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Why do people hide chronic illness at work? | Alyssa McGonagle | TEDxUNCCharlotte

English shadowing practice · 335 sentences · 13:00 long · 1874 words

Why do people hide chronic illness at work? | Alyssa McGonagle | TEDxUNCCharlotte

About this practice session

This page turns the YouTube video “Why do people hide chronic illness at work? | Alyssa McGonagle | TEDxUNCCharlotte” into an English shadowing exercise. The recording is split into 335 short sentences that you can play one at a time, repeat after the speaker and record your own version for automatic pronunciation scoring.

The speaker talks at about 154 words per minute, a fast pace, with an average of 5.6 words per sentence. That makes it best for advanced learners; slow the playback down or loop each sentence at first.

How to practise with this video

  1. Play the first sentence and listen while reading the transcript. Notice the stress, the pauses and where the intonation rises or falls.
  2. Replay it and speak along with the speaker, copying the rhythm rather than reading word by word.
  3. Record yourself straight after the original. ShadowEcho scores each word for accuracy, fluency and completeness.
  4. Compare your recording with the original, retry the words marked in red, then move on to the next sentence.
  5. Practise 10–15 minutes a day. Coming back to the same video after a few days is an easy way to measure progress.

Transcript (English)

  1. This is a photo of me from more than 20
  2. years ago.
  3. I was in my first year of graduate
  4. school having worked full-time for a few
  5. years.
  6. I What you're looking at here is a
  7. young, bright, happy woman. Yet, most
  8. people didn't know what was going on
  9. inside.
  10. I had been experiencing strange symptoms
  11. for many years, including numbness that
  12. started in my foot and traveled up the
  13. right side of my body,
  14. pain, and electrical shock sensations in
  15. my spine.
  16. I sought medical care, but no doctors
  17. took my symptoms seriously.
  18. That is until I moved out of state to
  19. start graduate school. I saw a new
  20. doctor who ordered MRIs, and over the
  21. course of a few months, I was diagnosed
  22. with multiple sclerosis.
  23. My first fears after diagnosis were
  24. around work, specifically the career and
  25. financial implications of a diagnosis
  26. that's incurable and progressive.
  27. I was working so hard to build the
  28. career I longed for. The thought of
  29. losing my ability to work and take care
  30. of myself financially was devastating.
  31. The workplace has changed a lot since
  32. then. Companies are generally more
  33. inclusive to workers with diverse
  34. backgrounds, and there are many more
  35. remote work opportunities than there
  36. were back then.
  37. However, organizations still have a long
  38. way to go in terms of supporting their
  39. employees with chronic health
  40. conditions.
  41. By show of hands, how many of you know
  42. someone who's living with a chronic
  43. physical or mental health condition?
  44. As you look around the room, realize
  45. that most of you either have a chronic
  46. health condition yourself or know
  47. someone who does.
  48. And the statistics reflect this.
  49. Three quarters of American adults have
  50. one or more ongoing health conditions.
  51. And 76%
  52. of affected employees need to manage
  53. their conditions during work hours,
  54. according to a recent poll from the
  55. Harvard School of Public Health.
  56. In addition, while chronic health
  57. conditions tend to affect people more as
  58. they age, younger people are
  59. increasingly being diagnosed with
  60. chronic health conditions. And they are
  61. more likely to expect their
  62. organizations to support them.
  63. Chronic health conditions share several
  64. characteristics that make them unique
  65. among other forms of disability.
  66. For one, they tend to be unpredictable
  67. or progressive in their course, meaning
  68. that symptoms may wax and wane or shift
  69. unpredictably, leading to unexpected
  70. time off from work.
  71. They share common symptoms, most
  72. frequently pain and fatigue, and most
  73. people try to hide these while they're
  74. at work.
  75. They require ongoing management, such as
  76. attending doctor's appointments, getting
  77. therapy sessions, or taking medications,
  78. and these typically need to happen
  79. during work hours.
  80. They also tend to be invisible to
  81. others, meaning you can't typically tell
  82. someone has a chronic health condition
  83. just by looking at them.
  84. And this leads some people to question
  85. the legitimacy of chronic health
  86. conditions as disabilities.
