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

  1. scientist
  2. linguistic
  3. pursue
  4. english
  5. university
  6. 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

  1. ability
  2. barrier
  3. british
  4. cancer
  5. computer
  6. cure
  7. dangerous
  8. dream
  9. dutch
  10. english
  11. entering
  12. gatekeepers
  13. genius
  14. give
  15. good
  16. language
  17. lawyer
  18. linguistic
  19. longer
  20. met
  21. monolingual
  22. narrow
  23. power
  24. pursue
  25. put
  26. reject
  27. satisfy
  28. scientist
  29. segment
  30. sign
  31. society
  32. speaker
  33. stop
  34. student
  35. teachers
  36. time
  37. tracks
  38. universal
  39. university