– English Lyrics

Lyrics & Translation

[English]

and I think having one

exam that

determines what university you'll go to

that sounds extremely stressful it

sounds like a lot of pressure what's up

everyone I'm Carter from what's up

English and if you're a student in grade

school or

University or if you're a parent with

kids in school or even if you are not in

school and you just want to learn how to

talk about school then this podcast will

be super useful for you because we are

going to talk about school and learn a

ton of useful words and phrases that you

can use to talk about school so first I

will start this podcast with my own

personal

experience with

School uh and then we will talk about

the school system in general in Vietnam

how it works after that we will talk

about the differences between School in

Canada and school in Vietnam like what

are the differences in the school system

uh what are the cultural differences

like for example

do we have strict testing in

Canada what are the parents attitudes

towards their children studying in

Canada are they as strict as Vietnamese

parents and do we wear uniforms

different things like that and finally

at the end of the podcast I will tell

you one of the most important Concepts

to learning anything and this is of

course not something I made up but

something that I read in books that were

written about learning and this is very

interesting very useful so make sure you

watch till the end to see that but

before we get started guys I know it has

been a while since I've last uploaded

it's been a few weeks and I'm sorry for

that but the reason is is because my

team and I have been working on a really

really good pronunciation course for

American

English because with what's up

English I'm trying to turn this into a

real business that can

provide basically a solution for you

guys to learn English from

a beginner level all the way to

intermediate conversational level but I

want to provide you a

stepbystep framework so you can you know

study this master this and then learn

that and then learn that and each one

Builds on the last one right so the

first step in this Stu stud system that

I'm creating is a pronunciation course

that covers all the sounds in American

English like for example we say water we

don't say water right and that D in

water D water is called a flap te and

you won't see that in the IPA but in

this course we cover all of those sounds

but more importantly we will give you

shadowing practice and repetition

practice cuz learning it is just one

step but to actually have clear

pronunciation when you speak you need to

make it automatic with your tongue and

your lips you need to build that muscle

memory in your mouth to make these

sounds without thinking to too much

about it and I believe one of the best

ways to do that is through repetition

shadowing and making the noise correctly

again and again and again until it

becomes

automatic and so in this course we won't

only teach you the sounds but we'll give

you shadowing practice for example for

each sound you will learn three useful

sentences that you can practice you will

have a clear study plan so you will know

exactly what to

learn sorry and uh yeah I think it's

going to be seriously one of the best

pronunciation courses for American

English for Vietnamese people if not the

best so this takes a while to make um it

will be at least I think a month or two

before it comes out but if you are

interested in purchasing this course

then you can click the link in the

description below and if you put in your

email to show you're interested in this

course and sign up for the early bird

list you will get a 20% off voucher that

only people who sign up uh will get so

all you need to to do is click the link

in the description below this video it

will bring you to a web page you just

put in your email and then you will

receive a voucher for 20% off this

course when it comes out and of course I

will let you know when it comes out and

aside from that we also have the 1,000

most common words uh you can still buy

that for 79k

yeah anyway let's get started with the

podcast so this is about school so like

I said I'll begin with a personal

story I'm going to be completely honest

with you guys about school I was not the

best student all the way from I'd say

grade s to grade 12 I was not the best

student simply because I didn't really

have an interest in any of the subjects

we were studying in school and I'm the

type of person where if I don't feel

interested then it feels impossible for

