Shadowing Practice: IELTS Speaking - Band 9.0 - with expert feedback (Romy from Australia 🇦🇺) - Learn English Speaking with Video

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Hello people of the world, it's Chris from IELTS Daily and I'm back with another mock exam video.

Are you ready to hear from a native speaker?

Today we've got Romy from Australia who is going to be answering questions just like the real test

and in previous videos when we've had native speakers some people have asked, well why do you have a native speaker?

There are a couple of reasons actually.

The first reason is that sometimes native speakers do have to take the test

because maybe they studied abroad in a country where English isn't the first language

and when they return to their country maybe they are doctors

or dentists they have to take the IELTS test so that's one reason.

The second reason that we use native speakers is

because we want to teach you lots of great features of language whether that's grammar vocabulary

or pronunciation you can learn many things and you can learn ideas from native speakers.

So let, without further ado, let's have a look at Romy from Australia.

Let's go.

Okay, I hope you're ready.

I'm just getting prepared and Romy is a university student and she's interested in rowing.

We're going to hear about her hobbies and a little bit about her daily routine.

So we should start by pressing play.

Hello and welcome to this practice exam conducted by IELTS Daily.

My name is Maddy and I'm your practice IELTS speaking examiner.

The questions in this test are designed to simulate the IELTS speaking test.

So let's start.

What's your first name please?

Rami.

Let's talk about you.

Okay, I'm jumping in here.

Is this the first time you've seen an IELTS practice test outside?

Well, I thought we'd do something different today and do something outside.

So you might hear the sounds of birds or the sounds of the wind.

Just ignore it.

I thought this was a new and innovative, something a little bit different for you.

I hope you enjoy it.

Do you have a wide circle of friends or just a few close friends?

I tend to have a wide range of friends.

I don't have many friends that I would consider very close to me.

I like to have a lot of people I can reach out to

and a lot of different types of friends that I can go to for different reasons. So yeah.

The first point is, and I'm sure you all agree, Romy has fantastic fluency.

All her sentences are joined together.

She doesn't have any particularly noticeable breaks between the sentences and this is a really key feature

of fluency and coherence and also pronunciation.

Did you notice at the end, and this is a very common feature of people who are young today,

they often finish a sentence by saying, so yeah.

And that is kind of a natural conclusion of a sentence

and these types of phrases are often changing over time and

so you might find that people who say

so yeah now maybe in 20 years won't say that but it is a good feature of native and natural language.

I'm so impressed by Romy's first attempt.

She's never done this test before.

She doesn't really know about the test and she's given lots of expansion on her answers and you know elaborated a lot.

Good job, Romy.

And how often do you see your friends?

It depends.

I try to see them as much as possible.

It can be very hard to arrange meetings with friends, especially when you have such a wide range.

I see friends that I do sport with every day almost because I play sport every day.

Then other people I don't see as often, but I'm still just as close with when I meet up with them finally.

Okay, so in the speaking test, you're going to be marked for pronunciation features.

And one of the features is your ability to join words and phrases together.

And Romy does that so naturally here.

I don't remember exactly what she says, but you'll notice that she links all her words together and chunks them.

And this idea of pronunciation chunking is really important in the test.

And do you have a best friend?

Um, I would, I wouldn't really say that I have a best friend.

I have a couple of friends I would consider myself to be closer with,

um, but I think, I think the word best friend can be very, um, set in stone, um, and you know, things change,

life is pretty variable, so, um, I tend to just know who my close friends are and, yeah, I keep it at that.

Let's talk about language.

Romy used a phrase here,

she says it's not set in stone and the phrase set in stone means it's not fixed or it can't be changed.

So when she talks about being not not being set in stone.

It means it can be changed.

So this would be an example of an idiomatic phrase.

It's less common and this would be at the band eight or nine level in the vocabulary, the lexical resource.

Really great feature of idiomatic language.

Again, wonderful fluency, really impressed by Romy at this stage.

Now I'd like to move on to the topic of evenings.

What do you normally do in the evenings?

If it's a normal day, I'll be exhausted.

I'm always pretty tired.

So I tend to just relax, have dinner with my family.

And then I'll try and read a book if I have time or if it's during university,

I usually have to do quite a little bit of study.

If it's during the holidays or sometime where I have more time and I'm not as tired, I tend to want to catch up with friends

so I'll go out to dinner in the city

or I might watch a movie with friends or go out for food and drinks.

It really depends.

A couple of things to take away from this part.

