Shadowing Practice: How to go from B1 to C1 English - Learn English Speaking with Video

So, you can understand videos and films in English.

You can have simple conversations.

But when you speak in English, you use the same simple words and make the same mistakes again and again.

Is your English stuck?

Many students may be like you are stuck at that intermediate level of English.

Let me tell you why you are stuck

and I'll give you six activities you can be doing right

now to move more quickly from a B1 to a C1 level.

Hold on tight.

We're about to begin.

Hello, it's Keith from the Keith Speaking Academy.

here to help you become a more confident speaker of English with my free resources on the website,

the Key Speaking Academy, and my online courses there too.

So why are so many students, maybe like you, stuck at that intermediate B1 level of English?

There are, I think, four main reasons why this happens.

I'm going to explain why.

I'm going to show you how to get unstuck.

And today I'll give you six simple activities you can do

on a regular basis to move from B1 right up to B2 and C1, an advanced, more fluent speaker of English.

Let's begin with the first reason.

And this one might surprise you.

What do you mean?

How can I do too much listening and reading?

Well, let me ask you a question.

Do you understand far more than you can actually speak in English?

Probably yes, right?

Your receptive skills, listening and reading, are much higher than your speaking skills, right?

And the reason is simple.

You've been spending more time doing reading and listening than speaking.

For example, I imagine you can probably understand this.

Hmm, I'm not particularly keen on it.

But when you speak, you probably say something like this.

No, I don't like it.

It's not your fault.

This is how we learn foreign languages in school.

Mostly reading.

Little bit of listening.

Speaking?

No, not really.

It's a lack of speaking practice.

The solution, of course, is to do more speaking.

But how do you practice speaking?

Well, here is the first very simple activity you can do, and I call it personal drills.

So when you're studying, maybe listening or reading, notice three useful phrases.

Something that you understand, but you probably wouldn't say.

Like the, I'm not particularly keen on something.

Okay.

Write them down, three.

Then make a personal sentence.

Something with that about you.

For example, I'm not particularly keen on football. For example.

Okay.

Make a personal sentence.

And then with the three examples, try and speak for 60 seconds using those in your speech.

Then repeat it, but don't look at the notes.

Try and remember it and speak them out 60 seconds using them in your speech.

Super simple.

You can do this on a regular basis whenever you're reading, listening and studying personal drills.

Really, really useful.

Now, let's move on to the next reason you're stuck.

And this one is going to make you laugh.

Now, come on, Keith.

How can I be too fluent?

Well, not too fluent, but you focus too much on fluency, right?

A question for you.

Do you speak quite easily, but you use the same simple language again and again?

Right, so at that B1 level, what often happens is you can communicate,

and quite fluently sometimes, but you use the same simple language, words you're familiar with.

And I noticed this is really true for students living in the UK.

They're in England, they can speak quite fluently, but it's always the same simple words.

Why does this happen?

Because your brain always chooses the simplest path, the easiest path.

and it says, this works, I can communicate.

It's simple.

Let's do that.

Your brain goes, well, why would I choose complex language?

It doesn't.

It chooses the easiest route.

And so your motivation to use complex language isn't there because you're communicating.

But deep down, there's a problem because you're stuck at that B1 level.

So how do you improve?

The first thing really important is you need the motivation to improve and to get to that advanced level.

Otherwise, you'll just stay at that level, which is OK.

But if you want to move up, you need that motivation.

Second, you need to notice more complex language and start using it.

My formula is notice it, note it and use it.

Okay.

Now, many students think, oh, but complex language, there's so much vocabulary.

There are too many words, too many idioms.

In IELTS, there are hundreds of topics.

It's just too much.

You know, you're thinking, how do I build all this vocabulary for every topic?

You don't.

Okay.

Because when you're building your vocabulary house, All the bricks are connected.

You don't build a new house for your family vocabulary and then another new house of vocabulary for your travel vocabulary.

You've got one house and everything is connected.

You're building on what you know.

It's one big vocabulary house.

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So all you need to do is build step by step with the connections.

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And you can put this into practice with that simple formula.

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Notice it, note it, and use it.

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If there's one thing you remember from today's video, it's that, right?

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Now, let me give you an example.

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A second practical activity.

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I call this oral summaries.

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So you're maybe reading or listening to something.

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You notice some complex grammar or vocabulary and you note it, write it down.

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And then use these notes to make an oral summary, speaking of what you read or listened to.

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Then repeat that, but without the notes from memory, do an oral summary.

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And then finally compare it to the original.

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And notice if you are starting to use the complex grammar, where the gaps are and repeat it until you get it better and better.

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This is a short, simple activity, again, you can do on a regular basis, oral summaries.

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Great.

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Let's move on to the third reason you're stuck.

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So, when you're speaking English, do your sentences sometimes sound correct, but not very natural?

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This often happens at the B1 intermediate level and it's because you're building sentences word by word, often translating.

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What you need to do is start thinking in English

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and a good way to do that is to focus on chunks and to speak with chunks, not just word by word.

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Okay, let me give you some examples of chunks here.

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Actually, a little quiz for you.

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Can you guess when or where you would say this?

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Here's the first one.

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This one's on me.

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When would you use that?

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Probably when you're inviting somebody or paying for a meal or a drink.

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You'd say, well, this one's on me, I'm going to pay.

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What about this second one?

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Right, I'll be making a move then.

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When would you say that?

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When you're finishing a conversation and you're leaving.

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What about the next one?

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Oh, you shouldn't have.

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When would you say that?

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Right, when somebody has given you a present, or you shouldn't have, right?

