Shadowing Practice: Blood Flow Through the Heart (Made Easy in 5 Minutes!) - Learn English Speaking with Video
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Alright you guys, welcome back to another video lesson.
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My name is Eddie Watson and this is ICU Advantage, where the confidence to succeed begins here, making critical care topics easy to understand.
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Now, if you don't want to miss out on any future critical care lessons that I do, make sure and subscribe to the channel down below.
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Make sure you hit that bell icon though and select all notifications so you never miss out on a new lesson.
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Alright, let's begin.
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In this lesson, let's take a quick look at the flow of blood through the heart.
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And the heart is really the powerhouse of the circulatory system.
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It's continuously moving blood throughout the entire body, providing oxygenated blood and nutrients,
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while also carrying away waste and returning that deoxygenated blood back to the lungs.
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the flow of blood through the cardiac system is vital to being able to understand the problems
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and conditions that can come up along the way at various points.
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We do though need to start off with some basic foundations before we begin.
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So when I'm talking about veins, I'm talking about blood vessels that are carrying blood towards the heart, and then arteries are then blood vessels carrying blood away from the heart.
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And then for the sake of our drawing, blue is going to be used to signify deoxygenated blood and red is going to be our oxygenated blood.
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So with that out of the way, let's go ahead and take a look inside the heart so we can see some of the structures here.
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There are four main chambers, two upper chambers called atria and two lower chambers called ventricles.
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And we have one of each on each side of the heart.
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We have the right atrium, the right ventricle, the left atrium, and the left ventricle.
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And the atria help to fully load the ventricle before it then ejects blood away from the heart.
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The heart can also be divided up into the right and left sides.
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The right side is going to be responsible for deoxygenated blood going right to the lungs, and then the left side is responsible for oxygenated blood that has just left the lungs.
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There's also four heart valves that you need to know, one at the exit of each of the four chambers.
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Exiting from the right atrium, we have the tricuspid valve.
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Then exiting from the right ventricle, we have the pulmonic valve.
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And then exiting the left atrium, we have the mitral valve.
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This is something that also is known as the bicuspid valve.
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And then finally exiting the left ventricle, we have the aortic valve.
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Each of these valves act as a one-way valve to prevent backflow of blood in the system.
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And normal valves have three leaflets, with the exception of the mitral valve, which only has two, hence the name bicuspid.
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And then finally there are the blood vessels, which bring blood to, as well as carry blood away from the heart.
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The inferior vena cava, which has blood originating from the trunk, visceral organs, and the lower body.
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And the superior vena cava, which has blood originating from the head and upper body.
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Which these two together bring most of the deoxygenated blood from the body back to the heart
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and empty into the right atrium.
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Next, we have the pulmonary artery, which is going to carry the deoxygenated blood away from the heart and then to the lungs to be oxygenated.
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From here, we have both the right and left pulmonary veins, which are bringing the oxygenated blood back to the heart and emptying into the left atrium.
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And then finally, the aortic carries the oxygenated blood away from the heart to the rest of the body.
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Alright, now that we've covered the structures, let's actually see how the blood flows through the system.
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We start with the deoxygenated blood returning to the heart via the inferior vena cava and the superior vena cava.
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This blood empties into the right atrium.
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The right atrium then contracts the blood through the tricuspid valve into the right ventricle.
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The right ventricle then contracts, ejecting the blood through the pulmonic valve into the pulmonary artery.
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Now remember this is an artery because the blood is going away from the heart, but it's also blue here because this is still deoxygenated blood.
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The pulmonary artery branches and carries blood to the left and the right lungs to receive oxygen and release carbon dioxide.
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After the blood leaves the lungs, the oxygenated blood is going to return to the heart via the pulmonary veins.
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Again, remember that these are veins because they're carrying blood towards the heart, but they're red here because this is now oxygenated blood.
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The pulmonary veins empty the blood into the left atrium.
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The left atrium contracts the blood through the mitral valve into the left ventricle.
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The left ventricle then contracts, ejecting that blood through the aortic valve, into the aorta, and onto the rest of the body.
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So one more time let's just talk through that again.
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We start with the deoxygenated blood returning to the heart via the inferior vena cava and the superior vena cava.
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This blood empties into the right atrium.
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The right atrium then contracts the blood through the tricuspid valve into the right ventricle.
