Shadowing Practice: How to Speak (Full Course) - Learn English Speaking with Video

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You are about to learn the three P's of powerful presenters, meaning when you learn these three simple techniques,

you will become one of the top 1 % communicators in the world.

So imagine you deliver a presentation, you speak on stage, even in a meeting when you implement these techniques,

the response you will get will be something like this.

This is a type of reaction you can expect when you use these techniques.

I'm showing you this so you have some reason to believe me

because at this point you might not have any idea who I am.

I want this presentation to be entirely focused on you, but let me put something else out there.

When I show you these techniques, the last thing I want you to think is, well, good for these people.

They can do it.

Or, Yasser, good for you.

You're a great speaker.

I can't do this.

I'm an introvert or I'm shy.

I can't do it.

Just so you know a little bit about me, my entire life, I've struggled with crippling social anxiety.

Meaning just going and meeting new people, I would wonder, what do I do with my hands?

Where do I look?

What do I say to fit in with these people?

That's the kind of conversation that was happening in my brain

and I had such a lack of confidence that in my wildest imagination, I never thought public speaking is what I would do with my career,

let alone do it at the highest level.

So how did I go from being such a shy person to now being on stage

and having been invited on the TEDx stage not once but twice?

I've also been an instructor at the University of Toronto, teaching public speaking there.

I've also had the privilege now of being on the same stage as people like

Bill Gates and Steve Wozniak, the co -founder of Apple.

You might recognize the brand Ray -Ban.

Well, the owner of the company, Vassilar Luxottica, he's one of the people that I have trained.

Other high -level executives from the government of Saudi Arabia, ministers from all over the country, and leaders and executives from all of these companies.

So the question is, how did I go from where I started with crippling social anxiety

and now to become the number one CEO speech coach in the world?

That is what you're about to learn in this training.

So what you're going to learn are three essential techniques.

Three techniques I call the three

Ps to becoming a powerful presenter.

The three Ps to becoming a powerful presenter.

And I'd rather teach you the things

that you actually remember instead of going into 45 different techniques that you will never remember.

I'd rather just teach you the three that you will actually use.

So let's get into it right away.

If you have some notes that you can write down, that will be helpful because I'll need you to remember what we're talking about.

So let us get into the first P.

What is the first P?

I want to ask you a quick question.

And that is, what is the biggest mistake most speakers make?

Reflect on that in your mind.

What do you think is the biggest mistake most speakers make?

A lot of people say, well, they're not interesting, they're boring.

There's one thing that stands above the rest.

And for me to demonstrate this to you, I'm going to show you an image.

Right now, you're going to see a black screen, okay?

Let me make this full screen for you.

I'm going to show you an image

and I'm going to take the image away in just a few seconds

so you I want you to really pay attention to what you're about to say all right

so get prepared I'm going to show it to you in five four three two one on.

Okay, that's all I needed to show you.

Really think about the image, really think about what you just saw.

Now, tell me how many circles were there?

How many circles were there?

If you are a regular human being, you might notice that you're having a little bit of difficulty.

You're thinking, wait there were circles?

I had no idea.

Or maybe you're just guessing and you're not entirely sure, right?

Let's try something one more time.

I'm going to show you one more image.

Right now you'll see a black image, but I'm going to show you the image for a fraction of a second.

The last image I showed to you for about five to six seconds.

This one I'll show to you for about less than a second, okay?

So here we go.

Pay close attention.

Five, four, three, two, one.

That's it.

That's all you get to see.

Now tell me, how many circles were there?

how many circles were there I'm willing to bet you can tell me how many circles you saw

so this is the image that you just saw

and there are four circles but this is the exact same image as the last one

that I showed you it's the exact same image

but why is it that

when I showed you this one you were not able to guess

but when I showed you this one you were able to guess why and

that is the biggest mistake most speaker speakers make they give too much information too much information they think hey

if I just overload the audience give them more and more

and more it's going to make a better presentation no people will forget most of the things

that you say that's just how the brain works so here's what I want you to write down.

It's not what you say, it's what they remember.

Because you can say all the most amazing things in the world.

You can have all of this information in the slides.

But if people don't remember what you say, does it even matter?

And this is the problem with most presentations.

The way people prepare presentations is I have a presentation tomorrow

I'm going to take all this information cram it into the slides

and throw it at the audience good luck have fun

I'm out of here that's how most presentations are put together instead this is what you want to do

and this is the first P

you want to highlight the main point the main point of your presentation what is the main point

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because it's not what you say, it's what they remember.

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What is the main point?

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I want you to think about it like this.