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So all of these are actually chunks, multi-word chunks that we use,

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set expressions, and fluent speakers of English use lots of them in their language as they're speaking,

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rather than always building your sentence word by word.

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Now here's the next activity you can try, and I call it situation chunks.

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So what you do here is you're watching or listening to something.

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First, identify the situation.

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For example, are they asking for directions?

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Are they giving advice?

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Are they making a decision?

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What are they doing?

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Then notice one or two chunks.

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Note the chunks.

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Notice, note.

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And then to use it, practice a little dialogue with them.

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It might be something like this one.

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So we've finished eating then.

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Oh, this one's on me.

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No, no, no, no, no. No, I insist.

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Oh, okay.

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I'll get the next one.

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Oh, I'll get the next one.

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There's another chunk.

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I'll get the next one.

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Practice like this.

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Notice, note it and use it.

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Let's move on to the fourth reason you might be stuck.

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So when you're speaking, do you make mistakes, some mistakes, and you know you make the mistake, but you continue to do it?

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Right.

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These are called in linguistics, it's called a fossilized error.

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A great name.

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Fossil, right, from the dinosaurs.

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It's been in the ground for millions of years.

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Your errors have been with you, not millions of years, but some time.

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Ever since you arrived at that intermediate level, that's when they start to fossilise.

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The good news is, if you're a beginner and you've just arrived at the intermediate level, it's much easier to correct them.

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However, the longer you've been at that intermediate level, the more difficult this is going to be.

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The kind of mistakes, the typical mistakes people make.

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It often depends on your mother tongue, but not always.

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You may recognize these mistakes, right?

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Do you prefer coffee or tea?

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Oh, well, it depends.

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Instead of it depends.

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How long have you lived here?

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Oh, I live here for three years.

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Instead of I have lived here for three years.

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Can you say me the time?

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Instead of can you tell me the time?

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And as much as teachers correct students, these errors go on and on fossilised.

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Now, let me give you two activities

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and there's quite a bit of research to support these that can help you start to tackle it.

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I'm not going to sugarcoat this.

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This is probably the most challenging part of moving up to that advanced level, but it's worth the effort if you've got the motivation to do it.

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The first one is error diaries.

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So with your error diary, the first thing you do is you notice the mistake, like it depend.

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Okay, then you note it down.

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So in your notebook, and you could put this right at the back of your notebook.

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Put first of all, the mistake, not all your mistakes, the ones you always make that you know you make, right?

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Put the mistake, put the correct version.

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It depends. And why?

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Well, because verbs take the third person, S, right?

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And then with that, just drill, practice on your own.

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Or if you have a teacher or a friend, a classmate who can ask a question and you answer, it depends.

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It depends on the weather or it depends on the person.

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It depends on the price and carry on practicing.

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And that drill is useful.

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But also then when you're having conversation practice, have your error diary back of your book, check it before the conversation.

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In the conversation, ask the teacher or your friend when they hear the mistake to just wave.

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They don't correct you, they just wave.

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And you realise.

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Because the problem is it's easy to drill.

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It's hard to do it in a real conversation because of the cognitive load.

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So if you've got somebody who can just wave, that will help you.

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At the end of the conversation, just go through your diary again.

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Maybe add some more errors.

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The error diary, really, really useful.

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The other thing you can do is what I call AI feedback, artificial intelligence feedback.

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Again, quite simple record yourself speaking you can do this directly now in chat gpt

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or you can get a transcript of your recording put it into chat gpt

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and ask it not to correct everything but to identify repeated errors

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and this is really effective over time because it's got a memory right your chat gpt

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and then it can again it'll give you what the mistake what's the correct thing and why

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and you can use that to help you become aware as you're practicing.

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And you can ask ChatGPT or whichever Gemini, Claude, to do a bit of practice, that drill practice with you.

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Okay, great.

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Remember, all the way through here, notice it, note it, and use it.

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Can you see that?

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All the way through.

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Good.

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So there you have the four reasons that you're stuck

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and six activities you can be doing right now on a regular basis to help you.

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Okay.

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Bonus tip two.

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First one, extensive reading and listening for pleasure is a really, really good way to reinforce the language,

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to help you become aware of complex grammar, vocabulary, chunks, mistakes, or the correct form.

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It's a really powerful reinforcer of the language, extensive reading and listening. Do lots.

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Second tip, sign up for an exam.

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I talked about motivation, right, a lot.

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And if you're not motivated to get better, there's nothing like an exam to motivate you.

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And that is something that will really help motivate you to make progress.

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Don't stress out.

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Enjoy this and use it as a motivator to help you make progress.

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Okay.

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The key message, right, if you're stuck at B1 is don't start learning thousands of words and reviewing all the grammar again,

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it's start activating and speaking out what you know.

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Notice it, note it, use it.

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Okay.

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To help you do that, I have a PDF you can download.

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It's a worksheet.

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It reviews these activities.

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It reviews the reasons that you're stuck and it will give you more activities.

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It's a very practical worksheet.

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So you can start putting this into action.

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Don't sit on it.

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Start moving.

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Start doing it and move towards that C1 level that you want to get to.

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If you want to get there, thank you for watching.

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Oh, if you're interested and you want more videos, join the private membership, my YouTube channel.

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You can now join, become a member and get access to extra videos about my personal insights,

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IELTS questions, and lots more to motivate you with your English learning.

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You can join just by pressing the button there.

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Again, thanks so much for watching and hopefully I'll be seeing you in the next video.

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Take care now, my friend.

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Bye-bye.

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 Practice: How to go from B1 to C1 English - Learn English Speaking with Video

Boost Your English: Move from B1 to C1 with Practical Practice

Key Vocabulary & Phrases to Master

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What is the Shadowing Technique?