Shadowing Practice: IELTS Writing Is HARD Until You Learn This One Sentence - Learn English Speaking with YouTube
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In this video,
133 sentences
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In this video,
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I'm going to teach you everything you need to know about IELTS Writing Task 2 on just one piece of paper.
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So when you see the question on test day,
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you're going to start to panic and get stressed out,
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and it really doesn't need to be that way.
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Writing a band 7, 8,
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or even 9 essay is actually much easier than you'd think.
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In fact, here are 100 real band 7,
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8, and 9 essays written by real students using this exact system that I'm going to teach you today.
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And what might surprise you is that many of the same students
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that wrote those essays felt stuck for years because they'd been taught that a good essay needs to be complicated.
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I can not only show you on one piece of paper,
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but I can also show you exactly what to do in just one sentence.
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So a good essay clearly answers the question in a logical way using accurate and appropriate language.
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And once you understand this sentence,
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you will be able to write essays just like this,
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no matter what question, no matter what topic you get.
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Now this sentence might be a little bit too simple for you right now, but don't worry.
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What I'm going to do is explain to you part by part,
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step by step, exactly what each part of this sentence actually means
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and then you will be able to understand everything and write a great essay.
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So the first stage is what we call the thinking stage.
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Why is this so important?
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Well you have to show the examiner that you can clearly answer the question.
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So the first step is actually understanding the question.
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Take some time, think about what you're actually doing,
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think about what the question is saying,
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what it is asking you to do,
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and then an only then should you move on to the next step,
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which is generating relevant ideas.
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So why did I write relevant ideas here?
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Why did I not just say generate ideas?
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Think about your ideas as your little seed.
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If your seed is good,
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your plant is going to be good.
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And your ideas don't have to be brilliant.
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The examiner is not judging you on your knowledge of the topic.
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Your examiner is judging you on whether you clearly answer the question.
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So pick the simplest idea that is easiest for you to actually write about.
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But it's not just about thinking of relevant ideas.
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You also need to take those ideas and put them into your essay in a logical way.
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Logical means that it makes sense to the reader.
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It's easy to read so when the examiner looks at it,
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they understand your thought process.
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Think of writing as just taking the thoughts in your head and putting it on paper.
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And a way that we do this is using one of our structures.
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So we take our ideas and we put all of our ideas into this structure.
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This forces us to write in a logical, easy to understand way.
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And don't worry, I know many of you in the comments are asking,
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can you have these essays and can you have these structures?
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Of course, I've put them in the description.
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I've put all of them in one ebook for you.
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Just go to the description,
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click on that, and it's free for you.
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So once you have the structures,
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you can move on to the next phase,
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which is the planning phase.
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So what we want to do here is we want to take our ideas
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that we've generated and we want to insert them into our structure.
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But make sure that structure actually helps you answer question in a clear, logical way.
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So in general, your essay is going to look like this.
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Your first paragraph is going to be your introduction.
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And the first thing that you're going to do in your introduction is you're going to paraphrase the question.
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So paraphrasing what it does is it shows the examiner
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that you have understood the question and that you know how to paraphrase,
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which requires you to use good grammar, good vocabulary.
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And then the second thing you're going to do in your introduction is you're going to briefly answer the question.
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Why do we briefly answer it?
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Well, it immediately tells the examiner that you have understood the question and you know how to answer it.
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It also helps you
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because you're going to be able to structure the rest of your essay much much easier
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because you know exactly what you're going to write about.
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So do things that helps the reader,
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the examiner, understand that you're doing the right things and do things that helps you write a better essay.
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Then you're going to take those ideas and you're going to put them into your main body paragraphs.
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And this is where you go into detail.
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So you're not putting detail in here.
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You're going to put your detail in here.
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And the first thing you're going to write is a topic sentence.
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And the topic sentence just clearly states the main idea of the main body paragraph.
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That helps you clearly answer the question in a logical way.
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Then we need to be a little bit more clear.
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We need to go into detail.
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So we explain what we mean.
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Another way to think of explanation are the reasons.
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What are the reasons why you think that idea actually answers the question?
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And if you get stuck here,
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there's two things you can think about.
