Good morning everyone welcome to Essentials for English Speeches & Presentations and I’m your lecturer, my name is Hongyan. Welcome to Essentials for English Speeches & Presentations I’m Zhang Hongyan you can call me Teacher Hongyan. the foreigners prefer to call me Dr. Hongyan. There are two ways to write my name. Hong,meaning the red color, was once used, Yan refers to the rock When I was teaching in New Oriental I met a student He sent me an e-mail after many years. He said, Teacher Hongyan your name is really beautiful, which made me think of Wu Sangui one idiot describing Chen Yuanyuan is "stormed crowns for a femme" then I replied his letter in English. I am so honored to be your English teacher Not the Chinese teacher. Ok. So who will be our students? They are. Ok. Freshmen, sophomore, junior, senior you are having this master study or a doctor study whatever. I have this question. It’s kind of wired, but answers me honestly. Do you think your English level is in proportion to your degree? Yes? Are better education background and higher academic degree indicctors of higher English level Are they in proportion? Normally not. So this is the tragedy, you know. I have so many friends who complain with me that after my sophomore year my English dwindled and I almost lost it. It happens a lot. Another occasion why you need to speak good English is if you are studying overseas, when they talk about Chinese students, they use the word SILENT MAJORITY. Most Chinese students who study in European and American countries would like to keep selience in the class Like those young overseas students. Recently, We see more overseas students, who are quite young They were very young and they were brought to another culture. And some of them may pick up with the culture very soon. Last night, my former classmate by the name of Bill, Bill got a son, he sent him to the United States, to have the high school education. Last night, he called me, excitedly. Last night, he called me and said excitedly about the latest progress made by his son He told me, I am so excited my son called me. What did he say? Well, he only said 2 words. But you know, I was so excited. What are the 2 words? No.1, he said, Bill. You know, usually, his son always called him daddy or Laoba. He suddenly called him Bill by name directly. But you know, he was very excited, because you know. He’s picking up American culture so soon, he’s calling me by my name. And what are the second words? Well, actually he said a sentence. What was it? Pay the bill. Ok. there is something that he need his father to pay for that he still has the traditional Chinese value and a western way of calling his father by the name. That’s a young overseas student and certainly there are a lot of my students who are actually working and frequently you need to speak English to present something, sometimes on behalf of yourself, sometime on behalf of your company or organization you belonged to. And I have this real story, like 15 years ago, I was teaching in the New Oriental, the biggest and the most influential language training organization in China. One of my students who was taking my TOEFL class, and after 10 weeks of intensive courses, he told me that, well, teacher Hongyan, I decided I would quit English. Why? Because you know it’s so difficult and I don’t want to go abroad, I want to find a job who which will need me only Chinese. And he was working in the IT sector, so he chose Lenovo. he chose Lenovo You know what happened later. Lenovo acquired the IBM PC department. And then in the year 2004, I came back from my overseas study, and this student called me again. Teacher Hongyan, I want to learn English. Why? I want to share you with my story. He was in charged of the marketing department, after the acquisition, there were a lot of Americans who involved in the management, and they were holding this marketing meeting. The guy, American guy, typical one, was blahing everything he was talking about Chinese marketing strategy. That American talk about the Chinese market using his fluent English, an advantage of his native language. Which was to his good knowledge, definitely, he noticed that he was not telling the truth, he knows the truth, and he needs to say NO. He knocks on the table and he stands up and says NO. And then, his colleagues are looking at him, and they were saying here came the hero, a Chinese hero, he’s saying something. They asked him to say some marvelous words. And then, he said, well, I suddenly felt the world is so silent, and my mind running much faster than my tongue. That means, he made a 10 seconds silence. He said, well, later on, he got no way to explain for this, so he had to complain his college English teacher. Anyway, would you want this kind of story happen again, and then we want to make a change. And that’s why you are taking this course. And more importantly, my point is that to take this course, you don’t need to be an English major. the students who take this class can be English majors or not I don’t want to be ironic, but the English education especial for those English majors, but they are not trained to speak for themselves, for the organization. Most English majors were trained to do translation or interpretation. They care more about others’ words or works. That's our education for English majors I think there is a failure That's all we care about is what others say or what they write This is a enormous disadvantage for English majors We are students. We are not trained to express their own thoughts to speak for themselves. And for this, I count more on non-English majors. Therefore, I have more confidence in those non-English majors Whatever industry or work you are taking if you speak fluent English, great, actually you are saving face for Chinese people. Exactly！
