Shadowing Practice: Importance Of Communication In Construction Safety - Learn English Speaking with Video
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The importance of communication in construction safety.
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This topic is near and dear to my heart because it really all does come about through communication.
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And I'm gonna signpost those points of communication throughout our safety journey, and I know you're gonna love it.
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So if you're interested in that, stay with me.
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So let's talk about safety.
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First of all, you may not be my style.
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I do not believe in any way, shape, or form in the, oh, let's just go invite people to be safe,
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and the thought that they will do it.
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I don't believe it.
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I never have.
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I likely never will.
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I believe that on projects, we set a standard, we train on that standard, and we support on that standard, and that if a human being,
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after the environment, the process, the system, the training, the culture and their genetic wiring is all set up for them to win
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and they still decide to not follow those safety requirements
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and have that be a top priority
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that they can go elsewhere off of the project to a safe place until they get the tools the training
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or the attitude adjustment to come back
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and be safe here's the fact this is fact
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if you go up and say oh hey sir your safety glasses are not on,
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I noticed and here's why and you have a deep emotional connection with
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that person and you ask them to please put them on, that 10 minutes after you leave they will take them off again.
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That is our United States culture.
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If you go to Japan and South Korea and some other places,
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maybe Germany, where they have a different culture and they're more social and they actually have this concept of total participation, it's a different story.
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But you live in the United States and we all, maybe I hope I'm not there anymore,
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but we all believe we're cowboys in the wild, wild west.
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And so we have to make sure
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that we have set the minimum pay -to -play standards and that people know that there are no punishment consequences,
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but there are respect for people consequences for not following the rules.
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Let me stop there for just a minute.
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I do not believe in punishment at all, ever for any circumstances at all.
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Do we have to in society have laws and consequences in prisons?
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Absolutely, but those are consequences.
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Punishing somebody to try and create pain for them for motivation is a sick concept.
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Everything that we do should be based out of respect.
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Why do I send somebody home if they're violating safety rules?
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Because I respect them.
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Why do I have them stop to clean up if it's dirty?
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Because I respect them.
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Why do I train them?
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Because I respect them.
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And why do I have nice bathrooms?
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Because I respect them.
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Why do I connect with them and shake their hands
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and do morning worker huddles and communicate well and bring donuts and love them up because I respect them.
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Everything we do is out of respect.
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And I'll tell you one of the biggest disrespectful things on earth, the most horrifically disrespectful, disgusting behavior is going up and saying,
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will you please put your safety glasses on?
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And then walking away knowing they're going to take them off in 10 minutes
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and that there's no certainty that you're going to send them home to their family.
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That is disrespect at its utmost.
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And it's disgusting behavior and I hate it when safety people pander
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that because they're too weak to actually implement a real program.
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Because if you say on this site, if you do not have your safety glasses, PPE, or you are acting unsafely,
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we will remove you from the project for the day, that doesn't have to be mean and that is not punishment.
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If they're not doing something safely, they don't have what they need.
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They need to go to a safe place and get
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that thing that they need and then they can come back the next day.
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And if it's a continued pattern of behavior, maybe they don't belong on the project from a permanent standpoint.
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Respect for people is at the core of all of this.
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It's the only system that works and I've been in all of the systems.
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I've been brainwashed in all of the systems
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and as running projects as a superintendent you might be like Jason you don't look like a superintendent.
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This is my favorite Japan shirt.
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This is my jacket.
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I like to travel in comfortable clothes and look nice and after 40 this makes me look a little bit more thin.
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I don't look like a superintendent but I'm telling you 30 years in the field
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when I run projects using zero tolerance there's no graffiti
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there's no pee in bottles there's nobody without their safety glasses
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and there are no problems on site
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because I set the standard the project culture
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and the success of the project is determined by the worst behavior I'm willing to tolerate
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and if somebody out there is doing something
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that is not good I said it was okay
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and it will stop as soon as I say it's not okay
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and that is a fact and I've run multiple projects that way.
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And so let's talk about the communication.
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The communication is this.
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Before you come to the project site, these are the standards.
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We will be perfect.
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We will have perfect safety, perfect cleanliness, perfect organization.
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We are not going to run this the normal way.
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We are going to be like the Germans and the Japanese.
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Like we are no longer Americans here.
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We are going to be beautifully clean like these other cultures.
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That's how we're going to do it.
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There won't be anything on the ground.
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nothing.
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You communicate that and you train your trade partners before they get there.
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Then when they get there, they come through an intensive and detailed and humanly connected orientation.
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And you over communicate the standards.
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You show pictures.
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You talk to them about how that's ultimately respectful for them.
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And then every day in the morning worker huddle in the queuing area, you talk about it for two minutes every day.
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This is why we maintain the hoist.
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This is how we maintain cleanliness.
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This is how we maintain logistics.
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This is why we keep the bathrooms nice.
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This is why we pick up after ourselves.
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This is why this environment is the way it is.
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And you train and communicate.
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Three weeks before the trade starts, they have a pre -construction meeting where you talk about all of these standards.
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If you want to, and I recommend this, you require the foreman to be OSHA 30 trained and the workers to be OSHA 10 hour trained,
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and you provide onboarding training even above and beyond.
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And then when they start the day, they do their pre -test plan.
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And if by that time through the safety manuals and the safety booklets and the signage and the clear communication,
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they still are not towing the line.
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This is not a system, a process, culture, environment, or genetic wiring problem.
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This is a behavior problem.
