Shadowing Practice: ChatGPT + Podcasts = English Fluency? Try These 12 Prompts! - Learn English Speaking with Video

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Okay, so in this video

I will show you how you can use AI tools like

ChatGPT to get way more value out of the English podcasts that you already listen to,

and make huge progress in your listening comprehension, your vocabulary development, your writing and even your speaking.

Now I wanted to make this video because I hear

so frequently from people who listen to lots of English podcasts

but don't feel like they're making the progress that they want to be making and they're stuck at that dreaded intermediate plateau.

And using tools like ChatGPT

is one way of breaking through and really working with a podcast episode

and getting much more value out of it than you would do just by listening.

Now I have split this video into four different sections.

We're going to talk about improving your listening, your vocabulary development, your writing and then your speaking.

For each section there are three different exercises

and I will also put timestamps down below this video

so you can jump forward to the one that you'd like if you don't want to watch the whole thing.

I will be sharing my screen and sharing a lot of different prompts that we can use with ChatGPT.

Now you don't have to worry about copying them down every time you see them.

I will put a link in the description to this big database

that I keep of a Learn English with AI prompt you can just go and download that from that link.

It's completely free and I always keep it updated

so it makes it really easy to just copy and paste the prompt rather than having to type it in each time.

And my last admin point before we start is

that I will be using ChatGPT for the purposes of this video but you can use any AI tool you like Grok,

Gemini, DeepSeek, whatever you like.

I will just use ChatGPT because it is the one that most people are familiar with.

Now first things first we need to choose a podcast episode to work with.

You may already have your favorite podcast or your favorite selection of podcasts

so go and choose an episode from one of those.

In terms of the length really the ideal length in my opinion is anywhere between kind of five and thirty minutes.

If it's much longer than

that it can get a little bit confusing for ChatGPT to work with

so I'd really recommend something that is kind of maximum 30 minutes in duration.

For the purposes of this video I will be using an episode of English Learning for Curious Minds

which is the podcast that I make but you can choose whatever podcast you like.

So we've got our podcast episode.

What next?

Well the next step is

that we need to provide ChatGPT with the transcript of the episode that we will be working with.

That's why it's an idea to have one that's not

so long because if you're listening to a podcast

that is you know one two three hours long that's a really long transcript

so ideally somewhere between five and 30 minutes

and how do you get the transcript of a podcast episode well

if you're working with a podcast that's available on YouTube then you can normally click show transcript

and there is this AI generated transcript it's not perfect but it's okay so you can get it from there.

There are also tools like Descript and Otter AI

that allow you to import an audio file and they will also generate a transcript for you which contains timestamps.

That's a very useful thing.

I'll put the links to those tools down below this video as well.

But for the purposes of this demonstration I will be using an episode of English Learning for Curious Minds

because it comes with proper transcripts that are time -stamped and all that kind of stuff.

So it just makes it a bit easier when it comes to working with ChatGPT.

So let me just dive in and select an episode now.

So this is English Learning for Curious Minds.

Let's...

choose this one, shall we?

The Stanford Prison Experiment, 22 minutes, so it's about the ideal length.

And as you can see here, we have the entire transcript.

So I can just go and copy the whole thing.

And then what I want to do is I want to paste it into ChatGPT, like this.

But if I just paste this into ChatGPT, it's going to be a bit confused.

It has no context, it doesn't know why I am pasting in a podcast transcript.

So what I'm going to do is I will dive into my prompt database here and get this prompt

prepare AI to practice with a podcast.

I'm going to copy it and I'm going to paste this in here.

I want to use this podcast transcript to improve my English.

I will paste the full transcript below.

Once I've done that, wait for me to tell you what I want to do next.

Do not respond until I give you an instruction. So there we go.

ChatGPT has the context of the podcast that we want to work with, and it is waiting for my instruction.

Great.

So the first category of things that we will be talking about is using ChatGPT to help us improve our listening comprehension.

Now, for many people, you might think, well, this is easy.

I just need to listen actively.

But the problem is that not everyone does it.

And getting ChatGPT to create us mini comprehension questions

and exercises is a really good forcing function to make sure we're really paying attention to what we're listening to.

So, our first prompt is this one.

You are my English tutor.

I've just listened to a podcast episode and pasted the transcript above.

