit there and have to question them and challenge them on that and say what do you mean it's bad I understand everything you're saying you're communicating perfectly well you're the you're the CFO of a fortune 500 company what do you mean you have bad English right the definition of bad and good has been so warped and like I was saying you know teach it's its input they've received from other people from teachers from bosses from colleagues from friends you know I think about even when I speak Danish the kind of ridicule I get on my Danish accent it's pretty horrible right I have a very strong American accent on my Danish and everyone points it out to me so I really understand that feeling and I can understand why a learner would say I want to sound like a native speaker but it usually does not mean they want to sound like an American or a Brit they usually don't even that means if I ask them which accent do you want they say oh well I want to sound like you I want to sound British you know I'm American right I mean often they don't even know the difference between the accents what they really want if you did a little bit deeper and you have a conversation with them what they really want is to speak clearly they want people to understand them they want to have respect they want to belong these are the things they really want it has nothing to do with how they sound and but going back to your question since I'm taking a soft track this this argument of you know you're going to ruin the language that's really not what it's about of course we all have the rules of grammar in English we all need to reach you know an intermediate level to be able to really work and and do business in English but once we've hit that level then it becomes more about the clarity and and and the simplicity of the language not using the huge flowery words not using the idioms oh my gosh how English teachers love to teach idioms and they just they oh they hate it when I say stop teaching idioms why are we teaching this like yes okay if you want to understand then I'll teach it and when a student begs me for idioms I'll say um okay I'll teach you some idioms promise me you will never ever use them I don't ever want to hear them come out of your mouth I will teach them to you so you can understand all the native speakers who do not know how to communicate properly in international settings because native speakers are the ones who go in and use all the idioms the sports analogies all of the slang and the reason the non natives feel that they need to learn those things is because they're getting lost in the conversation but what really needs to happen is all the people with English as a first language who go into these discussions and even very high level advanced third fourth language speakers they need to go into these situations and remember to accommodate and adapt to the people in the room it's a two-way street it's not a competition of who has the biggest vocabulary it's a competition around who can be the best understood and do the best deal and make the you know get business done that's what we need to be focused on we absolutely are not ruining the language we're not stripping it of all its royal finesse we we are simply trying to communicate that should be the goal of every interaction and and people who are speaking with each other they're defining what that means in that moment in that context whether you know a speaking to a Frenchman is going to speak English completely different than you know a Dane speaking with an Indonesian here in Singapore or a Korean speaking with the German in France I mean you're defining the language and and creating that that understanding in that context and we have to look at it that way so I don't know if that answers your question I think I went off on about three other topics within that answer but it's all tied together you know it really is but but bottom line no we aren't ruining the language nothing's gonna happen to English you know we should be celebrating the fact that we're we're open to hearing more voices and we're we're learning more about the world around us because finally you know other people have a voice and and and I think it's important we start to listen to those voices no matter if they're grammatically correct or not correct from the textbook definition right yeah I mean III a hundred percent agree with with everything you've said and I think one of the really interesting things that you talk about is that in a conversation or in any setting where English is being used you know as a kind of tool for communication there's a responsibility not just on the person speaking but also there's a huge responsibility on the listener right and you know it's funny because I don't think people realize how accents work you know the more contact that you have with an accent the easier it becomes to understand when I first landed in Singapore it took me about three months to tune my ear to the accent here I was completely unprepared you know this was back in 2006 when I moved here the first time and I was very unprepared for you know I I had heard they speak English I was just expecting English it's a very different kind of English and it took me some time to tune my ear to it but now I have absolutely no problem understanding anyone in Singapore whether they're Malay or Indian or Chinese and they all have slightly different ways of speaking but you know the longer you have contact with an accent the easier it is so when an HR director of a fortune 250 company calls me from Wisconsin and says we want to hire a new CFO we have an acting CFO he's from France but nobody can understand him quote nobody can understand him and I think that's odd because you know he has to be pretty good to get to that level and I say well send me his CV I'd like that a call and I look at his CV he lived eight years in London London twelve years in Asia but suddenly nobody can understand him in America in little who knows what town Wisconsin they can't understand him and so I get him on the phone and sure enough I'm like wow you know you're probably