This is the Business English Podcast, Episode 483.
Improve Your English Popcorn Style.
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This is Real Business English, with your favorite American hosts, Lindsay and Michelle, coming to you from New York City and Colorado, USA.
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Hey there, Michelle.
How's everything?
Everything is good.
Lindsay, how are you?
Michelle, do you like popcorn?
Are you a popcorn person?
I am a huge popcorn person.
I think it's one of my favorite things.
I like to buy it.
I like to make it.
I really do love popcorn.
And Dan always jokes that whenever I'm in his office, you can always tell.
But I've been there because I might leave a trail of popcorn.
That's hilarious.
Popcorn and cookies, right?
Popcorn and cookies.
Yeah, yeah.
Cookies, popcorn.
Yep.
What about you?
Are you a big popcorn person?
Yeah, I'm not against popcorn.
I mean, I...
I have no problems with popcorn.
If I were choosing between chocolate ice cream and popcorn, I would definitely choose ice cream.
Um, but yeah, I like kettle corn.
That's really good.
Cause it's kind of sweet, you know?
So good.
So good.
So today we're going to answer a question about popcorn.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So this listener question comes, it was from YouTube, I believe.
And it's from Albert.
Mo, 1722.
And he says, hi, outstanding show.
What is popcorn style?
Please advise.
Thanks, Albert.
Thank you, Albert.
Yeah, great question.
I actually, I don't have the original context from the episode because I, yeah.
Um, but I'm more basically not going to talk about in general what popcorn style means.
I can, I can guess from, uh, yeah.
Yeah.
We're going to fully answer that question.
But first, Michelle, what are we going to remind our listeners?
Something exciting is coming soon.
Yes.
Okay.
We are super excited about this.
We have a very unique pronunciation course that is going to be coming out. in the near future.
So, you know, we've been very busy this year.
We had professional English level two, and now we're talking about pronunciation.
But again this is kind of a different episode.
Different episode different, different kind of course about pronunciation.
Lindsay, would you tell us a little bit about why?
Exactly.
So here we're not aiming to just teach you American English or just teach you one narrow kind of pronunciation.
We're aiming to get you to speak clearly.
It's about clear speech.
And that means... we're gonna show you how to understand what we call the rhythm of English.
It's different from syllable-timed languages like Mandarin, Italian, Spanish.
So if you speak one of those languages, You are really going to want to know this that English is a stress time language.
And we're going to show you what exactly what that means in this course.
Okay.
It's going to unlock a lot of secrets and make things more clear that may have been eluding you before.
Ooh, okay.
Awesome guys.
So we do have an early access list so you can get, um, notified.
So it's allearsenglish.com slash pronunciation spells P R O N U N C I A T I O N.
Exactly.
So go get on that list because you'll be one of the first to know when it goes live very soon.
You'll get an email, you'll get the best possible price and you'll get to be one of the early adopters, which means you get a level of connection because we'll be asking you how it's going.
We want to know your feedback on the course.
So it's a cool time. to get into the course very early.
Okay, cool.
Yes, definitely.
All right.
Popcorn, back to popcorn.
All right, so yeah, Michelle, popcorn style.
Well, when I think about this, I just think about shouting out ideas, in the same way that when I watch popcorn.
Do you ever go to like a brewery or a restaurant where they have a free popcorn maker?
Sometimes there's like sometimes a bar or something will have popcorn and you can just reach in and get it.
It's very cool.
Yeah, I love that.
And sometimes I'll sit there and I'll watch the popcorn pop up like that.
Yeah.
That's exactly what it is in terms of ideas, popping up ideas in meetings at work.
This is popcorn style.
Yeah.
I also remember when I took gymnastics as a little kid, I think it was that a bunch of kids would get on a trampoline like a giant trampoline and somebody would jump.
And it was like also like popcorn stuff.
Yeah, that's it too.
It's random.
It's not like we're not going around the room, right?
Which is another style of maybe not just even in business.
Sometimes, when I meet with my meditation group, we'll do sharing and we'll say Oh, are we going around the room or are we just going to go popcorn style.