Ask me five comprehension questions based on the episode.

Wait for my answer after each one.

If I'm wrong or stuck, give me a small hint before telling me the correct answer.

After all five, give me a quick summary of how well I understood and suggest one area to improve.

Now before I send this message I want to point out to you a couple of things.

Now here if I'm wrong I start giving me a small hint before telling me the correct answer.

This is important because it really forces us to think rather than just say I don't know.

And it's an example of treating ChatGPT more like a tutor

that is helping and guiding us rather than just something that is producing questions and saying wrong or right.

So let's see what happens now.

Okay, question one seems pretty good.

We can respond saying anything we like in a prison.

Okay, I'm just going to go quickly through the rest of the test and let's see what happens if I can't remember.

Hmm, okay, so you see that ChatGPT has remembered what we told it and it's given us quite a good clue.

Let's see what happens if we get it wrong.

Okay, so quick summary, I got three out of five right and ChatGPT suggested areas for improvement.

Great, it did exactly what we asked it to.

Now I took a bit longer to go through that one, don't worry we're gonna power through the other ones a little bit more quickly,

but I just wanted to demonstrate exactly how it works.

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Now let's try a simple exercise for the second one.

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Based on the transcript I provided, choose a short paragraph that contains useful vocabulary and is slightly challenging for a B2 learner.

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Of course you can change this.

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whatever you like, B1, C2, C1.

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Remove six to ten keywords to create a fill -in -the -blank exercise, present the blanketed version first.

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After I try to complete it, show me the correct answers and explain any tricky vocabulary.

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Let's see how this works.

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okay very nice of course if we want to go back

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and listen to it one more time we could even do something like this

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okay

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so you can see the benefit of providing the full transcript with the timestamps let's just check

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it got it correct between 00106 and yes it got it completely correct

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so if we wanted we could go back and fast forward to

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that point and play an unfortunate truth about humanity is

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that we humans so that is a useful prompt for a fill in the blank exercise

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Now for the last prompt in the comprehension section,

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let's ask ChatGPT to test our summarization skills.

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In other words, let's ask it to test us on summarizing the episode.

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This requires us to have listened actively, to have really engaged and understood what we have heard.

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So again, I'm going to go back into my prompts database and get this one here.

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I want to improve how I listen to and remember podcast content.

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Ask me to summarize the key arguments

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or ideas from this episode from memory compare my summary to the actual transcript and highlight anything I missed or understood.

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Okay so I'm just going to try and do this myself.

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It's actually been quite a while since I worked with this episode but let's try.

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And let's put a few errors in there too.

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Okay, so it's done a pretty good job here.

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It has seen what I wrote correctly.

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It has highlighted the misunderstandings or inaccuracies and it has also told me about the important points that I missed.

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Great!

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That is a really useful exercise for forcing us to try to remember exactly what we've heard

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and of course that is a very useful skill in life in general

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but especially in professional contexts where your boss

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or manager might ask you to relay to them the outcome of a meeting or something like that.

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So summarizing is a really useful skill and here is how you can use AI to practice it with a podcast episode.

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Now let's move on and talk about vocabulary development.

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Now I've spoken before about using podcasts to improve your vocabulary

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And I firmly believe they can be an absolute goldmine in terms of native level expressions

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and really learning to speak and learning to use words that real native English speakers do.

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So here are three different ways in

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which we can use ChatGPT to help us work with podcasts to improve and enrich our vocabulary.

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So here I'm back in my prompt database and I'm doing this one.

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Extract native level words or expressions from an English podcast.

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So now that you have the transcript, help me improve my vocabulary.

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Find 10 natural sounding expressions that native speakers use, but I probably don't

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you can also give it more context here like I am

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a B2 level learner let's say explain what they mean

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and how I can use them in my own speech challenge

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me create a fill in the blank exercise where I have to choose the correct expression in different contexts

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At the end, ask me to use three of these expressions in my own sentences and give me feedback.

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So what we're doing here is we are trying to pinpoint native level,

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natural sounding vocabulary that has been used in the episode.

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Let's see what happens here.

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So I'm just going to fast forward a little bit.

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Okay, so we have 10 natural sounding expressions from the transcript.

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Spiral out of control, lose one's mind, settle down and so on.

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I think it's done a really good job here.