a better speaker than anyone I've ever coached and but you're in a very specific context and if we don't do some things differently you're gonna lose your job and that's what it came down to that's how deep this accent discrimination is instead what really needed to happen and I mentioned this at the time was let me come in and teach your top people how to better understand a French accent we need more around accent understanding accent recognition instead of this idea of accent reduction which i think is a very toxic toxic word because it shouldn't be about reducing anybody's accent our identity but but this is the problem right that when we take you know this using as an example this small group of Americans who are listening to him and had no contact with other French speakers weren't familiar with the accent then he's very hard to understand whereas put him in a more international environment with people who are very familiar with the accent and there's no issue at all so this is why I'm I'm yeah I'm a huge proponent of this our that the listener needs to take some responsibility we need to also tune our ears if we want to be a part of the international community speak with international people do business across borders then we also need to learn how to communicate how to listen in a very different way it's a different skill set than when you're at home having coffee with your family and friends in your in your community where you were born and raised because then that accent when I go home that does come out a bit more in my California Valley girl right but when I'm away it's it's gone and forgotten and because I've learned over time very naturally and organically that there were certain things I needed to change to be better understood myself and also certain things I needed to listen for so I could better understand others and that takes some time and effort and and when people go into a conversation assuming they have some ownership over the language and I'm going to speak however I speak it's your job to make me understand because you are the one speaking my language and when when that's the mentality we run into big problems in global settings and this is why all the research will even tell you that it's actually these native speakers going into international settings that are causing more problems in global business communication than the non-native speakers they're doing great on their own but enter a native speaker the power dynamics change the conversation changes and the confidence levels of the people who do not have English as their first language decreased dramatically so there are a lot of a lot of issues to address in those kinds of situations as well about a year ago I had a really bizarre experience because sometimes I work as an interpreter Spanish English and I went with a with a Spanish guy to a to a conference right and obviously at the conference there was people from from you know all over the world and so they would speak to me in English and then I would translate into Spanish for my for my client and one of the people at the conference was was from the south of Spain all right so he was he was speaking Spanish so and my client is Spanish so they were perfectly capable of communicating with each other right it's the same country the same language but because I was there my client the kind of was just looking at me and waiting for me to translate the Spanish into my Spanish so I was in this bizarre situation where someone was speaking to me in Spanish I was repeating it in Spanish and and and and at that moment that's when I was like wow if you don't make the effort to understand you can even be lost even your own language it's just insane yeah it's really crazy and I mean you definitely see that across the UK I mean the dialects are so incredibly different and and that's what's even funny you know is that all these text books and everything that come out of the UK and are all focused on this RP pronunciation yet only what something what does David crystal say something like 5% of the population I think actually yeah actually speaks RP right so isn't this a disservice to our students if we are preparing them to go out in the world and all they can understand is RP English and they've been taught that that's the proper pronunciation how on earth are they gonna communicate with people even within the UK and and this is a really big issue for teachers I think a lot of teachers also have very little confidence teaching pronunciation because guess what none of us sound like the CDs you know we don't none of us do and and so I think a lot of teachers lose confidence when teaching pronunciation and that is also a shame and even the native speakers lose confidence because they have an accent that's different but I would say you know especially if you're in a country like the UK you should be teaching the pronunciation the variety of the language that is spoken in that area where those students are using it that's what's important that's what helps them to find belonging that's what you know helps them to succeed in that in that society and but there's just so much discrimination around the way we speak and communicate its I find it really sad and I think it it's something that should be talked about a lot more also at the corporate level in in the area of diversity and inclusion it's something that's forgotten we talk about gender we talk about race and that Anisa t we we forget how language is also a massive problem when it comes to including people in their ideas and encouraging people to speak up and people having confidence to share their views when they sound different and are worried they'll face ridicule what what advice would you like to give to all of those teachers who who maybe have grown up you know and they went through the training and they have these you know these these old-fashioned ideas really ingrained in their in their mentality about you know the objective is being like a native speaker with the specific acts and all that I mean what what would you like to say to those teachers well first of all I