Shadowing Practice: 070926 BBC London, Evening News - Learn English Speaking with Video
Creating lesson...
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Thank you.
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Welcome to BBC London this Monday evening.
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Coming up, the universities of Greenwich and Kent have merged today, creating the UK's first super university.
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Higher education is a national treasure.
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It's something that we should be really protecting, but it doesn't seem like it's a government priority at all.
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Could other London universities follow in an attempt to shore up their finances?
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Also tonight.
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The student who was jailed for life for drugging and raping women in London, more victims come forward after a police appeal.
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Plus they protect us from pollution and extreme heat.
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But how do we protect London trees as environmentalists say the summer has been devastating for them.
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And the star attraction at London's British Museum.
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Could barking help solve the mystery of who exactly embroidered it?
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Hello and good evening to you.
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Today sees the UK's first so-called super university, created by the merging of the universities of Greenwich and Kent.
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Now called the London and South East University Group, it has more than 50,000 students across four campuses, making it the third largest in Britain.
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It comes as the higher education sector has faced increasing financial pressures.
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In a moment, we'll look at the wider picture here in the capital.
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First, Leila Hayes has been getting reaction and what it means for students.
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Two universities, Greenwich in London and the University of Kent.
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Once separate institutions, but they've now merged to become the UK's first super university.
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The universities will now have more than 50,000 students across four different campuses in London,
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Medway and Kent and will become the third largest university in the UK.
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The merger comes as universities are facing huge financial pressures
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and the Vice-Chancellor of Greenwich says it will provide them with a strong future.
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Well, I think if we'd both stayed on our own, we would have had to make some changes.
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You know, like any university, we're not, none of us are immune.
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By coming together, we're not immune, but we can make those changes and make ourselves much more resilient in the future.
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We are not doing it for a financial reason, but it does give us that advantage to give ourselves.
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I think for students that's important, because then they'll know that actually we've got the strength and we're resilient.
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The University of Greenwich, a community with no limits.
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The merger may help Greenwich and Kent, but the higher education regulator has warned 24 institutions are now at risk of insolvency,
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and they think we'll see more mergers in the future.
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This is the biggest we've seen recently, but there have been other examples.
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King's College London and Cranfield University announced a merger recently
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and City St George's is the product of a merger in recent years.
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And I think it is part of a trend.
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But the National Union of Students say what universities really need is more funding.
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My key main concerns are what this signals to the country as a whole in the higher education sector.
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It's sort of accepting that we should be allowing universities to merge or disappear.
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And, you know, universities are a higher education...
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Like, higher education is a national treasure.
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It's something that we should be really protecting, but it doesn't seem like it's a government priority at all.
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The government says it's taking action to put universities on a firmer financial footing.
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But there seems little doubt that in the future there'll be more mergers, like the one between Greenwich and Kent.
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Leila Hayes, BBC London.
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OK, well, let's pick up on the bigger picture in the capital with our reporter Alpa Patel.
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Hi there.
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Do we think more universities are likely to join forces like this?
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Well, we know that there's another one on the way.
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King's College London is due to merge with Cranfield University in Bedfordshire in 2027.
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Now, leaders there say this isn't about plugging a financial hole.
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It's about bringing together King's research strength with Cranfield's expertise in areas like engineering and AI.
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But there's no doubt that universities are facing a really, really tough time.
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Tuition fees, for instance, were frozen for many, many years.
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And universities say that the fees simply no longer cover the cost of teaching students.
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At the same time, many institutions became increasingly reliant on international students who pay significantly higher fees.
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Now, changes to visa rules have hit budgets hard.
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And for some universities, they are now in a very, very difficult position.
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And although student paces at the moment are stable,
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understandably, some students, some prospective students are weighing up whether university is worth it given the amount of debt accrued
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and given that some graduates are unable to find jobs.
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For London, this really, really matters because universities are a major economic force, contributing tens of billions to the economy.
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They also attract top-level talent from around the world, helping to train doctors, teachers, engineers of the future.
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But when finances don't add up, the consequences are significant.
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As we heard in Leila's report, some are already at risk of insolvency.