You may notice that Rami does use the phrase tend to a lot.

She's probably used it two or three times so far.

Now is that a problem in the test?

I don't think so.

In the test examiners understand that you are nervous,

you've got this big weight on your shoulders sitting in front of an examiner for the first time.

You may repeat words or phrases under pressure.

It's a part of being nervous.

So this idea of using tend to, tend to a lot is, is, is okay.

She had some great grammatical complexity.

So she had lots of if sentences.

100

She says if this happens then this happens.

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Loads and loads of really nice grammatical features there.

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No mistakes so far.

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All really good, you know, accuracy. So, nice.

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And would you like to do an evening course in a subject?

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I'm not sure.

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I've never really considered it.

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I think...

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I don't think I would because evenings are a very precious time to me.

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It's a time I like to use to do stuff for myself and to relax.

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So I don't think I would try and fill my evenings with anything else.

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One of the other features of pronunciation relates to inflection

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and intonation and she said something like I don't think I would

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and did you notice how she went up at the end?

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Go back and have a listen.

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One of the things the examiner is listening for is inflection

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and intonation so going up or going down depending on the situation.

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So it could be that if you're making a list or

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if you are adding something to a sentence you would need to change your inflection or your intonation.

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It's a really tricky feature of pronunciation and that's what they're listening for at the band nine level.

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Rami does it perfectly, she does it really naturally and just like a native speaker would.

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Now let's think about the topic of money.

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Are you good at saving money?

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No, I'm not good at saving money at all.

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I tend to do a lot of shopping.

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So I really like finding new brands and new boutiques.

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And I also love to go out and socialise with my friends.

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So I find it very hard to save money.

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And that's something I'm definitely trying to work on.

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I like this little conclusion at the end.

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That's something that I'm trying to work on.

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It's showing the examiner that you've considered and thought about the answer quite a lot and that you are bringing this particular,

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let's call it a paragraph, it's not a writing paragraph but this section of language.

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You're bringing it to a natural conclusion.

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I thought that was a really nice thing and she also, throughout the test you might hear Romy say,

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you know, and a lot of students have asked, can I use the word you in the speaking test.

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Absolutely, it's totally normal.

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We've spoken about it before but you will notice that Romy says,

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you know, sometimes during her speech is really what a native speaker would do in the test.

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And have you ever made an expensive purchase?

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Yes, I have.

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I'd say I do a lot of rowing and that is a very expensive sport.

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So I'd that all my expenses for for

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that sport have been very large I would say

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and the memberships are always pretty expensive so I consider it something

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that is very important to me and it's obviously like one of my main sports

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that I do so I tend to put it at a high priority.

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Did you notice at this point Romy looks for content

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so this would be an example of content related hesitation she's not looking for words, she's looking for ideas.

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She says Yes, I have.

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And did you notice how she slowed down her speech?

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Because she's trying to buy herself more time.

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She's trying to think about some ideas.

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Really common for native speakers to do that

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and you are welcome to do that during the test

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and you can still score about nine in the Fluency and Coherence if you do that.

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What would you do if someone gave you a large amount of money?

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That's a very good question.

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I'm really not sure.

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There's nothing that I really would need to spend it on right now.

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You notice that Romy uses this phrase?

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That's a very good question.

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Don't overuse that phrase in the test.

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If you're the type of person that is looking for these filler phrases to buy yourself some more time at the beginning, don't overuse them.

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Romy has never prepared for this test before

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so she has used this really naturally but again she's trying to buy herself some more time.

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I'd like to think that I would donate some of it as everyone, everybody would.

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I think it would really help for my savings account,

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go towards saving up for a house in the future or just towards general day -to -day life.

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I love this phrase, I'd like to think that.

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I would like to think that.

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I'd like to think that.

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It's showing this hypothetical situation.

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What would happen if you received a large amount of money?

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Well, I'm putting myself in that position and I'd like to think that I donate some of it.

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Nice language.

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Part two.

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In the next part of the test, I'm going to give you a topic and I'd like you to speak for one to two minutes.

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You'll have one minute to think about what you want to say

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and I'll give you a pen and some paper to make notes if you want.

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Is that clear?

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Yes.

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Here is your paper and here is your pen.

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You have one minute to prepare.

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Thank you.

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Now I'd like you to talk about a time when you were disappointed by someone or something.

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Remember you have one to two minutes for this so don't worry if I stop you.

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I'll tell you when the time is up.

