Shadowing Practice: 6 Levels of Thinking Every Student MUST Master - Learn English Speaking with Video
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There are six levels or types of thinking that every student or learner of any age should master.
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And each of these six levels leads to a different level of result.
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Unfortunately, most of the students I work with are stuck in these first few levels of thinking,
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and the reason that they struggle to reach top results is because they are thinking at the wrong level.
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When this happens, it causes a lot of stress, it wastes a lot of time, it can be very frustrating,
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it can feel impossible to reach top results with any degree of confidence,
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and with enough time, we can start thinking that maybe we're just not cut out for it.
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But that probably is not true.
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And for me, learning how to think deliberately at the right level is one of the main reasons
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I was able to achieve top academic results in both medical school and for my Masters of Education.
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And trust me, I'm certainly not a genius.
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I've seen similar results with thousands of students and professionals
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that I've trained over the years
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and by the end of this video you'll be able to see what level you tend to operate at
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and how you can get to the level that you need to be.
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And FYI, the level you need to be is probably higher than you think, but we'll get to that later.
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So the first level is all about memorizing things.
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This involves a lot of rereading, rewriting it is usually very repetitive.
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It can feel very tedious.
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It often makes us feel drowsy.
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And this level is called remember.
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It is the level of rote learning and repeating hundreds and thousands of flashcards.
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This is the way I and maybe you studied for like most of high school.
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And it's maybe the reason why you might have hated studying.
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And when you do this level of thinking and studying, then it unlocks level one result, which is regurgitate.
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The regurgitate level is all about listing, defining, stating facts.
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It's the kinds of questions that are less common as you go throughout university and become semi -useless in professional life.
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Confusingly, even though this first level is called remember,
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it's actually not a very good way to hold on to and retain the things that you learn, but we'll talk about that later.
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The second level of learning is about really trying to comprehend
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what you are learning rather than just like repeatedly smash it into your brain.
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This is the level that we call understand.
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Now there's a reason I've been saying these are levels of thinking
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and not different levels of studying and that's because your intentions really matter.
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You could have two people doing exactly the same technique
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and for someone looking at you it can look exactly the same and then
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when you ask them hey how are you studying they might both just say i'm just reading my textbook
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but mentally it's different for the person at level one by reading they actually mean i'm reading it again
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and again so i can try to get it stuck in my head whereas for the person in level two,
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what they mean is I'm reading it so I can understand what it's trying to say and wrap my head around it.
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And so naturally at level two thinking understand, what we unlock is level two result, which is explain.
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This allows us to answer questions that require us to explain our understanding of a concept or a process.
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These types of questions often make up the bulk of most assessments up until around later in uni.
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Now if this is sounding familiar to you so far, it's because it's described in a framework called Bloom's Revised Taxonomy,
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which was first published in 1956 and then later revised in 2001.
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And even though it is 70 years old, it is still one of the most underrated principle that most students have never heard of.
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And if you have heard of it, stick around because I'll teach you a way of using it that helped me double my learning efficiency.
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So level three is about using what you have learned to then solve problems.
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And this is a level that we call apply.
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Now, this is where things can get a little bit confusing because a lot of people misunderstand this about Bloom's taxonomy.
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There are lots of different ways that you can apply your knowledge to solve problems.
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So, for example, you have what we, I would say, are simple problems.
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These are the types of problems where you learn something
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and then you just directly use that thing that you learned to solve a problem
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So for example in maths or physics you learn an equation
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or formula and there is a problem that you need to solve by just using that equation or formula
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Then again, there are what I might call a little bit more advanced problems
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And these are the ones where you actually have to think about the best way to tackle the problem
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There are a combination of concepts that you need to apply in a certain sequence
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and there's a lot more strategic thinking involved.
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At level three, we're mostly talking about the first one, simple.
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problem solving.
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And so we unlock that level, which is the simple problem solving result.
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We're now able to solve what I call one to one problems, where there is one concept you learn,
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and the problem requires that one concept to solve.
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And you can get to this level, level three, by just literally solving questions and solving problems.
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Lots of practice papers and quizzes have questions at the apply level.