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The right ventricle then contracts ejecting that blood through the pulmonic valve into the pulmonary artery.
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The blood then travels to the lungs and then returns back from the lungs via the pulmonary veins, which then empty into the left atrium.
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The left atrium contracts that blood through the mitral valve into the left ventricle.
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The left ventricle then contracts, ejecting that blood through the aortic valve to the aorta and onto the rest of the body.
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And remembering the order of the heart valves can be difficult.
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The mnemonic TPMA can help.
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Toilet, paper, my asset tricuspid pulmonic mitral aortic.
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Alright that's all I got that's the blood flow through the heart.
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If you guys like this lesson please leave a comment
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or a like down below really goes a long way to help support this channel as well as
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if you know somebody else who might find this useful make sure and share it with them as well.
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If you haven't already subscribe to the channel down below
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and a special shout out to our awesome Patreon and YouTube members that are out there.
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By showing your support for this channel you guys get additional content
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that you can't get from just the normal YouTube channel here alone.
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Make sure you guys stay tuned for the next lesson that I'm going to release.
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In the meantime, check out a couple really awesome videos I'm going to link to right here.
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As always, thank you guys so much for watching.
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Have a great day.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This C1 speaking lesson is built on the video “Blood Flow Through the Heart”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: blood, valve, atrium, ventricle, deoxygenated. This video has 72 sentences and 1150 words to shadow. The speech runs for 6:03. The speaker talks fast, about 190 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. Only 80% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is demanding.
Key vocabulary in this video
The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| atrium noun | /ˈeɪ.tɹi.əm/ | A central room or space in ancient Roman homes, open to the sky in the middle; a similar space in other buildings. |
| ventricle noun | /ˈvɛn.tɹɪk.əl/ | One of two lower chambers of the heart. |
| deoxygenate verb | /diˈɒksɪdʒɪneɪt/ | To remove dissolved oxygen from (something, such as water or blood). |
| oxygenate verb | /ˈɒksɪdʒəneɪt/ | To treat or infuse with oxygen. |
| pulmonary adjective | /ˈpʌl.məˌnɛ.ɹi/ | Pertaining to, having, or affecting the lungs. |
| vena noun | Synonym of vein. | |
| artery noun | /ˈɑɹ.təɹ.i/ | Any of the muscular- and elastic-walled blood vessels forming part of the circulation system by which blood is conveyed away from the heart regardless of its… |
| vein noun | /veɪn/ | A blood vessel that transports blood from the capillaries back to the heart. |
| aortic adjective | /eɪˈɔɹ.tɪk/ | Of or pertaining to the aorta or the aortic valve. |
| eject verb | /ɪˈd͡ʒɛkt/ | To compel (a person or persons) to leave. |
| mitral adjective | /ˈmaɪtɹəl/ | Pertaining to a mitre; resembling a mitre. |
| pulmonic adjective | Of, pertaining to, or produced by the lungs. | |
| tricuspid adjective | /tɹaɪˈkʌspɪd/ | Having three cusps, e.g. a molar tooth |
| inferior adjective | /ɪnˈfɪɹ.i.ɚ/ | Lower in rank, status, or quality. |
| aorta noun | /eɪˈɔɹtə/ | The great artery which carries the blood from the heart to all parts of the body except the lungs; the main trunk of the arterial system. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| carry away verb | To steal; to take away. | |
| check out verb | To record the departure or withdrawal of someone or something (such as guests, employees, books, etc.). | |
| come up verb | To emerge or become known, especially unexpectedly. | |
| go ahead verb | /ˌɡoʊ əˈhɛd/ | To proceed with; to begin. |
| talk through verb | To tell (someone) step by step how to do something. |
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 | be divided · is known · be oxygenated |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | cava, which has · artery, which is · veins, which are |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | has just left · we've covered |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 10 contractions and reduced forms, such as I'm, they're, can't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: notification /ˌnoʊtɪfɪˈkeɪʃn̩/, shout /ʃaʊt/
- Long words — get the stress right: deoxygenate /diˈɒksɪdʒɪneɪt/, oxygenate /ˈɒksɪdʒəneɪt/, pulmonary /ˈpʌl.məˌnɛ.ɹi/, inferior /ɪnˈfɪɹ.i.ɚ/, originate /əˈɹɪd͡ʒɪneɪt/
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 atrium, ventricle, deoxygenate.
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.