Shadowing Practice: Graduate Toast - Learn English Speaking with Video
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Pamela McCoy, I'm Pamela McCoy, the Associate Dean for Quinlan's Graduate Programs.
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What a great joy it is to welcome each of you to this afternoon's commencement toast.
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I, along with our Dean, Kevin Stevens, and Quinlan faculty and staff, we're all here to celebrate more than you completing your degree.
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We're here to celebrate you.
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the last six seven weeks have tried the patience and stamina of all of us in unimaginable ways
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but you inspired us with your grit and your unrelenting mindset to finish well finish strong
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finish knowing that you are called to be men
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and women for others in a world that will need your contributions more than ever.
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Today you may not feel ready or even you may feel unclear of exactly what you're called to do.
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That's okay and it's actually quite normal.
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Clarity will come when you accept the call wholeheartedly.
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Listen to the charge of U .S.
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Representative John Lewis to graduates of another Jesuit school.
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You have a moral obligation,
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a mission, and a mandate to get out there and leave this little planet a little greener,
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a little cleaner, and a little more peaceful for generations yet unborn.
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Yes, you are called for such a time as this
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and not only are you called you're prepared with the knowledge
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and skills needed for today's business environment
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and you also have an ethical compass fortified by Jesuit values
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so you're also different and that's great and that's why we are celebrating you
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Congratulations, Class of 2020.
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And now I'd like to turn it over to Dr. Dawn Harris from the Department of Management.
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Thank you, Pam.
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Hello, I'm Dawn Harris, and I teach the Strategy and Leadership course,
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which many of you took as your capstone experience in your graduate business program here.
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The final project was writing a business plan, and it was one of the last challenges
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you had to complete to reach the finish line
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you have amazed me with how you can bring a business
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idea to fruition from a kernel of an idea to a full -blown business plan in 10 short weeks
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you have sharpened your strategic thinking and enhanced your data analysis
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and leadership skills the class of 2020 has faced an extraordinary time where no one anticipated
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that we would have moved to online classes after week two in the spring quarter
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and you could wear your pajama bottoms to class who could have known
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that you would find quiet a quiet place in a closet in your home to study
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or have to deal with processing PPP applications or working in a hospital during the crisis
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all while balancing this with your schoolwork.
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You have been incredibly flexible and adapted to this uncertain situation caused by the pandemic.
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You have surmounted many challenges and accomplished much.
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The world needs your many talents.
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Your class is very special.
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Class of 2020, although these are not easy times in the short term, we will get through them together in the longer term.
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With you as our future business leaders, the world will be better.
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Congratulations.
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You now join a network of over 150 ,000 Loyola alums.
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Stay in touch.
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Go Ramblers.
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Class of 2020, celebrate your big accomplishment and go forth and set the world on fire.
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Thank you.
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Now I'd like to turn the floor over to Professor Eve
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Geroulis from the Department of Marketing who would like to offer her congratulations to you.
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Thank you, Dawn.
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Thank you, Pam.
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Hi, everybody.
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Congratulations.
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This is a day of celebration.
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And amidst all of this, I hope that we can all take some time
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and push away some of the dreadful thoughts and some of the unknowns and really,
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really take this time to celebrate and recognize what a remarkable achievement this is.
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Commencement is always my most favorite day of the year
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and I know my colleagues are nodding along with us
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because it is an extraordinary day of joy and celebration and optimism and hope.
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And this year is no different.
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the format is different but the ethos and logos
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and pathos is exactly the same i would argue even more important you are a generation
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that has inherited great challenges but also great opportunities
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and in a world where the impossible has become possible
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i encourage you all to continue demanding the impossible to take everything you've learned here i speak to you as a alumna,
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as a proud parent, and as faculty director of our masters in marketing program to tell you
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that the guiding force and the sort of North Star compass
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that has been the foundation of my life in many many ways came from the lessons
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I gleaned decades ago as an undergraduate at Loyola Chicago.
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It really has been one of the most formative experiences of my life
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and I look back to the friendships I forged and the ideas
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that I curated um and and takes a great deal of comfort knowing
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that moving forward none of us can predict the future
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and wherever you are wherever you're hearing my voice whatever your professional goals whatever your ambitions big
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or small I know that you are a generation of empathetic honest smart young men
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and women who are going to go off and make important contributions to improve our human condition for all of us.
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Of that I'm sure you won't disappoint us.
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I know I speak for every one of us at Loyola
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when I say I can't wait to see what accomplishments you will all create.
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Something good will come of this, this great pause. And
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if there's anything I hope you take a few quiet minutes to read
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this evening before you go to bed it would be Carl Sagan's poem
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The Pale Blue Dot
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which kind of puts it all into perspective about our role in the great cosmos
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and our opportunity to really make a difference
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so I for one salute you fancy glass of water
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I celebrate you I honor you I'm proud of you go forth
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and make us proud take care congratulations again
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and it's a great great pleasure for me to hand off now to Kevin Stevens, the Dean of our Quinlan Business School.
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Thank you, Eve and Dawn and Pam and my congratulations to the family and friends and most of all you the graduates.
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Some words to describe this are extraordinary, unusual, you may have choicer words that you might like to use.
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So the urge overcomes you, put your head out window
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and maybe you need to yell let it all out this has been an extraordinary time
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and as my colleagues have said you've risen to the occasion
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and we put almost 400 classes online
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i could count on one hand the number of complaints
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i got from students you really you you really rolled with the punches
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and we appreciate that you went through some very difficult times and came through smiling
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We look forward to inviting you back.
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Every year we have a fabulous graduation party where we take over the Schreiber Center
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and invite all our graduates and their family and friends.