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It's provided the meanings and examples.

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We also have a fill in the blank exercise which helps us practice actually using this natural native level vocabulary.

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It's done a very good job there and it's also asked us to use these expressions in our own sentences.

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So we've learnt those words if we didn't know them already, we've done a mini practice of choosing which one is the most appropriate

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and we are being forced to actually generate our own English using those words or phrases.

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So we've gone from just noticing them, perhaps in the transcript, through to working a little bit with them, through to using them ourselves.

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So that is a really valuable exercise to go through.

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Now the next one is quite a fun one and it is based on synonyms.

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If you don't know, a synonym is a word that means the same thing as another word.

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So let's try this one.

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Choose five common words used in the transcript, e .g good, big, interesting.

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For each word, ask me to suggest two or three more advanced or natural alternatives, tell me which ones are best,

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and suggest others I may not know.

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Explain the subtle differences and ask me to write a sentence with one of the new words.

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Let's see how we get on with this.

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Five common words from the transcript, two to three advanced or more natural alternatives for each.

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Okay so I'm just gonna go in and do this exercise myself just to demonstrate that for you.

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Okay, so let's see how we do with that one.

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Okay, I'll just fast forward a little bit.

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Right, so it's done a pretty good job.

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Yeah, it's correctly told us that celebrity is usually a noun, it's not a synonym for famous which is an adjective

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and it's given us some better alternatives which is great celebrated renowned prominent bad it's told us a bit more about

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diabolical that it carries a strong moral judgment normal it's told us

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that normality is again a noun it's told us we've got both of those wrong

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and it's given us that exercise at the end, write a sentence using one of these new advanced alternatives.

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Great, I think it's done a pretty good job there.

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So for the next one we've got quite a fun exercise and this is based on choosing pairs of similar words.

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So choose five pairs of similar words from the podcast transcript, big versus huge, argue versus debate,

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explain the subtle difference in meaning or tone between each pair, give one example sentence for each word,

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ask me to write my own sentence using one of the words, and then tell me if I chose the most natural option.

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So this is very good when it comes to expanding our vocabulary.

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And let's see how ChatGPT gets on.

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Again, I will fast forward a little bit.

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Right, so it's done a pretty good job.

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Yeah it's correctly told us

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that celebrity is usually a noun it's not a synonym for famous

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which is an adjective and it's given us some better alternatives

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which is great celebrated renowned prominent bad it's told us a bit more about diabolical that it carries a strong moral judgment.

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Normal, it's told us that normality is again a noun.

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It's told us we got both of those wrong and it's given us that exercise at the end,

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write a sentence using one of these new advanced alternatives.

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Great, I think it's done a pretty good job there.

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For the next one we've got quite a fun exercise

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and this is based on choosing pairs of similar words so choose five pairs of similar words from a podcast transcript,

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big versus huge, argue versus debate, explain the subtle difference in meaning or tone between each pair, give one example sentence for each word,

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ask me to write my own sentence using one of the words

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and then tell me if I chose the most natural option.

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So this is very good when it comes to expanding our vocabulary.

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And let's see how ChatGPT gets on.

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Again I will fast forward a little bit.

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Okay, so let's see how it did.

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Authority versus control, behavior versus attitude,

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role versus position, observe versus watch, aggressive versus strict.

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I think it's done a really good job here of finding words

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that are very similar but have nuances and differences in their meaning.

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These are kind of words that many people at B1, perhaps even B2 level, might not know exactly what the difference between them is.

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And there we go, at the end it's given us an exercise.

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Choose one word from the pairs above and write your own sentence using it

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and ChatGPT will give us feedback on whether we have the most natural choice or not.

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So those are three, you know,

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really interesting and useful exercises that we can use ChatGPT with to help us improve

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and enrich our vocabulary from an English podcast.

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Now we're going to move on and talk about writing.

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Now, writing probably isn't the first thing that comes to mind

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when you think about skills that you might improve when listening to a podcast.

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But writing about what you hear is a really powerful way to turn input into active language skills.

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We're listening and we're turning that into written words.

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So the prompts that I'm about to show you will help you summarise ideas,

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vary your sentence structure, and improve and learn English grammar all through an English podcast that you're already listening to.

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Okay, so for our writing exercises, we've got one more sort of classic one,

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and we've got two that are slightly unusual but really helpful.

