Shadowing Practice: BEST Study Routine that made me a TOP ACHIEVER (in HALF the time) - Learn English Speaking with Video
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This girl was in her flop era.
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I was failing my exams, I was starting to give up on my dreams of going to medical school.
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I hated myself and my self-esteem was on the floor.
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Little did I know that I was going to go on and develop a foolproof study routine.
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That would see me through five years of thriving at medical school, get my dream job as a doctor in London.
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And the most shocking part, I was able to do all of this
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while spending as little time as possible studying because I wasn't making any notes whatsoever.
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I'm not naturally intelligent but one thing about me is
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that I am determined and
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if I have a goal I will go to the end
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of the earth to work out the best way to achieve
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that goal and luckily you're here so I get to share it with you.
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This routine will cover everything you need to be doing before, during and after classes as well as in preparation for your exams
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and finally what to do after your exam to not only ensure
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that you get the best grades possible using evidence-based techniques
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if you don't follow this method already it will cut your
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studying time down by half here are the time stamped sections
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if you would like to skip because you've had enough of my yapping
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because guys this is five years of blood sweat
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and tears i've got this routine down to perfection so I will not be sparing any of the nitty gritty details.
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Part one, what you're going to do before your classes.
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But Faye, why are we even thinking about before when I haven't even been taught the material yet?
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Let's shut that down immediately because that is not how top performers think.
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Top performers also understand that learning anything is a bit like throwing wet tissue at the ceiling.
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One moment, I think we may need a little bit of a better visual representation of that.
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Right.
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Oh, okay, that one didn't work.
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Yay!
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Third one.
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Oh.
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If that did not make any sense, then I was trying to use the wet tissue like knowledge and the ceiling like your brain,
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some knowledge like the wet tissue paper is going to stick immediately without much issue.
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Generally this is the knowledge that is a little bit easier to understand
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but some knowledge might need to be explained a couple of
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different times in a couple of different ways until you finally have your light bulb moment.
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The key with studying at any stage is being able to
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reflect on what pieces of knowledge are like wet tissue paper now stuck to my ceiling not budging
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versus what pieces of knowledge are falling straight back off.
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The aim of the pre-class preparation is not to walk into your class an insufferable know-it-all.
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That's a waste of your time and irritating for everyone else.
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Prepping before your class gives you an extra opportunity to identify the topics
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that don't come as easy so you know what you need to focus in on
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and maybe ask for help with in the class.
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Three simple steps I want you to take before going into your class.
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Number one, you're going to download the lecture slides or lesson material if it's available to you.
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Two, you're going to briefly review the material or if the material isn't available, do a tiny bit of research on what you're going to cover.
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And finally, you're going to go through practice questions on that topic.
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Again, I hear you say, Hey, what is the point in that?
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I haven't even learned anything yet.
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I'm just going to get everything wrong.
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Get out of that mindset immediately.
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If there's one thing that we're going to say goodbye to by the end of the video, it's your ego.
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You need to recognise that if you're getting things wrong, you are learning.
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And if you are getting everything right, you haven't learned anything.
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Part two, what you're going to do during your class.
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For so long, I found lectures a complete waste of time.
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I zoned out within the first five minutes.
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I didn't find them engaging.
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And what do you know?
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It's not just me.
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The research agrees lectures are a passive form of learning
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which basically means they require minimal work from a student's brain
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and thus they are a really crappy way to learn
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but lecturers and teachers are often really passionate
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and knowledgeable people in their field
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so I faced this issue of wanting to make the most out of my time
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but also wanted to respect their passion and get the most from their expertise
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and that meant finding a way
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that I wasn't tempted to go on ASOS to do some online shopping within the first 10 minutes.
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Step one, you're going to open Notion, OneNote or X tiles.
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This will be used to track what classes you've been to and what topics you've covered.
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P.S.
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Everything that I'm going to show you, I'll add a template for that you can click on for free in the description.
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Next, you're going to open your lecture slides or insert them into Notion, OneNote or X tiles.
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Now the part that terrifies everyone, you're going to open Anki.
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I procrastinated using Anki for the longest time because I didn't like the interface, it looked way too confusing,
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but guys it really is the most efficient way to incorporate evidence-based study techniques like active recall
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and spaced repetition seamlessly into your routine.
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If you've never heard of active recall before this is basically actively recalling information as it says on the tin.
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We're talking flashcards, practice questions, explaining a topic to a friend.
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Then spaced repetition is basically Gradually increasing the time between when topics are revisited.