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So supporters of mergers say they can create a stronger and more resilient institutions,
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but the regulator is clear that mergers aren't a silver bullet and can't solve significant financial problems.
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OK, Alper, many thanks for that.
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Alper Patel there
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you're watching bbc london plenty more to come before seven including
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i'm in the kitchen of a nepalese restaurant in blackheath
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which is getting ready for a fundraising dinner for the victims of the nepal flood disaster Next,
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they act as the lungs of our planet, protecting cities from pollution and the effects of climate change.
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However, environmental charities say this summer has been devastating for London's trees, with many being lost due to the stress of droughts and heatwaves.
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Trees for Cities also thinks the problem will get much worse in the future.
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So what is the answer and how will the capital's trees cope?
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With more on that, here's our environment correspondent, Tom Edwards.
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Drought and heatwaves and increased wildfires have taken their toll on the capital's trees.
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This is the closest in West Drayton, a planting site for this charity.
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It has been a huge effort to support the trees.
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Many didn't survive.
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I've never seen a summer like this.
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Last summer was bad.
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I think we had three heatwaves back to back, but this summer has been a different level.
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It's just been relentless.
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No rain for over 50 days.
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And all of our sites, some sites have managed slightly better than others for various reasons, but every single site has struggled.
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And our team has really been put under massive pressure because of that.
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Trees are seen as part of the solution to a warming climate and how we keep cities cool.
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The mayor's ambition is to increase the canopy.
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Their response to the drought and to the extreme heat has been to start to drop leaves, which is really reminiscent of autumn.
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But in fact, they're dropping them because they can't support them from a water point of view anymore.
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At Chiswick House, it has also been a battle.
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More trees will have their lives shortened and over time more trees will die, which sounds like a terribly depressing thing to say.
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Research says three-quarters of London's trees will suffer in the future.
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Work is being carried out now to find out which species will be more resilient.
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Long term, the capital will need more involvement from volunteers and more funding for trees.
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We're going to have hotter, drier summers.
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We know that, we're experiencing that already.
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But also warmer, wetter winters.
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So the real challenge comes into selecting species
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that are going to be able to withstand both of those changes and that's complex.
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Those on the ground are really worried.
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This is really the first summer where I've seen climate change on our doorstep and it's not going anywhere, which is very, very daunting and very scary for people,
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you know, people's homes and communities and things like that like
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that but it's going to keep on happening so we have to realize
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that this is the new norm this is going to happen again next year
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so we have to figure out what our infrastructure is going
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to be like how do we engage with the public what
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do the public need to do in their own private gardens
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as well as you know in our community spaces like here with the trees we planted
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so it's going to be a massive adjustment
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but you know it's it's the kind of the only option
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we have is to adjust for the future we're now going to be experiencing.
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are on the front line in a changing climate.
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Now they're under huge pressure.
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Tom Edwards, BBC London.
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A student who's serving a life sentence for drugging
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and raping 10 women in London
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and China could face further charges after more people have come forward following a Met police appeal.
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Zhen Hao Zhou has been described as one of the UK's most prolific predators.
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Our reporter Anna O'Neill joins me.
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Anna, how many people are we talking about?
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Well, 23 women came forward after that met police appeal, but police think there could be many more victims.
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Zoe was convicted last year of 11 counts of drugging and raping 10 women.
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Seven of the rapes he was convicted of happened in China at around the time of the pandemic 2019.
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Four of the convictions for rape happened here in London, where he was a PhD student at University College London.
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and he was convicted in London for the crimes that he committed both over there in China and here in the capital.
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Now he'd filmed his victims being assaulted and whether well they were either unconscious
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or semi-conscious and he collected trophies from them and
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that meant the police used this as evidence against him
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but it also meant that they think that there are many more women
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that may have been drugged and raped by him possibly as many as 50 or 60 maybe even more.
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So what happens next with the new evidence of those who have come forward?
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Well, the Met Police has sent a file containing the new allegations of those sexual crimes to the Crime Crown Prosecution Service.
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And according to police, that file contains evidence relating to several alleged offences, including rape and administering a substance with intent to commit a sexual offence.
