Shadowing Practice: How to Make Reading FUN Again in ESL Classes | Teacher Val - Learn English Speaking with Video
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In lower grades, students learn to read.
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In higher grades, they read to learn.
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And somewhere along the way, reading can start to feel less like discovery and more like a task.
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Most students see a text and immediately look for the balded words to answer question number one.
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They scan, search, and move on as quickly as possible.
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And honestly, can we blame them?
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Many reading lessons follow the same pattern.
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Read the text, answer the question, check comprehension, and move on.
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There is nothing wrong with this approach, but if we rely on it too often,
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reading can become repetitive and mechanical and students begin to lose interest.
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Sometimes I feel like we treat reading like an autopsy rather than an experience.
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So how do we turn reading into an experience?
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Take a look at this text from one of the grade 7 lessons, the Marie Celeste.
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I'd like you to take a moment and think about how you would teach it.
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What activities would you use?
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How would you engage your students beyond simple comprehension?
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Now, let me show you a few ideas for how we can turn the same text into an experience.
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Something closer to an adventure than a worksheet.
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Introduce the topic, the Marie Celeste, and ask a few questions to find out what your students already know.
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This activates prior knowledge and creates curiosity before reading even begins.
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Questions like these help students connect to the topic and prepare their minds for the story.
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Usually we introduce key vocabulary and ask students to copy it into their notebooks.
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Again, there is There's nothing wrong with that.
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But what if we ask students to discover the vocabulary instead?
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What if we turned it into a detective story?
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Tell your students that today they will become detectives.
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They will investigate a mysterious case, the Marie Celeste.
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This simple roleplay immediately increases engagement and gives students a clear purpose for reading.
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For that purpose, I created a short video that introduces the lesson and sets the mood.
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Hello, detectives.
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Today we're going to investigate a mysterious case, the Marie Celeste.
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This is not just a story, it's a mission.
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As we read, you will collect clues, solve problems and think like real detectives.
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Get your pens ready, keep your eyes open.
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Every detail matters.
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Are you ready to begin the investigation?
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Let's go!
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Let's read.
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Quick tip.
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Don't put the whole story on one slide.
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it into smaller sections.
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After each part, pause and ask students to make predictions.
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What do you think happened?
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What clues stand out?
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What might happen next?
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This keeps students actively involved and encourages them to think ahead instead of passively reading from beginning to end.
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Now take a look at this slide.
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There are two mystery words hidden in the next section of the text.
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One means a group of people working on a ship and the other means empty with no people.
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Student must find these words in the passage and write them in their detective log along with their guest meanings.
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Now show the next slide.
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Set the timer to one minute and let students search for the words.
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After the time is up, reveal the answers.
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A group of people working on a ship is crew and empty with no people means deserted.
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Now do you think your students read the text carefully?
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I seriously doubt it.
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Most of them probably scanned the passage because they were focused on finding the correct words.
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And that's exactly why we show them the next slide.
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Oh wait, wait, we still need three more pieces of evidence.
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Look for a large boat with sails,
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a story that is hard to explain and the way the ship looks from the outside.
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Add those to your log.
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This time click the play button and let students listen to the pre-recorded narration while searching for the mystery words.
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This approach gives you multiple benefits at once.
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Students hear correct pronunciation, stay focused on the text,
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and are less likely to miss important details.
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One shot, multiple goals achieved.
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And of course, don't forget to reveal the correct answers once everyone has completed the task.
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Next comes the 60-second search mission.
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Students have 60 seconds to find four reasons why the captain was confused.
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This activity adds urgency, encourages quick scanning skills,
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and gives students a clear purpose for reading.
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Click the play button and then start the timer to begin the countdown.
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Make sure to include translations for any difficult words.
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This lowers frustration and keeps the focus on comprehension rather than decoding individual vocabulary items.
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When the time is up, have a short discussion with your students.
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What facts did they choose?
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Did different groups notice different clues?
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Encourage students to justify their answers before revealing the correct ones.
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This small discussion stage helps students move beyond simply finding information and into explaining their thinking.
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Then reveal the correct answers.
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Next is the gap-filled challenge.
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Some words are in the wrong places.
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Can your students find them and fix the sentences?
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Notice how I included these four keywords and their translations directly on the slide.
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This may look simple, but it serves an important purpose.
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Subconsciously, students begin noticing and processing these words before they even begin the task,
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making the next activity feel more manageable and familiar.
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The next slide also includes a 60-second timer.
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Students read the sentences and correct the mistakes.
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If you like, you can turn this into a pair work activity
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and let students compare their answers before checking together as a class.
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When the time is up, play the narration and reveal the correct answers.
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Again, one activity is achieving several goals at once.
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reading, noticing language patterns, listening practice, and peer discussion.
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Next is the liar's summary activity.
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Tell your students, listen carefully to the last paragraph.
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When you finish, you'll see a summary with three factual errors.
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Can you find them?
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I've covered the keywords with rectangles containing translations.
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As students listen to the narration, they must identify these missing words and write them in their notebooks.
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This keeps listening active and purposeful rather than passive.
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Now show them the liar summary.
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Put Put students into groups or pairs and start the timer.
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As they discuss, they must work together to identify the three factual mistakes.
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When the time is up, elicit answers from the groups.
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Which mistakes did they find?
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Did everyone agree?
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Only after discussion should you reveal the correct answers.
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like this encourage students to become critical readers.
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Instead of simply accepting information, they learn to question it,
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verify it, and support their thinking with evidence from the text.