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Say you're in medical school and you're learning about management of asthma, then you'll review your flashcards for that topic on one day, then maybe the next day,
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then maybe you'll wait seven days and then maybe you'll wait a month.
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Making it progressively harder to retrieve that information from your brain strengthens the neural connections
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so you can solidify the information in your memory.
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Anki is game-changing once you get your head around it but it is ugly,
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it is intimidating, it is confusing and can be difficult to get your head around by yourself properly.
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The class Mastering Anki, Creating a Flashcard System for Straight A's by Zach Hiley will
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get you from terrified Anki sceptic to seasoned Anki pro in lessons that are only a couple of minutes long.
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And you can access that class and many more completely for free
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because Skillshare is kindly sponsoring this video
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and they're giving the first 500 people to click the link in my description one month free trial of Skillshare.
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When I first started medical school, Skillshare was my go-to on-demand platform that I could trust for levelling up my study skills by learning from experts.
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My top five must-watch Skillshare classes for any student wanting to level up in their studying are as follows.
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Guys, you might want to screenshot these if you want to make the most of your free one-month trial.
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One, learn how to study anything based on science, effective study techniques and beating procrastination.
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Two, productivity for students.
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Study smarter, not harder.
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Three, five-minute study motivation, Japanese procrastination cure, four notion masterclass, maximize your productivity and organization.
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Five is the class that I've been taking most recently, how to study for exams, learn how to rank in the 99th percentile.
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I took this class because this year I'm due to take more exams
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and after a blissful year off of not taking any exams I wanted to see
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if there was anything else I could do to improve my study skills
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and if that class taught me anything it's
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that we can always learn more and Skillshare really is the number one place
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that I turn for learning whether that is in film, illustration, design, freelance.
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So if you want to do Zach's Anki class completely for free make sure you're quick
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because the first 500 people to click the link in the
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description as I said will get a one month free trial of Skillshare.
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So now you've taken Zach's class, you've mastered Anki and you're finally ready to open it up during your class
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or lecture and this my friends is the exact method I used in medical school.
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As the class is going on you're going to create flashcards in real time.
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Okay in the age of AI why can't I just get AI to make the flashcards for me?
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Three reasons.
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Number one AI was not as accessible for me
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when I started medical school so it isn't as tried
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and tested but also number two retention is higher if you make the flashcards yourself.
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The benefit of pre-made flashcards is obviously saving time
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but by making these flashcards in our class or lecture that was time that we were saying goodbye to anyway.
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But number three, most importantly, if I had a pound for every time I sat in a lecture
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and I looked around and I saw a screen on Netflix, let's just say I would have enough money that I wouldn't need to be an overworked and underpaid doctor in the NHS.
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I think that we can all universally agree that lectures are painfully hard to stay engaged with.
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Creating flashcards during my lectures in medical school meant
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that I had to stay engaged in the lecture because I was having to actively process the information to create flashcards.
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You may try this method and hate it and I'm not going to take responsibility for that.
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It was a godsend for me and if you don't like it that is absolutely fine.
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But I do want to prepare you for the most common pitfalls
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that I see and the reasons I think people give up with this method far too quickly.
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Pitfall number one, you keep falling behind.
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Guys, I get it, keeping up with the pace of the lecture whilst creating flashcards can be really hard and overwhelming, but this is not an excuse.
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There is a stupidly simple solution.
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When you start to notice that you're falling behind, you're simply going to mark down the slide that you fell behind on so you can revisit it later.
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I just used to draw a little star next to the slide
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and then jump ahead so I'm back in sync with the speaker.
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Pitfall numero dos.
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Faith, how do I know what to make flashcards on?
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I'm finishing each lecture with about 200.
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It is unsustainable.
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This was me.
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It was completely unmanageable
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and it took me years to work out what information I
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should be making flashcards on versus what information was just dead weight.
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But there's two methods I developed to help with this.
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Number one, the traffic light system.
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You're going to get good at quickly assessing whether information is green, yellow or red.
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Green information you could easily remember before the class.
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So for example, if you're a medical student and you're in a cardiology lecture,
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this might be what the ventricles and the atrium are because I'm assuming you were taught that in A-level biology.
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There is absolutely no need to make a flashcard about that.
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Yellow information is information that you may have previously been taught, but actually you needed that class to rejog your memory a little bit.
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To continue the cardiology example, maybe you forgot what a QRS complex on an ECG is.
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For yellow information, you might want to make a brief flashcard.
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And finally, red information.
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This is completely new.
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Again, with the cardiology example, maybe you'd never learn about the management of a heart attack.