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And the CPS will now look at those and decide whether to bring further charges.
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OK, with an update there.
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Thank you very much.
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Anna O'Neill.
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A brief look now at some of the day's other stories.
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A man has been charged with arson after trains to
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and from Heathrow Airport were halted because of a trackside grass fire near Paddington.
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National Rail said there was major disruption to services following the incident which happened on Saturday afternoon.
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Air conditioning will be fitted in some London buses in what
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the Unite Union describe as a groundbreaking victory for drivers for Arriva London North.
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They took industrial action last month over hot weather working conditions.
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Arriva and Transport for London have confirmed the air conditioning will be fitted by May next year.
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Now over the summer there was a row over something called vertical drinking, basically a term for standing up drinking which we see a lot of in London.
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After some confusion over the terminology and some thinking it was being banned in the West End,
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which it's not, Westminster City Council has published its revised licensing policy, which they hope clears it all up.
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Our political correspondent Susanna Mendonca has the story.
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Standing up while you sip a pint.
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It's a familiar scene in London's West End.
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But why do some people love it so much?
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I prefer being outside, always.
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We were walking around and she was like, should we have a drink here or sit down here? and they're all indoor places.
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And if it's a nice day and we could be outside, why not?
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It's what you come up solo for, standing outside, people watching, get the vibe.
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This is one of the reasons I come to this pub is to stand outside in the sunshine
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and watch people go by and just immerse myself in the solo experience.
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There was concern last month
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when it looked to some as though Westminster City Council might be calling time on this great British tradition.
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The Labour mayor accused the Conservative-run council of having a village hall mindset.
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But the council insisted that it had been misunderstood, that it had no plan to ban so-called vertical drinking or standing while you drink to you and I.
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And now it's published its revised policy, which it says makes that crystal clear.
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So the policy hasn't changed anything fundamentally about the kind of places that can get licences.
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So if you've been enjoying a place for the last 10 years, you're going to be able to keep on enjoying it in future.
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The key lesson that we learned though was
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that we need to be able to explain these policies in a way
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that a general public audience can understand and not just the specialists for which we've written them for in the past.
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That's welcome news for those running this Soho pub, where standing space is what keeps them profitable.
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It's vital for the hospitality industry within Soho.
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We're a very small pub on the inside, so a lot of our business comes from the punters coming and standing outside.
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They fill up a lot of the capacity that we're able to take.
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there's very limited seating and limited space inside so
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if you were to remove that you're effectively removing half of our revenue
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that we could generate on a you know busy Friday night Saturday night.
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The council says their licensing consultation also revealed that people living
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and working here wanted to see more police on the streets
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and better bus and tube services at night
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but the mayor's office told us they've doubled the number of offices in the West End
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and are helping people to travel safely and affordably at all hours with London's night tube.
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There are a of people who live in other parts of London where it's really difficult to get home late at night.
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It's not that difficult to get home late at night from around here is it?
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Actually it is and just saying it's not like other parts of London is precisely the point.
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There's a thousand licensed venues in this area, there's four thousand across Westminster.
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It's the ability for people to come out and use those and get home that's the key part of it.
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With the mayor getting more powers from government to challenge the licensing decisions of London boroughs, future such clashes might become the usual.
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Susanna Mendonca, BBC London.
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Now, following the devastating floods in Nepal and Tibet, one London restaurant is starting charity dinners tonight,
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where 100% of all ticket sales and all takings from the evening will be donated to Nepal's Disaster Relief Fund.
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It kicks off at the Everest Inn in Blackheath tonight, which is where we can join Asad.
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Who can tell us more?
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Hiya.
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Here is the Hobbs
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and Grills have been fired up at this Nepalese restaurant where they're making dozens of delicious Indian
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and Nepalese meals for dozens of people who've bought tickets to be here.
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The tickets went on sale about a week ago.
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It took just hours for them all to sell out.
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So every seat here is going to be packed within a few minutes' time.
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It's all the idea of Mr Yadav Bandari, the owner of Everest Inn.
