Shadowing Practice: π Museums | IELTS Speaking Part 1 | Model Answers and Vocabulary (2025) - Learn English Speaking with YouTube
B2
Hello, lovely.
296 sentences
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Hello, lovely.
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I'm Maria.
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And my name is Rory.
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And we are the hosts of the IELTS Speaking for Success podcast.
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The podcast that aims to help you improve your speaking skills,
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as well as your listening skills along the way.
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We've started this podcast to give you gorgeous grammar and fabulous vocabulary for your high IELTS score.
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Your band 9th score.
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Ay, Rory, you're so old.
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You're like a dinosaur.
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I know, I should probably put myself in the Natural History Museum now.
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But before that, let's talk about museums.
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Mmm, dear listener, museums!
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Do you often visit a museum?
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No, uh, oh wow, only when I have to for work really.
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I'm going to sound like a complete philistine now,
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but having gone to museums once,
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I don't often see the point in going back to them.
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Even if there's a new collection or something,
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I just have other things to do.
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When was the last time you visited a museum?
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Probably this summer.
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In fact, it was.
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I took my class to see the Museum of Oxford,
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which is a place dedicated to the social history of the city,
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for lack of a better term.
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tiny, but there was a lot to do, which was quite nice.
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Are there many museums in your hometown?
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Quite a few, actually, yes.
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The first one, in my opinion,
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is the McManus Galleries, which sounds like an art gallery,
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but is actually a collection of artefacts from around the world,
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and they're linked to Dundee,
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my hometown, in some way.
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I think that's quite cool,
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and it's free of charge to get in as well.
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Do you think museums are important?
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Um, well, it's probably quite important to have these repositories of items connected to people,
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places and things, yes.
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It can give people a chance to find out something new and develop a sense of connection to whatever the focus is.
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But they're not the most important thing by a country mile.
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Available for one month.
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After one month it goes into our super secret archive.
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To sign up for the archive click the link in the description below.
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See you soon!
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Rory was talking about galleries and you can say that this MacManus galleries sounds like an art gallery.
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You could say that about just about any museum to be honest.
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It sounds like a...
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Like, for example, maybe we have...
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Well, we could say, well,
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for example, in my country,
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we have Edinburgh Castle, which sounds like it's just a castle,
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but it's also a museum as well, a collection of artifacts.
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Yeah, or like the Louvre sounds like a museum,
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but it's much more than just one museum.
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It's this, I don't know, a cultural center.
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And a great place to pick up some free art if you're an art robber,
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an art thief.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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Have you heard the news, dear listener?
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That the Louvre was robbed.
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Oh, what a joke.
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And the joke was like,
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oh, the Louvre was robbed and they found the jewels at the British Museum.
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I love that.
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The British Museum sounds like it's a museum about Britain,
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but actually it's a collection of artifacts stolen from around the world.
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Yeah, from Louvre, from Peru, from Machu Picchu. From everywhere.
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Oh, what a joke.
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Yeah, if you haven't heard the news,
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go have a read, to be in the know of the events,
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like what's going on.
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So people are starting talking about,
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oh yeah, we need a new film,
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how the louvre was robbed you know
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and a new sherlock holmes series the next phrase is um
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having gone to museums once i don't see the point in going back to them
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so we go back to different galleries we go back to museums we visit them again
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so yeah nice phrase of up to use the other thing is it's having gone to museums
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so it's like oh my god what would
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that be like ing form plus third form yeah it's crazy perfect participle we
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because like um i've gone to this museum so i've been there once
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and i don't understand why i should go back there you see
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and we make it more complicated so having gone to this museum once i don't see the point in going back.
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The next one is quite nice.
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I describe myself as a bit of a Philistine, dear listener.
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Someone who is not culturally connected or aware or has very simple opinions about things.
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A Philistine is a bit negative,
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a person who refuses to see the beauty or the value of art
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or culture so i'm a bit of a philistine usually you say you're a bit of a philistine
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but it's it's negative it's disapproving
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and i think museums can help people feel a sense of
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connection yes to the past connection to culture connection to art a sense of connection Ooh,
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you're connected to the world.
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What else can you have a sense of?
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A sense of...
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Fashion.
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A sense of fashion would be good.
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A sense of self or self-awareness.