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Number one, imagine yourself in the shoes of the reader, the examiner.
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How would you explain that to them?
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And an even better way is imagine explaining this to a 10 year old who knows nothing about this topic.
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How would you clearly explain that to them?
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And then to help you clearly answer the question in a logical way even more,
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we're going to give an example because examples provide evidence that what you say is actually true.
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Think of evidence that helps support your main idea and that helps you clearly answer the question.
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So we normally have two main body paragraphs here and then we will write our final paragraph,
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which is our conclusion.
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And all we're doing in our conclusion is we are summarizing our answer.
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Why do we summarize our answer?
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You've probably guessed it.
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It clearly helps us answer the question in a logical way.
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And I know I have said this 17 times and I know you're probably very bored of it,
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but once you understand this,
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writing your essay becomes so much easier because you're focusing just on a few things rather than 17,
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18, 19 different things.
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And the beauty of this system is you do all your thinking and your planning before you start writing.
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We interviewed hundreds of past VIP students who got a band seven,
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eight, or nine in IELTS writing.
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And when I asked them the one thing they did to improve their score the most,
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planning and thinking before writing was the number one thing they said.
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So now let's look back at this sentence again,
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because there's other parts of it that we haven't touched on.
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So we've covered the first two parts.
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If you clearly answer the question in a logical,
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structured way that is easy to read,
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that's 50% of your total score right there.
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But the big mistake that I see many students making is messing up other 50%,
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the language, the grammar, the vocabulary.
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So we need to take all of this and we need to use accurate and appropriate language.
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And this is where most students mess up.
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This is not actually that difficult.
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This is a little bit more difficult.
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And they mess this part up because they're told to use fancy high-level words
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and complex grammar and that advice is actually what's keeping them stuck.
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So remember the 100 essays from real band 7, 8 and 9 students?
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We looked at all of those essays to see which words students actually used,
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to see what type of language they used.
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And what we find goes against what most students believe about vocabulary.
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How often band 7, 8 and 9 students use high-level vocabulary will actually shock you.
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In fact, we find 20 words that they use more than any others and they're much simpler than you think.
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If you want to see the data on exactly what those 20 words are
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and how often students use high-level vocabulary at a band 7,
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8 and 9 level, click this video to see the results.
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About This Lesson
In this lesson, you will learn effective strategies for tackling the IELTS Writing Task 2. Through a simple yet powerful sentence, this lesson will provide you with a structured approach to writing band 7, 8, or even 9 essays. You will practice understanding the exam question, generating relevant ideas, and organizing those ideas logically to create a coherent response. By mastering this technique, you will gain confidence in your ability to articulate your thoughts during English speaking practice, ultimately enhancing your overall writing skills.
Key Vocabulary & Phrases
- Band scores: Levels of achievement in the IELTS writing task.
- Logical structure: A clear and coherent arrangement of ideas in writing.
- Relevant ideas: Ideas that directly relate to the essay question.
- Thinking stage: The initial phase of analyzing the question and brainstorming.
- Generate: To produce or create ideas based on the given topic.
- Essay prompt: The specific question or task you are asked to address in your writing.
- Examine your thought process: To reflect on and clarify your reasoning before writing.
- Easy to read: A quality of writing that allows for straightforward comprehension.
Practice Tips
To effectively incorporate the concepts from this lesson into your English speaking practice, consider using a shadowing app or shadowing site that allows you to listen to and repeat phrases from the video. Here are some tailored tips for shadow speech based on the video's speed and tone:
- Focus on clarity: Pay attention to how the speaker emphasizes key phrases. This will help you develop a clearer speaking style.
- Slow it down: If necessary, reduce the video's speed so you can capture each word and mimic the intonation.
- Create pauses: After repeating a sentence, pause to reflect on its meaning. This will reinforce your understanding and retention of the structure.
- Use repetition: Repeat each sentence multiple times until you feel comfortable with the pronunciation and rhythm.
- Record yourself: Use recording tools in your shadowing app to compare your speaking with the original. This will aid in identifying areas for improvement.
Remember, practice makes perfect. By consistently working on these shadowing techniques, you'll improve both your writing and speaking skills in English!
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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