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Since we're teaching higher grades,
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we often ask students to identify or write the main idea after reading.
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The main idea is simply what is most important in the text.
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Essentially it's a one-sentence summary.
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Traditionally this is often taught as a fill-in-the-gap activity where students
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complete a sentence after discussing it with their desk mates or in groups.
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And again there is nothing wrong with this approach.
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However, writing the main idea can be challenging for many students,
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especially if they're not confident writers.
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So here are a couple of more engaging alternatives.
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Ask students to write the main idea as a front-page newspaper headline.
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Give them a word limit.
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For example, the headline must be exactly 6 words long and include at least one target vocabulary word.
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For example, mystery crew leaves deserted sailing ship.
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This adds a creative challenge while keeping students focused and concise.
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And because headlines naturally highlight important information,
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Students are practicing main idea skills without always feeling like they're completing a traditional summary task.
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Another option is the text message summary.
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Ask students to write the main idea as if they were sailors,
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sending a final SOS message to their families.
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This approach encourages emotional engagement and gives students more freedom of expression.
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Instead of simply repeating information,
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they begin imagining the situation and responding to it from a personal perspective.
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And sometimes that emotional connection makes the learning more memorable.
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Now, if everything I suggested earlier feels a bit too complicated or time-consuming to prepare,
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here's a simple, effective, and flexible post-reading strategy that works with almost any text.
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It's called the 3-to-1 activity.
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Students complete the following in their notebooks or logs or whatever they used to write in.
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Three new vocabulary words they found.
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Two useful sentence structures they liked.
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One sentence summarizing the main idea.
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What I like about this strategy is its simplicity.
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It combines vocabulary, sentence patterns,
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and summarizing into one short activity and requires very little preparation from the teacher.
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Sometimes simple works best.
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Final tip, be consistent, but also vary your post-reading strategies.
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Not every reading lesson needs to become a full detective mission.
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And not every lesson should follow the exact same routine either.
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A little variety goes a long way.
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And remember, you only need to prepare these materials once.
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But a well-designed lesson can stay with you and your students for many, many years.
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If you found this video useful, please leave a like and subscribe to the channel.
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And if you have your own favorite reading activities or post-reading strategies,
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I'd love to hear about them in the comments below.
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Sharing ideas is one of the best parts of teaching.
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You can also help support the channel by sharing this video with other teachers who might find it useful.
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Thank you very much for watching and I'll see you in my next video.
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Bye!
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This B2 speaking lesson is built on the video “How to Make Reading FUN Again in ESL Classes”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: student, reading, word, text, answer. This video has 160 sentences and 1610 words to shadow. The speech runs for 15:59. The speaker talks slowly, about 101 words per minute, so there is time to copy every sound. 83% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.
Key vocabulary in this video
The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| vocabulary noun | /vəˈkæb.jə.lə.ɹi/ | A usually alphabetized and explained collection of words e.g. of a particular field, or prepared for a specific purpose, often for learning. |
| timer noun | /ˈtaɪmɚ/ | A device used to measure amounts of time. |
| narration noun | /ˌnæɹˈeɪ.ʃən/ | The act of recounting or relating in order the particulars of some action, occurrence, or affair; a narrating. |
| comprehension noun | /ˌkɑmpɹɪˈhɛnʃn̩/ | A thorough understanding. |
| notebook noun | /ˈnoʊtˌbʊk/ | A book (physical or digital) in which notes or memoranda are written. |
| headline noun | /ˈhɛd.laɪn/ | The heading or title of a magazine or newspaper article. |
| scan verb | /skæn/ | To examine sequentially, carefully, or critically; to scrutinize; to behold closely. |
| clue noun | /kluː/ | Information which may lead one to a certain point or conclusion. |
| keyword noun | /ˈkiː.wɜːd/ | Any word used as the key to a code. |
| summarize verb | /ˈsʌməˌɹaɪz/ | To prepare a summary of (something). |
| factual adjective | /ˈfæk.tʃ(u)əl/ | Pertaining to or consisting of objective claims. |
| sail noun | /seɪl/ | A piece of fabric attached to a boat and arranged such that it causes the wind to drive the boat along. The sail may be attached to the boat via a combination… |
| mysterious adjective | /mɪˈstɪɹi.əs/ | Of unknown origin. |
| concise adjective | /kənˈsaɪs/ | Brief, yet including all important information. |
| decode verb | /dɪˈkəʊd/ | To convert from an encrypted form to plain text. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| find out verb | To discover, as by asking or investigating. |
| stand out verb | To jut out, protrude (from a surface etc.). |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- What activities would you use?
- How would you engage your students beyond simple comprehension?
- What if we turned it into a detective story?
- Are you ready to begin the investigation?
- What do you think happened?
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 11 contractions and reduced forms, such as don't, I'd, they're. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: narration /ˌnæɹˈeɪ.ʃən/, comprehension /ˌkɑmpɹɪˈhɛnʃn̩/, pronunciation /pɹəˌnʌn.siˈeɪ.ʃən/, prediction /pɹɪˈdɪkʃən/, frustration /fɹʌsˈtɹeɪ.ʃən/
- Long words — get the stress right: vocabulary /vəˈkæb.jə.lə.ɹi/, mysterious /mɪˈstɪɹi.əs/, manageable /ˈmænəd͡ʒəb(ə)l/, pronunciation /pɹəˌnʌn.siˈeɪ.ʃən/, repetitive /ɹɪˈpɛtɪtɪv/
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 vocabulary, timer, narration.
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.