Yeah.
Right.
Yep.
Yeah.
So just, you know, they, everything pops in its own time.
So you just say, yeah, say it when you're ready.
You know, of course you have to be careful, because I mean that way there is more room for interruption.
Right.
Again, That's life.
That's how it works in English.
We interrupt.
We say, oh, no, sorry, you go, you go, right?
It's just natural.
It's totally normal.
And it might be less normal in your culture.
Right for our listeners from different parts of the world.
So that is a whole skill we're going to have to develop.
Um so something that a leader might say.
If a leader is organizing a meeting, they might say let's brainstorm this popcorn style.
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
So, I mean, You know, there again, there are different ways of having people brainstorm.
Again you might say oh, we're going to go, you know around the room.
Or you might say popcorn style.
That's interesting that in your meditation you could that you also would say that.
Also, sometimes like a teacher might say that they're going to do popcorn style reading.
So they might call on students randomly.
Okay, you, you, you, right?
No order to kind of surprise them.
People and keep them on their toes.
Keep them on their toes.
I like it.
So I definitely feel like I use this.
Michelle, do you feel like you use this?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
For sure.
Yeah.
And I love popcorn.
And I like this method for brainstorming because the reality is...
People work off of each other's ideas.
So someone might say something before you and that lets you what you heard from them, lets you build out your idea even more.
And right.
Yeah, right.
It's not necessarily always natural to just say, oh, we're going around because then you're just.
You're saying your idea.
Maybe your mind wanders a little bit.
You're right.
I said my idea.
You know, I think I actually really think that it's good for brainstorming because it's an interactive thing.
It's not just you.
Now you, now you in a line, right?
But actually, here's a hot take question.
So Michelle, do you think that popcorn style works through Zoom or remotely?
Hmm.
As well.
Right.
Yeah.
I don't think I, you know, I think over online, you know, something is always going to be a little bit different, missing a little bit of that human interaction, but I think you could still do it.
Like I, I think you can still do it.
Not necessarily everything, It depends how many people there are.
So I think that if there are fewer people in the Zoom room, I think popcorn style can be successful.
I think if you have 50 people in a meeting, I think that's where it gets...
That's tough because there's going to be a lot of talking over each other and, oh, you're on mute.
Oh, I can't hear you.
What?
What?
Oh, I can't see you.
Oh, you froze, right?
So popcorn style is a little harder.
It's true.
And I think this is why now post pandemic, we're five years out from the pandemic, right?
A lot of companies are now like really rethinking like time in office, what should be done during that time.
They're doing retreats where they do popcorn style brainstorming and they think that's valuable having people together.
Or they do once a week in office, but the same day in office.
So everyone's there having this style of generating ideas and then head down work is happening more at home, I think, for a lot of companies.
Yeah.
Yeah, definitely.
So yeah, if you were to hear this in a sentence, somebody might say okay, so it's time for some brainstorming.
Let's share ideas, popcorn style.
Or class, we will now read this chapter using popcorn reading.
Be prepared to start reading whenever I call on you.
That's funny.
I've never heard that one, but I suppose it could apply, right?
It makes sense.
You mentioned before.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I guess they would say popcorn style reading, maybe something like that.
Maybe not just popcorn reading.
I don't know.
Interesting.
I'll read about popcorn.
I will too.
It's very interesting.
So you're about to make a trade based on a friend's text.
But which you do you listen to?
Is it, we could buy a house in Tulum.
Get optioning those options.
We could lose everything.
Or let's do a little research.
Get your head in the trade and make the investment decision that's right for you.
Learn more at finra.org slash trade smart.
I kind of wonder who invented popcorn.
I want to know the backstory now, Michelle.
Yeah, now, yeah, I'm going to look this up.
But yeah, there are other ways to say this if you don't want to talk about popcorn.
You could say at random, right?
So this is, I think.
I think this is more for like the classroom style personally, but you could say I'm going to call on people at random.
Please be prepared to start reading.
