Shadowing Practice: How to Answer Unexpected Questions Calmly & Confidently (In ANY Situation!) - Learn English Speaking with YouTube

How do I get better at answering questions impromptu?

⏸ Paused

Speed:

216 sentences

If sentences are too short or too long, click Edit to adjust them.

How do I get better at answering questions impromptu?

How do I get better at answering questions on the spot?

And when you're finished with that,

perhaps you could tell us what you personally have been doing for the last seven years.

And the answer to this is really dependent on the context.

Because when are you getting the questions asked?

Is this during a job interview?

Is this while you're in a team meeting?

Is this while you're on stage?

Context is critical.

and we have a very powerful tool now that we all have access to.

So say for example,

if you are a pharmacist that's about to speak at a

conference about how to improve your abilities as a pharmacist in terms of counseling,

then you can put those parameters into ChatGPT and you can say into ChatGPT,

I'm currently a pharmacist speaking at a conference and I'm running a session on how pharmacists can become better at counseling,

list me 20 questions that people might ask me during a session like this.

And it's crazy because ChatGPT will then create you a list of 20 to 25 questions that people could potentially ask you.

And then your job is to turn on your camera,

turn on your camera.

Imagine you are at a pharmacy conference.

And as you read those questions that pop up,

Imagine it's actually real and you have to answer it.

You just have to.

You can't go, ah, ah,

ah, ah, ah, ah, ah,

ah, ah, pause video, gotta go,

no, no, no, no, because this is a safe environment here.

This is where you can practice.

So all of a sudden you've got that one test question, practice answering it.

And even if you do that answer and you answer it really poorly, it doesn't matter.

Just get through that one cycle because a cycle done poorly is better than a half cycle done.

Just go through that answer completely.

Then you can watch that video of yourself answering the question back and going, oh, wow.

Okay.

I actually knew the answer to that,

but I fell apart because of the pressure.

The pressure caused me to just crumble.

Oh, I need to take a few breaths before I answer it.

I need to relax more.

I need to look up some forms of relaxation.

Or you might watch the video back and as you review yourself,

you go, oh, my goodness.

Yeah.

Okay.

The reason I couldn't answer that is actually because I didn't know the answer.

That question just revealed to me a knowledge gap.

I need to make sure I do a little bit more study before I jump into these Q&As because yeah,

I needed to know the answer to that.

Can you see the importance of that?

Learning how to get good at speaking impromptu,

it requires many different muscles being trained.

One, you have to learn how to speak on the spot and deal with the anxiety that does come up from that.

You have to learn how to manage those nerves.

Two, you have to know your content, right?

And three, one that we didn't talk about yet,

but I'm just going to throw in there as well,

is you're also going to get questions where you actually need

to learn how to have the confidence to take a moment to give yourself time to process the thoughts,

structure the answer, and then answer.

But that's a skill in itself too.

The ability to just pause,

maybe even take out a pen

and write some ideas down the confidence it takes to even do

that part takes time to develop

so i'm giving you a a bit of a game to play here where you can get chat gpt

and your video camera all of a sudden now you can

start practicing all of the different muscles that's going to allow

you to become a better speaker impromptu right a better impromptu speaker

but there are so many different muscles that you have to practice

and those muscles will become relevant

and you'll be able to identify what those muscles are the moment you start the process that I've just shared with you.

What advice do you have for handling unexpected challenges during a speech,

such as technical difficulties, unresponsive audiences or hecklers?

These are three different situations,

so quick thoughts on each of those situations.

Number one, when you have technical difficulties...

The type is all off,

sorry, but I'll just wing this.

Tell us what you think.

Excuse me, I'm sorry.

I'm sorry.

Okay.

If I'm on stage and I've got technical difficulties,

I would immediately do this.

Hey, quickly, just to the AV team,

just letting you know, I'm having troubles with my mic.

Now, to all the audience members,

just letting you all know too,

we're just going to take a quick five minutes to fix a couple of AV problems.

We're going to play some music for you all.

Please do have a chat amongst yourselves.

We'll be back in five.

AV team plays some music.

We check the things going on audience got instruction,

they're chatting among themselves, all done, right?

Problem kind of solved, sort it out,

then go back on stage, then continue.

Second example, Vin, what if the audience is not responsive?

100

Okay.

101

If the audience is not responsive because they are tired and it's after lunch,

102

then don't go straight into a presentation.

103

Don't go straight into the meeting.

104

Before you do the meeting, do a quick activity.

105

Do a quick activity with everyone.

106

Just go, hey everyone, before we kind of kick things off,

107

I know it's right after lunch,

108

I want to get our energy levels up a little bit.

109

How about we play a quick game of two truths and a lie?

110

Boom, let's go.

111

They play, they come back,

112

they're energized, now they're responsive.

113

Third example you gave is hecklers.

114

Well, if you're in a meeting,

115

you can also, before you go into the meeting or before you go into the presentation,

116

make sure you've got someone close by who you can say,

117

hey, look, if there are any hecklers,

118

do you mind just dealing them with for me?

119

Because this is a professional event.

