Shadowing Practice: Managing your Mood: Tips for Staying Present | The School of Life - Learn English Speaking with Video
Creating lesson...
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We keep forgetting this lesson, even though it is quite literally written above us in the sky,
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as if someone at the moment of creation knew that we would have trouble keeping it in mind.
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We are made of moods.
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Our spirits are constantly in motion, like the restless procession of weather fronts across a temperamental sky.
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Therefore, nothing can be stable for long.
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A serene, beautiful day will almost inevitably be followed by an overcast one, a still morning by a blustery afternoon,
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a vicious storm by a serene sunset.
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We keep striving for fixed positions, as if we were made of stone.
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We say, this is what I believe, this is who I like, this is what I want.
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And then the universe This laughs and gives us a headache, a bad night, indigestion, a moment of euphoria, an energetic libido, a bout of conscience,
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and everything is once more upended.
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We should proceed more cautiously.
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In the quiet of our minds, so as not to alarm those around us,
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we should caveat the majority of our ideological positions with a humble, for now.
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This job seems to make enormous sense, for now.
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I feel I've worked things out, for now.
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This is who I am, for now.
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None of us are ever more than a few shifts in serotonin levels away from a transformation of heart.
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There is in our changeability an almost comedic interplay between what we might crudely refer to as our bodies and our minds,
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our higher faculties and our basic plumbing.
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We may feel that our perspectives on politics or love, the quality of a book or our assessment of a friend are built on disinterested, solid ground.
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We feel sure that the nobler parts of us are guiding our ideas.
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We don't recognise the extent to
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which what we are convinced of at a given point is really the outcome of how much sleep we've had
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or what's happening to our blood sugar levels.
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We'll solemnly declare that life isn't worth living long before it occurs to us
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that we may just urgently need to have a nap or reach for an orange juice.
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Keeping this at the front of our minds can help us to be more generous and accurate about those we're living among.
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It may be, as they tell us with utter conviction at midnight in the kitchen, that they do hate our guts or never want to see their mother again.
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Or it might just be that it's time to get to bed
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and a heavy meal so late was not a particularly good idea.
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Understanding that we are all a patchwork of moods can be of particular assistance in those states
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when we can't see a single sliver of blue in the inner sky.
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We should have the experience to know
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that even though we don't right at this moment have any idea what can shift our condition, if we sit within the inner jet stream long enough and wait,
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something will eventually come along to push our horrors away.
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Just as more somberly, whenever we can no longer imagine any reasons why we were ever sad, we should always remember the autumn gales.
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We stumble because of our tendency to too quickly declare, this is me and always will be.
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It almost never is.
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It's a heat wave, a squall, a shower, an Indian summer.
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We want to be solid and we can only be air and water, gas and heat, current and front.
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We should take most of what we believe at any single moment with wholehearted, amused scepticism and carry with us always an umbrella.
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Why Practice Speaking with This Video?
This video is a goldmine for English learners aiming to master shadowing technique—a method where you mimic a speaker’s tone, rhythm, and intonation in real time. Its conversational yet reflective style mirrors everyday speech, making it perfect for practicing natural flow. Discussing moods and presence also gives you relatable topics to speak about, boosting confidence in both casual and deeper conversations. Plus, the slow, deliberate pacing helps you catch nuances, ideal for a shadowing site session.
Grammar & Expressions in Context
- "We keep forgetting this lesson, even though it is quite literally written above us..." The use of "even though" to contrast ideas is key. Practice this to add complexity to your speech.
- "None of us are ever more than a few shifts in serotonin levels away from a transformation..." "More than a few" is a common phrase to downplay quantity. Use it to sound natural, not formal.
- "We should take most of what we believe at any single moment with wholehearted, amused scepticism..." The structure "take [something] with [adjective] scepticism" is useful for expressing balanced opinions. Mimic this to sound thoughtful.
Common Pronunciation Traps
Watch out for words like "temperamental" (tem-per-uh-MEN-tl) and "serotonin" (seer-uh-TOH-nin)—their stress patterns can trip you up. The speaker also uses soft, connected speech, like "as if" blending into "asif" and "what we" becoming "wutwe." These are perfect for shadow speech practice: repeat them slowly, then speed up to match the rhythm. Mastering these will improve English pronunciation and make your speech sound more native.
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.