me to put effort into it it's like my

brain just cannot do it maybe a lot of

you can relate to that maybe you feel

the same way if there's a course that

you're not interested in it's just so

hard for you to put your focus into that

right so when I was in school I would

normally just put the minimal amount of

effort into the class so I could pass

because of course I didn't want to fail

the class and then go to summer school

or have to repeat the class in the next

sem Master but in terms of trying to get

really good grades in school so I could

go to a good University and then I could

get a good job to be completely honest I

wasn't thinking about that too much I

just wanted to finish the school day so

I could go and hang out with my friends

or go home and play video games I think

it was a lack of maturity but ALS so it

was you know I wasn't the the happiest

kid you know I wasn't all excited to

learn and I was mostly just kind of kind

of flat you know and you might think

it's weird that I'm telling you this

because now I'm on YouTube I'm teaching

English but it's the truth and I'm going

to tell you guys the truth right but the

important thing is is that people change

over time and as we grow up we mature

our perspectives change and our values

change what is important to us changes

for example before I would just do the

bare minimum to pass the class but now

I'm studying online in a university and

I'm getting a very decent GPA because my

mindset is just completely different now

I see the value in it and now I have

pride you know I want to get good grades

just because even I know in the

future if I'm employed at a company they

probably won't really care about my

grades right they just want to see the

paper you have have the degree the

grades don't matter that much really but

still for my personal reasons I want to

get good grades because I'm paying for

this and I I want to learn what they're

teaching me and so growing up

maturity mental health whether you're

happy or or depressed they play a huge

role in how well you do in school I

really believe that probably even more

than like your IQ or your intelligence

level right because someone who's really

really smart if they are kind of lazy or

if they feel depressed and they don't

want to put the work in or the effort in

then they're probably not going to get

very good grades at least when they

reach the higher levels like the

University

meanwhile some people who are not very

smart and they have to work harder than

the smart kids they can still get good

grades because they're putting the

effort in yeah I think our our mental

state is very

important and anyway that was my

experience in school so now let's talk

about uh the school system in general in

Vietnam so the school system begins with

preschool and this is when the kids are

around 3 or four years old there's also

the word Nursery which is more common in

England but because I'm Canadian we use

North American English so the words I

use will be the common words in North

America if you know some other words

then that that's possible they are

common in England but in this podcast

we'll use words common in North

America so yeah kids begin with

preschool when they're three or four

years old and the purpose of preschool

is not really to learn but to help the

kids build their social skills um

emotional skills and just basic

cognitive skills to function as a human

being right and then in Vietnam when

they're around 4 to 6 years old so from

4 to 6 years old they go to kindergarten

in kindergarten there's a more

structured approach a more academic

approach to prepare the kids for going

into grade school to prepare them for

grade one now preschool and kindergarten

are not compulsory in Vietnam you don't

have to send them there but from what

I've

heard pretty much all kids go to

preschool and kindergarten because their

parents are working and it's also a way

for them to be taken care of right all

right so after they finish kindergarten

the kids go into Elementary school also

known as primary school and in Vietnam

Primary School are grades one to five

yes one to five I had to think a bit

because in Canada it's 1 to six so there

are some small small differences after

they finish Elementary School they go

into Middle School also known as junior

high but again in Canada we usually say

middle

school so Middle School in Vietnam are

grades six 7 8 and

nine and middle school is like a

transitional period to prepare students

for the more

independent subject focused style of

high school in Primary School

[Music]

