Shadowing Practice: Grade 7 Unit 4 Listening - Learn English Speaking with Video

Creating lesson...
1
Street painting, or street art, is an old type of art.
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In the 16th century, artists began to draw on the pavement using chalk.
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Today, you can see street painting events everywhere.
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They attract many people who come to enjoy and take part in them.
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Many of them are free, too.
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So, join in and become an artist yourself.
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One of the largest events in the United States is the Lake Worth Street Painting Festival.
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It began in 1994 and now occurs every February with the support of artists and volunteers.
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It is free for everyone.
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About 100 ,000 visitors come to enjoy it.
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About 600 artists work on the pavement to make the street a huge art gallery.

Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This speaking lesson is built on the video “Grade 7 Unit 4 Listening”. This video has 11 sentences and 115 words to shadow. The speech runs for 0:54. The speaker talks at a steady 128 words per minute, a comfortable pace for shadowing.

Key vocabulary in this video

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

WordPronunciationMeaning
pavement noun/ˈpeɪvm(ə)nt/A paved surface; a hard covering on the ground.
occur verb/əˈkɜː/To happen or take place.
volunteer noun/ˌvɑlənˈtɪɹ/One who enters into, or offers themselves for, any service of their own free will, especially when done without pay.
attract verb/əˈtɹækt/To pull toward without touching.
visitor noun/ˈvɪzɪtɚ/Someone who visits someone else; someone staying as a guest.
chalk noun/t͡ʃɔk/A soft, white, powdery limestone (calcium carbonate, CaCO₃).
paint verb/peɪnt/To apply paint to.
everywhere adverb/ˈɛv.ɹi.(h)wɛɹ/In or to all locations under discussion.
gallery noun/ˈɡæləɹi/An institution, building, or room for the exhibition and conservation of important objects, especially works of art.
artist noun/ˈɑɹ.tɪst/A person who creates art.
join verb/ˈd͡ʒɔɪn/To connect or combine into one; to put together.
draw verb/dɹɑ/To pull (someone or something) in a particular direction or manner.

Grammar in this video

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

StructureIn the video
Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thingpeople who come
Superlatives the -est / the most … — the top or bottom of a groupthe largest

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 pavement, occur, volunteer.

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 →