Right.
Exactly.
More formal, maybe more classroom organized classroom style.
You're right.
Another one.
The floor is open.
Or I'm going to open the floor for ideas.
This might be said by a leader, someone facilitating a meeting.
I really want to hear your ideas.
The floor is open.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, or rapid fire.
I think we've talked about this expression, uh, shout out your ideas, rapid fire.
We don't have that much time before we have to make a decision.
Right?
Exactly.
Exactly.
So there's a few ways to say it, but the point is you, If you're facilitating a meeting, I think the human tendency for people is kind of just to sort of listen and sort of sit back.
But you want to signal to the group that now you're going to sit back and listen and they're going to take control.
They're going to speak.
So what are the words we use to give them that ability?
That permission, right?
Yeah, I really like that.
It's a very good way to signal how things are going to be going and to make people feel like okay, it's okay.
Just shout it out.
Just go for it.
Yeah, exactly.
This is the leadership skill, right?
This totally is.
Yeah.
And also as somebody, then if you are one of the people involved in the popcorn style brainstorm, you know you do have to have your ears open.
I and you know, and also, like you, have to kind of think about how often you're speaking.
Then you don't want to take over the meeting.
Yeah.
So there's a lot to consider there.
There's a lot of self monitoring, right?
That goes on.
Um, there's a lot of, reputation building, saving face.
I mean, there's so much, and that's why we have our business courses, our professional level one and two.
I mean, there's so much to go into when it comes to building relationships in English.
Yeah.
But for today, we'll just do a role play.
So here we're preparing for a business meeting.
All right, here we go.
Okay, so first we will have the team warm up by introducing themselves in an icebreaker rapid fire.
Sounds good.
Then we'll give our presentation.
Right, and then we can open the floor for comments.
And people can brainstorm popcorn style.
Okay, perfect.
We'll have them share their ideas at random.
Yeah, so here we're going to be facilitating the meeting, so we're getting our preparation in.
That's important, too.
If you're going to facilitate a meeting, you need to spend some time preparing ahead of time so you know what people are going to be doing.
Yeah?
Yes.
Yes.
So you said first we'll have the team warm up by introducing themselves in an icebreaker rapid fire.
Yeah.
So that's more about the speed than necessarily the order, really.
Okay.
And then you said, right.
And then we can open the floor for comments.
So, you know, everybody, whoever wants to say something can say something.
And then you said.
I said, and people can brainstorm popcorn style.
And it's kind of interesting that we don't say in popcorn style or using popcorn style.
We literally have no preposition there.
It's weird. weird.
Right.
We wanted to say, yeah, we would just say brainstorm, do something popcorn style is how we do it.
It's strange though.
Yeah.
And it's interesting because open the floor and popcorn style are essentially the same thing, but popcorn style, I do think, gives more of an idea of like quick, quick.
Open the floor could be longer comments.
That's true.
And then the last thing you said was, okay, perfect.
We will have them share their ideas at random.
Yeah, at random.
Okay.
Yeah.
So really good here.
Guys, if you haven't already, check out episode 480.
That was how to use the real framework to compromise at work.
That's an episode I did with Aubrey.
Um, really useful stuff there.
Yeah.
Really good stuff.
Good stuff.
So Michelle, what's the final takeaway?
I mean, we answered Alberto's question.
Great question, by the way, anything else we want to give our listeners today?
Yeah.
Um, just, uh, This is just a different level of thinking, well, what's useful?
If you're leading a meeting right, what is going to be the most useful way of getting people to interact, to be able to say their ideas?
Is it popcorn style?
Is it more just... going around the room, because it can be different for everything.
So just think about where it would be the most useful and how you want that meeting to go and what you want it to look like.
Excellent.
Good stuff today, Michelle.
We'll talk to you very soon.
You have a good rest of your day.
And guys, don't forget one more thing get on the list for the pronunciation course.
Allearsenglishcom slash pronunciation.
All right.
Awesome.
All right.
Have a good one.
Bye, Michelle.
Take care.
Bye.
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