mean it doesn't for some of them it doesn't matter what they say right now because they're still gonna believe I'm wrong and that's okay that's okay we've we have been indoctrinated our textbooks teach us this our teachers teach us this and we are privileged because of this there is an enormous amount of colonial leftovers in all of this an enormous amount of white privilege in maintaining this status quo that only proper standard English is correct right so this is why we're seeing a lot of pushback on these newer ideas because it means that a lot of people are going to have to give up their power and have an acceptance for others so so there's a huge huge group of people who won't listen to me no matter what I say for the for the teachers who are sitting there thinking oh my gosh I've never even thought of it like this then then it is about starting to question your assumptions right it's about saying why why do I feel that a native accent is better what is it about a native accent or standard English that I think is so much more important than just basic intelligibility and understanding you know start questioning the textbooks start questioning and what kind of communication people are actually using I think it's just very common a student walks in and says I want to learn I want to speak like a native and they go well yeah of course everybody does right it's something they've never ever questioned stopped in question because that's just the way it is you know so it's not until you know maybe hearing this and maybe watching my TEDx maybe you know meeting another teacher or teaching in an Internet environment it's not until then that you kind of open your eyes it was the same for me I I never even thought about it until I came to Singapore and was faced with a very international environment and had my own client telling me that grammar doesn't matter before I was like one so it takes some kind of moment to to have that assumption challenged and then to start thinking about it and processing it so it's a process but there's a lot of information out there around English as a lingua franca a lot more now than you know fifteen years ago but the but the that's what's scary is the research has been around forever it's been like 30 years that that Jennifer Jenkins has been researching this and many others um and I know you didn't interview with her as well so I think if they haven't seen that they need to go and look at the interviews you've done with David crystal with Jennifer Jenkins I mean these are the heroes I mean make these people your heroes and learn everything that they that they teach because they know what they're talking about they've done the research it's just that because the way our industry is designed that research stays in the ivory towers you know I have Jennifer Jenkins book on my bookshelf I I have all it but there are academic books they cost like a hundred dollars a pop no English teacher earning under $20 an hour can afford those books the the whole system is organized in a way that maintains this status quo from the testing to the publishing to the teaching it is all there indoctrinating us to think a certain way and to teach our students in a certain way and I think it's very refreshing to see more and more teachers now challenging that status quo I think it must be challenged it's outdated and it really needs to it really needs to change so for the teachers out there who are open to open to considering this alternative you know start reading about it starting learning about and start listening join the associations join I attack will join tehsil join you know get into those groups and learn learn learn more about it and especially about the cultural side of language and and international usage because that's really where we're using the language now more than in the native speaking countries really the great majority of people are dealing with other people learning English that was kind of advice for teachers but but obviously there's there's also as you've kind of you know mentioned before there's there's billions of people who are in a classroom learning the students and and and that they've also been indoctrinated in a similar way too to have needs and desires so so what what would you like to say to maybe the students who think that the objective is you know native and textbook and perfect accent my heart always goes out to these learners also because you know I've been in a situation of speaking foreign languages I have a bachelor's in German I studied in Austria and Switzerland I worked in Switzerland I lived in Denmark eight years and learned Danish and and I know I really know what that feels like I'm sure you do too Spanish you know I know what it feels like to actually be discriminated against because of my accent I know what it feels like to walk into a store and have them assume I'm Danish because I you know my ancestry is actually Scandinavian so I look like them but then I open my mouth and it's just complete confusion on their faces because I whoa wait what wait where are you from it's like where am i from I asked you to show me that shirt you know why are we getting into this and I I really get it I understand where that that want comes from to to want to belong right I think that's really what it's about it's wanting to belong and not always have pointed out to you that you're different that you're an other that you're from somewhere else so I do understand that but I think that we all need to be confident in the fact that we can belong and remain unique we can belong and keep our own identities our own cultures our accents hugely define who we are you know what if I were to say and go along with this story that RP is the only accent and I can't teach pronunciation unless I have an RP accent so I go and study and I change my accent to an RP accent what on earth would that say about me right and it's funny because we don't think about it like people would say well no you're American why would you ever change but okay you're German why would you ever change your you know you're Chinese why would you