Shadowing Practice: Cambridge IELTS 17 Test 4 Reading passage 1 - Learn English Speaking with Video

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Bats to the Rescue How Madagascar's bats are helping to save the rainforest.
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There are few places in the world where relations between agriculture and conservation are more strained.
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Madagascar's forests are being converted to agricultural land at a rate of 1% every year.
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Much of this destruction is fueled by the cultivation of the country's main staple crop, rice.
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And a key reason for this destruction is
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that insect pests are destroying vast quantities of what is grown by local subsistence farmers, leading them to clear forests to create new paddy fields.
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The result is devastating habitat and biodiversity loss on the island, but not all species are suffering.
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In fact, some of the island's insectivorous bats are currently thriving, and this has important implications for farmers and conservationists alike.
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Enter University of Cambridge zoologist Ricardo Rocha.
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He's passionate about conservation and bats.
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More specifically, he's interested in how bats are responding to human activity and deforestation in particular.
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Rocha's new study shows
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that several species of bats are giving Madagascar's rice farmers a vital pest control service by feasting on plagues of insects.
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And this, he believes, can ease the financial pressure on farmers to turn forest into fields.
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Bats comprise roughly one-fifth of all mammal species in Madagascar and 36 recorded bat species are native to the island,
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making it one of the most important regions for conservation of this animal group anywhere in the world.
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Co-leading an international team of scientists, Rocha found
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that several species of indigenous bats are taking advantage of habitat modification to hunt insects swarming above the country's rice fields.
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They include the Malagasy mouse-eared bat, Major's long-fingered bat, the Malagasy white-bellied free-tailed bat, and Peters' wrinkle-lipped bat.
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These winter species are providing a valuable free service to Madagascar as biological pest suppressors, says Rocha.
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We found that six species of bat are preying on rice pests, including the paddy-swarming caterpillar and grass webworm.
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The damage which these insects cause puts the island's farmers under huge financial pressure, and that encourages deforestation.
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The study, now published in the journal Agriculture, Ecosystems, and Environment, set out to investigate the feeding activity of insectivorous bats in
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the farmland bordering the Rana Mofana National Park in the southeast of the country.
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Rocha and his team used state-of-the-art ultrasonic recorders to record over a thousand bat-feeding buzzes, echolocation sequences used by bats to target their prey,
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at 54 sites, in order to identify the favorite feeding spots of the bats.
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They next used DNA barcoding techniques to analyze droppings collected from bats at the different sites.
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The recordings revealed that bat activity over rice fields was much higher than it was in continuous forest, seven times higher over rice fields which were on flat ground,
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and 16 times higher over fields on the sides of hills, leaving no doubt that the animals are preferentially foraging in these man-made ecosystems.
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The researchers suggest that the bats favor these fields
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because lack of water and nutrient runoff make these crops more susceptible to insect pest infestations.
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DNA analysis showed that all six species of bat had fed on economically important insect pests.
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While the findings indicated that rice farming benefits most from the bats, the scientists also found indications that the bats were consuming pests of other crops,
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including the black twig borer, which infests coffee plants, the sugarcane cicada, the macadamia nut borer, and the sober tabby,
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a pest of citrus fruits.
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The effectiveness of bats as pest controllers has already been proven in the USA and Catalonia, said co-author James Kemp from the University of Lisbon.
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But our study is the first to show this happening in Madagascar, where the stakes for both farmers and conservationists are so high,
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local people may have a further reason to be grateful to their bats.
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While the animal is often associated with spreading disease, Rocha and his team found evidence that Malagasy bats feed not just on crop pests,
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but also on mosquitoes, carriers of malaria, Rift Valley fever virus and elephantiasis, as well as blackflies, which spread river blindness.
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Rocha points out that the relationship is complicated.
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When food is scarce, bats become a crucial source of protein for local people.
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Even the children will hunt them.
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And as well as roosting in trees, the bats sometimes roost in buildings, but are not welcomed there because they make them unclean.
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At the same time, however, they are associated with sacred caves and their ancestors, so they can be viewed as beings between worlds,
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which makes them very significant in the culture of the people.
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And one potential problem is that while these bats are benefiting from farming, at the same time deforestation is reducing the places where they can roost,
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which could have long-term effects on their numbers.
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Rocha says, With the right help, we hope that farmers can promote this mutually beneficial relationship by installing bat houses.
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Rocha and his colleagues believe that maximizing bat populations can help to boost crop yields and promote sustainable livelihoods.
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The team is now calling for further research to quantify this contribution.
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I'm very optimistic, says Rocha.
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If we give nature a hand, we can speed up the process of regeneration.
📺 Mismo canal
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Vocabulario y notas de pronunciación para esta lección

Esta lección de conversación de nivel B2 se basa en el vídeo “Cambridge IELTS 17 Test 4 Reading passage 1”. Las palabras que más se repiten: bat, pest, Rocha, species, farmers. Este vídeo tiene 53 frases y 881 palabras para practicar shadowing. La parte hablada dura 5:18. El hablante habla a un ritmo natural de unas 166 palabras por minuto, cercano a una conversación cotidiana. Solo el 71 % de las palabras está entre las 3.000 más comunes del inglés, por lo que el vocabulario es exigente.