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Sure start speaking now um

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i used to get pretty disappointed in my sisters um every time i would come home

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and they would have trashed my room or taken stuff out of the drawers

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or still stolen my clothes it used to be a very tough a very touchy subject in my household

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because clothes would always go missing and i would always be very disappointed

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and angry and wondering where my favorite clothes were and i think

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that coming to college has made me realize how much i value them as sisters

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and how much I really don't don't mind

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that they steal my clothes anymore or that they say things that sometimes let me down.

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I think that family has become such an important value to me

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and I have realized that because I have moved away from home now

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and I now find myself missing them a lot and

200

so in reality I've realized it's very much not a big deal at all.

201

this doesn't seem to happen as much now I think it's a massive issue of communication

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and now I really trust my sisters and don't mind if they ask me to borrow something

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so yeah I think my mum tried to get tries to get involved as well

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which makes it even more of a bigger deal but really

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when I look back on it I can I can see that it's not a big thing at all

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and it's just made me realise how much people tend to fight over such small things

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and get disappointed in people for things that they really didn't have a negative,

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that they really didn't do intentionally to hurt you or to put you down or make you feel bad.

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So I think that's a really important thing to realise.

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Wow, didn't Romy do an amazing job with her fluency?

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She didn't stop talking.

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She talked more about her answers.

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She talked about how she felt.

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She even changed the time of when she was talking about.

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Just want to talk about some of the language she used.

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The first piece of language was touchy subject and that's a really high level piece of language.

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If you talk about a touchy subject, it's a subject that maybe makes you emotional or makes you angry.

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Good word.

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Then she said and the pronunciation she talks about and making me angry

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and she changed the inflection and the intonation at the end.

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Go back and listen to how she puts emphasis on that and that's a natural feature of pronunciation.

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She's used the language trashed my room so she talked about her

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sisters coming home and trashing her room which means to make a mess

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or to take things out of the drawers and create a problem in the room.

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And then she realized that she didn't reach the time limit

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so she talked about what happened in the past and then she said well that doesn't happen anymore.

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So she wanted to find some more language to be able to use to make the time go for longer

228

and and did a really great job at that.

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You may have heard as well that she did say, so yeah, again, which was a feature of language in there.

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I want to stay on the topic of feelings.

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Is it important for people to share their honest opinion about things? At times, yes.

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I think honesty is one of the most important virtues.

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I think that being honest with someone helps you build that trust and that communication.

234

And I think that I always feel closer to someone when they've shared or they've spoken honestly to me.

235

But I also do think at times it can be better to tell a little white lie,

236

especially in the case where it's going to hurt someone else's feelings or where it's really not necessary for them to know.

237

And it will just ricochet and have other effects and just impact everyone around.

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I loved Romy's answer here.

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So much detail, so much elaboration does a wonderful job with a fluency grammatical range

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so many grammatically complex sentences nice features of language um really really really wonderful piece of work

241

is there a good way to give constructive feedback to someone about something

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yes i definitely think there is and this is something

243

that i've learned about in one of courses I'm studying at uni too

244

which was about sports coaching so how we can give constructive feedback

245

and help our students to learn to learn from their mistakes

246

and I think it's really important

247

when giving constructive feedback to say something positive first to make sure you're not too negative

248

and that you don't have a negative tone to your voice

249

that you're happy and

250

that you're just generally trying to help them you want to give off the vibe

251

that you're just trying to help them and not that you're trying to put them down.

252

I think it's one of the worst things when someone's telling you something

253

and you know they're just trying to let you down and trying to make you feel bad about yourself.

254

So I always try and start with something positive and then say, how about we try this or how about next time you do this?

255

I think always phrasing it as a question is also a more sensitive way to approach the topic.

256

In pronunciation there's a feature of of language which is called the weak form.

257

The weak form is when we don't put the stress on the the word

258

and if you go back

259

and listen to Romy she very often uses the weak form of the sound to

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and to see to do we don't say to see

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or to do we say to see to do

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and she uses this weak form with this sound called the

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schwa the a sound the to to to see to do to watch to sing

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and you will notice that she uses the weak form really well.

265

And what can people learn from feelings of disappointment?

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A lot.

267

I think in terms of my sport, I've been disappointed in results a lot of the time.

268

I think disappointment can act as motivation very easily.

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It can be turned and manipulated into many things.