it's more guided and nurturing in the

way they learn but High School is much

more independent and there's a lot more

pressure and you're more focused on

particular subjects so middle school is

to help them transition into high school

okay after they finish Middle School

they go into high school so high school

is grades 10 11 11 and

12 and from what I've heard from the

people I've talked to is there's a ton

of pressure in high school because you

need to get good grades and you need to

do well on the

national National exam I can't remember

the name yeah on the national exam or

the na or the university entrance exam

in order to get into a good University

and it's very competitive so in high

school a lot of students are stressed

out they're under a lot of

pressure um because they want to get

accepted into a good University all

right before I talk about the

differences between Canada and

Vietnam I want to go over some job

titles that might be useful for you okay

so we have the principal of the school

then there's the vice principal of

course we have teachers and one very

prominent role in schools here in

Vietnam is being The Home Room teacher

so Home Room teacher um there are

academic officers

Librarians uh in Vietnam they have

security guards so there are a lot of

different staff members that make up the

overall staff of the school okay so now

let's move on to the differences between

schools in Vietnam and schools in

Canada first let's talk about classrooms

so in Vietnam especially the urban areas

like inside the city in public schools

classes are usually between 40 to 50

students while in Canada they are around

20 to 30 students because of course in

Canada we have way fewer people there is

about 37 million people in Canada and a

much larger country while Vietnam is

much smaller with a 100 million people

so class sizes are going to be bigger

for sure in Vietnam classes normally

have the L Chong right L Chong uh in

Canada we also had these they were

called a class monitor or a class

leader but to be honest the role that

they had was not as serious as the class

monitors here in Viet Vietnam like in

Vietnam the class

leader has a lot of rules to do and they

are expected to be a role

model but when I was in school it wasn't

a big thing to be honest I think in high

school we didn't even have any class

leaders in any of the

classes if there was a class monitor

their job was basically just to tell on

the kids if they did something bad they

would just look for you to do you know

something like oh he's cheating or you

know he just threw this thing at this

student and that's what they would do

another thing about classrooms in

Vietnam versus Canada I read online that

in

Vietnam the the way they teach the focus

is more on the teacher while in Canada

the focus is more on the students and

they want more part

participation and interaction but I'm

not really sure how true this is because

I think it really depends on the teacher

I've seen classes here in Vietnam where

they had plenty of interaction and

participation with the students and I've

seen classes where it's just the teacher

talking and students writing but I've

also seen both ways in Canada as well

you know when I was in school some

teachers would just talk and you take

notes and then some other classes were

much more fun you could do other things

so I think uh it's hard to generalize

Vietnam is more like this than Canada

because it really depends on the

teachers but maybe in general Vietnam is

a bit more teacher focused that could be

possible all right so the next thing

we'll talk about is exam pressure on

students the pressure to do well in

exams so for sure the education system

in Vietnam puts a lot more emphasis and

importance on exams than Canada and the

West in general like in Vietnam the mark

you get on your exam plays a big role

into what university you'll get into but

in Canada universities they look at your

overall grades in grades 11 and 12 the

last two years of high school and

there's no one exam in

Canada that will get you into

universities they look at your overall

grades and your grades are based on

projects assignments participation

and exams so in

Canada exams play a role in your mark

for example they might it might be worth

like 30% of your overall Mark for that

class but there's not one big exam that

you have to do well in and I think

having one

exam that

determines what university you'll go to

that sounds extremely stressful it

sounds like a lot of pressure and to be

honest I'm quite glad that we didn't

have to do that because it does sound

quite stressful all right so overall

there's less exam pressure in Canada in

the west than in Vietnam okay so let's

talk a little bit about parental

expectations meaning the expectations of

the parents on their children on the

students

so are Canadian parents as strict as

Vietnamese parents as a whole I would

say

no um in fact when I was growing up in

Canada we would often make jokes about

how strict Asian parents are compared to

everyone else and how much they value

education so when I was in school there

were a lot lot of kids whose parents

were immigrants because it's Canada

there are people from everywhere like in

my class they would have kids from China

kids from Japan kids from India from

Pakistan from Iran from so many

different countries but they were

usually born in Canada but their parents

came from their respective countries and

I remember these parents would often put

their kids in

extracurricular tutoring things like

Kuman for example many students in my

classes went to Kuman which taught them

math and it helped a lot they got by far

the best grades in the class uh for

math so in Canada it it varies some

parents are strict some parents are not

very strict in general I think think

they are less strict than parents in

Vietnam these days but also I know in

Vietnam it varies as well some parents

are very strict some parents not so much

at the end of the day we're all kind of

the same you know we're we're all just

humans trying to do our best um there

are some small differences but yeah all

right so the last thing is uniforms in

Vietnam uniforms are mandatory at most

schools both Public

Schools both public schools and private

schools now these uniforms are usually

uh a light colored shirt with dark pants

in Canada uniforms are not nearly as

common they only really wear uniforms at

private schools or religious schools but

when I went to a public school I never

had to wear any uniform or anything like

that so in Canada we don't have uniforms

but we do have uh like a dress code for

example you can't have a shirt with bad