120

So do you mind just removing them from the audience, if that's possible?

121

Or if you don't have that,

122

then you can disarm the heckler.

123

So if someone says during one of my communication classes,

124

I think everything you're saying is not true.

125

I don't believe in it.

126

I think it's wrong.

127

I'll stop the class.

128

I'll pause and I'll look at the person and I'll say,

129

listen, thank you so much for your opinion.

130

I'm in the middle of a class at this point.

131

Do you mind if I take this conversation with you offline outside afterwards?

132

It's okay.

133

I'd love to connect with you.

134

I'd love to hear your opinion.

135

I'd love to hear your side of it,

136

but just right now, everyone has asked me to run this one and a half hour session.

137

I am 45 minutes in.

138

I've just got 45 minutes left.

139

Is it okay if I complete the class and then we can connect with it offline outside.

140

Is that okay?

141

Thank you.

142

Then I'll begin.

143

Then I'll just continue with my talk.

144

So to me, the moral of the story with each one of these situations is when something does go wrong,

145

acknowledge it, take control of this situation,

146

set the expectations of what's going to happen while you're fixing things or while you're sorting things out.

147

And to me is have authority while you're doing this.

148

If you are the one that's currently speaking,

149

you are the one that's in control.

150

If you are the one with the mic,

151

you are the one that's in control.

152

Take that control and navigate your way out of it with authority.

153

Vin, how do I stop people who keep talking and never stop

154

and I can't even get a word in and I have something really important to say?

155

I feel like I'm the perfect,

156

perfect person to answer this because I'm one of those people.

157

So speaking on behalf of all people who talk a lot and never give others a second to talk,

158

I'm going to give you the and how to take us down.

159

This is our kryptonite.

160

I'll give you two strategies that are a softer approach and then I'll give you a really strong nuclear approach.

161

Now, approach number one, visual indicators.

162

So if someone's talking and you've got ideas and you want a turn to be able to share your ideas,

163

you can give them a visual indicator.

164

And a visual indicator can look like this.

165

Right?

166

So if I go from this position to this position,

167

I clearly have something to say.

168

Right?

169

So again, you can do the palm,

170

you can do the finger,

171

you can go, oh, right,

172

you can kind of just lift your hand up.

173

And a variation of that visually lets the other person know that you have something to say.

174

Now, if you are speaking to someone like me,

175

sometimes when I get really passionate, I basically become blind.

176

And I'm just talking, talking,

177

talking, talking, oh, I love the sound of my own voice.

178

Oh, I love my idea.

179

And I'll just keep going.

180

So in order to get my attention visually,

181

if I don't see it,

182

it's not because I'm mean,

183

it's usually because I'm just a little bit passionate.

184

So then to get through to me,

185

now you can pair a visual indicator with a sound, auditory.

186

So now instead of just going like this,

187

I can go, oh, um, just quickly.

188

Oh, one of those variations.

189

All of a sudden now I've paired a visual indicator with an auditory indicator that I have something to say.

190

And those two strategies should be enough to be able to deal with the worst of us,

191

the worst of us.

192

However, there is a 0.00001% of our population who are just relentless.

193

Oh, they're monsters.

194

There are even monsters that monsters are scared of.

195

And if you're dealing with someone like that,

196

I luckily don't fall into that category,

197

but I will tell you that,

198

you know, I'm still a monster, but not that scary.

199

But if you do find a monster that is that scary,

200

that just doesn't stop after visual and auditory indicators,

201

well, then what you need to do now is you need to create space for you to speak.

202

You need to stand up for yourself.

203

So say for example, you're talking to this person and they just keep talking because again,

204

they love the sound of their own voice

205

and they just really love their idea and they're really passionate

206

and sometimes they can be very egotistical and they just want to keep going.

207

You just have to be like,

208

Vin, I just want to quickly jump in here.

209

Vin, I know you're still talking,

210

but this is really important.

211

I need to get this across and I would love to just take one minute to share my idea.

212

And even if I'm talking over the top of you while this is happening,

213

just full commit to creating your own space

214

and they will stop they will just confidently commit don't do

215

the whole damn it he's still going yep he bloody loves himself

216

that guy guy so annoying looking at me can't even grow a mustache

TRENDING

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.

☕ Buy us a coffee

ShadowingEnglish remains 100% free thanks to your support. Server and AI costs are high — your coffee keeps us going! 🙏

Donate via PayPal

ShadowingEnglish.com – English Shadowing Practice

Speak English fluently using the Shadowing technique. Listen to native YouTube videos, repeat sentence by sentence, and build real pronunciation and fluency — used by IELTS learners worldwide.

Shadowing Practice: How to Answer Unexpected Questions Calmly & Confidently (In ANY Situation!) - Learn English Speaking with YouTube

Popular

About This Lesson

Key Vocabulary & Phrases

Practice Tips

What is the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing Practice: How to Answer Unexpected Questions Calmly & Confidently (In ANY Situation!) - Learn English Speaking with YouTube

Download App

About This Lesson

Key Vocabulary & Phrases

Practice Tips

What is the Shadowing Technique?