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But I think if you always try and manipulate it a positive way

271

and try and use it to your advantage try

272

and use it to motivate or to change something

273

that you would have liked you wouldn't have liked to be said about yourself

274

I think it can always be used in a good way thank you

275

that is the end of this practice IELTS speaking test thank you very much to Maddy

276

and to Romy and I don't know what you think

277

but this was a really wonderful example of how a person can naturally answer questions,

278

the range of vocabulary, the range of grammatical structures.

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And I know that for many of you who are trying to reach the band seven, maybe this feels like it's unachievable.

280

Maybe it feels like you're not going to get to Romy's level.

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Well, the important thing to remember is that if you really want to get to Romy's level, you can.

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It takes a bit of hard work

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but for most of you you're not actually trying to reach Romy's level

284

but what you can do is take away many of the things

285

that she does really well in her test

286

and try to apply them to yours and learn the features of language that Romy is using.

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So what would I give Romy's score?

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Well it probably won't surprise you

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that for all four sections Romy is going to score nine and we'll talk about them each individually.

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Fluency and coherence, she He explained.. she gave reasons, she didn't stop speaking, she didn't have any hesitation looking for language.

291

It was all extremely natural and this word natural is very important.

292

For lexical resource, again she had a wide range of vocabulary.

293

She used words like trashing my room or it's not set in stone.

294

You don't have to use lots of them throughout your speech

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but you do have to demonstrate that you understand how to use idiomatic phrases and less common phrases, phrasal verbs, All of those high -level words.

296

Good job.

297

Band nine.

298

Grammatical range and accuracy.

299

I didn't hear any problems with accuracy.

300

She made a good use of a wide range of different types of complex structures.

301

So that will talk about the range of language.

302

If sentences, when sentences, that sentences, which sentences, all of these subordination sentences.

303

Good job.

304

Band nine. And pronunciation.

305

Romy was effortless, she was easy to understand, she had good chunking, she had good inflection and intonation.

306

So many things you can learn from Romy here, a band nine.

307

I hope you took away lots of things from Romy's speech here.

308

I think she did a wonderful job and this video serves as an example of learning ideas.

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Learning what other people do and how they do it is a great way for you to learn.

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I'm a teacher so I can guide you.

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I'm not going to be able to fix all of your individual mistakes

312

and it's your job to go away and watch these videos

313

and try and take something away from them and say I'm going to try and do this throughout my next speaking test.

314

So thank you on behalf of IELTS Daily for coming back and watching this video.

315

I hope you enjoyed it.

316

Please leave your ideas in the comments section below.

317

If we made a mistake in the video then I'm sorry, I don't think that we're all perfect.

318

So please, if you can give some feedback on how you think Romy did, how she could improve if she,

319

if you think that she didn't do well in a certain area, we'd love to hear those particular pieces of feedback back from you.

320

Don't forget after this you can watch the entire Romy Speaking Practice Test without any interruptions from me.

321

This is a great opportunity for you to go sit listen maybe put it on

322

while you are sitting and relaxing if you're on the bus going to work

323

or to school or to your college please put it on

324

and have a listen thanks for joining I hope

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you guys are doing really well in your IELTS preparation

326

I'll see you in the next video take care bye for now hello

327

and welcome to this practice exam conducted by IELTS daily.

328

My name is Maddie and I'm your practice IELTS speaking examiner.

329

The questions in this test are designed to simulate the IELTS speaking test.

330

So let's start.

331

What's your first name please?

332

Romy.

333

Let's talk about you.

334

Do you have a wide circle of friends or just a few close friends?

335

I tend to have a wide range of friends.

336

I don't have many friends that I would consider very close to me.

337

I like to have a lot of people I can reach out to

338

and a lot of different types of friends that I can go to for different reasons. So, yeah.

339

And how often do you see your friends?

340

It depends.

341

I try to see them as much as possible.

342

It can be very hard to arrange meetings with friends, especially when you have such a wide range.

343

I see friends that I do sport with every day almost because I play sport every day.

344

Then other people I don't see as often, but I'm still just as close with when I meet up with them finally.

345

And do you have a best friend?

346

I wouldn't really say that I have a best friend.

347

I have a couple of friends I would consider myself to be closer with.

348

But I think the word best friend can be very set in stone.

349

And, you know, things change.

350

Life is pretty variable.

351

So I tend to just know who my close friends are and keep it at that.

352

Now I'd like to move on to the topic of evenings.

353

What do you normally do in the evenings?

354

If it's a normal day, I'll be exhausted.

355

I'm always pretty tired, so I tend to just relax, have dinner with my family.

