Shadowing Practice: IELTS Speaking Test with Feedback – Band 8.5 [+ Free Speaking PDF] - Learn English Speaking with YouTube
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So let's start off by talking about the weather.
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So let's start off by talking about the weather.
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Can you describe the weather today?
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The weather today is so nice.
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It's winter, yet it's still summer,
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but the temperature is acceptable.
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You can have like a light jacket.
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During the day you can go to the beach.
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So for me it's the perfect weather.
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What's your favorite kind of weather?
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Summer.
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I like summer.
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I like going to the beach,
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spending time with the family outside, exploring.
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Is there any type of weather you really don't like?
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I like winter, but I don't like to be in a place where it's like minus 20 degrees.
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I like to go outside,
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not to be stuck at home.
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Let's talk about photography.
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Do you like taking photos?
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So much.
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I took a course at the university,
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a photography course, and I had like 19 over 20.
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It's my passion.
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And I have my own camera, my own lenses.
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I like it.
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Do you like to shoot people or landscapes?
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Babies, mainly.
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You can play with the display.
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You can play with everything.
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Like it's, I don't know, I like it.
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What do you think it takes to become a great photographer?
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A good eye and to know how to capture the moment.
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You have to have it.
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Otherwise you will like wait for the, yeah, take a pose.
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No, don't wait for this person to take a pose just follow the person and capture the moment.
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Now let's talk about animals.
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Do you like animals?
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So much, especially dogs.
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I had dogs in my life,
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but my main issue was my mom.
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So because she used to have allergy,
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I used to take them back to my grandma.
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At that time, I felt like I have a baby at home,
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taking the dog for a haircut to the doctor.
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I treat the dog like a baby.
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Do you think that animals should be kept in zoos?
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Definitely not.
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It's not their place.
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We created the zoo.
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So no. It's their freedom.
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You cannot put them in a cage where they have to sit there.
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Or the birds.
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It's not their place.
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Their place is the sky,
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is the forest, not the zoo.
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Do you have any animals in your home as pets?
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No, no. I used to have dogs,
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but now no, because of the weather here.
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I feel it's difficult to have a dog at home,
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to take the dog outside for a walk in like 50 degrees.
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So no, I would love to have, but no, not here.
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Now let's talk about colors.
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In your country, what are the most popular colors?
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I can tell you about the color of the flag.
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You know we don't have a specific color in the country.
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The color of the flag is red, white and green.
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My favorite color is black so I don't know.
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We don't have a specific color in the country.
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Do you prefer to wear dark colors or light colors?
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Recently both.
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Before I used to like dark colors more.
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Maybe when I lost weight I switched to bright and light colors.
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Do colors affect your mood?
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Definitely.
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If you live in a dark room,
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you will feel like everything is dark.
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That's why I like to have white walls, everything white.
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You feel the house is bright and it reflects on you.
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So I'll describe the house of my grandma.
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So who lives there?
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My grandma lives there.
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And my grandpa used to live there.
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Where the property is, it's in the mountain in Beirut, in Lebanon.
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What it looks like?
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It looks like a castle for me.
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It's not a castle but for me it's like a castle.
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We have a lot of memories there.
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That's why I decided to talk about this house.
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If you like it definitely I do.
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I like this house as I mentioned because it reminds me of my childhood
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and the best days we spent there and we're still spending when we go to see her.
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We have a lot of memories we had good food she
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used to cook a lot for us the house is simply like I feel like home I just love it
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and especially
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because it's an old house it's still the same till now
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the second I enter the house I feel like I'm back to my childhood the memories comes back
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so yeah as I told you it's a big and old house.
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You know, the old houses you have the,
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how we say it, the walls are like,
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you feel like you're in a castle, but it's a house.
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The smell of the nature, the garden, everything.
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I like everything in this house.
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So we've been talking about a house that you like,
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and we're gonna continue to talk about houses.
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Do you think it's better for people to live in an apartment or a house?
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To thank you for watching this video,
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I want to give you a free course that has helped thousands of students improve their IELTS speaking score.
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What it's going to do is take you through every single part of the test and give you strategies for part 1,
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part 2 and part 3 and also allow you to practice at home for free and get feedback.
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To sign up for that for free,
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all you have to do is just click the link in the description.
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Thanks very much and let's get back to the video.
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For me it's better to live in a villa than in an apartment
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because when you have babies one he will wake up he will wake up the other one
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so it's easier to live in a villa and or in a duplex to separate.
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Do you think it's better for someone to buy a house or to rent?
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It depends.
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If the prices are high like now,
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it's better to wait because they will go down.
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So wait until you find the right time to buy.
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But definitely, yes, I'm with the buying.
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I'm not with the renting thing.
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I feel like I'm losing my money.