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If someone attended your presentation, they walked out the room, and then someone who missed the presentation came to them and said,

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hey, what was that presentation about?

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You were immediately able to remember the main point and tell them, oh, this presentation was about x, y, Z.

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This is what I remembered.

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Most presentations, they end and you have no idea what is important about that presentation.

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So it has to be shareable.

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When you listen to it, you should be able to tell other people about it.

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So let's look at a tactical example.

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How can you engineer this in your presentations so it's easy for people to share and talk about and so it's memorable.

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And you're about to see one of the most memorable presentations of all time,

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which is Steve Jobs, but specifically him unveiling the MacBook Air for the first time.

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I want you to watch this and I want you to dissect what do you think he was aiming for here?

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Why did he present the MacBook Air this way?

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And then we're going to unpack that.

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Let's have a look.

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It's so thin, it even fits inside one of these envelopes that we've all seen floating around the office.

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And so let me go ahead and show it to you now.

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This is it.

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Let me take it out here.

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This is the new MacBook Air And you can get a feel for how thin it is Yeah,

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there it is Look at this

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Now you and I both know that Steve Jobs is a master presenter

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He loves building anticipation

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He likes adding a little bit of drama them, but I want you to think about what was his main point here?

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What was he trying to tell the audience?

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This is important.

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This is the main point.

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Remember this.

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What do you think it was?

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He highlighted the thinness of the laptop.

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He went so far as to have a slide

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that had the picture of the envelope and then the laptop came out of the envelope.

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So the main point was the thinness and how thin the laptop is

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because he knew that he wanted to insert this language so that's what people talk about So after the presentation,

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he talked about many things in that whole presentation.

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What did the news choose to focus on?

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Let's have a look.

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Thinest laptop fits into a manila envelope.

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Apple introduces the MacBook Air world's thinnest notebook.

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Apple announces MacBook Air world's thinnest notebook is so slim that it can fit inside an envelope.

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Apple unveils its latest innovation the laptop that fits inside an envelope

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this was engineer this wasn't by a chance

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he knew what the main point was from his presentation that's why he talked about it emphasize the thinness

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so you don't get lost in the details

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he could have talked about it has this much RAM

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this much storage this steep CPU he didn't get bogged down he just focused on what's important.

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And when you look at some of the best presenters of the world, this is exactly what they do.

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So when you think about Simon Sinek, if you are familiar with Simon Sinek, he might have talked about a lot of things,

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but you might not remember all of them.

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But what you might remember is start with why.

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That's the phrase that he is most known for.

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Or if you think of Martin Luther King you might remember his speech what was the one main phrase

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that he is known for I have a dream now most people

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they can't tell you a single word from the rest of the entire speech why

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because this is how our brain works it remembers short phrases it's one small point

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when you think of Nike what do you think?

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Just do it.

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Apple, think different.

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So when your audience is paying attention to your presentation,

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I want you to think about they're not going to remember 99 % of the information when I share it.

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They're only going to remember one, two, or three things.

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So doesn't it make sense to emphasize those three things, that one point, instead of adding more and more and more and more information.

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So when you learn to do this and you finish a presentation, this is the kind of reaction that you can expect.

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For example, here I finished a keynote and this is what the audience member said.

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I lost track of how many times I heard people at the event say, like Yasser said, we need to do X, Y, Z.

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So the way you craft your presentation, I want you to change it from how can I take all the information cram it

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and throw it at the audience you might feel good

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that you have touched on all of these things

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but what does it matter if no one remembers what you said

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so instead I'd like you to think about what are the one two

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and three things that I want the audience to remember

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and hammer those home

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so that's the first P is hammer your main point make sure you emphasize the point because it's not what you say,

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it's what they remember.

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It's not what you say, it's what they remember.

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Now, reflecting on just how I presented this, point, it's one word.

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It's easy to remember.

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It's not what you say, it's what they remember.

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That is my main message of this presentation.

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And you will see, I will say it again and again, because I want to make sure I've implanted that in your brain.

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So that is the first P out of the three

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that we are going to talk about that will teach you to be a powerful presenter.

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Now in part one, you learn to emphasize the point because it's not what you say, it's what they remember.

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Now let's get to the second P, which teaches you how to get the audience to pay attention.

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How do you get the audience to pay attention?

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I want you to think back to the most boring presentation you have attended.

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Typically what happens is the presenter shows up, there is a slide deck, or maybe they're holding a script, there's an audience in front of them,

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they'll show up and they will just read from the slide.