356

And then I'll try and read a book if I have time or if it's during university.

357

I usually have to do quite a little bit of study.

358

If it's during the holidays or sometime where I have more time and I'm not as tired, I tend to want to catch up with friends.

359

So I'll go out to dinner in the city

360

or I might watch a movie with friends or go out for food and drinks.

361

It really depends.

362

And would you like to do an evening course in a subject?

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I'm not sure.

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I've never really considered it.

365

I think, I don't think I would because evenings are a very precious time to me.

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It's a time I like to use.

367

to do stuff for myself and to relax.

368

So I don't think I would try and fill my evenings with anything else.

369

Now let's think about the topic of money.

370

Are you good at saving money?

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No, I'm not good at saving money at all.

372

I tend to do a lot of shopping.

373

So I really like finding new brands and new boutiques.

374

And I also love to go out and socialise with my friends.

375

So I find it very hard to save money.

376

and that's something I'm definitely trying to work on.

377

And have you ever made an expensive purchase?

378

Yes, I have.

379

I'd say I do a lot of rowing and that is a very expensive sport.

380

So I'd say that all my expenses for that sport have been very large,

381

I would say, and the memberships are always pretty expensive.

382

So I consider it something that is very important to me.

383

And it's obviously like one of my main sports that I do.

384

So I tend to put it at a high priority.

385

And what would you do if someone gave you a large amount of money?

386

It's a very good question.

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I'm really not sure.

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There's nothing that I really would need to spend it on right now.

389

I'd like to think that I would donate some of it as everyone everybody would I

390

think it would really help for my savings account go towards saving up for a house in the future

391

or just towards general day -to -day life part two in the next part of the test

392

I'm going to give you a topic

393

and I'd like you to speak for one to two minutes

394

you'll have one minute to think about what you want to

395

and I'll give you a pen and some paper to make notes if you want.

396

Is that clear?

397

Yes.

398

Here is your paper and here is your pen.

399

You have one minute to prepare.

400

Thank you.

401

Now I'd like you to talk about a time when you were disappointed by someone or something.

402

Remember you have one to two minutes for this so don't worry if I stop you.

403

I'll tell you when the time is up.

404

Sure.

405

Start speaking now.

406

I used to get pretty disappointed in my sisters.

407

Every time I would come home and they would have trashed my room

408

or taken stuff out of the drawers or still stolen my clothes.

409

It used to be a very touchy subject in my household

410

because clothes would always go missing and I would always be very disappointed and angry and wondering where my favourite clothes were.

411

And I think that coming to college has made me realise how much I value them as sisters

412

and how much I really don't mind that they steal my clothes anymore

413

or that they say things that sometimes let me down.

414

I think that family has become such an important value to me

415

and I have realised that because I have moved away from home now

416

and I now find myself missing them a lot and

417

so in reality I've realised it's very much not a big deal at all.

418

This doesn't seem to happen as much now.

419

I think it's a massive issue of communication

420

and now I really trust my sisters and don't mind if they ask me to borrow something.

421

So yeah, I think my mum tries to get involved as well which makes it even more of a bigger deal.

422

But really when I look back on it, I can see that it's not a big thing at all

423

and it's just made me realise how much people tend to fight over such small things

424

and get disappointed in people for things that they really didn't have a negative,

425

that they really didn't do intentionally to hurt you or to put you down or make you feel bad.

426

So I think that's a really important thing to realise.

427

Thank you.

428

I want to stay on the topic of feelings.

429

Is it important for people to share their honest opinion about things? At times, yes.

430

I think honesty is one of the most important virtues.

431

I think that being honest with someone helps you build

432

that trust and that communication and I think

433

that I always feel closer to someone when they've shared

434

or they've spoken honestly to me

435

but I also do think at times

436

it can be better to tell a little white lie especially

437

in the case where it's going to hurt someone else's feelings

438

or where it's really not necessary for them to know

439

and it will just ricochet and have other effects and just impact everyone around.

440

Is there a good way to give constructive feedback to someone about something?

441

Yes, I definitely think there is.

442

And this is something that I've learned about in one of the courses I'm studying at uni too, which was about sports coaching.

443

So how we can give constructive feedback and help our students to learn from their mistakes.

