Shadowing Practice: Chapter 2 16 37 04 - Learn English Speaking with Video
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Chapter 2 Monday in the office Early on Sunday evening,
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I phoned Geoff Clayton on his home number.
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Hi, Mr. Clayton.
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Shirley Holmes here.
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Can we talk about my plan for tomorrow?
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Is this a good time?
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Oh, hi Shirley, I mean Sally.
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Listen, please call me Jeff.
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I don't do this mister thing.
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Or do you want me to call you Miss Holmes?
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I mean Miss Hawker?
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I laugh.
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OK.
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Jeff, now about tomorrow, I'm going to be a journalist called Sally Hawker,
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and I want to talk to your design staff about their work.
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I'm writing a long piece for Flipside magazine. Do you know it?
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Yes, I do.
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It's good.
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So, you want me to tell the staff about you before you arrive?
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When are you coming?
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About ten o'clock.
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Is that all right?
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Fine.
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I have files on all my staff here on my laptop.
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Do you want me to email the files to you?
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Great, I say.
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Please send them right now.
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When I arrive at the Clayton Electrics office on Monday morning, I know names, addresses, ages,
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families, schools, universities, but I need to know much more.
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It's a small office, everything open, no closed doors.
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Faces are friendly, interested.
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I'm something new in their working day.
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I tell them about me and the IET, the Institution of Engineering and Technology.
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I use my smiley journalist face and my smiley voice.
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The IET wants more young people in schools to be interested in technology, I tell them.
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So they asked me to write something for their flipside magazine.
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That's the one for eleven to fifteen-year-olds, says Harry.
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I wrote something for them once, many years ago.
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Harry Bowman, fifty-nine, electrical designer.
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Ten years with Clayton.
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Very good at his job but getting old.
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So, what do you want to know? asks Anna.
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Anna Lund, twenty-nine, electrical designer, two years with Clayton, very clever.
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Tell me about your working day, I say.
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What do you do?
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Where do you go?
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Who do you talk to?
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Anna laughs.
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You must talk to Ken.
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He usually goes out with Jeff and talks to the clients.
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Me and Harry just stay here and do the work.
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Ken smiles at me.
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Don't listen to Anna, he says.
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She gets out to see clients too.
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Ken Okobi, 32, electrical designer.
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Five years with Clayton.
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A good listener.
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Good with the clients.
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There are the three designers and some office staff.
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I stay with them all day.
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I sit next to the designers at their laptops.
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We talk about their computer programmes and electrical design.
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I laugh when they laugh.
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I drink coffee with them, I watch and I listen.
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I talk to the office staff too.
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Nice people, but they don't know computers.
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They can use them, but they don't understand them.
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No hackers here, I think.
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I go out to lunch with the designers at an Italian restaurant.
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I ask them about money.
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Is the pay good?
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Very good, Ken says.
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Jeff Clayton pays well.
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Ah, says Anna.
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I'd like more money.
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Oh, you always want more, Anna, Ken says, smiling.
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And why not, says Anna.
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I'm good at my job.
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She looks at me.
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I don't like working for other people.
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I want to start my own business.
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I want to be a rich woman before I'm forty.
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The two men laugh.
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When we walk back to the office, I walk with Harry.
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Do you enjoy the work?
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I ask.
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"'Yes and no,' Harry says.
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"'You see, my wife is not well, and I'd like to be at home to take care of her.
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She needs the sun, and I'd like to buy a house in Spain when I stop working, but that's never going to happen.
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Ken is walking in front of us, and suddenly I see his shoes.
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They look very expensive.
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Yes, they're Gucci shoes, I'm sure of it.
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Back in the office, I watch the designers at their laptops again.
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Ken is very helpful.
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He tells me a lot about his work and shows me some of his designs.
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Do you take your laptop home at night?
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I ask.
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Yes, we all do, says Ken, and I always need my laptop with me when I visit clients.
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I work at home in the day sometimes, says Harry, because of my wife.
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I sometimes need to be at home.
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Interesting.
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They take their laptops home.
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So it's easy for the hacker to do things at home when nobody is watching.
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5.30, going home time.
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They're closing down laptops, putting on coats.
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The working day is finished.
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So, which one of them is the hacker and the cyber thief?
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It's one of the three designers.
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I'm sure.
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Is it Harry?
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He wants a house in Spain for his wife, but he hasn't got the money for it.
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Anna?
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She's clever, quick, wants to be rich, and she wants it now.
