Shadowing Practice: IELTS Energy 215: A Terrific Template for Writing Task 2 on IELTS - Learn English Speaking with Video
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Hi guys, Aubrey here with the All Ears English team.
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Today's episode, Jessica and Lindsay share what is the difference between writing templates and memorizing essays for IELTS writing,
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why you should not memorize essays, and how you can use templates to increase your IELTS score.
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So check it out guys
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and go to allearsenglish.com slash IELTS quiz to take our free two-minute quiz to get your estimated IELTS band score
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and free resources at your level.
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All right, guys, enjoy today's episode.
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our strategies are the most powerful in the IELTS world and get your free video masterclass at allearsenglish.com forward slash I-N-S-I-D-E-R.
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Now, let's get to the show.
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In today's episode, hear about the biggest mistake you might make on writing task two and what you should do instead.
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hey jessica how you doing today how's it going hey lindsey
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i'm good yeah i'm actually i'm super stoked i started a new dance class last night oh that sounds interesting
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yeah what kind of dance is it it's it's african dance
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which um at first i was like okay africa is a
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continent like can you can we like narrow it down
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and i was wondering how this was going going to be carried off.
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But it's really cool.
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The dance teacher is also a drum teacher.
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So his drumming students are there playing live music the whole time.
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And he picks like a different dance each week from a certain part of Africa.
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And then he explains the history to us of like what the dance means and where it comes from.
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And then like we learn the choreography and we just, I don't know.
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It's so fun.
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I was just like pouring sweat by the end.
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Like I was so excited.
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And at the end of the class, I just like turned to all the other, it was just me and it was just late, just a bunch of ladies.
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And I turned around to everybody and I was like, that was awesome. That sounds super cool.
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I mean, it's so nice to get a workout and learn something new, like something interesting.
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You know, I like that idea.
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I know, exactly.
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I wasn't sure.
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I was like, is this even going to be exercise?
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Like what's going to happen?
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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I'm like tired today.
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well it's so nice when we go into something
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and we don't really know what to expect it's really fun you know we just don't have any expectations
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so that's a good thing yeah yeah totally it's like
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when you go to the movies and you don't know anything about what's playing
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and you just choose one yeah you know you're just like oh I'll just go see this
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and then kind of no matter what it is you're just gonna be fine
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because you don't expect anything exactly well that's fantastic I too
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bad you can't teach us the dances on the show it's this is voice only but maybe on the YouTube channel.
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That would be so funny if on our IELTS Energy YouTube channel, it's just like an African dance lesson.
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We might surprise our listeners one day. Who knows?
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Check out the IELTS Energy YouTube channel, guys.
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It's another way to consume our content and to get our awesome strategies over there if you're on YouTube a lot.
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Yeah.
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And they're totally new strategies.
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I mean, I don't know how we are able to come up with so much information,
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but the YouTube channel is just very short, specific five-minute videos.
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And these tips and strategies, it's not just like recycled and repeated.
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It's all new.
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Like everything has new information.
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Yeah.
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Absolutely.
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So definitely go over there, guys, and check that out.
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Well, I'm excited about your African dance class.
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That's cool, Jessica.
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Very cool.
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I can't wait for next week.
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I wish it was like more than once a week.
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But, you know, this is something that hopefully can inspire our students.
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Look at, you know, like, because I take my dance class at the community center.
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So it's really cheap.
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It's really just sort of informal and awesome and fantastic.
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And people from all different, you know, walks of life, what have you, are there.
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And it's a really good way to meet new people.
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So and I like just went by myself.
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I was kind of like nervous at first.
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Like, I'm just going to sit in the corner.
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I don't know anybody.
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But by the end, I was like just talking to everybody.
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And, you know, just it was fantastic.
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So guys, check out, check out a dance class, an exercise group.
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I mean, there are so many ways to meet people and practice English.
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Oh yeah.
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No, this is, and we've talked a lot about, you know, living our lives in English as much as we possibly can.
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So if you guys are in, in the U S and the UK and Australia, or even a big city like Tokyo, where they probably offer African dance classes in English, I would imagine, you know,
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these big cities are incredible what you can find.
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Just do it.
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It will also give you stuff to talk about right on the speaking test.
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I would imagine when certain questions about, you know, hobbies and things you like to do, right? For sure.
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I mean, there are so many questions about your free time and exercise and health and your social life.
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I mean, this could definitely come up on the exam.
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I would love to meet a student who was, who would tell me about their African dance class.
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Like that would be so interesting.
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Yeah, that is, that's, that would really help you stand apart, right?
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From the rest.
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Exactly.
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Yeah.
