Shadowing Practice: Business Partner B1+ Unit 4.1.1 - Learn English Speaking with Video
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When business leaders develop strategies to tackle problems, they often have to take risks.
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Nobody can predict the future, but businesses do have to anticipate it and make judgments.
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The Kraft Heinz Company, based in the U.S., is a major player in the food industry.
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Over 90 years, Kraft built up a portfolio of well-known food brands, including confectionery, biscuits, snacks, and dairy products.
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In the first decade of the 21st century, Kraft's performance was poor.
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Markets lacked confidence in the company's growth prospects.
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Its profits were disappointing.
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Kraft's products were less appealing to a new generation of consumers.
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It was seeing demand for the processed food and drinks
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that it manufactured from dairy all the way to Oreo biscuits decline and that the profit margin,
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the amount of money it was making for every unit of sales, had been squeezed almost to the thinness of a piece of paper.
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This was only the first of Kraft's problems.
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The second issue that Kraft had to tackle was that it relied too heavily on its home US market.
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That meant it was missing opportunities in fast-growing emerging markets around the world.
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The company's third problem was that its costs were too high.
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That meant it was not making enough profits on its sales.
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Crafts management came up with a bold plan to tackle these issues.
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It started with a takeover bid for the chocolate maker Cadbury.
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Cadbury had a 200-year history of making chocolate in the UK.
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Its products were well-established around the world, especially in emerging markets.
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There was clearly an attraction of having an even larger portfolio of internationally recognised brands
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that they could seek to take into different markets.
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So, inevitably, attracting a bigger international audience was part of Kraft's interest in Cadbury's.
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Kraft took a gamble that combining the operations of two established companies would be successful and solve another one of its problems.
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Kraft's primary interest in Cadbury was it enabled it to,
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because it became a bigger company, essentially cut costs.
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Where there was overlap between the two companies, it found a way of saving money and increasing therefore the profit margin
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that it was able to get from each one of its products.
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The second stage of the strategic solution was a merger.
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Kraft merged with another food giant, Heinz, and became the Kraft Heinz company.
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The merger created the world's fifth largest food company.
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As with the Cadbury deal, there was an opportunity to cut costs.
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There were other potential advantages, which helped to solve Kraft's problems.
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Heinz was considered more innovative in its development of new product lines that met changing consumer preference.
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The immediate results were positive.
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The Kraft Heinz company's share price rose 17% on news of the merger.
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The combined company has been successful in cutting costs.
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Looking at the Kraft story, it is clear the solutions involved considerable risks.
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Takeovers and mergers do not always work.
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Irene Rosenfeld was Kraft's chief executive.
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She was responsible for the company's strategy.
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I think there were a number of folks that we're questioning our acquisition of Cadbury.
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We said it was going to be important to us to expand our portfolio, to expand our footprint, particularly in developing markets, and it's played out that way.
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We are very much on track with the integration.
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It's enabled us to outperform our peers around the world.
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For Kraft Heinz, it seems that the risks paid off, but finding solutions to large corporate problems is not straightforward,
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and taking risks can lead to business failures as well as successes.
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Outro Music
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This B1 speaking lesson is built on the video “Business Partner B1+ Unit 4.1.1”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: Kraft, Heinz, Cadbury, product, merger. This video has 48 sentences and 599 words to shadow. The speech runs for 4:18. The speaker talks at a steady 139 words per minute, a comfortable pace for shadowing. Only 79% 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 |
|---|---|---|
| merger noun | /ˈmɜː.d͡ʒə/ | The act or process of merging two or more parts into a single unit. |
| tackle verb | /ˈtækəl/ | To force a person to the ground with the weight of one's own body, usually by jumping on top or slamming one's weight into them. |
| portfolio noun | /pɔːtˈfəʊ.liˌəʊ/ | A case for carrying papers, drawings, photographs, maps and other flat documents. |
| biscuit noun | /ˈbɪs.kɪt/ | A small, flat, baked good which is either hard and crisp or else soft but firm; a cookie. |
| emerge verb | /ɪˈmɝd͡ʒ/ | To come into view. |
| dairy noun | /ˈdɛə.ɹi/ | (also dairy products or dairy produce) Products produced from milk. |
| combine verb | /kəmˈbaɪn/ | To bring (two or more things or activities) together; to unite. |
| margin noun | /ˈmɑɹ.d͡ʒɪn/ | The edge of the paper, typically left blank when printing but sometimes used for annotations etc. |
| enable verb | /ɪˈneɪ.bəl/ | To make somebody able (to do, or to be, something); to give sufficient ability or power to do or to be; to give strength or ability to. |
| confectionery noun | /kənˈfɛkʃənəɹi/ | Foodstuffs that taste very sweet, taken as a group; candies, sweetmeats and confections collectively. |
| outperform verb | /ˌaʊt.pɚˈfɔɹm/ | To perform better than something or someone. |
| thinness noun | The state or quality of being thin. | |
| footprint noun | /ˈfʊtpɹɪnt/ | The impression of the foot in a soft substance such as sand or snow. |
| disappoint verb | /ˌdɪsəˈpɔɪnt/ | To sadden or displease (someone) by underperforming, or by not delivering something promised or hoped for. |
| takeover noun | The purchase of one company by another; a merger without the formation of a new company, especially where some stakeholders in the purchased company oppose the… |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| build up verb | To erect; to construct. |
| come up with verb | To manage to produce, deliver, or present (something) by inventing, creating, thinking of, or obtaining it. |
| pay off verb | To bribe, especially to deter oversight. |
| play out verb | To play (a game etc.) to its conclusion. |
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 | had been squeezed · was considered |
| Past continuous was/were + -ing — an action in progress at a moment in the past | was seeing · was making · was missing |
| Obligation: must / have to / need to saying that something is necessary | have to take · have to anticipate · had to tackle |
Pronunciation to watch
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: confectionery /kənˈfɛkʃənəɹi/, attraction /əˈtɹækʃn̩/, integration /ˌɪn.tɪˈɡɹeɪ.ʃən/, acquisition /ˌæk.wɪˈzɪʃ.ən/
- Long words — get the stress right: portfolio /pɔːtˈfəʊ.liˌəʊ/, confectionery /kənˈfɛkʃənəɹi/, anticipate /ænˈtɪs.ɪ.peɪt/, inevitably /ɪˈnɛvɪtəbli/, innovative /ˈɪn.əˌveɪtɪv/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Shadow it sentence by sentence at normal speed, repeating each one until your rhythm matches the speaker.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like merger, tackle, portfolio.
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.