Shadowing Practice: 3 rules to spark learning | Ramsey Musallam - Learn English Speaking with YouTube

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Translator: Joseph Geni Reviewer: Morton Bast I teach chemistry.
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Translator: Joseph Geni Reviewer: Morton Bast I teach chemistry.
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(Explosion) All right, all right.
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So more than just explosions, chemistry is everywhere.
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Have you ever found yourself at a restaurant spacing out just doing this over and over?
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Some people nodding yes.
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Recently, I showed this to my students, and I just asked them to try and explain why it happened.
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The questions and conversations that followed were fascinating.
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Check out this video that Maddie from my period three class sent me that evening.
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(Clang) (Laughs) Now obviously, as Maddie's chemistry teacher, I love that she went home and continued to geek out about this kind of ridiculous demonstration that we did in class.
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But what fascinated me more is that Maddie's curiosity took her to a new level.
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If you look inside that beaker, you might see a candle.
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Maddie's using temperature to extend this phenomenon to a new scenario.
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You know, questions and curiosity like Maddie's are magnets that draw us towards our teachers, and they transcend all technology or buzzwords in education.
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But if we place these technologies before student inquiry, we can be robbing ourselves of our greatest tool as teachers: our students' questions.
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For example, flipping a boring lecture from the classroom to the screen of a mobile device might save instructional time, but if it is the focus of our students' experience, it's the same dehumanizing chatter just wrapped up in fancy clothing.
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But if instead we have the guts to confuse our students, perplex them, and evoke real questions, through those questions, we as teachers have information that we can use to tailor robust and informed methods of blended instruction.
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So, 21st-century lingo jargon mumbo jumbo aside, the truth is, I've been teaching for 13 years now, and it took a life-threatening situation to snap me out of 10 years of pseudo-teaching and help me realize that student questions are the seeds of real learning, not some scripted curriculum that gave them tidbits of random information.
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In May of 2010, at 35 years old, with a two-year-old at home and my second child on the way, I was diagnosed with a large aneurysm at the base of my thoracic aorta.
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This led to open-heart surgery. This is the actual real email from my doctor right there.
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Now, when I got this, I was -- press Caps Lock -- absolutely freaked out, okay?
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But I found surprising moments of comfort in the confidence that my surgeon embodied.
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Where did this guy get this confidence, the audacity of it?
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So when I asked him, he told me three things.
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He said first, his curiosity drove him to ask hard questions about the procedure, about what worked and what didn't work.
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Second, he embraced, and didn't fear, the messy process of trial and error, the inevitable process of trial and error.
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And third, through intense reflection, he gathered the information that he needed to design and revise the procedure, and then, with a steady hand, he saved my life.
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Now I absorbed a lot from these words of wisdom, and before I went back into the classroom that fall, I wrote down three rules of my own that I bring to my lesson planning still today.
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Rule number one: Curiosity comes first.
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Questions can be windows to great instruction, but not the other way around.
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Rule number two: Embrace the mess.
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We're all teachers. We know learning is ugly.
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And just because the scientific method is allocated to page five of section 1.2 of chapter one of the one that we all skip, okay, trial and error can still be an informal part of what we do every single day at Sacred Heart Cathedral in room 206.
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And rule number three: Practice reflection.
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What we do is important. It deserves our care, but it also deserves our revision.
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Can we be the surgeons of our classrooms?
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As if what we are doing one day will save lives.
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Our students our worth it.
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And each case is different.
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(Explosion) All right. Sorry.
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The chemistry teacher in me just needed to get that out of my system before we move on.
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So these are my daughters.
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On the right we have little Emmalou -- Southern family.
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And, on the left, Riley.
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Now Riley's going to be a big girl in a couple weeks here.
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She's going to be four years old, and anyone who knows a four-year-old knows that they love to ask, "Why?" Yeah. Why.
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I could teach this kid anything because she is curious about everything.
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We all were at that age.
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But the challenge is really for Riley's future teachers, the ones she has yet to meet.
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How will they grow this curiosity?
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You see, I would argue that Riley is a metaphor for all kids, and I think dropping out of school comes in many different forms -- to the senior who's checked out before the year's even begun or that empty desk in the back of an urban middle school's classroom.
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But if we as educators leave behind this simple role as disseminators of content and embrace a new paradigm as cultivators of curiosity and inquiry, we just might bring a little bit more meaning to their school day, and spark their imagination.
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Thank you very much.
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(Applause)

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Context & Background

In this enlightening video titled "3 rules to spark learning," Ramsey Musallam, a seasoned chemistry teacher, shares his transformative journey in the classroom. Drawing on personal experiences, including a life-altering medical situation, he emphasizes the importance of curiosity, the acceptance of messy learning processes, and the value of reflection in teaching. Through engaging anecdotes and examples, Musallam illustrates how student questions can ignite genuine learning and inspire educators to foster an interactive classroom environment. For English learners, this perspective can enhance their approach to language acquisition, particularly through engaging content like YouTube videos.

Top 5 Phrases for Daily Communication

  • "Curiosity comes first." – This phrase underlines the significance of asking questions to drive learning.
  • "Embrace the mess." – A reminder that learning can be chaotic, and that’s okay!
  • "Practice reflection." – The importance of taking time to think about what works and what doesn’t.
  • "Learning is ugly." – A candid acknowledgment that mistakes are part of the educational journey.
  • "Questions are windows to great instruction." – Highlighting how inquiries can lead to deeper understanding.

Step-by-step Shadowing Guide

To effectively utilize the insights from Musallam’s video for English speaking practice, consider the following shadowing guide:

  1. Watch the Video: Begin by watching the video to understand the context and the speaker's tone. Pay attention to his enthusiasm when discussing curiosity and learning.
  2. Take Notes: Jot down key phrases and ideas that resonate with you. This will help reinforce your understanding and prompt further inquiries.
  3. Pause and Repeat: Use the shadowspeak technique. Pause the video after a sentence, then repeat what you heard. Focus on mimicking the speaker's intonation and rhythm.
  4. Ask Questions: Engage with the material by formulating your own questions about it. This can be about the content or how it applies to your learning journey.
  5. Reflect: After completing the shadowing session, take a moment to reflect on what you've learned and how the concepts apply to your language practice. Consider keeping a journal to track your reflections and progress.

By implementing this guide, you can effectively learn English with YouTube while enhancing your comprehension and speaking skills through real-world examples. This shadow speak method not only improves pronunciation but also builds confidence in expressing thoughts related to curiosity and learning, just like Musallam encourages in his teaching philosophy.

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.

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