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And the way the Nepalese community have come together, particularly in the Royal Borough of Greenwich, which has London's largest Nepalese community, is extraordinary.
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Absolutely, yeah.
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We've got quite a big Nepalese community around this area.
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And as soon as this tragic happened in Nepal, the devastating, you know, flooding, so many local friends and family, they called me and they said,
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let's, you know, we'd like to do something and be part of here, you know.
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Somebody else who's contacted you is Dame Joanna Lumley.
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I've seen the message she sent you to wish you luck for this evening.
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Absolutely.
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Later on, once all the guests are here, I'll be playing such a sweet message from her.
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And it's great, yeah.
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But the way people have come together, not just Nepalese people, all people from this area, says a lot about how people have reacted to the terrible flooding.
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Well, absolutely.
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That's one thing also that everybody is heartbreaking with this, you know, tragic.
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And, yes, we've been here 21 years and so we always, you know, be part of this local community and try to contribute the maximum possible.
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So as soon as this happens, everybody will think of me and, you know, messaging and all that, you know, let's do something and then we're always there, you know.
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So it's a matter of one, two days.
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And you're doing it here, but you're doing it to other restaurants as well?
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Absolutely.
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We've got a branch in Ashford and Hyde, both in Kent.
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And next Monday and the Monday after, both branches, exactly the same that we are doing there.
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OK, Mr Mandari, thank you very much.
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I'm just going to have a quick word here with Ian and Sarah.
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Thank you for coming down where everyone's gathering upstairs.
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You decided to buy tickets for this evening to support the flooding disaster fund.
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Why was it so important for you to be here?
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It was an absolute no-brainer.
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Everest and Yadev and the team have been a really important part of our local community for the last 21 years.
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They're all about friends, family and community.
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The Nepalese fundraiser this evening is a really good example of that, and we couldn't have missed it for the world.
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Well, it's lovely to see you.
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Thank you for speaking to us, Sarah and Ian, and it all kicks off when we come off air at 7 o'clock.
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Back to you.
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An important cause.
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Asad, thank you very much.
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Looking at some other local stories now on BBC News, Luton Council's approved a licence for an annual three-day entertainment event at Stockwood Park,
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which previously hosted Radio 1's Big Weekend.
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Apparently, non-native Asian hornets are now established in the south-east.
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That's despite a drop in sightings of these yellow-legged insects.
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Meanwhile, over in Surrey, your chance to explore the hidden caves under the commuter town of Rygate in a series of open days.
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Well, for those stories and more, just head over to the BBC News app.
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It is now 35 years since the big issue hit our streets.
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The ethos of the magazine and social enterprise
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which was started right here in the capital is giving those
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facing street homelessness a hand up not a handout there are
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more than 600 people selling the big issue in london here are a couple of them
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my name's kelvin i've been sending biggest running off for the past 35 years was homeless begging for a
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while in and out a little bits of work
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and one day a friend of mine says we've got there's a magazine called The Big Issue, we'd like to try and sell it.
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I thought let's give it a go.
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I start at seven in the morning, have a little bit of banter, there's a load of like regular customers I can relate to, have a talk to.
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Hello everybody, hello happy guys.
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My name is George Anderson and I've been selling The Big Issue kind of on
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and off over the past 10 years or so.
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I started off up in Covent Garden like a lot of people do
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when they sell The Big Issue in London and wandering around one night
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and I thought there's the BBC
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and I had two magazines left over from the day
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and they approached somebody and they bought one
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and the woman behind them she bought one as well and I thought this is the place for me.
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35 years of the big issue.
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Now it is the talk of the town and the star attraction at London's British Museum.
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The 70 meter Bayeux tapestry whose embroidered scenes tell the story of the Norman invasion of 1066.
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But what may never be known is who exactly stitched it.
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Well, one historian believes London may have the answer, more specifically barking, as Freddie Tennyson has been finding out.
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Barking.
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Not generally known for medieval blockbusters, but between the rows of houses do these ruins of an
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abbey belie East London's possible link to a thousand year old treasure.
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I'm absolutely flying the flag for Barking Abbey here.
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The monks of Canterbury are recorded as having a direct relationship with the nuns in Barking.