  87. All of this can lead people to fear
  88. stigmatization and discrimination,
  89. and as a result, want to conceal their
  90. illness or not disclose it in the
  91. workplace.
  92. I'll give you an example. Before I was
  93. diagnosed or even knew what MS was, I
  94. worked for a supervisor who used to joke
  95. a lot about a co-worker with MS. She
  96. would say his symptoms weren't real and
  97. they were just quote due to smoking too
  98. much pot.
  99. That memory came back to me after my
  100. diagnosis and it was painful to think
  101. that others would say similar things
  102. about me.
  103. I also didn't want to question whether
  104. missing out on a job opportunity or
  105. promotion was due to my illness. So, I
  106. took the advice of some mentors and kept
  107. my diagnosis to myself for most of my
  108. career.
  109. There are have a however several
  110. downsides to concealing an illness or
  111. another invisible identity.
  112. Research shows this leads to feelings of
  113. preoccupation, stress, and
  114. inauthenticity
  115. and also can lead to diminished
  116. interpersonal relationships at work.
  117. I experienced this firsthand. Not being
  118. able to share major things going on in
  119. my life with my co-workers, such as
  120. needing to leave work to get a
  121. medication infusion, or an invasive
  122. medical test, or dealing with a symptom.
  123. That was isolating and it was a barrier
  124. to me getting close to my colleagues.
  125. Another downside to concealment is that
  126. others can misperceive behaviors of
  127. someone who's concealing an illness. For
  128. example, frequent absences could be seen
  129. as a lack of commitment to the company
  130. or even job seeking behavior when in
  131. fact they're just needed for treatment.
  132. But most importantly, disclosure enables
  133. accommodations and mutual
  134. problem-solving that can help employees
  135. work to their optimal capacity.
  136. In a series of research studies, my
  137. co-authors and I found that workers with
  138. chronic health conditions often perceive
  139. that work interferes with the time and
  140. the energy that they need to manage
  141. their health condition.
  142. In fact, many people I've spoken with as
  143. participants in my studies have told me
  144. that they routinely put everything they
  145. have into their work and to maintain
  146. their ability to work, which leaves
  147. nothing, little to nothing at the end of
  148. the day for them to manage their own
  149. condition, never mind take care of their
  150. families or participate in their
  151. communities.
  152. Managers experience challenges as well.
  153. It can be difficult to know what to say
  154. when someone tells you they have a
  155. serious chronic health issue.
  156. It's also difficult to maintain fairness
  157. when some employees get accommodations
  158. and others don't.
  159. And it can be difficult to keep up with
  160. changing nature of laws and
  161. organizational policies.
  162. Despite all these challenges,
  163. organizations typically address chronic
  164. health conditions with shallow,
  165. ineffective strategies.
  166. Now, you may be wondering, what about
  167. wellness programs?
  168. Research shows that despite the large
  169. sums of money that companies invest in
  170. wellness programs, they tend to be
  171. ineffective.
  172. People who need them the most don't
  173. participate in them, but more
  174. importantly, they ignore systemic issues
  175. to leadership, culture, benefits, and
  176. policies.
  177. Organizations also offer job
  178. accommodations to workers, and these are
  179. critical. Workers need job
  180. accommodations. However, they may only
  181. be accessed with disclosure of a health
  182. condition. And unfortunately, many
  183. organizations deny needed accommodations
  184. to workers, and this is one of the most
  185. frequent causes of work disability
  186. claims in the US.
  187. Finally, return to work programs are
  188. helpful for workers who need to take a
  189. disability leave due to their health
  190. condition.
  191. However, they are reactive, applied
  192. after a leave is needed, not proactive
  193. in terms of keeping people at work.
  194. Changes to leadership, policies, and
  195. culture are needed.
  196. You may be wondering, why should
  197. organizations care about this,
  198. particularly in light of our current
  199. economic and labor conditions in the US?
  200. For one, they can gain a competitive

Showing the first 200 of 335 sentences. Open the practice tool to go through all of them.

The original video belongs to its creator: watch it on YouTube.

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