change it's it's a part of you it identifies you it identifies your history some people will say I don't want to identify with that history everyone has very different stories very different needs but you know I would say to all of them I just think we so desperately need Global Voices we so desperately especially right now in the world we need opinions and arguments and debates and we need culture we need to know different ideas we need to hear different people speaking up then the status quo and the only way we can do that is by having them have that confidence to speak up and and speak in their own voices and and see the beauty in that you know how boring would this world be if everyone sounded like you and me if it just it would be awful and and so I hope my hope is always to give confidence to these learners to help them to build their confidence to to let them know that what they believe is there bad English is not bad at all that there's no such thing as good and bad when it comes to language it's about connection it's not about perfection and and they need to just focus on that and on the relationship and the connection they create with a person and it doesn't have to be perfect it doesn't have to be textbook and in fact that could hurt them in the long run because nobody really talks like that so so that's that's what I try to prepare them for it and say you know what no I'm not going to teach you that kind of English because when you go out in the world that's not the way people speak so it's about giving them a real the reality of how English is being used introducing them to all different accents tell them to you know I love to say find an idol that you have from your own country and somebody who's very famous who goes on TV and does interviews in English listen to their accents you can they're perfectly intelligible you know you look up to that person that sports star that movie star that politician whoever it might be listen to how they speak do they sound American do they sound like they're speaking the Queen's English no and they can be proud of that accent that is their identity and anyone in the world knows that woman is German that man is Spanish and and and that's okay that's okay that's what makes it interesting I can't believe it's taken me so long to have a conversation with you that's how I'm really feeling right now we're soul mates Christian I just you know you really just you're speaking to my heart right now it's um it's unbelievable and I just makes me happy to know that there's people out there like you who are talking about these things and you know not just that but like your platform like you're talking to you know people in high places and I think you know it's it's I just feel like that that you know people are well actually David crystal said this to me he said that you know because I was complaining about how how is it possible that we're still in this mess basically I was complaining to him about he said he said Christian you know you have to remember that global English is relatively speaking a pretty new phenomenon and we're all trying to adjust and and I just I just wish people would hurry up and adjust hurry up and adjust like it's been long enough like we're in the postmodern kind of English period now you know the world is different like you said it's two it's two billion people it's not a hundred thousand it's two billion like we need to wake up yeah colonialism is over you know I and I think people need to remember the history of language and the relationship between language and power in language has been used as a dominating force in the world for many many years and we really we you know we've gotten rid of colonialism but we haven't gotten rid of the whole entire mindset around it this is old-fashioned thinking and we can't continue to try to use language as a source of power and to maintain our privilege as native speakers you know I really I have the goal of helping all these amazing leaders I work with in Asia I want to see them you know running these these massive companies I want to see more of them on these platforms we talk about getting women on the boards how what if we look at the the boards of the Fortune 500's how many of the individuals on those boards are non-native speakers it's quite shocking when you look at even the CEOs of Fortune 500 companies it's only something like 10 or 11 percent that are not that do not have English as their first language and that's a little bit scary it means that this white privilege we are still dominating the world the the native speaker paradigm is dominating the world from a not only a linguistic perspective but a power perspective and that's where it gets very very dangerous and I hope that with the changes that we're seeing in the world today that that we will also wake up to the fact that our mindsets around language have to change and that's the only way we can move forward that we can truly be global that we can really accept others that we can be truly inclusive and is that we have to let go of these ideas of ownership over English the power that English provides us and the privilege it provides us I mean I am very very aware of that I'm very aware that one of the main reasons probably I've been so successful in Asia is because of the way that I look and the way that I speak and as hypocritical as that is I feel that that puts an extra responsibility on me to share this message and to make sure it changes because I know the reason I've been put in the position I'm in is due to you this very warped reality and belief and indoctrination around the fact that the way I speak and the way I look is better than here and that's absolutely wrong and so I have to use the position I've been given now to continually talk about this and and try to change things because if we don't change it who will you know and that's why I think it's so important for the teachers to really have an understanding of this also this fight against you know non-native teachers and this one native non-native divide in teaching and schools that don't that only hire someone