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And that's one of the best days of the year.
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We're going to do that again.
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You will be invited back.
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I know that everything happens so quickly, you didn't have a chance to say goodbye to everyone you wanted to,
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but we'll give you that opportunity, I'm sure.
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And we know these are difficult times, job -wise, health -wise, every way.
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please stay in touch with us.
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We will do everything we can to help you.
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We're about to launch a mentoring platform that I think is going to be very robust.
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It's a mentor to mentee platform, and it's an alumni to alumni platform.
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So anything we can do to help, we will.
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And what have we learned from this hiatus from each other?
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I think we learned that the Stryber Center is home, Quinlan is home, and Loyola is home.
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I guess it takes some absence to really appreciate what we had.
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And though we're seeing each other virtually, we will be back together again.
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And let me tell you one of my favorite Loyola stories.
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50 years ago, I entered Loyola as an undergraduate, and I belonged to a book club with 14 people.
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13 of us went to Loyola together.
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13 of us crossed the stage fortunately for us literally
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and not figuratively and we're still together because we we share our common ethos.
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I'm going to steal something from our president
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and at the risk of messing up my increasingly long hair
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I'm going to put a hat on not only is this a socks hat it's really a Loyola hat.
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So I tip my hat to you, and I will turn to my toast.
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This is water, not vodka.
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I want you to, there you go, Dawn.
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I want you to stay well.
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I want God to bless all of you and us and all our families.
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And go Ramblers.
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Keep the faith.
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All my best.
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Cheers.
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Cheers.
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Go Ramblers.
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Go Ramblers.
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Congratulations.
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Congratulations.
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You did it.
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You did.
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Celebrate.
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Cheers, everybody.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This speaking lesson is built on the video “Graduate Toast”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: Loyola, congratulations, celebrate. This video has 23 sentences and 1522 words to shadow. The speech runs for 10:47. The speaker talks at a steady 141 words per minute, a comfortable pace for shadowing. Only 81% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is demanding.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| congratulations | /kənˌɡɹæt͡ʃəˈleɪʃ(ə)nz/ | Expressing praise and approval, expressing approbation. |
| extraordinary adjective | /ɪksˈtɹɔːrdɪn(ə)ɹi/ | Out of the ordinary; exceptional; unusual. |
| dean noun | /diːn/ | A senior official in a college or university, who may be in charge of a division or faculty (for example, the dean of science) or have some other advisory or… |
| invite verb | /ɪnˈvaɪt/ | To ask for the presence or participation of someone or something. |
| skill noun | /skɪl/ | A capacity to do something well; a technique, an ability, usually acquired or learned, as opposed to abilities that are regarded as innate. |
| contribution noun | /ˌkɑntɹɪˈbjuʃən/ | Something given or offered that adds to a larger whole. |
| faculty noun | /ˈfæk.əl.ti/ | The academic staff at schools, colleges, universities or not-for-profit research institutes, as opposed to the students or support staff. |
| celebration noun | /ˌsɛl.ɪˈbɹeɪ.ʃən/ | The formal performance of a solemn rite, such as Christian sacrament. |
| wherever | /(h)wɛɹˈɛvɚ/ | Regardless of the place in, at or to which. |
| colleague noun | /ˈkɒliːɡ/ | A fellow member of a profession, staff, academic faculty or other organization; an associate, a workmate. |
| toast noun | /toʊst/ | Bread that has been toasted (cooked lightly by browning). |
| mentor noun | /ˈmɛn.tɔː/ | A wise and trusted counselor or teacher. |
| undergraduate noun | A student at a university who has not yet received a degree. | |
| compass noun | /ˈkʌmpəs/ | A magnetic or electronic device used to determine the cardinal directions (usually magnetic or true north). |
| accomplishment noun | /əˈkɑm.plɪʃ.mənt/ | The act of accomplishing; completion; fulfilment. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| come through verb | To come into a room or other space through a door or passageway. | |
| get out verb | To leave or escape. | |
| get through verb | /ɡɛt ˈθɹu/ | To overcome; to endure. |
| go off verb | To explode. | |
| go through verb | To travel from one end of something to the other. | |
| hand off verb | To pass (the ball) to a teammate. | |
| head out verb | To leave, depart; to go on ahead. | |
| look forward to verb | To anticipate, expect, or wait for, especially with a feeling of approval or pleasure; to be excited or eager to. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- We're here to celebrate you.
- We're going to do that again.
- What have we learned from this hiatus from each other?
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 tried · have amazed · have sharpened |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | are called · will be invited |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 26 contractions and reduced forms, such as I'm, we're, you're. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: ethical /ˈɛθɪkəl/, ethos /ˈiθɑs/, empathetic /ˌɛmpəˈθɛtɪk/, pathos /ˈpeɪˌθɑs/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: congratulations /kənˌɡɹæt͡ʃəˈleɪʃ(ə)nz/, contribution /ˌkɑntɹɪˈbjuʃən/, celebration /ˌsɛl.ɪˈbɹeɪ.ʃən/, accomplishment /əˈkɑm.plɪʃ.mənt/, unusual /ʌnˈjuːʒ(u)əl/
- Long words — get the stress right: congratulations /kənˌɡɹæt͡ʃəˈleɪʃ(ə)nz/, extraordinary /ɪksˈtɹɔːrdɪn(ə)ɹi/, contribution /ˌkɑntɹɪˈbjuʃən/, celebration /ˌsɛl.ɪˈbɹeɪ.ʃən/, accomplishment /əˈkɑm.plɪʃ.mənt/
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 congratulations, extraordinary, dean.
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.