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So the first one is currently called the Incredibly Creative Generate Writing Exercises from an English Podcast, and we can copy it here.

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So, now that I've pasted the transcript, I want to improve my writing by summarising and reviewing the episode.

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Guide me through these exercises write a three sentence summary of the episode, shorten it to one sentence, keeping the key idea intact,

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write a 100 word review of the episode, including what I found interesting or challenging.

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So I'm not going to go through the whole exercise with you,

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but as you can see ChatGPT is guiding us through it and at the end it will give us corrections on grammar,

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clarity and naturalness and it's going to also suggest two ways to improve my writing.

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So that's a kind of classic writing task and ChatGPT and other AI tools are very very good at this.

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Now the next one is something I've called the podcast -based sentence rewriting challenge and it is this.

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Based on the transcript I pasted, choose five complex or interesting sentences.

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For each sentence, give me the original but then ask me to rewrite it in two ways.

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A simpler version with the same meaning, a more advanced version using richer vocabulary or more sophisticated structures.

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Wait for me to respond with my rewrites,

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then provide corrections, suggestions and explain how my versions compare to the original in terms of structure and tone.

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Okay, it's given us some good sentences there.

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Let's just try with one of them and see what it says to us.

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And I'll throw in a few errors in there for good measure as well.

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Okay, let's see what ChatGPT makes of this one.

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Okay, people can be bad at each other's, of course it should be each other, and ChatGPT has explained that to us.

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My more advanced version, ChatGPT has given some good feedback on that as well.

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He is poetic, though slightly old -fashioned and literary, and has given some general feedback about this exercise.

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Now this is a really useful exercise that really requires us to think about language, to think about register,

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and to think about what the most appropriate word is for what we're trying to communicate

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and who we are trying to communicate it to.

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So this is a really good one when it comes to vocabulary enrichment, grammar, accuracy and overall writing.

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On the subject of grammar, our last one from the writing section is this one.

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You are an advanced English tutor, scan the previously provided transcript and find examples of sophisticated grammar structures including conditionals,

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cleft sentences, inversion, passive voice and complex relative clauses.

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For each provide the sentence, highlight the grammar pattern and explain why it is used.

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Then challenge me to write one original sentence using the same structure.

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Now don't worry so much if you don't know what all of these mean, they are just more advanced grammatical structures

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and this is a far more enjoyable way of learning about these grammatical structures that native English speakers use.

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It's far more enjoyable than picking up a book and going to the section where it says cleft sentences or inversion.

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So this is a much more natural way to learn grammar.

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And we'll just fast forward again.

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So it's found conditional structures, cleft sentences, passive voice, complex relative clauses and inversion.

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And for each one it's given us the original, it's explained the grammar and it's given us a mini challenge, a mini writing task.

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Now as you can probably see, even if you didn't know what a complex relative clause was or what a cleft sentence was,

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these are things that native speakers use.

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And so if you want to really improve your grammar and be able to write like this,

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then mastering these kind of grammatical techniques is really important

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and doing so with with a podcast and with the help of ChatGPT I

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hope you agree is far more interesting than using something like that and kind of reading about cleft sentences in a textbook.

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Okay so that is it for the third section talking about improving your writing and grammar.

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Now we're going to move on to talk about improving your speaking fluency and pronunciation.

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Now I know that for almost every English learner this is one of the hardest things to do

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and it's also made more complicated for those of you who don't live in an English -speaking country

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and you struggle to you find someone to speak regularly in English with.

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And this is where AI tools like ChatGPT can be really helpful.

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They can act as a conversation partner for you.

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But one of the things that I hear a lot from people is

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that they initially were very excited about things like ChatGPT voice mode, but kind of struggled to get into a routine because they felt like

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They always had to bring new topics and it got a bit tiring.

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And, you know, there's only so much talking you can do about how was your day or what's the weather.

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So this is where podcasts can be really helpful

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because you've given ChatGPT all the context of the podcast that you want to talk about.

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And now it's time to work with it.

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So let's move on and talk about improving your speaking with ChatGPT and podcasts.

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Now you probably know that you can click on this button down here

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which is use voice mode to enter voice mode in ChatGPT and have a conversation with ChatGPT.