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For red information, you want to consider making more detailed flashcards.
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However, there is a caveat to all of this because you need to consider number Number two, is it even going to be in my exam?
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Lecturers and teachers are often people who are incredibly passionate and like to include
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additional information in their teaching to maybe give context or just because they're interested in it.
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In the heart example it could be information into research about a new drug
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that is only just making its way to human trials.
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It's not going to be in your exam.
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But how do I know what is likely to come up in my exam?
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Hey, I'm not the examiner.
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This is exactly why I said that you should do practice questions before your lecture or class.
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Exams are basically pattern recognition, guys.
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There are only so many things examiners can ask you and examiners tend to love to ask questions about the same things.
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Topics that examiners love to ask about are known as high yield.
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And depending on what course you're on, you may be able to look up online or ask students in the years above you what the high yield topics are.
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In your lecture and from doing practice questions beforehand, you're going to identify the high yield topics.
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And when you're in that lecture and you don't know what to make flashcards on, make the high yield topics a priority.
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Part three, after class.
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Immediately you walk out of your class and already you feel the information draining out of your brain.
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I'm going to tell you how to stop that in its tracks
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and make your life a whole lot easier when exam season comes around.
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But first, if you are enjoying the video, then please let me know by subscribing or commenting so that I know you want to see more videos similar to this.
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Step one, when you get back home that evening after your class, you're going to go back to the slides you might have missed
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because you'd fallen behind and make flashcards on what you missed.
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Step two, you're going to review the Anki cards that you made that day.
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This is where Anki is so intelligent because depending on how easy or hard you find those flashcards to review,
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Anki will automatically set a date for you to review them on.
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So for example, if you find a flashcard particularly hard, you'll review it sooner.
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Whereas if you found a flashcard particularly easy, you'll review it later.
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But Faye, why do I need to do it on the same day?
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I'm tired.
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I just want to watch Netflix and get into bed.
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I want to introduce you to this graph devised by Herman Ebbinghaus in the 19th century.
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According to his curve, you lose 50% of all new information in one day
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and 90% of all new information in a week.
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And his study was actually replicated in 2015, which found similar results to what he did in the 1800s.
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When I was in medical school, reviewing flashcards from three hours of lectures would take me less than an hour and trust me,
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it's a lot nicer doing that than trying to cram.
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So you don't have to do it the same day, but you're making your life a hell of a lot easier if you do.
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Part four, the run up to exams.
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Controversial, but when it comes to studying, I don't necessarily think that consistency is the answer.
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Consistency, yes, in everything that I have just mentioned.
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Practice questions before your lectures, reviewing your Anki every day, but max, this should be an hour Monday to Friday
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and maybe a couple of hours over the weekend if you need to top it up.
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But I think it's really important to remember that elite athletes have seasons.
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The earth has seasons.
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Our body has a circadian rhythm.
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We cannot and should not be studying as hard as possible all year round.
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If you're consistent with all the steps that I've already mentioned, you will already be in a much better position than most of your peers and you won't be spreading yourself too thin.
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Your baseline level of knowledge will be a lot higher with minimal extra effort
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but you should be stepping it up a gear when exam season comes around.
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However, timing this well can be tricky.
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What I tended to do was two months before the exam up my hours slightly to two to four hours a day.
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I would also try and time this step up with my cycle
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and how I did this plus my reasons are in a video
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that I will put here if you want to learn more.
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Then about a month before my exams I'd up to about six to eight hours per day
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and my final phase the last two days before the exam
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I would drop it down a gear slightly to make sure that my brain was well rested for my exam.
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But there are a couple caveats to this.
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One this needs to be adapted to you if you find
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that you are not making enough progress or you have left it too late you will probably need to study more.
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I also have a video all about cramming that I will link somewhere here.
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Two, if you are feeling drained and tired or making silly mistakes on practice questions, you probably need to drop down how many hours you're studying.
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Please, for the love of God, try and understand the seven different types of rest.
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Sleeping or watching Netflix are not the only ways to recuperate
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and if you want to learn a little bit more about that, then skip to 1 minute 27 on my five habits to follow for work-life balance that I will also link somewhere here.
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Final caveat, regardless of when you are choosing to study,
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make sure that you leave two hours before bed study free so that you have time to wind down.
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In my fourth year, I was leaving the library at half 10 at night.
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Then I was lying in bed wide awake, staring at the ceiling until 1am because I was wired and stressed.
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That is not good for your brain.
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There is extensive research into sleep's role in learning and memory formation.
