Pratica di Shadowing: INTERMEDIATE ENGLISH STORY 🌎A Different Life🌎 B1 - B2 | Level 5 - Level 6 | BRITISH ACCENT SUBTITLES - Impara a parlare inglese con i video
Creazione lezione...
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Hello and welcome to Lovely English Stories.
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Thank you for stopping by.
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This story is written for intermediate English learners.
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Ready?
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Let's get started.
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B1, B2 English Story.
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A different life.
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Josie was fed up with her friends, if truth be told.
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They were narrow-minded and stuck in the same routines they'd had for years.
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She wasn't like them.
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She'd always felt different.
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She never wanted to follow the ideals they had set for themselves.
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She wasn't interested in pursuing a successful career,
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having kids or meeting a so-called perfect husband who would no doubt cheat on her further down the line.
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She wanted a different kind of life to them.
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Josie often saw married couples as lonely figures trapped together in their,
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on the surface, picture-perfect lives.
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Sure, they have the house and the car and the exquisite holidays, but do they have the love,
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the passion and the excitement any more?
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Josie always knew she was an anomaly in the small town in which she grew up.
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She had no desire to stay and yet always found herself back there after she'd finished one of her whirlwind adventures.
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Every time she came back, she hated it that little bit more.
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Of course, it had its pros.
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The people were friendly, the pubs were good,
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her family were close, and she could meet up with some of her more open-minded friends and discuss in-depth topics at length.
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But then she'd meet up with her old friends Who,
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in all honesty, she had grown apart from But they all clung to this sense that they had something in common
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The reality was that Josie didn't have anything in common with them She went to their lunches
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and often sat there daydreaming as they talked about their radiators,
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their jobs, their children's sleeping patterns and their pension pots.
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It was soul-destroying for her.
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There was nothing wrong with their way of life, of course.
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What bothered Josie was that they always tried to project their lives onto her,
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as though the way she chose to live was offensive to them.
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They couldn't understand why she wasted her time volunteering, travelling or taking courses and learning languages.
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They certainly couldn't understand why she hadn't made her first step onto the property ladder yet.
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It was exhausting.
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Party after party and lunch after lunch, she was bombarded with the same questions.
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Are you dating anyone yet?
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And I don't know how you cope being back at your parents.
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Don't you want to buy?
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And the dreaded, why don't you just get on the dating apps?
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Josie had to stifle her eyes from rolling.
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It was infuriating.
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Why couldn't they see that she just wasn't like them.
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She didn't question why they'd paid £4,000 for a new sofa,
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why they'd decided to go all-inclusive to Tenerife, or why they'd just got another new car on finance.
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Everyone made their own decisions and she wished they would just accept the way she wanted to live.
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Josie was a free spirit.
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Since being a child, she has always wanted to be out in the world exploring and learning new things.
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Her motto to live by was that variety is the spice of life.
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You never learn anything new if you keep doing the same old stuff.
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As a result, Josie could speak three languages.
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She travelled to over 30 countries and she had worked in various jobs.
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Her diaries were full of memories of exciting experiences.
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Experiences that her friends from her hometown weren't interested in, in the slightest.
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It made her feel sad.
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One day, after visiting some friends for brunch, Josie got back to her desk and signed into work for the day.
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She was working as a language teacher online.
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She loved helping her students and interacting with people from different cultures.
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The student she had a lesson with was from Spain.
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She lived in the mountains and didn't have access to an English school where she lived.
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Josie had a lightbulb moment.
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What if she could go there and teach these people?
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Everyone deserved the right to an education after all.
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Her draining morning listening to her friends reel off their latest financed purchases made her reassess her life.
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She had managed to save some money while being back at her parents and working online during the lockdown.
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She decided to look into a working visa for Spain, living costs and more.
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Josie could speak intermediate Spanish.
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She got a B in Spanish at GCSE and had spent a semester at university in a small town south of Madrid.
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She tried to keep up her Spanish skills as much as she could,
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often by teaching Spanish people English or by taking part in English to Spanish tandems.