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Do you think that there is a certain age
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when someone should move out of their parents' home and move into their own home?
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For me it's like when I got married I moved.
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We don't have this in Beirut like at the age of 18 we have to move
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or we have to have our own apartment.
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No, at the contrary I enjoy spending time with them.
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So what I'm going to do now is give you some feedback.
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We did one before and you've come back.
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Your grammar is good.
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Your vocabulary is good.
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Your pronunciation is good.
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We really focused on coherence and fluency in the last one.
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Overall, your fluency and coherence was quite good.
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At times you were searching for the correct word and that affected your line of thinking and you would maybe avoid that.
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I think, again, you should not be afraid to paraphrase and explain the thing and say,
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I don't know the word for this,
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but explain what it is.
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I think because you live in the Middle East,
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you can often use Arabic words maybe and say,
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well, in Arabic, it's this.
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Yeah.
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People will know, even English speakers would know what you're saying.
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And of course more people here speak both English and Arabic and then French and things like that.
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So maybe you're just not used to operating 100% in English.
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Yeah.
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And that could be an issue.
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But overall, you did well.
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One thing that you did in part two was you looked at the cue card and you just said,
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who lives there?
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Started talking about that, where it is, what it looks like.
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Explain why you like it.
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I'm answering the question.
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You are very capable of not looking at this at all.
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I didn't want to skip any questions.
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Yeah, but you can skip them.
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So this is just a guide to help you,
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but a better way of doing it would be,
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talk to me like I'm your friend or your colleague,
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and just use this when you get stuck.
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When people are looking down and looking at this and reading,
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they sound less fluent.
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What also happens is you are getting through each of these very quickly.
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So then at the end,
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when you had nothing else to talk about,
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then you have to think a lot and that affects your fluency.
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And then you repeat the same idea and everything.
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So if you were doing the test again,
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I would say just practice not using these too much.
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And then part three, overall quite good,
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but you generally just gave your own personal point of view.
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So you So you just said, I think this.
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A way of developing your answer a little bit more would be,
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okay, so I think that buying a house is better because I don't want to give money away to landlords.
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But I can see why some people would prefer to rent because there's a greater freedom with rent.
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So if you rent a place,
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you are not tied to that location and you can leave at any time.
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So there's a lot of benefits to that.
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But the drawback is you're wasting a lot of money.
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you were giving very straight good answers outside of this test.
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If you gave those answers, totally fine.
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But because this is a test that they wanted you to develop your ideas and talk about what is going on,
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that might hold you back a little bit.
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There's nothing wrong with your English.
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You gave a very interesting performance,
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and I think it's very useful for people to see this video because it shows that someone could have very good English,
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English, a very high level,
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but they're not used to the format of the test and
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that can lead to them getting a lower score than they believed that they were capable of.
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Because IELTS is not just having great English,
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it's learning the format of the test and giving the examiner what they want.
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And you just have to learn that a little bit more.
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It just comes down to practice.
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a day of practice and you would be ready to get the score.
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Amazing.
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About This Lesson
In this engaging lesson, you will practice your English speaking skills through a simulated IELTS speaking test. The video provides a realistic environment where you can learn to articulate your thoughts on various topics, including weather, photography, and animals. By viewing the responses of a high-scoring candidate, you will gain insights into effective speaking techniques that can help you achieve a band score of 8.5 or higher. This lesson is particularly beneficial for those aiming to learn English with YouTube and improve their IELTS speaking practice.
Key Vocabulary & Phrases
- Acceptable temperature: A comfortable range of heat or cold.
- Photography: The art of taking and processing photographs.
- Capture the moment: To take a photo that freezes a specific event or feeling in time.
- Allergy: A harmful reaction of the body to certain substances.
- Freedom: The power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants.
- Passion: A strong interest or enthusiasm for something.
Practice Tips
To enhance your speaking skills effectively, consider using a shadowing app that allows you to mimic native speakers in real time. As you engage with the video, try to imitate the speed and intonation of the speaker. Remember that clear pronunciation and fluency are crucial, especially for English speaking practice tailored towards the IELTS exam. Here are a few specific tips:
- Watch the video at a slower speed initially, then gradually return to the normal speed to get comfortable with the pacing.
- Pause the video after significant phrases or sentences, and attempt to repeat them using the same tone and emotion.
- Record yourself while shadowing, and compare your pronunciation and rhythm to that of the speaker. This will help you identify areas for improvement.
- Engage in daily practice sessions, focusing on different topics extracted from the videos you watch. This will broaden your vocabulary and speaking agility.
By integrating these techniques with your regular studies, you will find that your confidence and capability in English speaking—particularly in high-pressure situations such as an IELTS exam—will significantly improve.
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.
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