Shadowing Practice: IELTS Listening Section-3(Assignment on sleep and dreams) with answers - Learn English Speaking with Video

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Part 3.
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You will hear two psychology students called Luke and Susie discussing their assignment on sleep and dreams.
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First, you have some time to look at questions 21 to 24.
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Now listen carefully and answer questions 21 to 24.
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So, Luke, for our next psychology assignment, we have to do something on sleep and dreams.
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Right.
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I've just read an article suggesting why we tend to forget most of our dreams soon after we wake up.
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I mean, most of my dreams aren't that interesting anyway.
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But what it said was that if we remembered everything, we might get mixed up about what actually happened and what we dreamed.
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So it's a sort of protection.
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I hadn't heard that idea before.
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I'd always assumed that it was just that we didn't have room in our memories for all that stuff.
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Me too.
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What do you think about the idea that our dreams may predict the future?
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It's a belief that you get all over the world.
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Yeah.
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Lots of people have a story of it happening to them.
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But the explanation I've read is that for each dream that comes true, we have thousands that don't.
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But we don't notice those.
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We don't even remember them.
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We just remember the ones where something in the real world, like a view or an action, happens to trigger a dream memory.
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Right.
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So it's just a coincidence, really.
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Something else I read about is what they call segmented sleeping.
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That's a theory that hundreds of years ago, people used to get up in the middle of the night and have a chat or something to eat, then go back to bed.
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So I tried it myself.
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Why?
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Well, it's meant to make you more creative.
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I don't know why, but I gave it up after a week.
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It just didn't fit in with my lifestyle.
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But most preschool children have a short sleep in the day, don't they?
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There was an experiment some students did here last term to see at what age kids should stop having naps,
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but they didn't really find an answer.
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They spent a lot of time working out the most appropriate methodology, but the results didn't seem to show any obvious patterns.
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Right.
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Anyway, let's think about our assignment.
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Last time I had problems with the final stage, where we had to describe and justify how successful we thought we'd been.
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I struggled a bit with the action plan too.
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I was okay with the planning, but I got marked down for the self-assessment as well.
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And I had big problems with the statistical stuff.
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That's where I really lost marks.
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Right.
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Before you hear the rest of the discussion, you have some time to look at questions 25 to 30.
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Now listen and answer questions 25 to 30.
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So, shall we plan what we have to do for this assignment?
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OK.
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First, we have to decide on our research question.
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So, how about, is there a relationship between hours of sleep and number of dreams?
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OK.
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Then we need to think about who we'll do the study on.
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About 12 people?
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Right.
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And shall we use other psychology students?
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Let's use people from a different department.
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What about history?
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Yes, they might have interesting dreams.
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Or literature students.
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I don't really know any.
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OK, forget that idea.
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Then we have to think about our methodology.
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So we could use observation, but that doesn't seem appropriate.
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No, it needs to be self-reporting, I think.
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And we could ask them to answer questions online.
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But in this case, paper might be better, as they'll be doing it straight after they wake up.
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In fact, while they're still half asleep.
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Right.
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And we'll have to check the ethical guidelines for this sort of research.
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Because our experiment involves humans, so there are special regulations.
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Yes.
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I had a look at those for another assignment I did.
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There's a whole section on risk assessment, and another section on making sure they aren't put under any unnecessary stress.
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Let's hope they don't have any bad dreams.
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Yeah.
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Then, when we've collected all our data, we have to analyse it and calculate the correlation between our two variables.
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That's time sleeping and number of dreams.
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And then present our results visually in a graph.
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Right, and the final thing is to think about our research and evaluate it.
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So, that seems quite straightforward.
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Yeah.
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That is the end of part three.
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You now have half a minute to check your answers to part three.
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Thank you.

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Why Practice Speaking with This IELTS Listening Video?

Practicing with this video’s dialogue between Luke and Susie is ideal for IELTS speaking practice because it mirrors real-life academic discussion—casual yet structured, with natural back-and-forth. The topic of sleep and dreams is relatable, making it easier to engage with the content while honing fluency. Using a shadowing site to mimic their tone and pace helps build confidence in expressing ideas, a key IELTS skill. Plus, the conversational flow trains you to follow and respond to complex thoughts, critical for both speaking and listening sections.

Grammar & Expressions in Context

The dialogue is rich with practical structures. For example, "I'd always assumed that..." uses past perfect to contrast prior beliefs with new information—perfect for explaining opinions in IELTS. Phrases like "What do you think about the idea that..." teach how to introduce and debate topics, a must for part 3 of the speaking test. Also, "I got marked down for..." demonstrates natural way to discuss challenges, useful in self-assessment tasks. Finally, "how about, is there a relationship between..." shows how to propose research questions, a skill for academic speaking. These expressions are easy to adapt using shadow speech techniques.

Common Pronunciation Traps

Watch out for tricky words like "methodology" (stress on the third syllable: meth-uh-DOL-uh-jee) and "statistical" (avoid over-pronouncing the "t": stuh-TIS-ti-kuhl). The speakers’ casual tone may reduce vowel sounds in words like "didn’t" (dihd-nt) or "they’d" (thayd), which can trip up learners. Using a shadowing site like shadowspeaks helps mimic these nuances. Also, notice the rising intonation in questions like "Why?"—it signals curiosity, a key to natural speech. Mastering these will improve English pronunciation and make your speech sound more native-like.

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 →