Shadowing Practice: Elements | Middle school chemistry | Khan Academy - Learn English Speaking with Video
Creating lesson...
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Think about all the thousands of books and poems and articles and dictionaries and encyclopedias and textbooks and so much more.
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All those English writings are fundamentally made of what?
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26 letters.
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And yeah, some spaces, but that's it.
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These 26 letters forms the building block of almost every single thing, all the uncountable words and sentences that you can make.
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Now, guess what?
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Turns out, our nature is similar.
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Almost everything that you can touch and taste and smell
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and feel around you from the germs to microbes to stuff like cats
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and dogs to oceans and mountains and even planets and stars.
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Turns out, All of these are also made from just a few building blocks, about a hundred of them.
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Each square over here represents a building block, and we'll talk a little bit about how we arrange them and stuff.
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But these building blocks are called the elements.
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And that's what we're going to talk about in this video.
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So let's do that.
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First of all, these elements, the building blocks, are also called pure substances.
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And like I said earlier, they make up almost all the matter around us.
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hydrogen and oxygen and consider any living being like yourself then you are mostly made of six Elements.
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Oxygen, Carbon, Hydrogen, Nitrogen, Calcium, and Phosphorus.
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I mean, there are other elements, but these mostly make it up.
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And just to give you another example, if you consider any rock, then they're mostly made of five elements: Silicon,
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Oxygen, Aluminium, Magnesium, and Iron.
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Don't worry about remembering the names of these elements for now.
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What's important, and I keep repeating because it's so important, is that almost all the matter in the universe is made from these elements.
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So to study matter, we need to study these elements.
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So let's do that.
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We arrange these elements in this particular form and we call this the periodic table.
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It might seem daunting at first, but let's look at it, okay?
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So first of all, you can see that each element gets a square and a number.
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So, element number one is hydrogen.
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Element number two is over here, helium.
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Element number three is lithium.
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Element number four is beryllium and so on and so forth.
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What we want to notice over here is that each element has a symbol, kind of an abbreviation.
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Now for some elements, that's basically the first letter of the word, H for hydrogen.
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B for boron, C for carbon, N for nitrogen, and so on and so forth.
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And notice we always use capital letters.
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But what about other elements which start with the same letter?
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For example, helium.
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How do we ensure we don't confuse it with hydrogen?
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Well, we use first two letters, so HE.
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Similarly, for calcium, to make sure we don't confuse it with carbon, we use the first two letters, CA, and so on and so forth.
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But what's important again over here is to notice how we write that.
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the first letter is capital over here, the second letter is small.
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So we'll never write helium this way, where both are capital, and we'll never write it this way, where both are small.
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We'll always write it as first letter capital, second letter small, and that's always the case.
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Alright, these make sense, but what about sodium?
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Sodium is Na, what's going on over here?
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And then there's more such stuff.
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So for example, gold is Au.
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Tungsten, which is used in the filament of our bulbs, is W.
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And lead is PB, what's going on over here?
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Well, humanity has known about these elements for a long time now.
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And some of these symbols are taken from the old names from different languages like Greek, Latin, Arabic, German, and so on.
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Na stands for natrium, a Latin word for sodium.
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AU comes from Aurum.
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PB comes from Plumbum, the Latin word for lead.
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Fun fact, earlier pipes in the Roman Empire were made from lead
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and therefore people who used to fix those pipes were called Plumbers and the name is stuck today.
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And W comes from the German Wolfram.
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Now again, you might be thinking, "Oh my god, how am I supposed to remember all of this?" Don't worry, we don't have to do that.
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As we start talking about some of the common elements over and over again, we'll start So, in summary, all the matter that you see,
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almost everything in the universe is made of a few, about a hundred elements, which we also call the pure substances.
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They're arranged this way in what we call the periodic table.
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And just like how learning the English language is basically figuring
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out how we can combine these different letters to form very interesting words and sentences,
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the trick to learning about matter is learning how we can combine these different elements to form interesting new things.
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before?
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Well, imagine we had a hundred different kinds of Legos with us.
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Then by combining them in different combinations, you can build up almost anything you want.
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And now you can imagine some of these Lego structures are like mountains and others are like cats.
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And we can build whatever we want.
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We can let our imagination lose over here, which is pretty awesome.
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But if you break them all down into their basic pieces, you get back your elements.
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Context & Background
The video "Elements | Middle school chemistry | Khan Academy" serves as an introduction to the fundamental building blocks of matter — the elements. The speaker emphasizes the connection between these elements and the physical world, drawing an analogy to the 26 letters of the English language, which form the basis of countless written works. This engaging approach helps learners grasp the concept of elements as pure substances that constitute everything around us, from living beings to various earth materials. Understanding these basics can enhance both scientific knowledge and language proficiency, particularly when employing the shadowing technique to improve English pronunciation.
Top 5 Phrases for Daily Communication
- Building blocks: Referring to the basic components that create larger structures.
- Pure substances: Materials made up of only one type of particle.
- Periodic table: A chart that organizes all known chemical elements.
- Element symbols: Abbreviations used to represent elements.
- First letter capital: The grammatical rule applied to element symbols.
Step-by-step Shadowing Guide
To effectively tackle the vocabulary and pronunciations from this video using the shadowing technique, follow these steps:
- Listen Actively: Play the video and pay close attention to how the speaker articulates each term and phrase. Make note of challenging words, including "elements" and "periodic table."
- Pause and Repeat: Use a shadowing app to pause the video after each sentence or phrase. Attempt to imitate the speaker's tone, rhythm, and pronunciation. Focus especially on the specific phrases listed above.
- Record Yourself: After mimicking the speaker, record your own voice. Listen to the playback to evaluate your pronunciation and fluency. This is particularly beneficial for those preparing for IELTS speaking practice.
- Practice Regularly: Incorporate daily sessions of 15-20 minutes into your routine to enhance your English skills. Consistent use of the shadowing technique will lead to noticeable improvements in your ability to communicate effectively.
- Seek Feedback: If possible, practice with a partner or tutor who can provide constructive feedback on your pronunciation. This interaction not only boosts confidence but also simulates real-life conversations.
By combining the understanding of scientific terminology with effective speaking practices, you’ll find that improving English pronunciation becomes simpler and more enjoyable.
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 | are also made · are called · are also called |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | Tungsten, which is · people who used · here, which is |
| Possibility with “might / may” might/may + verb — something that is possible but not certain | might seem · might be |
| Verb + -ing enjoy, keep, stop… + -ing — verbs that are followed by the -ing form | keep repeating · start talking |
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.