Shadowing Practice: 3.7 Want to Fly - Learn English Speaking with Video

Creating lesson...
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Story 7.
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Want to fly?
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Birds can fly.
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Bees can fly.
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Many kinds of insects can fly too.
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But people can't fly.
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Long ago, people tried many ways to fly.
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But people are not birds.
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People are not insects.
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What did they do?
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They made a big balloon.
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They put a basket on the balloon.
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They filled the balloon with hot air and up they went.
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Look!
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Look way up in the sky!
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What's that?
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It is people flying in a hot air balloon.
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What a beautiful view!
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If you want to shine tomorrow, you have to spark today.
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Ten minutes a day goes a long way.
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Thank you for watching and see you next time.

Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This video has 21 sentences and 115 words to shadow. The speech runs for 1:06. The speaker talks slowly, about 104 words per minute, so there is time to copy every sound.

Key vocabulary in this video

9 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:

WordPronunciationMeaning
balloon noun/bəˈlun/An inflatable buoyant object, often (but not necessarily) round and flexible.
insect noun/ˈɪn.sɛkt/An arthropod (in the Insecta class) characterized by six legs, up to four wings, and a chitinous exoskeleton.
shine verb/ʃaɪn/To emit or reflect light so as to glow.
bee noun/ˈbiː/A flying insect, of the clade Anthophila within the hymenopteran superfamily Apoidea, known for its organised societies (though only a minority have them), for…
basket noun/ˈbæskɪt/A lightweight woven container, generally round, open at the top, and tapering toward the bottom.
spark noun/ˈspɑɹk/A small particle of glowing matter, either molten or on fire, resulting from an electrical surge or excessive heat created by friction.
bird noun/ˈbɜːd/An animal of the clade (traditionally class) Aves in the phylum Chordata, characterized by being warm-blooded, having feathers and wings usually capable of…
fill verb/fɪl/To add contents to (a container, cavity, or the like) so that it is full.
fly noun/ˈflaɪ̯/Any insect of the order Diptera; characterized by having two wings (except for some wingless species), also called true flies.

How to practise with this video

  1. Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
  2. Shadow it sentence by sentence at normal speed, repeating each one until your rhythm matches the speaker.
  3. Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like balloon, insect, shine.

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.

Shadowing technique: read the full step-by-step guide →