Shadowing Practice: Cambridge Ielts 16 Reading test 2 Passage 2 - Learn English Speaking with Video
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contain multitudes.
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Wendy Moore reviews Ed Yong's book about microbes.
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Microbes, most of them bacteria, have populated this planet since long before animal life developed and they will outlive us.
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Invisible to the naked eye, they are ubiquitous.
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They inhabit the soil, air, rocks and water and are present within every form of life, from seaweed and coral to dogs and humans.
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And, as Yong explains in his utterly absorbing and hugely important book, we mess with them at our peril.
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Every species has its own colony of microbes,
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called a microbiome, and these microbes vary not only between species but also between individuals and within different parts of each individual.
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What is amazing is that while the number of human cells in the average person is about 30 trillion, the number of microbial ones is higher about 39 trillion.
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At best, Jung informs us, we are only 50% human.
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Indeed, some scientists even suggest we should think of each species and its microbes as a single unit, dubbed a holobiont.
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In each human there are microbes that live only in the stomach, the mouth or the armpit and by and large they do so peacefully.
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So, bad microbes are just microbes out of context.
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Microbes that sit contentedly in the human gut, where there are more microbes than there are stars in the galaxy, can become deadly if they find their way into the bloodstream.
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These communities are constantly changing too.
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The right hand shares just one-sixth of its microbes with the left hand.
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And, of course, we are surrounded by microbes.
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Every time we eat, we swallow a million microbes in each gram of food.
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We are continually swapping microbes with other humans, pets and the world at large.
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It's a fascinating topic and Yang, a young British science journalist, is an extraordinarily adept guide.
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Writing with lightness and panache, he has a knack of explaining complex science in terms that are both easy to understand and totally enthralling.
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Yang is on a mission.
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Leading us gently by the hand, he takes us into the world of microbes a bizarre, alien planet in a bid to persuade us to love them as much as he does.
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By the end, we do.
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For most of human history we had no idea that microbes existed.
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The first man to see these extraordinarily potent creatures was a Dutch lensmaker called Antony van Leeuwenhoek in the 1670s.
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Using microscopes of his own design that could magnify up to 270 times,
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he examined a drop of water from a nearby lake and found it teeming with tiny creatures he called animalcules.
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It wasn't until nearly 200 years later that the research of French biologist Louis Pasteur indicated that some microbes caused disease.
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It was Pasteur's germ theory that gave bacteria the poor image that endures today.
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Young's book is in many ways a plea for microbial tolerance, pointing out that while fewer than 100 species of bacteria bring disease,
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many thousands more play a vital role in maintaining our health.
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The book also acknowledges that our attitude towards bacteria is not a simple one.
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We tend to see the dangers posed by bacteria, yet at the same time we are sold yogurts and drinks that supposedly nurture, friendly, bacteria.
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In reality, says Yang, bacteria should not be viewed as either friends or foes, villains or heroes.
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Instead we should realize we have a symbiotic relationship, that can be mutually beneficial or mutually destructive.
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What then do these millions of organisms do?
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The answer is pretty much everything.
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New research is now unraveling the ways in which bacteria aid digestion, regulate our immune systems, eliminate toxins,
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produce vitamins, affect our behavior and even combat obesity.
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They actually help us become who we are, says Young.
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But we are facing a growing problem.
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Our obsession with hygiene, our overuse of antibiotics and our unhealthy,
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low-fiber diets are disrupting the bacterial balance and may be responsible for soaring rates of allergies and immune problems, such as inflammatory bowel disease, IBD.
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The most recent research actually turns accepted norms upside down.
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For example, there are studies indicating that the excessive use of household detergents
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and antibacterial products actually destroys the microbes that normally keep the more dangerous germs at bay.
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Other studies show that keeping a dog as a pet gives children early exposure to a diverse range of bacteria, which may help protect them against allergies later.
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The readers of Yang's book must be prepared for a decidedly unglamorous world.
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Among the less appealing case studies is one about a fungus
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that is wiping out entire populations of frogs and that can be halted by a rare microbial bacterium.
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Another is about squid that carry luminescent bacteria that protect them against predators.
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However, if you can overcome your distaste for some of the investigations, the reasons for Yang's enthusiasm become clear.
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The microbial world is a place of wonder.
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Already, in an attempt to stop mosquitoes spreading dengue fever a disease
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that infects 400 million people a year mosquitoes are being loaded with a bacterium to block the disease.
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In the future, our ability to manipulate microbes means we could construct buildings with useful microbes built into their walls to fight off infections.
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Just imagine a neonatal hospital ward coated in a specially mixed cocktail of microbes
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so that babies get the best start in life.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This video has 59 sentences and 895 words to shadow. The speech runs for 5:24. The speaker talks at a natural 166 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. Only 73% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is demanding.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| indicate verb | /ˈɪndɪˌkeɪt/ | To point out; to discover; to direct to a knowledge of; to show; to make known. |
| immune adjective | /ɪˈmjuːn/ | Exempt; not subject to. |
| mutually adverb | /ˈmjut͡ʃuəli/ | In the same way, each to the other; reciprocally. |
| mosquito noun | /məsˈki.toʊ/ | A small flying insect of the family Culicidae, the females of which bite humans and animals and suck blood, leaving an itching bump on the skin, and sometimes… |
| allergy noun | /ˈæl.əɹ.d͡ʒi/ | A disorder of the immune system causing adverse reactions to substances (allergens) not harmful to most and marked by the body's production of histamines and… |
| topic noun | /ˈtɑpɪk/ | A subject; a theme; a category or general area of interest. |
| household adjective | /ˈhaʊshoʊld/ | Belonging to the same house and family. |
| pet noun | /pɛt/ | An animal kept as a companion or otherwise for pleasure, rather than for some practical benefit or use. |
| exposure noun | /ɪkˈspəʊ.ʒə(ɹ)/ | The condition of being exposed, uncovered, or unprotected. |
| naked adjective | /ˈneɪkɪd/ | Bare, not covered by clothing. |
| soil noun | /sɔɪl/ | A mixture of mineral particles and organic material, used to support plant growth. |
| stomach noun | /ˈstʌmək/ | An organ in animals that stores food in the process of digestion. |
| journalist noun | /ˈd͡ʒɝnəlɪst/ | The keeper of a personal journal, who writes in it regularly. |
| sixth adjective | /sɪksθ/ | The ordinal form of the number six. |
| vital adjective | /ˈvaɪtəl/ | Relating to or characteristic of life. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| fight off verb | To succeed in defeating a challenge, or an attack. |
| point out verb | To identify among a group of similar subjects, or in a scene where the subject might not be readily seen or noticed, with a gesture of the body. |
| wipe out verb | To destroy (especially, a large number or complete set of people or things); to obliterate. |
Pronunciation to watch
- The “th” sounds: sixth /sɪksθ/, enthusiasm /ɪnˈθuziæzəm/, unhealthy /ʌnˈhɛl.θi/, enthrall /ɪnˈθɹɔːl/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: exposure /ɪkˈspəʊ.ʒə(ɹ)/, infection /ɪnˈfɛkʃən/, beneficial /ˌbɛn.ɪˈfɪʃ.əl/, specially /ˈspɛʃəli/, obsession /əbˈsɛʃən/
- Long words — get the stress right: eliminate /ɪˈlɪm.ɪ.neɪt/, invisible /ɪnˈvɪzəb(ə)l/, beneficial /ˌbɛn.ɪˈfɪʃ.əl/, enthusiasm /ɪnˈθuziæzəm/, supposedly /səˈpoʊ̯.zɪd.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 indicate, immune, mutually.
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.