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They prayed for one another.
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They mentioned each other in their masses.
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So that to me is the most logical place.
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It had to be embroidered by a team of women.
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We know this.
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The first stretch of material they're working on was 14 meters in length.
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Now you need a huge space to lay out that sort of material.
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You also need craftspeople who can sit shoulder to shoulder and sit while others hold it up.
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And Professor Ramirez thinks they left clues hidden in the margins that may even hint at scandal.
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The best way to discover the Nuns of Barking in the Bayeux Tapestry is to look in those margins.
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And in the bottom margin you can often see the women really kind of putting secret messages into the margins.
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There is a naked man mirroring the priest above and He's got his genitals on display.
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So that suggests this is some sort of scandal, something salacious has happened.
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If we had 1066 copy of OK magazine, we might know what this particular scandal is, but we don't.
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The story shows the Normans taking control.
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For Barking's nuns, their lives might not have been guaranteed.
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When the Normans invaded and William started building his white tower in London, he didn't have anywhere to stay for a while.
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The nuns of Barking put him up.
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So they'd be the perfect candidates to stitch for their survival, if you like, try and prove to the incoming conqueror that rather than destroying everything,
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which is what he's doing with the other conventes and monasteries, keep us on, keep us working for you.
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Their work lived on.
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Nearly a thousand years later, it's selling out at the British Museum.
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Canterbury Council has demanded free tickets for its locals.
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But what about barking?
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I think it's a bit cheeky that all of Canterbury wants to go.
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And if they're all going, then certainly barking should be all given an open ticket.
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Definitely.
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Freddie Tennyson, BBC London.
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OK, time for a look at the weather with Kate after what felt like a bit of a summer weekend.
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Well, it did.
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It was very warm.
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It certainly looks like autumn today, though, but it doesn't feel like autumn today.
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We're still hanging on to that humidity.
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Something a little bit fresher, though, is heading in our direction through Tuesday.
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Now, this was earlier on there's been a lot of cloud around through the middle part of the day.
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Some heavy cloud, not so much in the way of rain, maybe the odd spot, but nothing significant.
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We had a few breaks though, some sunny spells which just elevated the temperature.
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Now the weekend, Sunday saw 28 Celsius today.
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We got around 25, which is still admittedly very warm.
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It was a front.
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This one is going to join us overnight and bring a little bit of rain, but eventually it will clear and then the fresh air will arrive.
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Still looking at temperatures being in the low 20s though.
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So this is the evening.
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The cloud is going to increase overnight.
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We'll see this big old band of rain.
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It's not too significant.
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Some heavier bursts in there.
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There's certainly not enough to quench any of the drought conditions.
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13 to 15 Celsius, the minimum.
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Not quite as warm as last night, but still it is going to feel quite uncomfortable.
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Now in the morning, it is going to be grey.
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It's still going to be raining.
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It's lingering this front for a while, but you'll notice it clears away south and eastwards through the afternoon, taking the cloud with it for many of us.
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So we should get some sunshine, but that fresher air arrives, temperatures aren't going to feel as warm, or certainly not as humid, it's 19 or 20 Celsius, the maximum temperature, then overnight Tuesday into Wednesday,
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we've got some clear spells, variable amounts of cloud, it should stay largely dry, the breeze perhaps picking up a little, and it veers more from the northwest as opposed from the west,
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so it's going to start to feel a bit cooler, 9 to 11 through the night, certainly a little bit more comfortable for sleeping, now for Wednesday morning, we've got a little bit of sunshine to start,
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a little bit more cloud in the afternoon, but it's a dry day.
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A ridge of high pressure is building, so things fairly settled.
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Temperatures on Wednesday, 19 to 21 Celsius.
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Very similar conditions are likely on Thursday as well.
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You see the high pressure retreating a little.
333
Overnight, we'll get another front.
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You could see a little bit of rain.
335
That will clear through Friday, and then another ridge of high pressure build through Friday afternoon.
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So fairly settled conditions as we head into the weekend, and you'll notice the temperature.