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And what does this tell you? it tells you

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that they're more concerned about reading than interacting with me my attention is not necessary here even

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if I got up

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and walked out of the room they would just continue to read the slides

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so you don't feel like they're really there with you how many times have you seen a presentation

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that looks like this this is not public speaking in my opinion this is public reading

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and And the thing that bothers me is most of the time I can read faster than them.

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So the moment it's on the slide, I read it in half a second.

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And now I'm waiting for the speaker to read it themselves out loud.

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And then I just think this is boring.

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I don't want to continue listening to it.

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So how does a masterful presenter do this?

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Instead of just showing up and reading from the slides, immediately losing 90 % of the audience,

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I want to show you a real example of a real CEO of a really big company and how they get attention.

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And then I'm going to make a quick point about what you can do here.

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So you're about to see the CEO of NVIDIA start his presentation at CES

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and I want you to notice what he does.

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Does he show up and start reading from a slide?

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What does he do?

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Let's have a look.

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Welcome to CES!

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Are you excited to be in Las Vegas?

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Do you like my jacket?

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I'm in Las Vegas after all.

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If this doesn't work out, if all of you object, well, just get used to it.

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I think I really think you have to let this sink in.

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In another hour or so you're gonna feel good about it.

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For $15 .99 you bring it home to your $10 ,000 PC entertainment command center.

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Isn't that right?

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Don't tell me that's not true.

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Don't be ashamed.

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It's liquid cooled.

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Fancy lights all over it.

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You lock it when you leave.

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It's the modern home theater.

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He is present in the moment with the audience.

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He's there with you.

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He's having a conversation.

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He's not there reading from the slides.

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You feel like, oh, this person is there with me talking to me.

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Just like in a real conversation, when someone is talking to you, you don't pull your phone out and start scrolling, right?

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Because you're engaged, they're present in the moment, you are present in the moment.

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But when people present, they're not present with the audience.

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They're there just to read from the slides or regurgitate what they have memorized.

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And when they do this, immediately it signals the audience, oh, my attention is not needed.

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I can do something else.

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So you have to be present that is the second piece.

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Specifically, you have to engage them before you inform them.

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Engage them before you inform them.

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What do I mean by this?

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If I just showed up today and said, hey, thank you for joining this free course today.

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You're going to learn about public speaking.

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Tip number one, tip number two, tip number three, thank you very much.

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I've given you all the information, but I haven't engaged you.

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You have no reason to listen to what I'm saying.

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So how do you do this?

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How do you stay present?

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Well, first of all, the thing you don't want to do is read from the slides or memorize everything.

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Because when you read, you're literally not looking at the audience, you're looking at the slides.

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And when you memorize, you're so concerned about seeing the thing you memorize

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and not blanking out that you're not reading facial expressions.

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You're not bouncing off of the reactions.

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They don't feel pulled into your presentation.

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So when you're in front of an audience and they feel like you don't respect them enough to be there with them,

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you're so concerned about your performance that you don't even care about connecting with them, they're not going to feel like you earn their attention.

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Now, something that I like to do, I learn from Tony Robbins, I learn from Jensen Huang,

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I like to train my audience right from the first word of my presentation

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so that they know that this is the type of presentation where they can't just sit back and relax.

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I expect them to participate.

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So here's the clip and you will see how I use audience engagement to build trust

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and then use that as a segue into my presentation.

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So here's a quick clip.

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Let's.

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Just give me a quick raise of hand.

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If you've ever met someone and in the first 10 seconds you regretted meeting them.

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Okay, hopefully it wasn't the last 10 seconds.

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Now just shout out some words at me.

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What do they do or say that make you feel that way?

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What do you think it is?

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Yes.

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Their features?

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Do you like my suit?

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Hopefully this is a good one.

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Okay, so if I do this, why is that bad?

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No, but...

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You have a problem with my face in general, don't you?

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I just don't like this guy's face.

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Just don't touch your face.

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I see what you're saying.

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Yes.

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Why is that bad?

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So everything you're saying is correct.

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Let's lump it into something you can remember.

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There's a rule with body language.

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Are you expressing yourself or are you suppressing yourself?

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When I was on stage, what was I doing?

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Expressing or suppressing?

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What do we do when we hide clothes off?

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Can you see how interactive the audience is?

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And once again, I'm in a new country here.

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I'm in Saudi Arabia.

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People don't know me here.

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I have to build trust with them.

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But can you see how quickly we were able to go from interaction to laughter to engagement?

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This is what everyone wants in a presentation.

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How many times have you heard, ah, there was a lack of engagement.