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For something more procedural like coding it might be building a simple function with a few simple variables.
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But what about the harder and more complex questions?
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The types of problems that are advanced?
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This is where level 4 thinking comes in.
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We're entering into the territory of higher -order learning.
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People who know how to think at level 4 tend to do pretty well,
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but level four thinkers are not common and you'll see why that is soon.
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Level four thinking is all about comparing and contrasting.
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It's about looking for similarities and differences.
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We call this level analyze.
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It's the first time that we're not just looking at information by itself, but we're looking at it in relation to another piece of information.
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And there are countless techniques that help with level four analyze.
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Venn diagrams, making tables, making summaries that explain the similarities and differences,
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using mind maps, solving problems and questions that forced you to compare one concept in relation to another.
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All of these things are gonna be helpful.
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Really, any technique is effective as long as it forces you to compare and contrast one thing against another thing.
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So unlocking level four accesses the level four result, which is the comparison level.
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And instead of just giving you some examples of what comparison looks like,
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I'm going to do one better and show you this great little study tip that you can use.
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Go on to something like ChatGPT or Gemini and type in this prompt.
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Give me questions at the educational stage that you want.
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So let's say second year university level for the subject.
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So let's say in this example, we'll say microbiology at Bloom's revised taxonomy level.
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In this case, it's going to be level four.
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And these are exactly the types of questions that test you at level four.
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And you'll see that every single option forces you to compare ideas against each other.
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Now, the reason that this technique is actually useful to use in your studying is
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because Bloom's revised taxonomy was not created for people like you, like a learner.
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They were created for educators and exam writers.
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And internationally, almost every single curriculum is designed around
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Bloom's taxonomy or a similar taxonomy.
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They're all pretty similar to each other.
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Which means your exam writer is thinking in this way to create the questions
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that are going to filter out the good versus the great learners.
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Which means you can now predict the types of questions they're going to ask you and even create your own practice papers.
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But here is why level 4 thinkers are not common.
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As soon as you jump from level 3 to level 4,
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you will 100 % notice that this level of thinking requires more mental effort.
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It is harder to do.
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You're thinking for longer and more deeply than the previous levels,
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which is a good thing because it means that your brain is forming deeper knowledge and stronger memory, but it can feel like you've gotten slower.
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And some people think that that means they're doing something wrong.
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So even though most students can think at level four, most students choose not to because it doesn't feel as easy.
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This is a phenomenon called the misinterpreted effort hypothesis and it prevents the majority of learners from ever really improving.
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And this is even more the case at level five.
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Level five thinking is for the top learners.
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If you can think at level five, you will be reaching those top results.
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It's also the level that people find the most confusing, so I'm going to make it really simple for you.
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Level five is all about judgment.
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At level four, we analyze, we compared and contrasted, we found similarities and differences.
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At level five, we're asking, so what?
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What does it matter? Who cares?
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Why is it important?
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Level five is called evaluate.
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And learning to think at this level unlocks the level 5 result which is Prioritize.
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So let's do that little AI trick again and see the difference in the types of questions we get.
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So you can see level four on the left and level five on the right.
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So notice that at level five, we are forming conclusions and now we have to justify it.
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It's not enough like at level four, just to know that there are similarities and differences.
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We then have to use that knowledge to make a decision.
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Level five thinking takes much more effort and you'll know
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that you are doing it right when you are going back and forth between the material,
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trying to answer the question in your head of why does this matter?
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How does it fit in with everything else?
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Why do I need to care?
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You're going to be jumping between your lectures and your textbook and doing a Google search.
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These are the signs that you are operating at level five.
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And it's not as easy as the previous levels, but to reach level five results, you need to go through this.
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And level four and level five are the types of questions
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and challenges you'll find in second and third year university
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and beyond and in postgrad studies most of what you're assessed at is level four
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and level five also pretty much any senior position in any profession will require you to have level four
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and level five thinking and much like before it's less about what your technique looks like
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and more about what's happening inside your brain.
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For example, for level five, mind maps, teaching, answering questions,
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creating summaries, these are all techniques that are great for level five.