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That's what you want to do guys in order to start the examiner in that seven mind direction.
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Right.
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Because, you know, I'm sure I said this before, but guys that examiner, they're just, they're starting at like a six, like they have to start somewhere.
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Even before you start talking, they're in the six mindset and it's up to you to move them above it.
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Or in some cases below it, if you're not using our strategies.
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So your, your goal is to show them something different to sort of, you know, like shock them out of that six,
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you know, really like force them to push up to that seven for you.
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Right.
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So setting yourself apart is how you do that.
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Right.
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Not everyone gets to be pushed up to that seven.
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You have to be a special kind of student who's really put in the work.
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And part of that is, you know, having things, you know, having that culture of thinking and that could come from our activities, the things we actually do every week.
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So yeah, there you go.
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Yeah.
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And that came up in yesterday's episode with Aline.
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She was talking about how her writing has improved by, I say at least a band score, but I'm pretty sure it's two.
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I mean, she's improved by so much, right?
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And how she did that was, first of all, following the strategies in our course, which we're going to touch on today about the writing,
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but also she's taking our advice about creating this culture of thinking.
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She reads the newspaper every day.
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That's how she comes up with her ideas for writing.
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And I mean, her writing is amazing.
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That's why she won the contest.
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Yeah, that's right.
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Right.
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And we had that earlier this week.
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We had Aline on the show.
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So you guys can go back to episode 214
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and you'll hear her story and how she won the Three Keys Writing Wizard contest.
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Awesome.
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If you're ready to go deeper with our strategies, get into our free three-part video training course to get a sense of our insider method
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and to understand why our strategies are the most powerful in this IELTS field.
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Go to allearsenglish.com forward slash insider.
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That's allearsenglish.com forward slash I-N-S-I-D-E-R.
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Yes.
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Exactly.
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So it's funny because Lindsay and I were talking about what, you know, what our topic should be today.
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And we got this email from a listener
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and it directly ties in to what Aline and I talked about
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because what Aline is doing like solves this other listeners problem.
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Yeah.
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It's interesting.
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It all comes together.
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It all ties together.
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We can all help each other.
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I love it.
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So the listener, I'm just going to read this bit of her email.
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Okay.
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She says, since my childhood, writing essays, even in my native language, was difficult.
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And I've met students like that before, right?
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It was just like, I don't care what language it is.
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Like, writing is hard.
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Yeah.
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And it is, yeah.
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And so the student says, that is my weakest part.
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Some guys suggest that I learn good essays by heart, which received a nine score, a score of nine.
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Nowadays, I'm planning to follow that suggestion.
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Oh, my God.
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But I don't know whether this helps me or not.
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Oh, no. No, it doesn't.
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So what is she going to do?
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I don't totally understand what she's going to do.
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She's going to learn.
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She's going to memorize.
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Is that what she's saying?
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She's going to do?
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That's what it sounds like.
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That's what it sounds like.
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So what is she going to do? like find example essays
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and memorize the whole thing about a topic that definitely will not be on the exam.
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What use is that?
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It's such a waste of time.
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I mean, how much time is it going to take to memorize a 250 word essay, like word for word?
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And it's a complete waste of time because there's no chance that we'll get the same question.
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No, guys.
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I mean, topics are recycled.
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We do talk about general topics like the environment, travel, education.
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However, the specific questions are not recycled, guys.
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IELTS is too smart for that.
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Do not like disrespect the creators of the test by thinking, oh, like they're lazy.
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They're going to use this question again.
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No, never.
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I just can't understand.
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I don't understand the logic behind this idea of memorizing an essay.
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It makes no sense.
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Makes no sense at all.
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Guys, I mean, and this has come up to as well.
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I had a question from a student in the course, like when does it count against you, the memorization?
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Because it is in there.
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If an examiner sees a memorized response, then the score is like horrible.
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It's like super low.
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It has to be, obviously.
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But that's if that's only if like a whole essay is memorized.
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Okay.
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It does not apply to memorizing linking words and structure.
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Guys, this is what you have to do in order to have that confidence going in.
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Okay.
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Yeah.
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So in our course, we have the four paragraph essay template.
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And yesterday I had a power hour with six students from our course.
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All right.
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They all sent me writing task two essays and all of them had put in the work.
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They had all memorized this template.
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It's easy to memorize you guys.
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It's just a template that has the linking words you need
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and the organization you need to hit that seven or higher for cohesion and coherence.
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That's all it is.
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It's very focused and very easy.
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And they had all done it.
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Awesome.
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And so I'm reading these essays and I'm like, oh my God, like everyone is hitting that seven or higher for cohesion and coherence because they followed the template.