Vocabulario clave de este vídeo

Las 15 palabras más avanzadas del vídeo, con su pronunciación y significado:

PalabraPronunciaciónSignificado
pest sustantivo/pɛst/peste, pestilencia
farmer sustantivo/ˈfɑɹ.mɚ/granjero, granjera
insect sustantivo/ˈɪn.sɛkt/insecto
crop sustantivo/kɹɑp/cultivo
deforestation sustantivo/dɪˌfɒɹɪsˈteɪʃən/desmontadura, deforestación
roost sustantivo/ɹust/gallinero, pajarera
conservationist sustantivoconservacionista
insectivorous adjetivo/ˌɪnsɛkˈtɪv(ə)ɹəs/insectívoro
swarm sustantivo/swɔɹm/enjambre, nube
paddy sustantivo/ˈpædi/arroz con cáscara, arroz en cáscara
ecosystem sustantivo/ˈikoʊˌsɪstəm/ecosistema
prey sustantivo/pɹeɪ/presa
ancestor sustantivo/ˈæn.sɛs.tɚ/ancestro, antepasado
biodiversity sustantivo/ˌbaɪoʊdəˈvɚsəti/biodiversidad
blackfly sustantivomosca negra

Phrasal verbs que vas a escuchar

PalabraPronunciaciónSignificado
point out verboseñalar, apuntar
speed up verbo/spiːdˈʌp/acelerar, apurarse

Pronunciación a tener en cuenta

  • Los sonidos de “th”: thrive /θɹajv/, southeast /sawˈθɪjst/
  • Los sonidos de “sh” y “zh”: deforestation /dɪˌfɒɹɪsˈteɪʃən/, echolocation /ˌɛkoʊloʊˈkeɪʃən/, infestation /ˌɪnfɛsˈteɪ̯ʃən/, preferentially /ˈpɹɛf.ɜː(ɹ)ˌɛn.ʃə.li/, implication /ˌɪmpləˈkeɪʃən/
  • Palabras largas — cuida el acento: deforestation /dɪˌfɒɹɪsˈteɪʃən/, insectivorous /ˌɪnsɛkˈtɪv(ə)ɹəs/, ecosystem /ˈikoʊˌsɪstəm/, biodiversity /ˌbaɪoʊdəˈvɚsəti/, caterpillar /ˈkætɚˌpɪlɚ/

Sonidos difíciles para hispanohablantes:

  • s + consonante al inicio — sin añadir una “e” delante: swarm /swɔɹm/, scarce /ˈskɛɚs/, staple /ˈsteɪ.pəl/, strain /stɹeɪn/, stake /steɪk/
  • /v/ — no es /b/: los dientes tocan el labio inferior: insectivorous /ˌɪnsɛkˈtɪv(ə)ɹəs/, biodiversity /ˌbaɪoʊdəˈvɚsəti/, devastate /ˈdɛv.ə.steɪt/, livelihood /ˈlaɪvlihʊd/, cultivation /ˌkʌltɪˈveɪʃən/
  • /z/ — sonora, no /s/: zoologist /zoʊˈɑləd͡ʒɪst/, comprise /kəmˈpɹaɪz/, maximize /ˈmæksəmaɪz/, analyze /ˈæn.əˌlaɪz/, buzz /bʌz/

Cómo practicar con este vídeo

  1. Escucha el vídeo entero una vez sin hablar y anota las palabras que no conoces.
  2. Empieza a velocidad 0,75×, haz shadowing frase por frase y vuelve a la velocidad normal cuando te resulte fácil.
  3. Grábate y compara con el original, prestando atención a palabras como pest, farmer, insect.

¿Qué es la Técnica de Shadowing?

Shadowing es una técnica de aprendizaje de idiomas respaldada por la ciencia, desarrollada originalmente para la formación de intérpretes profesionales y popularizada por el políglota Dr. Alexander Arguelles. El método es simple pero poderoso: escuchas audio en inglés nativo y lo repites en voz alta de inmediato, como una sombra que sigue al hablante con solo 1-2 segundos de retraso. A diferencia de la escucha pasiva o los ejercicios de gramática, el shadowing obliga a tu cerebro y músculos de la boca a procesar y reproducir simultáneamente patrones de habla reales. Las investigaciones muestran que mejora significativamente la precisión de la pronunciación, la entonación, el ritmo, el habla conectada, la comprensión auditiva y la fluidez al hablar, convirtiéndola en una de las metodologías más efectivas para la preparación del IELTS Speaking y la comunicación en inglés en el mundo real.

Técnica de shadowing: lee la guía completa paso a paso →