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So I was probably undoing a lot of the hard work
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that I'd done during the day
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because I wanted to cram in a little bit more studying into the hours of eight and ten.
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So what activities did I do on the lead up to my exam?
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Here is a real life example of my medical school exam season timetable that I pretty much stuck to every single year.
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I split my days up into half an hour slots alternating between practice questions and Anki.
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You can learn your Anki decks like the back of your hand
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which is great for basic recall but
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if you cannot apply them to practice questions
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that are similar to the exam that you're going to sit you're going to struggle.
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The key with doing the practice questions is making sure
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that you're taking the time after the practice question to understand what went wrong and learn.
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You're not going to get nearly as much benefit if you're just trying to cram as many questions in as possible.
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To optimise learning from getting things wrong even more, I would create a separate Anki deck just to put in information that I learned from getting practice questions wrong.
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I would also try and include one hour in the morning and one hour in the afternoon troubleshooting,
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which is basically where if there were topics that I was consistently getting wrong on my flashcards or practice questions, I'd jot them down for my troubleshooting session,
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which was basically where I dedicated extra time to mastering those topics that I was struggling with, doing practice questions exclusively on this topic, asking a friend for help,
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or maybe watching an online revision video where they speak through practice questions and the answers for those topics.
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As my exam got closer and my Anki cards were well and truly mastered, I tended to shift
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and allocate more time towards practice questions until finally I felt like my understanding had been mastered
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and I shifted again towards exclusively the timed mock exams to nail down the application of the knowledge and the timing.
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Part five, after exams.
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Babe, surely we're done.
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Nope, because reflecting after an exam is the most neglected and easiest way to boost your exam performance next time.
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Four things I'm going to need you to reflect on.
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Number one, the most obvious, your score breakdown or the questions and answers.
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Personally, in my medical school, we didn't have access to the papers after we had sat them, but I was able to request my score breakdown from my personal tutor.
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This was like a glaring neon sign pointing to the areas I did worse on, thus telling me where I needed to focus my energy on next time.
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Often subconsciously, our lazy, lazy, lazy human brain makes us gravitate towards studying things that we're already good at.
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Because it's nice for our ego, it makes us feel good, it makes us feel smart.
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The breakdown of your marks on the other hand is an objective assessment, giving you a blueprint of how you should be allocating your time moving forward.
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Two, I'm going to need you to reflect on the amount of time you spent studying
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and whether that was reflective of your performance.
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In my first three years of medical school, I had a really healthy study routine.
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I studied from nine to five, I treated it like a full-time job and always had the evening off and I did really well.
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So tell me why in fourth year I guilt tripped myself
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into studying 12 to 14 hour days every single day
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because those were the exams that had most influence on the jobs
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that we got when we graduated and shock despite studying a lot more hours I didn't do any better in those exams.
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When I reflected on that exam season I realised that yes I might have been studying for 12 to 14 hours,
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but because I knew that I was going to be in the library till half 10, I conserved my energy.
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I wasn't doing as many questions.
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I wasn't concentrating as hard.
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I was making silly mistakes.
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I wasn't as focused and efficient as when I was studying nine to five.
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Had I not taken the time to reflect after that exam season,
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I may never have made that connection and taken that really important learning point in all the exams I sat afterwards.
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Three, I'm going to need you to reflect on whether your performance aligned with your goals.
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You may be someone who just wants to get by and pass because you're busy living your life to the fullest, or you may be someone who wants to get in the top of their class,
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or you may be someone who needs a specific grade in order to apply to your dream job.
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The important part is this is completely unique to you.
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I never had ambitions of being in the top 1% of my year, but I knew that I wanted to get a job in London and the cutoff mark was 91.
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This was my primary focus and it guided how much of my life I was willing to sacrifice for academic gain.
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It's easy to compare our performance to others but your only concern should be whether your performance is congruent with your goal.
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Four, please for the love of God reflect on who you can learn from.
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A wise man learns from his mistakes, a wiser man or woman learns from the mistakes of others and this isn't mainly about mistakes,
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it's about reflecting on who did well and why.
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It's also not about competition, it's about helping each other.
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If you know one of your friends did really well in a topic
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that you did pretty badly on and you did well in a topic that they didn't do so great in, help them!
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And if they're a good friend, they will help you back.
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Ask how they studied, what resources they used, whether they would like to go through a mock exam over a nice iced coffee.
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You will both do so much better and make your lives easier by working together and sharing the load.
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I studied with all my friends from medical school every single year.
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We all helped each other out and all of us ended up getting our first or our second choice deaneries.