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But the problem with just clicking

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that straight away is you haven't provided chat gpt with all

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the context about what you would like it to do

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so here's what you should do first i'm going to go back into my prompt database

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and this one is called enter voice mode to discuss an english podcast

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so i am going to tell jack gpt i'm about to enter voice mode

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and i want to have a conversation about this podcast episode

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Here's how I want you to interact with me.

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Act as a conversation partner, not a teacher.

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Keep it natural.

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Start by asking me a broad discussion question related to the episode's main theme.

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After I answer, ask me a follow -up question to push me to explain more.

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Point out grammar mistakes, unnatural phrasing or missing details.

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But don't interrupt, wait until I finish.

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At the end, summarise my strongest and weakest points and suggest one way to improve.

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Okay ChatGPT has actually given us a question to start off.

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That's okay.

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Why do you think ordinary people sometimes behave cruelly when they're given power over others?

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So let's enter voice mode.

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I think that some people behave cruelly towards others because there is something evil about all humanity.

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That's an interesting take.

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Do you think the environment or situation can influence this behavior as well? Can you repeat that?

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Sure.

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Do you think the environment or situation can influence this behavior as well?

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Okay that was just a very quick demo but as you can see

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that can go on for as long as we like.

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And I'm not going to go into all of the different ways in

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which you can use ChatGPT voice mode here

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but I wanted to show you that relatively basically basic way of starting a discussion based on a podcast episode.

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Now I've got another prompt to show you relating to voice mode.

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Let me pull that one up now.

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And this is called podcast summary to a friend.

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So again, I'm going to enter voice mode.

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Imagine you're my friend or colleague and I've just finished listening to this podcast episode.

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Ask me casually, so what was the episode about?

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Then let me speak for one to two minutes without interrupting,

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then ask two to three follow -up questions to help me go deeper into the topic,

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at the end give me feedback on how clearly I explained the topic and how naturally my English sounded.

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Suggest two to three alternative ways I could have expressed myself more fluently or naturally.

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So the difference here is that we're telling ChatGPT not to interrupt us, just to let us speak casually,

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allowing for pauses and so on, and act in a very friendly and natural way.

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So hopefully it should feel like we're under less pressure than we would be

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if we were in a situation with someone who was our teacher, let's say.

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So I want to tell you what the episode that I've just listened to was about.

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It was about the Stanford Prison Experiment,

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and this was an experiment that took place where the environment of a prison was simulated.

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That's a good start.

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What were some of the surprising findings from the experiment?

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Can you speak more slowly, please? Of course.

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What were some of the surprising findings from the experiment?

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Okay, so as you can see,

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we can continue that conversation for as long as we like and you can adapt it in whatever way you'd like.

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You can say you're trying to talk to your boss about it, you're trying to summarize it in 30 seconds or less.

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You can edit this.

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There are so many different things you can do

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and I just wanted to show you those two to give you a little bit of inspiration.

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Now for our last prompt we are going to talk about shadowing.

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Now shadowing, in case you don't know it.

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is an exercise where you listen to a piece of audio and you try to speak exactly like the person speaking does,

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using the same intonation, the same pronunciation, the same rhythm.

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And it can be very helpful for building up fluency, confidence and of course improving your pronunciation.

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And we're my pronunciation coach I want to improve my fluency and natural rhythm using shadowing.

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Based on this transcript, select five short but high -impact sentences that I should repeat out loud.

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Prioritise the sentences with natural stress patterns and connected speech.

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Provide the transcripts so I can easily find them in the audio.

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At the end, suggest one pronunciation tip based on the sentences you selected.

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okay so we've got some pretty good sentences there short high impact

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and what we can do is we can go straight into our podcast episode so it's 6 .53

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and we can practice doing it at the same time

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But it didn't take long for things to spiral out of control.

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Okay, so there we have it.

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That is how to create some shadowing exercises with the help of ChatCBT and a podcast.

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Okay, that was a longer video than I thought it was going to be, but I hope you found it useful.

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As I said at the start, there's a link to the prompt database down below

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if you'd like to download that for yourself so you can copy

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and paste the prompts that I was using in this video.

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Now your task is to go out and start using those prompts.

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Choose a podcast episode, use the prompts that I've suggested in this video and let me know how you get on.

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Thanks for watching and I'll catch you in the next video.