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But you could also do all of those techniques
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and still not do it at level five if you're not thinking in the right way.
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For example, it's easy to make a mind map, just connecting a bunch of lines and arrows together between words,
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forming a few groups and categories here and there and just call it done.
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But that's not level five thinking.
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It's very different to, for example,
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creating a mind map where you're critically evaluating which lines and relationships are more important than other possible relationships.
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And you're thinking, what is the best way I can group these ideas together?
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Mentally, it's a very different process, even though physically it can look very similar.
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Now level six, I'll go through this one pretty quickly because funnily enough, it's actually less important for most people.
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Level six is about creating a hypothesis.
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It's about synthesizing new and novel information from what you already know.
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This level is called create.
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And when you unlock create, it unlocks the level six result, which is hypothesize.
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Now, some people think that level six create is any situation where you have to generate anything with your knowledge.
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This is not true.
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It's only level six if you are creating an answer for something
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that you don't think the answer exists in your knowledge already.
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You're identifying a gap and you're creating a potential answer that makes sense based on what you do know.
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And the reason level six is not as important as previous levels is
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because most people will not really be assessed at level six unless you are at the highest levels of education
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or your profession.
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Most people in their daily lives will be at the top
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of their game just being able to perform at level five consistently.
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But just for your knowledge, here are some examples of level six.
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And as you can see, it's pretty advanced.
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You can pause to read this a little bit more if you like,
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or you can jump onto your AI and do this for your own subject.
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Now here's the part that is going to blow your mind.
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If you want to get to level five and level six, there are actually two different methods to get there.
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The first way is to start studying and just to go through each level from bottom to top.
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First you remember it, and then you understand it, and then you apply it, and then you analyze it, so on and so forth.
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This sounds very logical, but for most people this will not work.
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The problem with starting at the bottom, mastering level one, then mastering level two,
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then mastering level three, etc. is that it is very, very time consuming.
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And most people do not have enough time to even reach level five, let alone master it.
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So in reality, most people will just do a little bit of each level kind of back and forth.
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Like for example, in lectures, they might be doing a little bit of level one and then a little bit of level two.
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And then later when doing some quizzes, they might be doing a bit of level two and a little bit of level three.
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And they're just sort of moving back and forth.
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If they do a more challenging question, they'll be doing a little bit of level four and then level five.
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And this doesn't really work very well because we will always forget things over time.
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In research, we call this phenomenon knowledge decay.
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It occurs because the memory has something called a forgetting curve.
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So basically, while you're doing level two and level three, our knowledge of level one will slowly decay away, right?
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We're going to forget it.
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And so instead of being able to actually just move up the levels,
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we're going to be spending most of our time just relearning the things that we continuously forget.
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So instead, here is the better way to reach the higher levels.
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Instead of starting at level 1 and moving up, we're going to start at level 5 and actually move down.
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Remember level 5 because level 6 is not relevant for most people.
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And the reason this works is because our brain actually processes information
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and forms memory more strongly at level five than it does at level one.
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And when we set our sights at the top,
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our brain will actually fill in and achieve the lower levels of results along the way as almost like a side effect.
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And this doesn't work the other way around.
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If we are trying to just learn so that we can regurgitate material,
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our brain is not going to then be able to automatically compare or prioritize information.
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But if we are trying to compare and prioritize, then we will gain better memory so that we can,
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if we need to regurgitate, explain and solve problems.
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Now, by the way, the science on this gets a little bit complicated.
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So if you want me to go deeper in on this, then let me know in the comments.
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Like I said, level five takes more mental effort, but it pays off big time by forgetting less.
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So this means when we start studying, don't focus on trying to remember or understand.
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Focus most of your attention on trying to evaluate, which forces you to understand and analyze it in the first place.
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Now, if you found this video useful and you want to get the key points summarized, sent straight to your inbox,
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then I've actually got a newsletter where I distill my decade of coaching people to learn more efficiently into bite -sized emails.
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Each email covers one key concept that I think every learner would benefit from with some practical takeaways.