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And it's, it makes my job so easy.
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It makes examiner's jobs easy because it's when they read these essays, they flow, right?
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They're organized well.
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An examiner never has to stop and be like, what?
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How does this idea fit in?
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Oh, that's awesome.
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So just want to make sure this is clear for our listeners.
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We're not talking about memorizing an essay.
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We're talking about memorizing an outline or a template or a structure, right, Jessica?
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And some linking words.
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Yes.
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Very different things.
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Two totally different things.
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Exactly.
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Yeah.
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So in the, in our template,
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it gives you just a general structure with specific linking words and transition phrases.
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Guys, don't, I think students sometimes overthink this.
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Like it can't be that easy, right?
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Like I can't just memorize this one thing and be fine.
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Guys, but remember, like what, why are you memorizing this?
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You only have to write one essay.
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There's only one task, two essay.
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So why are you going to waste your time memorizing?
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Like this is a four paragraph essay.
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This is a five paragraph essay.
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What if I want to include my opinion?
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What if I blah?
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Yeah.
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Guys, like I have been over a million essays.
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I've seen all the IELTS test questions.
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I could tell you, like, all you need is this one template.
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That's it.
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Yeah, we did an episode a few weeks ago about just trusting strategies and trusting advice, you know, from the right person,
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just letting go and trusting a strategy.
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And when we don't, we talked about reading specifically, but I think it carries over to writing.
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When we don't trust a strategy, we, you know, the strategies won't help us.
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It carries over to all parts of the exam, all parts.
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I mean, Alina was talking about how like she's studying for her PhD,
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like she really has no time and she's just nervous and busy and a little bit frantic, right? Of course.
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And our students can relate even if they're not studying for a PhD.
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They have a family.
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They have a job.
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Like we are busy adults.
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Yeah.
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Why are you going to make it more difficult for yourself?
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Why are you going to commit like four hours a week
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in some language school with a teacher who's going to give you three, at least three different types of essays to,
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you know, practice writing and memorize different whatever for?
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You don't need it.
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Don't waste your time and money like that.
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Like, just, you know, I think the problem is, well, it's not a problem, but the issue is that a lot of our listeners
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and all of our listeners and all of our students in the course are very smart, very capable students.
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Oh, yeah.
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And at that level, that's when you start to overthink things.
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Oh, yeah.
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And if you have a good work ethic, you'll work harder than you actually need to.
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Exactly.
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Exactly.
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So, like, don't waste your time.
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IELTS is a, it's a self-contained test, right?
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Like only do what you need to do.
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You got it.
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So what you're saying is, Jessica, in our course, we do offer and outline a special template that goes across all types of essays.
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Is that what we're saying here?
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Exactly.
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Exactly.
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And the students in our course, they're required to finish the writing module first before they're allowed, right?
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To come into this power hour.
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Because again, like I don't want to waste my time either repeating stuff that's already in the course.
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So they have to do that first, but I can see that they are like, they're all putting in the effort.
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They're all starting with the same topic sentence in paragraph three.
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Like, nevertheless, this opinion is ludicrous.
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I mean, I just, I love reading this stuff.
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It's awesome vocabulary.
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It's perfect grammar.
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It's perfect transitions that other students doing the test simply don't have.
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Like they don't come prepared like this.
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But the students in our course, that's why we're having all these success stories.
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That's why they're getting sevens and eights on the reading and writing because they're trusting our strategies.
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They're putting in the work, right, to perfect these strategies in their mind.
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I love that.
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And then it pays off.
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Oh, that's so cool.
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I'm so excited that the students in our course are really putting in the time.
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You know, I respect that so much when you're willing to invest in yourself, invest in your dreams and actually put the time in.
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and especially if you have a kind of a shortcut, some strategies that we offer you guys, you are on the fast track to your vision, to your life vision.
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That's brilliant.
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I love it.
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Exactly.
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I know.
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It's so inspirational.
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I think, I think I keep talking about the Aline episode, but I think at the end of that episode, I said, thank you.
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You're amazing.
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Like five times.
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Cause I was just like, you're like so amazing.
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You did so much work and our listeners are going to be so inspired by you.
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And that is so cool.
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That's so cool.
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So guys, don't waste your time memorizing entire essays.
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It makes no sense whatsoever.
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Instead, find the right templates, the right outlines, and we do have them available for you in our course.
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And to get into that course, guys, you can go right now to allearsenglish.com forward slash keys, K E Y S.
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And you can get in there immediately to get started.
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Yeah.
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Do it today.
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Don't waste any more time.
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You got it.
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You got it.
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Any final thoughts here, Jessica, before we wrap up for today?