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Josie had lived and worked as an English teacher in Germany, Thailand, Vietnam and London.
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In between contracts she would go back to her hometown and live in her parents' spare room.
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This was where she currently found herself.
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She knew it was always just an intermission.
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But for some reason, whenever she came back,
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her friends thought she would stay there and work hard to try and have a life like theirs.
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Josie shook her head in disdain at the thought.
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She often wondered why she kept in touch with them.
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They weren't bad people, but they had all changed so much since school.
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They kept in touch purely to remember the good old times.
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But the good old times had gone over 20 years ago.
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Was it time for them all to move on?
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Josie spent a few weeks looking into teaching opportunities in Spain.
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She managed to secure two interviews.
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She was nervous but ready for her next adventure.
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One interview went terribly.
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The interviewer decided to test Josie's Spanish skills She froze on the spot and couldn't remember a thing
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Then she fumbled her way through her presentation and completely fluffed all her answers Her second interview went much better
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She took a couple of Spanish lessons beforehand, just in case they decided to switch languages mid-interview.
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She needn't have worried.
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The interviewer was kind and generous, and they spoke at length about teaching English,
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teacher concerns, and how to enthuse and inspire students.
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Josie felt good after the interview.
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If she were successful, she would work at a small privately owned language school in a small Spanish town close to Valencia.
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She could finally live her dream of being close to the sea.
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The interviewer told her they'd be in touch by the end of the week.
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It was only Monday.
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Josie knew it would be a long week.
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She tried to think positively and imagined herself at the school.
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It felt right.
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She drew up a budget and a plan.
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The role was initially for a year.
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That was ideal for Josie to decide if she liked it and whether the school liked her or not.
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She looked into visas and worked out what she needed to prepare and when.
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On Wednesday, she was meeting her old school friends for lunch.
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As usual, their questions about her lifestyle flowed.
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Why don't you just get a normal job?
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And why don't you buy a little flat?
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There's one for sale on my road.
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Josie went to the toilet and took a few deep breaths to calm her composure.
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Maybe she should just tell them that the lives they had chosen to lead were not what she wanted.
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She liked moving around and exploring.
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She loved teaching English and learning languages.
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She liked to be spontaneous.
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She decided against it and went back to the lunch.
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As she did, her phone started ringing.
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It was an international number.
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Josie paused for a moment, assuming it was a call centre.
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She was going to reject the call.
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Then she realised it might be the job.
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She went outside and answered.
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It was good news.
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The headteacher didn't want to wait until Friday.
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They knew they wanted her.
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They offered her a provisional start date in six weeks
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and they would help her with finding accommodation and any paperwork she needed.
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Josie was overjoyed.
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She had to sit on a wall in the beer garden and compose herself.
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It was really happening.
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She was about to spend the next 12 months living and working close to Valencia.
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She quickly called her parents and told them the news.
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They were happy and sad.
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They'd miss her, but they knew this was the best thing for her.
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Then she walked back into the pub.
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You've been ages, her friend exclaimed.
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We thought you'd fallen down the loo.
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Josie smiled.
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She wanted to tell them, but wasn't sure if she could be bothered with their response.
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It could go one of two ways.
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They could be overjoyed or they would be bitter somehow.
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She decided to be honest.
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Well, I just got a phone call actually.
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I've been offered a brilliant opportunity to teach English in Spain, so I'll be moving in six weeks.
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Her friends looked stunned.
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They congratulated her, but it felt cold somehow.
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They were happy for her, but they found it hard to relate to anything she wanted to do.
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They were content with their suburban lives and she was happy with hers.
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They had become opposites and Josie realised she needed to embrace that.
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Her friends weren't there to please.
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They were there to be just that, her friends.
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In the run-up to Josie leaving, she had lots of goodbye parties.
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The day before she left, she received a package from her school friends.
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They had put together lots of things that they knew she loved and that reminded them of her.
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They also wrote little cards and she was overcome by emotion.
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They were encouraging and kind and one admitted that they couldn't relate to her choices,
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but nevertheless they were still proud of what she did and what she had accomplished.