because they were born in the right country I mean it's absolutely ridiculous they aren't teachers they don't have any qualifications but because they sound like me they can be a teacher it's insane it's insanity and and so that's what I mean by the whole entire industry is a mess and and the way that we look at language and the way that we continue this horrible system of of privilege around English and and we've got to change it and I don't know how I think it's conversations like this that hopefully move the bar just a little bit but but it's going to take a long time yeah yeah I mean look I'm in a similar position you know I came to Spain and ten years ago I didn't know anything about language I literally like I didn't know the difference between a noun and an adjective and what did I do I rented a space I put up a Union Jack and I started teaching you know I mean how unfair is that and and people came to me they're like oh my god you know he's a native speaker oh my god let's send our children to have classes with him and and and in fact so it may be in a similar way to you like the self-awareness of of the privilege that I had seriously unfair privilege you know it's taken me ten years to kind of to come to terms with that and so now you know similar to you I want to use my platform to say hey you know this isn't fair let's let's not do that anymore because I don't think any other industries would accept it you know like you know we don't send engineers to build bridges if never studied engineering for a single day like it's just not fair right right isn't that crazy it's crazy crazy that we can get away with this but it shows how backwards society still is when it comes to this you know and how how much this colonial mentality is still here and you know there's a lot of economics and then as well wherever the money is the power is and but you know let's see the the centers of influence are shifting very quickly so you never know what will happen but I don't think English is going anywhere primarily because it's so widespread due to colonialism it's so widespread you know China of course has billions of speakers but it's only spoken in China so in order for a language to become a lingua franca it has to be widespread and in Spanish one of the fastest-growing languages spoken in a lot more areas of the world maybe that could one day one day be arrival but but really yeah it's it's very scary I love that example of we don't send an engine you don't send someone to go build a bridge that's a really good analogy because it's exactly that it's exactly that and we can't allow this to continue and I have had critique for that as well you know we're you know on my TEDx and people saying oh the irony right you know the the white Westerner saying that we need to respect you know and and it's it's the same that we see in gender that that argument that oval you're a man so how can you talk about feminism it's like you know just because I'm not a non-native doesn't mean I don't understand the challenges especially I think that teachers who speak additional languages I think we understand the challenges more and I think that we're usually a lot quicker to accept this idea of English as a global language because because we've lived it you know we really do understand the the challenges they're facing and the discrimination they face when they speak a foreign language so so yeah I do believe we have a right to talk about it and I do believe that we are the ones who have to talk about it because it's the people who have the power you have to change it and it won't change until we stand up and say this isn't right and and and that's so that's the perspective I come from with this and I'm very happy that I got to meet you and and you're on the same page because I think that there are a lot of us out there there are there are more than you would believe of teachers who have always felt this way you know who have been teaching this way for 10 15 20 years and they they aren't and I think the teachers who don't necessarily agree with us I don't think it's any fault of their own I really don't it's just the way we've been taught so yeah it's gonna take some time hopefully this conversation guesses one little baby step closer I really hope so well look I just want to say thank you for for your well for sharing your passion because it's just so obvious you know your passion is bleeding out of every pore thank you I I just I feel very very strongly about it and you know some days I'm angry about it some days I'm sad about it but you know what can we do we have to just keep doing what we do and help as many people as we can and build their confidence and you know seeing seeing one of my clients go and and get 25 million in funding from the Board of Directors in America who have never shown him any respect you know those are the big wins River I think okay we can do this you know we can make these changes and and it really doesn't matter what level they're at it's just as important for the student getting up to give their presentation for their final exam you know to be able to give them that confidence to stand up and and do that and be successful and understand that yeah they're good enough you know I mean who are we to say you're not good enough it's it's just yeah the bad English it's good enough you know you're good enough and don't be afraid to share your message with the world we need it we really need it thank you thank you so much thank you it's Jen you

Channel: Canguro English

Views: 55,966

Keywords: canguro english, kangaroo english, canguru english, Heather Hansen, Heather Hansen 2 billions voices, heather hanson english, heather hansen ted talk, Speak English, Speak Native English, Native English, native english speaker conversation, native english conversation, native english speaking, native english pronunciation, english classroom, english classroom teaching, native english teacher, native english teacher online, non native english teacher online

Id: HQyo2wxMQr0

Length: 42min 30sec (2550 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 05 2020