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People weren't really paying attention

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and oftentimes presenters blame it on the audience oh the audience was boring they didn't participate

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but really it's actually on the speaker to make it engaging

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so be present in the moment and you cannot be present in the moment

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if once again you're reading from the slides you've memorized every single word

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that is not the way to be present people will instantly tune out

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so you'll notice some of the best moments in presentations actually come from the parts

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that are organic that you can't really plan

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so I'll show you a segment from where I was teaching public speaking I demonstrated a technique

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and I was asking the audience

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and I wanted I wanted to see what a great moment

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this turned out to be even though it's such a small part of the entire presentation watch

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this all my behavior the way I was acting the way I was speaking what was I doing insane?

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Too desperate?

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Thank you so much.

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My girlfriend says the same thing.

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I was able to say that phrase in the moment.

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It was a real unscripted moment in the presentation and you can see where the audience's laugh immediately.

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I've earned trust with them.

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There's more likability.

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They will pay more attention.

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As opposed to what is the one thing that you thought I was doing.

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Yes, thank you.

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The one thing that I was, I'm too attached to my script.

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And I will tell you time and time again, whenever I've had the chance to speak at a conference,

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the one thing I get told over and over again, Yasser, the thing that made you stand apart is that the audience,

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their eyes were glued on you.

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They felt like they were a part of the presentation.

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And that's what you want the audience to feel.

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You don't want them to feel like they were just there while you happened to be presenting, where they could have gotten up,

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gone for a coffee break, come back, and you would still be presenting and nothing would change because there was no connection to them.

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So this is what one of the event organizers said about my speech.

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He said, we have heard from about 50 plus amazing speakers over the years,

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but the amount of positive feedback we received from Yasser Khan was truly record -breaking.

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You are totally enthralled and focused by what he is teaching, they walked away totally immersed.

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And the only thing I did was I was present in the moment and I had a conversation.

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I want them to feel like their voice is heard.

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So for example, if you're delivering a pitch and it's just one -way traffic, people just can't say anything,

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they're not involved, then it's a very passive experience.

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They don't feel very involved.

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So that's the second thing that will make you a powerful presenter.

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The second P, which is you have to be present in the moment.

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You have to engage them before you inform them.

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Because if you inform them right away, if you inform them before you've earned their trust, before they're ready to be informed,

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they're not going to listen.

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So you first have to engage them, make it a conversation and then you begin to inform.

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So, so far you have learned the importance of having one main point.

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It's not what you say, it's what they remember.

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And then you have to say present in the moment with the audience instead of regurgitating memorized passages, instead of reading from the slides,

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engage them before you inform them.

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Now we have one more point left and this one specifically is one

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that I have not seen talked about very often and it's something

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that I use all the time and this will allow you to have

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that kind of effect on the audience

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that will completely hypnotize them they can't take their eyes off of your presentation

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so let's talk about

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that now let's talk about the last p you've learned the point

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you've learned to be present in the moment with the audience.

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What is the last one?

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And it will teach you how to hypnotize.

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When I mean hypnotize, I want you to imagine,

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imagine a cat and you have a laser pointer and you just use the laser pointer on the ground.

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What does the cat do?

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Immediately, it can't think about anything other than that laser and just starts chasing it around.

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Or I want you to imagine a magic trick.

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When someone's doing a magic trick, you can't help but, hmm, where is this going?

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How did they do this?

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You're so enthralled by it, you want to be involved.

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That is the kind of hypnotic effect you can have on your presentation.

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So let me give you a couple of different examples of how you can do this from speakers in different environments.

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So the first example you're going to look at is Simon Sinek.

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And this is how he opened up the keynote.

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And I want you to keep in the back of your mind, how does he structure the presentation in a way where the audience feels,

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I need to watch this to see how this turns out.

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It's very subtle, but let's see if you can point it out.

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Let's have it.

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So I'm embarrassed that I have a career.

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I talk about things like trust and cooperation, and there should be no demand for my work.

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But the fact of the matter is there is demand for my work, which means that there's an opportunity.

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It means that trust and cooperation are not yet standard in our organizations, and yet they should be,

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and we know that, which is why we're looking for ways to bring those things to our organizations.

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So I thought I would do something a little different today.

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You know when you're speaking to tens of thousands of people and you have the opportunity to share a message

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Of course most rational people would say let's go with something I've talked about lots of times

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and I'm really good at but I'm Not normal.

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So I'm gonna do something completely new and I hope this works out

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Now if you think about it

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Why did he choose to include this in the presentation

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if you're getting paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to speak for an hour

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However, every single word is meticulously curated.

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So why did he include this in there?

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He wanted the audience to feel, one, that they're getting something no one else is getting.

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I've never done this talk before.

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This is entirely new.

