BTS Thrives On Peer Pressure

Peer pressure has been blamed for everything from poor academic performance to depression, but in the case of BTS, the enormously popular South Korean boy band, it has produced a very positive result. In a prior Forbes blog, you read that RM, also known as Namjoon, serves as the spokesperson for the septet because he is fluent in English—a fluency he developed by watching “Friends.” He enhanced his skills further by applying the basic principles of music to speaking.

Another member of the group named Hobi—who is already fluent in Chinese and Japanese—decided to learn English and, as you can see in this YouTube video, he learned it very well. Hobi’s motivation was “to lighten [Namjoon’s] burden.” Undoubtedly, another factor was that the group announced in June that they would be pursing individual performances and Hobi will be appearing alone as rapper J-Hope.

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA – APRIL 03: J-Hope of BTS attends the 64th Annual GRAMMY Awards at MGM Grand … [+] Garden Arena on April 03, 2022 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic)

FilmMagic

Hobi used four simple techniques to advance his new language acquisition. Readers of this blog will recognize these techniques from presentation skills training, the point being that there are universal approaches applicable to all forms of verbal communication. Given that our world—in business, commerce, education, culture—is becoming more and more globalized, the requirement to communicate in more than one language is becoming more and more important. Just how important is apparent in the list below, compiled by the language training firm Berlitz, of the top four most spoken languages in the world:

1. Verbalization. As a presentation coach, I recommend that you speak the actual words of your presentation aloud, just the way you will when you are in front of your actual audience. In the video, Hobi tries his English many ways: at publicity events, while shopping, in social media videos, and in television interviews. This technique is the spoken variation of the essence of all training: repetition reinforces skills.

2. Distributed Learning. Educators draw a distinction between distributed learning and massed learning. Distributed learning, which occurs over time, is the more efficient method because it allows for absorption and understanding; massed learning is a synonym for cramming. In the progression of clips over the eight minutes of the video, you can see Hobi’s incremental progress to fluency. As Aesop told us in “The Tortoise and the Hare,” slow and steady wins the race.

3. Observation. When people are in the process of learning, they become self-conscious and are not fully aware of how they are executing a new skill. In this TED Talk by Marianna Pascal, she recommends reducing self-consciousness by approaching language learning as a game. In the Suasive programs, we address self-consciousness by helping the participants shift their points of view from subjective to objective—with video playback and peer feedback. Hobi records himself at multiple points in the video and, as his progress indicates, he undoubtedly self-corrected or reinforced when he watched the playback.

4. Pausing. Hobi pauses regularly when he speaks English, just as his partner, Namjoon does. Because many presenters today speak English as a second language, the pause provides time to think and gives them time to translate the words from their native language. Many of our Suasive clients speak English as a second language, and they do so very well. However, regardless of whether their first language is Chinese, Japanese, Hindi, Tamil, Spanish, French, Italian, Russian, or Hebrew, their brains must still travel two neural pathways to process both languages when they speak. The pause enables both pathways to run their full courses.

A second benefit is that when people speak in a second language, their new words will usually have an accent, making it difficult for audiences, native in the presenter’s new language, to understand. Pausing gives the audiences time to process unfamiliar pronunciations and absorb the meaning.

You may take a course at Berlitz as I once did to learn Spanish, or at the many other organizations who offer similar courses, but above all, what you must do is apply the self-practice methods that Hobi used. And, best of all, self-practice is free.