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She doesn't like waiting. And there's Ken.
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He's a nice guy, good at his work, but he's wearing Gucci shoes.
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I get out my laptop, Google Gucci shoes, and look for the prices.
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Four hundred and seventy pounds for a pair of shoes.
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Where does Ken get that kind of money?
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I need to know more about Ken's home life.
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But first, I need to visit the weasel.
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I don't know the weasel's real name.
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Nobody knows it.
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He lives in a great big apartment in Bayswater.
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It's really just one big room with computers.
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computers big and small, computers everywhere.
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The weasel is probably the best hacker in England, maybe in Europe.
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I sit on one of the weasel's black chairs, drink black coffee and look around the great dark room.
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The only light is from computer screens.
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Indian music is playing quietly from one of the computers.
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Don't you ever go out, I say.
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See some daylight.
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Look at some trees.
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Feel the sun on your face.
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Why do I want to see daylight, our trees?
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The weasel says.
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He looks around at his computers.
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All the world comes to me here.
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I don't need daylight.' He looks at me.
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"'And what do you need, Hawker?' He always calls me Hawker.
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He likes that name better than Holmes.
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"'You always need something.' Years ago, the weasel went through a bad time.
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I helped him then, and he doesn't forget that.
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I can ask him for help when I want.
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I tell him about Jeff Clayton's problem.
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I want to watch three laptops, probably through the night.
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I need to catch the person when they get through the security on the main office computer.
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How many passwords?
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The weasel asks.
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Two.
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One for the quotations folder and then every file has its password too.
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Hmm, that's a clever hacker, says the weasel.
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OK, you need a Trojan horse programme.
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I can write that for you.
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Give me twenty-four hours.
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Thank you.
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Thank you.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This video has 156 sentences and 1160 words to shadow. The speech runs for 11:59. The speaker talks slowly, about 97 words per minute, so there is time to copy every sound. Only 80% 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 |
|---|---|---|
| laptop noun | /ˈlæp.tɑp/ | A laptop computer. |
| designer noun | /dɪˈzaɪnɚ/ | A person who designs something, or who designs things as a profession. |
| shoe noun | /ˈʃu/ | A protective covering for the foot, with a bottom part composed of thick leather or plastic sole and often a thicker heel, and a softer upper part made of… |
| hacker noun | /hækəɹ/ | Someone who hacks. |
| electrical adjective | /ɪˈlɛktɹɪkəl/ | Related to electricity (or electronics) |
| clever adjective | /ˈklɛv.ɚ/ | Nimble with hands or body; dexterous; skillful; adept. |
| daylight noun | /ˈdeɪˌlaɪt/ | The natural light that is ambient in daytime, being mostly sunlight (both direct and indirect, on either sunny days or cloudy days). |
| arrive verb | /əˈɹaɪv/ | To reach; to get to a certain place. |
| journalist noun | /ˈd͡ʒɝnəlɪst/ | The keeper of a personal journal, who writes in it regularly. |
| password noun | /ˈpæs.wɜɹd/ | A word relayed to a person to gain admittance to a place or to gain access to information. |
| helpful adjective | /ˈhɛlp.fl̩/ | Furnishing help; giving aid; useful. |
| coat noun | /ˈkoʊ̯t/ | An outer garment covering the upper torso and arms. |
| pound noun | /ˈpaʊ̯nd/ | A unit of weight in various measurement systems. |
| fifty noun | /ˈfɪfti/ | A banknote or coin with a denomination of 50. |
| forty adjective | /ˈfoɹti/ | Resembling or characteristic of a fort. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| close down verb | /kləʊzˈdaʊn/ | To stop trading as a business. |
| get out verb | To leave or escape. | |
| get through verb | /ɡɛt ˈθɹu/ | To overcome; to endure. |
| go out verb | To leave, especially a building. | |
| go through verb | To travel from one end of something to the other. | |
| look around verb | To inspect a building or area. |
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Obligation: must / have to / need to saying that something is necessary | need to know · must talk · need to be |
| Present continuous am/is/are + -ing — something happening right now or around now | I'm writing · is walking · is watching |
| Future with “going to” be going to + verb — a plan or something you can see coming | I'm going to be · that's never going to happen |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 23 contractions and reduced forms, such as don't, I'm, I'd. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: shoe /ˈʃu/, quotation /kwoʊˈteɪʃn̩/
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 laptop, designer, shoe.
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.