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So they feel special in the moment.

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But also, he said, let's just see how this turns out.

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Fingers crossed.

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So in the back of the audience's mind, it's almost like a challenge.

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It's almost like they're there with him oh, let's see how this turns out.

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I want to see if he delivers well.

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How does it go?

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It creates anticipation.

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It's so simple.

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But now the audience is engaged because they want to see what happens at the end.

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Let me give you another example.

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And this is even shorter.

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This is Esther Perel.

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And she begins her TED Talk.

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And we're only going to watch the first few seconds.

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And I want you to think again is the audience thinking hey

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I want to figure this out I want to be in there

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and and find out where this ends up what why do we cheat

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and why do happy people cheat that's it why do people cheat why do happy people cheat what does

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that do hmm why do people cheat and why do people cheat even if they're happy.

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Now it's creating

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This speaking lesson is built on the video “How to Speak”. This video has 411 sentences and 4515 words to shadow. The speech runs for 28:17. The speaker talks at a natural 160 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. 87% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is easy to follow.

Key vocabulary in this video

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

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
presentation noun	/ˌpɹɛzn̩ˈteɪʃn̩/	The act of presenting, or something presented.
slide noun	/ˈslaɪ̯d/	An item of play equipment that children can climb up and then slide down again.
presenter noun	/pɹɪˈzɛntə(ɹ)/	Someone who presents a broadcast programme; a compere or master of ceremonies.
engage verb	/ɪnˈɡeɪd͡ʒ/	To engross or hold the attention of; to keep busy or occupied.
technique noun	/tɛkˈniːk/	The practical aspects of a given art, occupation etc.; formal requirements.
inform verb	/ɪnˈfɔɹm/	To communicate knowledge to.
thin adjective	/ˈθɪn/	Having little thickness or extent from one surface to its opposite.
cheat verb	/ˈt͡ʃiːt/	To violate rules in order to gain, or attempt to gain, advantage from a situation.
envelope noun	/ˈɛnvə(ˌ)loʊp/	A paper or cardboard wrapper used to enclose small, flat items, especially letters, for mailing.
laptop noun	/ˈlæp.tɑp/	A laptop computer.
phrase noun	/ˈfɹeɪ̯z/	A short written or spoken expression.
bore verb	/boɹ/	To inspire boredom in somebody.
emphasize verb	/ˈɛm.fə.saɪz/	To stress, give emphasis or extra weight to (something).
earn verb	/ɝn/	To gain (success, reward, recognition) through applied effort or work.
engagement noun	/ɪnˈɡeɪd͡ʒ.mənt/	An appointment, especially to speak or perform.

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
show up verb		To appear, arrive, or attend, especially suddenly or erratically.
turn out verb		To end up; to result.
get up verb		To move in an upward direction; to ascend or climb.
work out verb	/ˌwɝk ˈaʊt/	To calculate.
write down verb		To produce or set (something) down in writing; to record something.
come back verb		To return to a place.
end up verb		To bring to a conclusion.
find out verb		To discover, as by asking or investigating.

Sentences worth repeating

Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:

You're thinking, wait there were circles?
What do you think it was?
How do you get the audience to pay attention?
Do you like my jacket?
What do I mean by this?

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	I've struggled · I've also been · I've also had
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	been invited · are put · is known
Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing	someone who missed · work, which means · that, which is

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 134 contractions and reduced forms, such as you're, I'm, don't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “th” sounds: thin /ˈθɪn/, bother /ˈbɑðɚ/, theater /ˈθi(ə)tɚ/, enthrall /ɪnˈθɹɔːl/
The “sh” and “zh” sounds: presentation /ˌpɹɛzn̩ˈteɪʃn̩/, cooperation /koʊˌɑ.pəˈɹeɪ.ʃən/, anticipation /ænˌtɪs.əˈpeɪ.ʃən/, innovation /ˌɪn.əˈveɪ.ʃən/, interaction /ˌɪn.təˈɹæk.ʃən/
Long words — get the stress right: anxiety /æŋˈzaɪ.əti/, participate /pɑːˈtɪs.ɪ.peɪt/, cooperation /koʊˌɑ.pəˈɹeɪ.ʃən/, anticipation /ænˌtɪs.əˈpeɪ.ʃən/, difficulty /ˈdɪfɪkəlti/

How to practise with this video

Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like presentation, slide, presenter.

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 →

Shadowing Practice: How to Speak (Full Course) - Learn English Speaking with Video

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

Key vocabulary in this video

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Sentences worth repeating

Grammar in this video

Pronunciation to watch

How to practise with this video

What is the Shadowing Technique?