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This speaking lesson is built on the video “ChatGPT + Podcasts = English Fluency? Try These 12 Prompts!”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: podcast, Chatgpt, sentence, transcript, episode. This video has 366 sentences and 4793 words to shadow. The speech runs for 36:56. The speaker talks at a steady 130 words per minute, a comfortable pace for shadowing. 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

15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
podcast noun	/ˈpɑdˌkæst/	A program, especially an audio program, produced on a regular basis, delivered over the Internet in a compressed digital format and designed for playback on…
transcript noun	/ˈtɹæn.skɹɪpt/	Something which has been transcribed; a writing or composition consisting of the same words as the original; a written copy.
prompt verb	/pɹɑmpt/	To lead (someone) toward what they should say or do.
vocabulary noun	/vəˈkæb.jə.lə.ɹi/	A usually alphabetized and explained collection of words e.g. of a particular field, or prepared for a specific purpose, often for learning.
grammar noun	/ˈɡɹæm.ə(ɹ)/	A system of rules and principles for the structure of a language, or of languages in general.
versus	/ˈvɝsəs/	Against; in opposition to.
database noun	/ˈdeɪtəˌbeɪs/	A collection of (usually) organized information in a regular structure, usually but not necessarily in a machine-readable format accessible by a computer.
pasta noun	/ˈpɑ.stə/	Dough made from wheat and water and sometimes mixed with egg and formed into various shapes; often sold in dried form and typically boiled for eating.
experiment noun	/ɪkˈspɛɹ.ə.mənt/	A test under controlled conditions made to either demonstrate a known truth, examine the validity of a hypothesis, or determine the efficacy or likelihood of…
summary noun	/ˈsʌm.ə.ɹi/	An abstract or a condensed presentation of the substance of a body of material.
feedback noun	/ˈfiːdˌbæk/	Critical assessment of a process or activity or of their results.
comprehension noun	/ˌkɑmpɹɪˈhɛnʃn̩/	A thorough understanding.
pronunciation noun	/pɹəˌnʌn.siˈeɪ.ʃən/	The formal or informal way in which a word is made to sound when spoken.
mini adjective	/ˈmɪn.i/	Miniature, tiny, small.
shadow noun	/ˈʃædəʊ̯/	A dark image projected onto a surface where light (or other radiation) is blocked by the shade of an object.

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Word	Meaning
go through verb	To travel from one end of something to the other.
follow up verb	To take further actions remaining after an event; to continue, revisit, or persist; especially, to maintain communication or verify.
go back verb	To return to a place or state after having been there at a previous time.
break through verb	To gain popularity.
build up verb	To erect; to construct.
get on with verb	To proceed with; to begin or continue, especially after an interruption.
go out verb	To leave, especially a building.
pick up verb	To lift; to grasp and raise.

Sentences worth repeating

Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:

Let's see what happens if we get it wrong.
Let's see how this works.
Let's see what happens here.
Ask me casually, so what was the episode about?
Can you speak more slowly, please?

Grammar in this video

The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:

Structure	In the video
Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now	have split · I've done · I've just listened
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	has been used · being forced · is based
Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing	people who listen · famous which is · alternatives which is

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 91 contractions and reduced forms, such as I'm, we're, don't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “th” sounds: rhythm /ˈɹɪð.əm/, thirty /ˈθɝti/
The “sh” and “zh” sounds: comprehension /ˌkɑmpɹɪˈhɛnʃn̩/, pronunciation /pɹəˌnʌn.siˈeɪ.ʃən/, shadow /ˈʃædəʊ̯/, instruction /ɪnˈstɹʌkʃən/, corrections /kəˈɹɛkʃənz/
Long words — get the stress right: vocabulary /vəˈkæb.jə.lə.ɹi/, experiment /ɪkˈspɛɹ.ə.mənt/, pronunciation /pɹəˌnʌn.siˈeɪ.ʃən/, naturally /ˈnæt͡ʃ.(ə.)ɹə.li/, humanity /hjuˈmænɪti/

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 podcast, transcript, prompt.

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.

Shadowing technique: read the full step-by-step guide →

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

Key vocabulary in this video

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Sentences worth repeating

Grammar in this video

Pronunciation to watch

How to practise with this video

What is the Shadowing Technique?