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Yeah.
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Just guys really think about what your goal is and don't, don't overwork yourself or overthink it.
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It doesn't have to be too hard and it doesn't have to be complicated.
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Yeah.
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You got it.
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Excellent.
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Excellent.
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I'm glad we got a chance to talk about reading, writing, writing today, Jessica, because we were writing, reading, because it's a big challenge for so many people.
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Oh my gosh. Of course.
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Yeah.
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No, it's good.
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It's good.
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It's a good episode, Lindsay.
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Good one, Jessica.
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Good one.
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I'll see you back here tomorrow.
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All right.
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Sounds good.
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All right.
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Bye-bye.
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Bye.
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Thanks so much for listening to the IELTS Energy Podcast from All Ears English.
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And if you want to get tips from Lindsay
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and Jessica every week on how to get a 7 on your next IELTS exam,
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Be sure to subscribe to our podcast on your computer or on your smartphone.
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Thanks again and see you soon.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This B2 speaking lesson is built on the video “IELTS Energy 215: A Terrific Template for Writing Task 2 on IELTS”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: essay, writing, student, Ielts, strategies. This video has 340 sentences and 3093 words to shadow. The speech runs for 17:50. The speaker talks at a natural 173 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. 86% 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 |
|---|---|---|
| memorize verb | /ˈmɛm.əˌɹaɪ̯z/ | To fully learn so as to have entirely available to the memory; to learn by heart, commit to memory. |
| template noun | /ˈtɛm.plɪt/ | A physical object whose shape is used as a guide to make other objects. |
| listener noun | /ˈlɪs(ə)nɚ/ | Someone who listens, especially to a speech or a broadcast. |
| examiner noun | /əɡˈzæmɪnɚ/ | A person who investigates someone or something. |
| paragraph noun | /ˈpæɹəɡɹæf/ | A passage in text that starts on a new line, the first line sometimes being indented, and usually marks a change of topic. |
| overthink verb | To think or analyze too much. | |
| recycle verb | /ɹəˈsaɪkəl/ | To break down and reuse component materials. |
| outline noun | /ˈaʊtlaɪn/ | A line marking the boundary of an object figure. |
| coherence noun | /koʊˈhɪɹ.ən(t)s/ | The quality of cohering, or being coherent; internal consistency. |
| cohesion noun | /kəʊˈhiː.ʒən/ | State of cohering, or of working together. |
| bind verb | /ˈbaɪ̯nd/ | To tie; to confine by any ligature. |
| insider noun | /ɪnˈsaɪdɚ/ | A person who has special knowledge about the inner workings of a group, organization, or institution. |
| quiz noun | /kwɪz/ | A competition in the answering of questions. |
| inspire verb | /ɪnˈspaɪə(ɹ)/ | To infuse into the mind; to communicate to the spirit; to convey, as by a divine or supernatural influence; to disclose preternaturally; to produce in, as by… |
| drum noun | /ˈdɹʌm/ | A percussive musical instrument spanned with a thin covering on at least one end for striking, forming an acoustic chamber; a membranophone. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| check out verb | To record the departure or withdrawal of someone or something (such as guests, employees, books, etc.). | |
| come up with verb | To manage to produce, deliver, or present (something) by inventing, creating, thinking of, or obtaining it. | |
| carry off verb | To transport away. | |
| come together verb | /ˈkʌm tʊˈɡɛðɚ/ | To assemble; to congregate; to combine. |
| come up to verb | To approach. | |
| go back to verb | To stem from; to originate in. | |
| go over verb | To look at carefully; to scrutinize; to analyze. | |
| pay off verb | To bribe, especially to deter oversight. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- I was like, is this even going to be exercise?
- I can't wait for next week.
- I mean, she's improved by so much, right?
- What if I want to include my opinion?
- Is that what we're saying here?
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 | we've talked · has improved · I've met |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | be carried · be pushed · are recycled |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 86 contractions and reduced forms, such as don't, they're, I'm. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: cohesion /kəʊˈhiː.ʒən/, memorization /ˈmem(ə)ɹaɪˌzeɪʃn̩/, shortcut /ˈʃɔːtkʌt/, inspirational /ˌɪnspəˈɹeɪʃənəl/, gosh /ɡɑːʃ/
- Long words — get the stress right: examiner /əɡˈzæmɪnɚ/, choreography /ˌkɔɹiˈɑɡɹəfi/, memorization /ˈmem(ə)ɹaɪˌzeɪʃn̩/, inspirational /ˌɪnspəˈɹeɪʃənəl/, vocabulary /vəˈkæb.jə.lə.ɹi/
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 memorize, template, listener.
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.