Shadowing Carol Dweck

The Power of Believing That You Can Improve — The “power of yet”, explained slowly and clearly by the psychologist behind the growth mindset. Original video on YouTube: Carol Dweck — The Power of Believing That You Can Improve.

Carol Dweck — The Power of Believing That You Can ImproveStart from the beginning

Level: B1
Accent: American
Length: 10 min · 121 lines to practise
Speed: about 105 words a minute (slower than most talks)
Words: about 1,060; the talk asks 9 questions

What to focus on in this talk

Slow and clear — the calmest talk here. Copy how she lands on one word: “Not Yet.” The line “you understand that you’re on a learning curve” is a good one for linking (on-a, learning-curve). Its captions have no word timing, so Sada scores your words here but not your delay.

What this talk trains

Carol Dweck speaks for about 10 minutes: roughly 1,060 words in 121 caption lines. The pace eases off as the talk goes on, from about 118 words a minute in the first quarter to 91 in the last. Overall it is faster than 1 of the other 66 talks on Sada. Its sentences average 14.3 words, no longer than the middle of the library (14.3), and 13.9% of its words fall outside the 3,000 most common English words (library middle: 12.9%). It asks 9 questions, so there is plenty of question intonation to copy.

Lines from across the talk, and what each one trains

One line from each quarter of the talk. Press a line to open it in Sada, ready to record. “Linking” marks words that run together: a word ending in a consonant sound joins the vowel that starts the next one.

1:29 They had what I call a growth mindset.
Linking: say “what I”, “call a” without a break between the words. One of the quicker lines: about 145 words a minute by the caption timing, against 105 for the whole talk.
3:26 Are we raising kids who don't know how to dream big dreams?
“don't know”: fast speech often shortens it to “dunno”. Listen for whether the speaker does here. A question: listen to where the voice rises or falls at the end, and copy it.
6:23 We have shown this now, this kind of improvement,
“kind of”: fast speech often shortens it to “kinda”. Listen for whether the speaker does here. Linking: say “kind of”, “of improvement” without a break between the words.
8:54 I received a letter recently from a 13-year-old boy.
Linking: say “received a”, “from a” without a break between the words. A number (13): practise saying it at the speaker’s speed.

Words that keep coming up

Words outside the 3,000 most common English words that Carol Dweck uses more than once. The number is how often each is said. Look up any you don’t know, then press it to practise the line where it first comes up.

How the pace changes through the talk

Part of the talk	Words a minute
First quarter	118
Second quarter	112
Third quarter	99
Last quarter	91

The fastest minute starts at 0:13 (about 134 words a minute): practise that minute once the rest feels easy. The slowest starts at 9:23 (about 80): a good minute to warm up with.

Measured from the caption timing, so the numbers are close, not exact.

How the talk opens: press any line to practise it

How to practise this talk

Warm up on the slowest minute (from 9:23) or on the opening lines above.
Then take the chosen lines above one at a time: linked words, a quick line, a shortened phrase, a question, a number.
On each line, press Record and say it after Carol Dweck (Repeat) or along with them (Shadow), then open Compare and go again until every word is green.
Save the fastest minute (from 0:13, about 134 words a minute) for last.
At one minute a day you finish the whole talk in about 10 days, and Sada shows your first try against your latest.

More talks to practise

Famous talks to shadow →

Start practising