Practicing Speaking English by Shadow Reading

Grace from Korea here.

I practiced speaking English by shadow reading. :D

The original video I practiced was Oprah's speech video that she told Harvard graduates ; <There is No Such Thing as Failure>

Oprah's speech video from English Central

As usual, English is difficult.. haha :-p

I got to think again that we have to keep practicing reading English !!

Because learning English is always hard for who are learning English as a second language.. right?

Here's my 'Before' audio that I recorded.

Grace's shadow reading - Before

Let me write down the subtitles of speech here.

<There is No Such Thing as Failure>

by Oprah

I know that you all might have a little anxiety now

and hesitation about leaving the comfort of college

and putting those Harvard credentials to the test.

But no matter what challenges or setbacks or disappointments you may encounter along the way, you will find true success and happiness if you have only one goal.

There really is only one, and that is this :

to fulfill the highest, most truthful expression of yourself as a human being.

You wanna max out your humanity by using your energy to lift yourself up, your family and the people around you.

Theologian Howard Thurman said it best.

He said, "Don't ask yourself what the world needs."

"Ask yourself what makes you come alive and then go do that,

because what the world needs is people who have come alive."

And here's my 'After' audio !

Grace's shadow reading - After

What do you think?

Did it get better? :)

I need to keep on practicing and I will !

Why don't you try ?

And the website I used, 

English Central is a very great website to learn English !

Please check it out.

See you soon ~ :D

Preferred Careers in Korea

Grace from Korea here.

Continued to last posting, I would like to talk about 'jobs', especially 'preferred careers in Korea' today.

I remember, when I was an elementary school student, my classmates dreamed to be a singer, lawyer, soccer player and even president. Many girls wanted to be a pop star, they practiced dancing and singing after school. I also remember boys had so much passion about sports. They were always kicking balls after lunch and PE class was their favorite.

But a recent study shows quite different result from my childhood. Korea Research Institute for Vocational Education and Training studied students aged from 12 to 18. What do you think the most preferred career for students was?

Well.. Elementary school teacher ranked first place.

Doctor ranked second,

and government employee ranked third.

It's been few years that students choose an elementary school teacher as their dream job.

It seems like they are greatly influenced by their parents because the same research for parents had the same result.

The top 3 reasons why they chose those jobs as their dream job were

1. It's stable.

2. It's less stressful job than others.

3. It's high-paying job.

Obviously nowadays in Korea,  young people prefer having stable job to challenging one. I can understand because I've been hearing things like 'You need to get a stable job like a teacher so that you can get married well'.. It's public social mood in Korea.

So, I would like to know what your dream job is and why, also public standard that people choose a career as their dream jobs.

How is it like in your country?

What's Your Dream Job?

Grace from Korea here.

Only 1 more week to go to final examination :(

and I have 1 year left in my university. I'm on my 2nd semester of Junior year.

Recently, as preparing my presentation for English Presentation class, I had this opportunity to think about my future dream job, as well as my career goal. (Maybe it can be same meaning)

So, here's the question.

"What is your dream job?"

When I was a child, adults always asked me about what I want to be in the future. There were many answers had changed many times. As time goes by, there was passion in my heart towards children over the world.

My final goal of my life is having my own foundation to give children in poor countries opportunities that they can learn whatever they want, for free.  Basically, I want to teach them many languages because languages are like a door , a key to the whole new world. I want them to see and experience the world by their own eyes. 

So, that's my long-term goal and my short-term one is getting in educational publishing company.

There was one question what I asked to myself 2 years ago.

It was,

"What do I like?" 

The answers were 'I love kids so much' and 'I love making things for them'.

I searched for occupation by these keywords and I found the job 'Children's Materials Editor' interesting and will be perfect for me !

Children's materials editor makes books or materials for children. I'm more than interested in educational materials and making things for children so I think I'm great fit to educational publisher.

So I'm preparing myself for the job, such as working as an Au-pair and camp counselor at English camp. I would like to make some books before I graduate so that my future job interviewer can see how much I've been wanted this job.

My students from 'Lilac' class at 2015 winter English camp.

With my lovely boys I looked after in Australia.

So,

What's your dream job?

What / How are you preparing for it?

What motivated you to have that dream?

I hope we all can live a life doing what we want to do :)

, doing what we feel happy when we're doing it.

I'll keep up my work for my dream job !

Of course I'll let you know every steps of it.

Wish me luck ! I wish you luck, too :)