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Josie realised that they had overcome a barrier.
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As people grow older, they do grow apart and have different lives.
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They just had to learn to accept that everyone is unique and has a special perspective on what they want from life.
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Josie packed the cards.
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She decided she would proudly display them in her new flat.
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One of her school friends had already booked to see her in the summer.
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She said she needed more time for herself to do the things she enjoyed, like travelling.
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Maybe Josie was rubbing off on them after all.
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Do you still keep in touch with your school friends?
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Tell us in the comments below.
Perché esercitarsi a parlare con questo video?
Questo video offre un'opportunità unica per gli studenti di inglese di livello intermedio (B1-B2) di immergersi in una storia coinvolgente che esplora le emozioni e le esperienze di Josie, una giovane donna in cerca di una vita diversa. Exercitarsi a parlare attraverso la shadow speech è particolarmente utile in questo contesto, poiché consente di migliorare la fluidità e la pronuncia. Guardando e ripetendo le frasi del video, gli studenti possono assimilare nuove espressioni e costruzioni grammaticali in modo naturale. La pratica di conversazione in inglese che deriva da questo metodo aiuta a costruire la fiducia e a rafforzare la comprensione del linguaggio colloquiale.
Grammatica ed Espressioni nel Contesto
Analizziamo alcune strutture grammaticali e frasi chiave utilizzate nel video:
- “She went to their lunches and often sat there daydreaming”: Questa frase utilizza il passato semplice per descrivere azioni concluse, permettendo agli studenti di riconoscere come descrivere attività passate.
- “They couldn't understand why she wasted her time volunteering”: Qui viene usato il condizionale (“couldn't”) per esprimere incapacità di comprensione. Questo è utile per gli studenti che vogliono esprimere dubbi o incomprensioni.
- “It was soul-destroying for her”: L’uso dell’aggettivo “soul-destroying” arricchisce il vocabolario emotivo e aiuta a comprendere le sfumature di significato nell'inglese parlato.
- “She wanted a different kind of life to them”: Questa costruzione offre un'opportunità per praticare comparazioni e differenze, importanti nelle conversazioni rispetto alle scelte di vita.
Trappole Comuni nella Pronuncia
Durante il video, ci sono alcune parole e accenti che possono risultare difficili per chi sta imparando l’inglese:
- “anomaly”: Questa parola presenta una pronuncia particolare, in cui l'accento cade sulla seconda sillaba, rendendo facile confonderla con “anomaly” in italiano.
- “exquisite”: La pronuncia di “exquisite” richiede attenzione, in quanto la combinazione di suoni può risultare intricata per i parlanti non nativi.
Esercitandosi con queste parole e seguendo la tecnica del shadowing in inglese, gli studenti possono migliorare notevolmente la loro pronuncia e comprensione del linguaggio parlato. Un buon consiglio è quello di ripetere dopo il parlante, cercando di imitare non solo le parole, ma anche l'intonazione e il ritmo. Utilizza questo video come parte della tua shadowing site per continuare a perfezionare le tue abilità linguistiche!
Cos'è la tecnica dello Shadowing?
Shadowing è una tecnica di apprendimento delle lingue supportata da studi scientifici, originariamente sviluppata per la formazione dei traduttori professionisti e resa popolare dal poliglotta Dr. Alexander Arguelles. Il metodo è semplice ma potente: ascolti un audio in inglese di madrelingua e lo ripeti immediatamente ad alta voce — come un'ombra che segue il parlante con un ritardo di solo 1–2 secondi. A differenza dell'ascolto passivo o degli esercizi di grammatica, lo shadowing costringe il tuo cervello e i muscoli della bocca a elaborare e riprodurre simultaneamente i modelli di discorso reale. La ricerca dimostra che migliora significativamente la precisione della pronuncia, l'intonazione, il ritmo, il discorso connesso, la comprensione dell'ascolto e la fluidità del parlato — rendendolo uno dei metodi più efficaci per la preparazione alla prova di speaking dell'IELTS e per la comunicazione reale in inglese.