words on it or you can't wear a hat with

a particular plant on it I think you

probably know the leaf I'm talking about

if you wore those they would maybe send

you home to change or they would just

make you take it off but that's about it

okay guys the last part of this podcast

I want to tell you the most important

concept for learning so this is from a

book called make it

stick and it has a few interesting

Concepts on how to learn but one really

important one was the more difficult

something is the better your brain

learns it for example example if you're

learning English and you learn a new

word some people think the best way to

learn a word is by writing it down 50

times it's like if I write it down 50

times or a 100 times then there's no way

I will forget it right maybe this has

happened to you you still forgot the

word even after you wrote it so many

times and then you think oh I just can't

learn English or I just can't learn

languages but the reason why that's not

effective is because your brain is not

being challenged you're just writing the

word writing the word writing the word

whereas if you do something more

challenging with the word like using it

in a sentence using it properly in a

sentence then your brain has to work

harder thinking about the word and it

will form more connections to other

things so sometimes the easier way we do

that because uh you don't really have to

think to write it 50 times right but if

you study in a way where you have to

think more you have to retrieve it from

your brain and use it then that will

help you learn better and this isn't

just for language but it's for anything

learning anything that's why they also

say teaching is a great way to learn so

when you learn something if you teach

that concept to somebody else that's not

easy that's difficult and your brain has

to work quite hard to make these

connections and explain this concept in

a simple way but it will help you learn

things so anyway that's the concept in a

nutshell harder the harder you work the

the better you will remember something

so if you're taking if you're doing some

easy things to try to learn it might not

really be effective that's another

reason why reviewing notes is not really

effective because when you review your

notes it's easy you're just looking at

it again but when you do something

called active retrieval meaning you

think about everything that was in your

notes for example if if you took some

notes don't reread them but try to

rewrite all the notes you took in

different words try to remember all the

information and once you do that then

you can compare what you remembered and

what you didn't right so then you can

see oh I forgot to talk about this thing

this thing this thing and then try again

retrieve the information from your head

and write it in new words and that will

help you a lot more than just rereading

your notes all right so that'll be it

for this podcast guys remember make sure

to uh sign up for the 20% voucher for

the complete American English

pronunciation course the link is in the

description below and if you want to

support the channel you can buy the

1,000 most common words the link for

that is also in the description below so

thank you so much for watching and I

hope you have a fantastic

day uh I will see you in maybe one or

two weeks but uploads will be a little

more slow because I'm working on the

course but anyway we'll see you soon

have a great day goodbye

Key Vocabulary

Vocabulary	Meanings
determines /dɪˈtɜːrmɪnz/ B2	verb - to decide or have an influence on something
stressful /ˈstresfəl/ B1	adjective - causing mental or emotional strain or tension
pressure /ˈpreʃər/ B1	noun - the force or influence that is put on someone to do something
university /ˌjuːnɪˈvɜːrsəti/ B1	noun - an institution of higher education
student /ˈstjuːdənt/ A2	noun - a person who is studying at a school or college
system /ˈsɪstəm/ B1	noun - a set of connected things or parts forming a complex whole
differences /ˈdɪfərənsɪz/ B1	noun - points at which things are not the same
cultural /ˈkʌltʃərəl/ B2	adjective - relating to the ideas, customs, and social behaviour of a society
strict /strɪkt/ B1	adjective - demanding that rules concerning behaviour are obeyed
attitudes /ˈætɪtjuːdz/ B2	noun - a settled way of thinking or feeling about something
uniforms /ˈjuːnɪfɔːmz/ A2	noun - a distinctive form of clothing worn by members of a particular organization
concepts /ˈkɒnsept/ B2	noun - an abstract idea or general notion
learning /ˈlɜːnɪŋ/ A2	noun - the acquisition of knowledge or skills through study, experience, or being taught
automatic /ˌɔːtəˈmætɪk/ B1	adjective - operating with little or no direct human control
repetition /ˌrepɪˈtɪʃən/ B1	noun - the act of repeating something that has already been said or done
muscle /ˈmʌsl/ A2	noun - a band or bundle of fibrous tissue in a human or animal body that produces motion
framework /ˈfreɪmwɜːk/ B2	noun - a basic structure underlying a system, concept, or text

Key Grammar Structures

• and I think having one exam that determines what university you'll go to that sounds extremely stressful it sounds like a lot of pressure

  ➔ Gerund as subject, Future with 'will', Relative pronoun 'that'

  ➔ The sentence begins with a gerund phrase (“having one exam”) functioning as the subject. “you’ll go to” is a contraction of “you will go to”, expressing a future action. The word 'that' introduces a defining relative clause.

• so first I will start this podcast with my own personal experience with School

  ➔ Future with 'will' + infinitive, Prepositional phrase of experience

  ➔ The phrase “I will start” demonstrates the use of 'will' to express a future intention. “with my own personal experience” is a prepositional phrase modifying 'podcast', indicating the topic of the podcast.

• so first I will start this podcast with my own personal experience with School uh and then we will talk about the school system in general in Vietnam

  ➔ Coordinating conjunction 'and', Adverb 'then', Prepositional phrase of location

  ➔ The conjunction 'and' connects two independent clauses. 'Then' indicates a sequence of events. “in Vietnam” is a prepositional phrase specifying the location of the school system being discussed.

• do we have strict testing in Canada what are the parents attitudes towards their children studying in Canada are they as strict as Vietnamese parents

  ➔ Indirect questions, Noun + 'attitudes towards', Comparative adjectives

  ➔ The sentences are structured as indirect questions. “attitudes towards” is a common collocation. The phrase “as strict as” is a comparative structure used to compare the strictness of Canadian and Vietnamese parents.