Shadowing Practice: Grade 7-Unit 3-Getting started - Learn English Speaking with Video

Creating lesson...
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Hi Tom, are you back in Hanoi?
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Yes, I came back yesterday.
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Can we meet up this Sunday morning?
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I bought you a board game.
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Sure, I can't wait.
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But our green school club will have some community activities on that morning.
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What activities does your club do?
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Well, we pick up litter around our school and plant vegetables in our school garden.
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School gardening?
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That's fantastic!
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Yes, we donate the vegetables to a nursing home.
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Does your school have any activities like these?
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Yes, we donate books to homeless children.
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We also have English classes.
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Last summer we taught English to 30 kids in the area.
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Sounds like great work.
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Thanks.
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So, let's meet in the afternoon then.

Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This video has 18 sentences and 118 words to shadow. The speech runs for 0:56. The speaker talks at a steady 127 words per minute, a comfortable pace for shadowing.

Key vocabulary in this video

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

WordPronunciationMeaning
donate verb/ˈdoʊˌneɪt/To make a donation; to give away something of value to support or contribute towards a cause or for the benefit of another.
vegetable noun/ˈvɛd͡ʒ.tə.bəl/A plant raised for some edible part of it, such as the leaves, roots, fruit or flowers, but excluding any plant considered to be a fruit, grain, herb, or spice…
nurse noun/nɝs/Anyone performing this role, regardless of training or profession.
litter noun/ˈlɪt.ɚ/Straw, grass, and similar loose material used as bedding for people or animals.
teach verb/ˈtiːt͡ʃ/To pass on knowledge to.
activity noun/ækˈtɪv.ɪ.ti/The state or quality of being active; activeness.
garden noun/ˈɡɑː.d(ə)n/An outdoor area containing one or more types of plants, usually plants grown for food or ornamental purposes.
yesterday noun/ˈjɛstɹdeɪ/The day immediately before today; one day ago.
plant noun/plɑːnt/An organism that is not an animal, especially an organism capable of photosynthesis, and typically a small or herbaceous organism of this kind, rather than a…
afternoon noun/ˌæf.tɚˈnun/The part of the day from noon or lunchtime until sunset, evening, or suppertime or 6pm.
fantastic adjective/fænˈtæs.tɪk/Wonderful; marvelous; excellent; extraordinarily good or great (used especially as an intensifier).

Phrasal verbs you will hear

WordMeaning
come back verbTo return to a place.
pick up verbTo lift; to grasp and raise.

How to practise with this video

  1. Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
  2. Shadow it sentence by sentence at normal speed, repeating each one until your rhythm matches the speaker.
  3. Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like donate, vegetable, nurse.

Grammar in this video

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

StructureIn the video
Future with “will” will + verb — a decision, promise or predictionwill have

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 →