Shadowing Practice: Dead Poets Society - "Rip it out" scene - Learn English Speaking with Video
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Gentlemen, open your text to page 21 of the introduction.
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Mr. Perry, will you read the opening paragraph of the preface entitled Understanding Poetry?
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Understanding Poetry by Dr. J.
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Evans Pritchard, PhD.
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To fully understand poetry, we must first be fluent with its meter, rhyme, and figures of speech.
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Then ask two questions.
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One, how artfully has the objective of the poem been rendered?
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And two, how important is that objective?
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Question one rates the poem's perfection, question two rates its importance.
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And once these questions have been answered, determining the poem's greatness becomes a relatively simple matter.
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If the poem's score for perfection is plotted on the horizontal of a graph, and its importance is plotted on the vertical,
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then calculating the total area of the poem yields the measure of its greatness.
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A sonnet by Byron might score high on the vertical, but only average on the horizontal.
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A Shakespearean sonnet, on the other hand, would score high both horizontally and vertically, yielding a massive total area,
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thereby revealing the poem to be truly great.
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As you proceed through the poetry in this book, practice this rating method.
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As your ability to evaluate poems in this manner grows, so will your enjoyment and understanding of poetry.
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Excrement.
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That's what I think of Mr. J.
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Evans Pritchard.
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We're not laying pipe.
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We're talking about poetry.
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How can you describe poetry like American bandstand?
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I like Byron.
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I give him a 42, but I can't dance to it.
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Now, I want you to rip out that page.
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Go on.
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Rip out the entire page.
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You heard me.
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Rip it out.
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Rip it out!
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Go on.
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Rip it out!
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Thank you, Mr. Dalton.
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Gentlemen, tell you what, don't just tear out that page.
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Tear out the entire introduction.
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I want it gone.
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History.
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Leave nothing of it.
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Rip it out.
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Be gone, J.
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Evans, Pritchard, PhD.
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Rip, shred, tear, rip it out.
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I want to hear nothing but ripping of Mr. Pritchard.
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We'll perforate it.
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Put it on a roll.
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Is that the Bible?
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You're not gonna go to hell for this.
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Make a clean tear.
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I want nothing left of it.
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Rip it out, rip!
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What the hell is going on here?
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I don't hear enough rip!
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Miss Keating.
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Mr. McAllister.
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I'm sorry, I didn't know you were here.
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I am.
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Ah.
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So you are.
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Excuse me.
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Keep ripping, gentlemen!
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This is a battle, a war, and the casualties could be your hearts and souls.
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Thank you, Mr. Dalton.
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Armies of academics going forward, measuring poetry.
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No!
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We will not have that here.
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No more of Mr. J.
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Evans Pritchard.
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Now, my class, you will learn to think for yourselves again.
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You will learn to savor words and language.
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No matter what anybody tells you, words and ideas can change the world.
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Now, see that look at Mr. Pitt's eye?
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Like 19th-century literature has nothing to do with going to business school or medical school.
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Right?
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Maybe.
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Mr. Hopkins, you may agree with them thinking, yes, we should simply study our Mr. Pritchard and learn our rhyme
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and meter and go quietly about the business of achieving other ambitions.
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I've got a little secret for you.
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Huddle up.
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Huddle up!
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We don't read and write poetry because it's cute.
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We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race, and the human race is filled with passion.
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Medicine, law, medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life.
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But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.
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To quote from Whitman, O me, O life, of the questions of these recurring, of the endless trains of the faithless,
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of cities filled with the foolish, what good amid these, O me, O life?
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Answer, that you are here.
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That life exists and identity.
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That the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse.
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That the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse.
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What will your verse be?
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Thank you.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This B2 speaking lesson is built on the video “Dead Poets Society - "Rip it out" scene”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: rip, poetry, Pritchard, evans, poem. This video has 92 sentences and 672 words to shadow. The speech runs for 5:30. The speaker talks at a steady 122 words per minute, a comfortable pace for shadowing. Only 75% 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 |
|---|---|---|
| gentleman noun | /ˈd͡ʒɛn.təl.mən/ | Any well-bred, well-mannered, or charming man. |
| verse noun | /ˈvɝs/ | A poetic form with regular meter and a fixed rhyme scheme. |
| huddle verb | /ˈhʌdəl/ | To crowd together. |
| sonnet noun | /ˈsɒnɪt/ | A fixed verse form of Italian origin consisting of fourteen lines that are typically five-foot iambics and rhyme according to one of a few prescribed schemes. |
| rhyme noun | /ɹaɪm/ | Rhyming verse (poetic form). |
| greatness noun | /ˈɡɹeɪtnəs/ | The state, condition, or quality of being great |
| metre noun | /ˈmiːtəɹ/ | The basic unit of length in the International System of Units (SI: Système International d'Unités), equal to the distance travelled by light in a vacuum in… |
| horizontal adjective | /ˌhoɹəˈzɑn.təl/ | Perpendicular to the vertical; parallel to the plane of the horizon; level, flat. |
| perfection noun | /pɚˈfɛk.ʃən/ | The quality or state of being perfect or complete, so that nothing substandard remains; the highest attainable state or degree of excellence. |
| vertical adjective | /ˈvɝ.tɪ.kəl/ | Standing, pointing, or moving straight up or down; parallel to the local direction of gravity; along the direction of a plumb line; perpendicular to something… |
| yield verb | /jiːld/ | To give as a result or outcome; to produce or render. |
| artfully adverb | In an artful manner. | |
| bandstand noun | /ˈbænd.stænd/ | A small, open-air platform or enclosure for bands to play on, usually roofed. |
| faithless adjective | Lacking faith; lacking belief in something. | |
| horizontally adverb | In a horizontal direction or position. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| rip out verb | To remove by ripping | |
| tear out verb | /tɛɹ aʊt/ | To remove by tearing. |
| going forward adverb | In the immediate future and beyond. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- I don't hear enough rip!
- I'm sorry, I didn't know you were here.
- I've got a little secret for you.
- We don't read and write poetry because it's cute.
- What will your verse be?
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 12 contractions and reduced forms, such as don't, we're, can't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: perfection /pɚˈfɛk.ʃən/, casualty /ˈkæʒu.əlti/, foolish /ˈfuː.lɪʃ/, ambition /æmˈbɪʃ.ən/
- Long words — get the stress right: horizontal /ˌhoɹəˈzɑn.təl/, vertically /ˈvɝ.tɪ.kəli/, casualty /ˈkæʒu.əlti/
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 gentleman, verse, huddle.
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.