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The learnings from this video are also in one of those newsletters too.
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If you're interested, check out the link in the description
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or go to iconstudy .com slash learning drop to sign up
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and you will get your first letter in your inbox straight away.
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As always, thank you so much for watching and I'll see you in the next one or in your inbox.
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Thank you.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This speaking lesson is built on the video “6 Levels of Thinking Every Student MUST Master”. This video has 217 sentences and 2934 words to shadow. The speech runs for 17:11. The speaker talks at a natural 171 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. 89% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is easy to follow.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| solve verb | /sɒlv/ | To find an answer or solution to a problem or question; to work out. |
| technique noun | /tɛkˈniːk/ | The practical aspects of a given art, occupation etc.; formal requirements. |
| unlock verb | /ʌnˈlɑk/ | To undo or open a lock or something locked by, for example, turning a key, or selecting a combination. |
| compare verb | /kəmˈpɛɚ/ | To assess the similarities and differences between two or more things [“to compare X with Y”]. Having made the comparison of X with Y, one might have found it… |
| analyze verb | /ˈæn.əˌlaɪz/ | To subject to analysis. |
| similarity noun | /ˌsɪm.ɪˈlæɹ.ɪ.ti/ | Closeness of appearance to something else. |
| contrast noun | /kənˈt(ʃ)ɹæst/ | The degree of this difference. |
| evaluate verb | /ɪˈvaljʊeɪt/ | To draw conclusions from examining; to assess; to appraise. |
| inbox noun | /ˈɪnbɑks/ | A container in which papers to be dealt with are put. |
| formula noun | /ˈfɔː.mjʊ.lə/ | Any mathematical rule expressed symbolically. |
| summary noun | /ˈsʌm.ə.ɹi/ | An abstract or a condensed presentation of the substance of a body of material. |
| relation noun | /ɹɪˈleɪʃ(ə)n/ | The manner in which two things may be associated. |
| examination noun | /ɪɡˌzæm.ɪˈneɪ.ʃən/ | The act of examining. |
| mentally adverb | /ˈmɛntəli/ | In a mental manner; an idea thought out in one's mind, as opposed to an idea spoken orally. |
| lecture noun | /ˈlɛk.t͡ʃə/ | A spoken lesson or exposition, usually delivered to a group. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| go through verb | To travel from one end of something to the other. | |
| move up verb | To promote, put onto a higher level. | |
| check out verb | To record the departure or withdrawal of someone or something (such as guests, employees, books, etc.). | |
| go back verb | To return to a place or state after having been there at a previous time. | |
| make up verb | /ˌmeɪk ˈʌp/ | To constitute, to compose. |
| move back verb | To reschedule (something) to a later date or time. | |
| move down verb | To demote | |
| pay off verb | To bribe, especially to deter oversight. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- We're entering into the territory of higher -order learning.
- At level five, we're asking, so what?
- Why do I need to care?
- We're going to forget it.
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | is called · was not created · were created |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | result, which is · level, which is · People who know |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | I've seen · I've trained · have never heard |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 53 contractions and reduced forms, such as we're, you're, I'm. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: hypothesis /haɪˈpɒθɪsɪs/, mathematics /mæθ(.ə)ˈmæt.ɪks/, thinker /ˈθɪŋ.kɚ/, hypothesize /haɪˈpɑ.θəˌsaɪz/, synthesize /ˈsɪnθəsaɪz/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: contrast /kənˈt(ʃ)ɹæst/, relation /ɹɪˈleɪʃ(ə)n/, examination /ɪɡˌzæm.ɪˈneɪ.ʃən/, profession /pɹəˈfɛʃ.ən/, equation /ɪˈkweɪ.ʒən/
- Long words — get the stress right: similarity /ˌsɪm.ɪˈlæɹ.ɪ.ti/, examination /ɪɡˌzæm.ɪˈneɪ.ʃən/, phenomenon /fəˈnɒm.ɪ.nən/, hypothesis /haɪˈpɒθɪsɪs/, naturally /ˈnæt͡ʃ.(ə.)ɹə.li/
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 solve, technique, unlock.
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.