full transcript
From the Ted Talk by Patricia Ryan: Don't insist on English!
Unscramble the Blue Letters
Now can it be right to reject a student on ligntisuic ability alone? Perhaps you have a cupoetmr sciesintt who's a genius. Would he need the same language as a lawyer, for example? Well, I don't think so. We esinlgh teachers reject them all the time. We put a stop sign, and we stop them in their tracks. They can't psruue their dream any longer, 'til they get English. Now let me put it this way: if I met a monolingual Dutch speaker who had the cure for cancer, would I stop him from entering my British ueistvrniy? I don't think so. But indeed, that is exactly what we do. We English teachers are the gatekeepers. And you have to satisfy us first that your English is good enough. Now it can be dangerous to give too much power to a narrow segment of society. Maybe the barrier would be too universal.
Open Cloze
Now can it be right to reject a student on __________ ability alone? Perhaps you have a ________ _________ who's a genius. Would he need the same language as a lawyer, for example? Well, I don't think so. We _______ teachers reject them all the time. We put a stop sign, and we stop them in their tracks. They can't ______ their dream any longer, 'til they get English. Now let me put it this way: if I met a monolingual Dutch speaker who had the cure for cancer, would I stop him from entering my British __________? I don't think so. But indeed, that is exactly what we do. We English teachers are the gatekeepers. And you have to satisfy us first that your English is good enough. Now it can be dangerous to give too much power to a narrow segment of society. Maybe the barrier would be too universal.
Solution
- scientist
- linguistic
- pursue
- english
- university
- computer
Original Text
Now can it be right to reject a student on linguistic ability alone? Perhaps you have a computer scientist who's a genius. Would he need the same language as a lawyer, for example? Well, I don't think so. We English teachers reject them all the time. We put a stop sign, and we stop them in their tracks. They can't pursue their dream any longer, 'til they get English. Now let me put it this way: if I met a monolingual Dutch speaker who had the cure for cancer, would I stop him from entering my British University? I don't think so. But indeed, that is exactly what we do. We English teachers are the gatekeepers. And you have to satisfy us first that your English is good enough. Now it can be dangerous to give too much power to a narrow segment of society. Maybe the barrier would be too universal.
Frequently Occurring Word Combinations
ngrams of length 2
collocation |
frequency |
english teachers |
3 |
teaching english |
2 |
global language |
2 |
english test |
2 |
Important Words
- ability
- barrier
- british
- cancer
- computer
- cure
- dangerous
- dream
- dutch
- english
- entering
- gatekeepers
- genius
- give
- good
- language
- lawyer
- linguistic
- longer
- met
- monolingual
- narrow
- power
- pursue
- put
- reject
- satisfy
- scientist
- segment
- sign
- society
- speaker
- stop
- student
- teachers
- time
- tracks
- universal
- university