444

And I think it's really important when giving constructive feedback to say something positive first, to make sure you're not too negative and

445

that you don't have a negative tone to your voice

446

that you're happy and

447

that you're just generally trying to help them you want to give off the vibe

448

that you're just trying to help them and not

449

that you're trying to put them down I think it's one of the worst things

450

when someone's telling you something and you know they're just trying to let you down

451

and trying to make you feel bad about yourself

452

so I always try and start with something positive

453

and then say how about we try this

454

or how about next time you you do this I think always phrasing

455

it as a question is also a more sensitive way to approach the topic.

456

And what can people learn from feelings of disappointment?

457

A lot.

458

I think in terms of my sport, I've been disappointed in results a lot of the time.

459

I think disappointment can act as motivation very easily.

460

It can be turned and manipulated it into many things

461

but I think if you always try and manipulate it a positive way

462

and try and use it to your advantage try

463

and use it to motivate or to change something that you would have liked

464

you wouldn't have liked to be said about yourself I think it can always be used in a good way.

465

Thank you that is the end of this practice IELTS speaking test.

466

Thank you.

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This speaking lesson is built on the video “IELTS Speaking - Band 9.0 - with expert feedback”. This video has 466 sentences and 5339 words to shadow. The speech runs for 31:42. The speaker talks at a natural 168 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. 85% 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

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

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
phrase noun	/ˈfɹeɪ̯z/	A short written or spoken expression.
topic noun	/ˈtɑpɪk/	A subject; a theme; a category or general area of interest.
disappointed adjective	/ˌdɪsəˈpɔɪnɪd/	Defeated of expectations or hope; experiencing disappointment; let down.
pronunciation noun	/pɹəˌnʌn.siˈeɪ.ʃən/	The formal or informal way in which a word is made to sound when spoken.
feedback noun	/ˈfiːdˌbæk/	Critical assessment of a process or activity or of their results.
cloth noun	/klɒθ/	A fabric, usually made of woven, knitted, or felted fibres or filaments, such as used in dressing, decorating, cleaning or other practical use. Sometimes…
realise verb		Non-Oxford British standard spelling of realize.
constructive adjective	/kənˈstɹʌktɪv/	Relating to or causing construction.
bind verb	/ˈbaɪ̯nd/	To tie; to confine by any ligature.
examiner noun	/əɡˈzæmɪnɚ/	A person who investigates someone or something.
trash noun	/tɹæʃ/	Useless physical things to be discarded; rubbish; refuse.
relax verb	/ɹɪˈlæks/	To make something loose.
depend verb	/dɪˈpɛnd/	To be contingent or conditioned; to have something as a necessary condition
naturally adverb	/ˈnæt͡ʃ.(ə.)ɹə.li/	In a natural manner.
steal verb	/stiːl/	To take illegally, or without the owner's permission, something owned by someone else without intending to return it.

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
go back verb		To return to a place or state after having been there at a previous time.
give off verb	/ɡɪv ɒf/	To emit; to produce and send forth; to come across in some manner.
go out verb		To leave, especially a building.
take away verb	/ˌteɪk əˈweɪ/	To remove something and put it in a different place.
come back verb		To return to a place.
go away verb		To depart or leave a place.
go down verb		To descend; to move from a higher place to a lower one.
go up verb		To move upwards.

Sentences worth repeating

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

Are you ready to hear from a native speaker?
What's your first name please?
What do you normally do in the evenings?
If it's a normal day, I'll be exhausted.
Are you good at saving money?

Grammar in this video

The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:

Structure	In the video
“Used to” used to + verb — a past habit or state that is no longer true	used to get · used to be
Conditional sentences if + clause, will/would + verb — a condition and its result	If it's a normal day, I'll be
Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now	we've had · you've seen · I've never really considered
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	are designed · are joined · be marked

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 156 contractions and reduced forms, such as I'm, don't, you're. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “th” sounds: cloth /klɒθ/, hypothetical /ˌhaɪpəˈθɛtɪkəl/
The “sh” and “zh” sounds: pronunciation /pɹəˌnʌn.siˈeɪ.ʃən/, trash /tɹæʃ/, conclusion /kənˈkluːʒən/, examination /ɪɡˌzæm.ɪˈneɪ.ʃən/, motivation /ˈmoʊ.tə.veɪ.ʃən/
Long words — get the stress right: disappointed /ˌdɪsəˈpɔɪnɪd/, pronunciation /pɹəˌnʌn.siˈeɪ.ʃən/, examiner /əɡˈzæmɪnɚ/, naturally /ˈnæt͡ʃ.(ə.)ɹə.li/, disappointment /ˌdɪsəˈpɔɪntmənt/

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 phrase, topic, disappointed.

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 →

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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?