337
Yes, it's largely dry, but it's looking likely to get a little bit warmer through the weekend the first part of next week
338
but that is a long way off it certainly is Kate thank you
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and that is it thanks very much for being with us more stories on our website Instagram
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and YouTube channel from all the team have a lovely evening
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This B2 speaking lesson is built on the video “070926 BBC London, Evening News”. This video has 340 sentences and 4363 words to shadow. The speech runs for 25:08. The speaker talks at a natural 174 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. 84% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.
Key vocabulary in this video
The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| bark noun | /bɑɹk/ | The exterior covering of the trunk and branches of a tree or of various other woody plants. |
| merger noun | /ˈmɜː.d͡ʒə/ | The act or process of merging two or more parts into a single unit. |
| devastate verb | /ˈdɛv.ə.steɪt/ | To ruin many or all things over a large area, such as most or all buildings of a city, or cities of a region, or trees of a forest. |
| resilient adjective | /ɹɪˈzɪl.jənt/ | Returning quickly to original shape after force is applied; elastic. (of objects or substances) |
| nun noun | /nʌn/ | A member of a Christian religious community of women who live by certain vows and usually wear a habit, (Roman Catholicism, specifically) those living together… |
| merge verb | /mɝd͡ʒ/ | To combine into a whole. |
| overnight adverb | /əʊvə(ɹ)ˈnaɪt/ | During or throughout the night, especially during the evening or night just past. |
| embroider verb | /ɪmˈbɹɔɪdɚ/ | To stitch a decorative design on fabric with needle and thread of various colours. |
| heatwave noun | /ˈhitˌweɪv/ | A heat haze. |
| convict verb | /ˈkɑnvɪkt/ | To find guilty, as a result of legal proceedings, or (informal) in a moral sense. |
| drought noun | /ˈdɹaʊ̯t/ | A period of unusually low rainfall, longer and more severe than a dry spell. |
| sunshine noun | /ˈsʌnʃaɪn/ | The direct rays, light or warmth of the sun. |
| treasure noun | /ˈtɹɛʒəɹ/ | A collection of valuable things; accumulated wealth; a stock of money, jewels, etc. |
| scandal noun | /ˈskændəl/ | An incident or event that disgraces or damages the reputation of the persons or organization involved. |
| insolvency noun | [ɪnˈsɒlvn̩si] | The condition of being insolvent; the state or condition of a person who is insolvent; the condition of one who is unable to pay their debts as they fall due… |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| come forward verb | To offer help or information, especially about a crime. | |
| come together verb | /ˈkʌm tʊˈɡɛðɚ/ | To assemble; to congregate; to combine. |
| come up verb | To emerge or become known, especially unexpectedly. | |
| find out verb | To discover, as by asking or investigating. | |
| stand up verb | To rise from a lying or sitting position. | |
| add up verb | To take the sum of; to total. | |
| bring together verb | To cause people to do something together; to bring about togetherness. | |
| carry out verb | /ˈkæ.ɹi aʊt/ | To hold while moving it out. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- Do we think more universities are likely to join forces like this?
- I've never seen a summer like this.
- We're going to have hotter, drier summers.
- Anna, how many people are we talking about?
- Who can tell us more?
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect continuous have/has been + -ing — an action that started earlier and is still going on | has been devastating · has been getting · you've been enjoying |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | have merged · has faced · they've now merged |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | was jailed · were frozen · being lost |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | student who was · students who pay · leaves, which is |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 71 contractions and reduced forms, such as we're, we've, they're. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: sunshine /ˈsʌnʃaɪn/, treasure /ˈtɹɛʒəɹ/, attraction /əˈtɹækʃn̩/, pollution /pəˈluʃən/, allegation /ˌæl.ɪˈɡeɪ.ʃən/
- Long words — get the stress right: regulator /ˈɹɛɡ.ju.leɪ.tɚ/, correspondent /ˌkɔɹ.ɪˈspɑn.dənt/, allegation /ˌæl.ɪˈɡeɪ.ʃən/, hospitality /ˌhɑ.spɪˈtæl.ə.ti/, historian /hɪˈstɔɹi.ən/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like bark, merger, devastate.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.