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We've covered my exact study routine, but if you're someone who struggles with procrastinating your studying, then you're going to want to watch my 10-minute routines beat procrastination.
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Or if you're a busy girlie who wants to do everything but never seems to have the time, this is my video on how I make time for everything even with a full-time job.
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If you did enjoy the video please don't forget to like, comment, subscribe.
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I hope you have a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful week and I will see you in the next video.
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Yay!
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Slay!
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This B2 speaking lesson is built on the video “BEST Study Routine that made me a TOP ACHIEVER”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: exam, flashcard, lecture. This video has 298 sentences and 4231 words to shadow. The speech runs for 22:38. The speaker talks fast, about 187 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 83% 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 |
|---|---|---|
| flashcard noun | /ˈflæʃˌkɑɹd/ | A card used to aid rote memorization. One side of the card contains data of one kind, or a question, and the other side contains the associated response which… |
| lecture noun | /ˈlɛk.t͡ʃə/ | A spoken lesson or exposition, usually delivered to a group. |
| yield verb | /jiːld/ | To give as a result or outcome; to produce or render. |
| ceiling noun | /ˈsilɪŋ/ | The overhead closure of a room. |
| cardiology noun | /ˌkɑː(ɹ)diˈɒlədʒi/ | The study of the structure, function, and disorders of the heart. |
| cram verb | /kɹæm/ | To press, force, or drive, particularly in filling, or in thrusting one thing into another; to stuff; to fill to superfluity. |
| procrastination noun | /pɹəʊˌkɹæs.tɪˈneɪ.ʃən/ | The act of postponing, delaying or putting off, especially habitually or intentionally. |
| examiner noun | /əɡˈzæmɪnɚ/ | A person who investigates someone or something. |
| breakdown noun | /ˈbɹeɪkˌdaʊn/ | A failure, particularly one which is mechanical in nature. |
| notion noun | /ˈnoʊʃən/ | Mental apprehension of whatever may be known, thought, or imagined; idea, concept. |
| caveat noun | /ˈkæviɑt/ | A warning. |
| pitfall verb | /ˈpɪtfɔl/ | To trap, snare, or ensnare someone or something. |
| repetition noun | /ˌɹɛp.əˈtɪʃ.ən/ | The act or an instance of repeating or being repeated. |
| troubleshooting noun | The identification and resolution of problems, especially problems of a technical nature. | |
| confuse verb | /kənˈfjuːz/ | to puzzle, perplex, baffle, bewilder (somebody); to afflict by being complicated, contradictory, or otherwise difficult to understand |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| fall behind verb | To be late (for a regular event) | |
| come around verb | /kʌ.məˈɹaʊnd/ | To change one's mind, especially to begin to agree or appreciate what one was reluctant to accept at first. |
| go through verb | To travel from one end of something to the other. | |
| work out verb | /ˌwɝk ˈaʊt/ | To calculate. |
| back off verb | To move backwards away from something. | |
| drop down verb | To sail, move, or row down a coast, or down a river to the sea. | |
| end up verb | To bring to a conclusion. | |
| get back verb | Return to where one came from. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- I haven't even learned anything yet.
- I'm just going to get everything wrong.
- I didn't find them engaging.
- Faith, how do I know what to make flashcards on?
- It's not going to be in your exam.
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Conditional sentences if + clause, will/would + verb — a condition and its result | if I have a goal I will go · if they're a good friend, they will help |
| Present perfect continuous have/has been + -ing — an action that started earlier and is still going on | I've been taking · have been studying |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | haven't even been taught · haven't even learned · haven't learned |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | been taught · be explained · wasn't tempted |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 107 contractions and reduced forms, such as you're, I'm, don't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: thrive /θɹajv/, rhythm /ˈɹɪð.əm/, athlete /ˈæθ.liːt/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: flashcard /ˈflæʃˌkɑɹd/, procrastination /pɹəʊˌkɹæs.tɪˈneɪ.ʃən/, notion /ˈnoʊʃən/, repetition /ˌɹɛp.əˈtɪʃ.ən/, passionate /ˈpæʃənɪt/
- Long words — get the stress right: cardiology /ˌkɑː(ɹ)diˈɒlədʒi/, procrastination /pɹəʊˌkɹæs.tɪˈneɪ.ʃən/, examiner /əɡˈzæmɪnɚ/, repetition /ˌɹɛp.əˈtɪʃ.ən/, consistency /kənˈsɪs.tən.si/
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 flashcard, lecture, yield.
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.