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And behaviors are fixed at the dojo, at the place of learning, at the practice center, not on site.
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We're not going to practice with not falling off a building and dying on site.
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We're going to practice elsewhere.
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So the person is immediately removed from the project site as a show of respect.
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In fact, they used to call me the I love you guy.
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They would tease me about it because I'd be like, hey, homie, I love you, bro.
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You're on the top of the ladder, bro.
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You know that you're not supposed to be up there.
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You're going home.
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You can come through orientation tomorrow.
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And they'd be like, oh, come on.
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Hey, you decided this.
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I'm not going to back off of this.
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But that doesn't mean we have to be enemies.
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We're doing this.
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And this was your decision.
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I love you, man.
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I want you here.
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You will not do this on my site.
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I have set the standard.
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They used to call me the I love you guy.
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Overcommunicate.
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And when you have that kind of onboarding, those expectations, and the entire team works in unison, and you talk to these wonderful humans every day,
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and they know it's based out of respect and not out of punishment, then you can have a remarkable safety culture.
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The problem is it takes a lot of confidence and guts for the field teams to implement this, but it is the only way.
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And when I talk about communication, communication is only real if you actually act on it, which is where the respect for people comes in.
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That is the only way to keep a project safe.
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And I will turn this into a blog post for you.
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And please reach out to you if you have any comments.
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But we've tested this over and over.
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If you let this slide and you're just, oh, please wear your safety glasses.
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You will have hundreds of people in a day not wearing their glasses.
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Hundreds of people peeing in bottles and graffiting on toilets and you will have dozens of major safety violations
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that's going to get somebody hurt.
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I hope you've enjoyed this video.
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On we go.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This speaking lesson is built on the video “Importance Of Communication In Construction Safety”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: safety, respect, project, standard, communication. This video has 17 sentences and 1587 words to shadow. The speech runs for 8:03. The speaker talks fast, about 197 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 88% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is easy to follow. 6 of its 17 sentences are questions, so it is good practice for question intonation and short answers.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| punishment noun | /ˈpʌnɪʃmənt/ | The act (action) or process of punishing, imposing and/or applying a sanction, typically by an authority or a person in authority (for example: a parent or… |
| consequence noun | /ˈkɑn.sɪ.kwəns/ | An effect; something that follows a cause as a result. |
| worker noun | /ˈwɝ.kɚ/ | One who works: a person who performs labor for a living; traditionally, especially, manual labor. |
| communicate verb | /kəˈmjuːnɪkeɪt/ | To impart or transmit (information or knowledge) to someone; to make known, to tell. |
| superintendent noun | /ˌsjuːpəɹɪnˈtɛndənt/ | A person who is authorized to supervise, direct or administer something. |
| elsewhere adverb | /ˈɛlsˌʍɛɹ/ | Synonym of somewhere else: in, at, or to some other place. |
| wire noun | /ˈwaɪɚ/ | Metal formed into a thin, even thread, now usually by being drawn through a hole in a steel die. |
| connect verb | /kəˈnɛkt/ | To join (to another object): to attach, or to be intended to attach or capable of attaching, to another object. |
| genetic adjective | /d͡ʒəˈnɛt.ɪk/ | Relating to genetics or genes. |
| disgusting adjective | /dɪsˈɡʌstɪŋ/ | Causing disgust; repulsive; distasteful. |
| implement verb | /ˈɪmpləmənt/ | To bring about; to put into practice; to carry out. |
| orientation noun | /ˌɔː.ɹi.ənˈteɪ.ʃən/ | The determination of the relative position of something or someone. |
| graffiti noun | /ɡɹəˈfi.ti/ | Drawings or words drawn on a surface in a public place, usually made without authorization. |
| disrespectful adjective | /dɪs.ɹɪˈspɛkt.fəl/ | Lacking respect. |
| onboard adjective | /ɒnˈbɔːd/ | Carried or used on or in a vehicle or vessel. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| come back verb | To return to a place. |
| come through verb | To come into a room or other space through a door or passageway. |
| go up verb | To move upwards. |
| clean up verb | To make an area or a thing clean; to pick up a mess; to tidy. |
| fall off verb | To become detached or to drop from. |
| pick up verb | To lift; to grasp and raise. |
| walk away verb | To withdraw from a problematic situation. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- Do we have to in society have laws and consequences and prisons?
- Why do I send somebody home if they're violating safety rules?
- Why do I have them stop to clean up if it's dirty?
- Why do I train them?
- I've been brainwashed in all of the systems.
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 call |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | have set · I've been · I've been brainwashed |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | should be based · I've been brainwashed · are fixed |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 37 contractions and reduced forms, such as you're, don't, I'm. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: thin /ˈθɪn/, cloth /klɒθ/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: punishment /ˈpʌnɪʃmənt/, orientation /ˌɔː.ɹi.ənˈteɪ.ʃən/, participation /pɑːˌtɪs.ɪˈpeɪ.ʃən/, shake /ˈʃeɪk/, motivation /ˈmoʊ.tə.veɪ.ʃən/
- Long words — get the stress right: communicate /kəˈmjuːnɪkeɪt/, superintendent /ˌsjuːpəɹɪnˈtɛndənt/, orientation /ˌɔː.ɹi.ənˈteɪ.ʃən/, disrespectful /dɪs.ɹɪˈspɛkt.fəl/, priority /pɹaɪˈɒɹɪti/
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 punishment, consequence, worker.
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.