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Yeah, a sense of achievement, for example.
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Ooh, yes.
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Yay, nice.
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And, dear listener, we say that we visit a museum or we go to museums.
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And Rory, what's going on with articles?
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So do I say I go to a museum,
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I go to the museum,
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or just I go to museum? museum.
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Or I say I go to museums.
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Definitely not I go to museum.
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We need some kind of article or something to tell us about the number here.
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Museums would be many.
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I go to many museums.
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That would be like a regular thing.
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I go to the museum would be talking about a specific museum.
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So you already need to talk about it before you say that.
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And then I go to a museum.
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Well, that would be like when you start to talk about it.
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Like I go to a museum.
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It's the natural history museum.
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Yeah, so you can say just museums.
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I like museums, I don't like museums,
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I never go to any museums,
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or the last time I visited a museum was last week or last year.
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So museums or maybe like a museum.
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When was the last time you went to a museum?
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Oh la la.
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That's a very good question.
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Perhaps in summer?
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I don't even remember.
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Maria, you philistine.
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No, no, no, no. I like museums.
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Like, what about...
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Does an art gallery count?
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Does a photo exhibition count?
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No. Sorry.
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No, okay, okay.
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Alright.
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Yeah, because I went to a photo exhibition to look at photos.
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Museum.
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Wow.
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That's a hard one, isn't it?
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It is a hard one,
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because it should be a proper museum, dear listener, yeah?
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Okay, maybe it was a year ago then, a proper museum.
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Something like history museum.
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Yeah, I remember nothing.
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So there we go.
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We need to, if you're listening,
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this is a problem, because if you haven't been to a museum recently,
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then might be a good time to go to the free museum.
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And we say that museums have a collection of something.
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So there is a collection of clothes or a collection of artifacts, different exhibits.
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And we can also say that this museum is dedicated to the social history of the city.
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So my favorite museum is Tata-ta,
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which is dedicated, which is about the history of the city,
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about the culture, about, I don't know, war.
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And when we talk about the things in the museum,
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we talk about the collection.
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For example, there might be an Egyptian collection,
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especially if it's the British Museum because they steal things.
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Maybe one day they will give them back. Who knows?
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No, no, no. Yeah, you have dinosaurs at the British Museum, right? Do we?
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I thought you only had them at the Natural History Museum.
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No, I don't know.
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I might be mistaken.
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I think you have some dinosaurs at the British Museum too, no?
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Maybe.
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I don't know.
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I've not been in about 10 years.
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Yeah, I've been there once.
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Yeah, amazing.
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is massive dear listener the british museum in london it's just massive huge yeah
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and you can say like okay it has a collection of
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artifacts different exhibits different things from all over the world
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and it's free of charge yeah the museum is free
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and i love it about london you know like you go
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to the national gallery it's free the british museum is free yeah the louvre is far from free
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but one day i think a month you can get there for free
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and i did that and then you stole the paintings no no it was ages ago yeah
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but it's funny jewels were stolen from from the louvre wow
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and maria has just got a whole lot of new jewelry what a coincidence yeah rory you said um repositories
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So.. a repository.
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Oh, a repository is really just a place where you store things.
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Usually a repository of knowledge,
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but could be something else.
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Yeah, like a repository or repository.
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A place where things are stored and can be found.
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So, for example, like, Rory is a repository of knowledge.
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So, like, Rory stores knowledge.
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He keeps all this knowledge inside his head.
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And you can say that this is a very nice museum,
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which is a repository of items connected to people, places, things.
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Rory, what did you mean when you said museums are not the most important thing by a country mile?
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Oh, if something happens by a country mile,
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it's just like by a big distance.
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So museums are not the most important thing.
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Like, they're not even close to being the top of the list of most important things.
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Is it an idea?
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It might be.
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Is it a C2 level idiom?
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Well, the Cambridge-like dictionary doesn't say actually,
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but they say country mile, mainly humorous.
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It's like, ha ha.
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If it doesn't say, then it must be C2.
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And it means like a large amount in this context.
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For example, the show was better than the last show by a country mile.
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Like it was much better.
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or for example like i missed my goal by a country mile
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and museums are not the most important thing by a country mile
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so it's like it really is not the most important thing in our life
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but it just does add i don't know more color it
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does they museums they add the knowledge they add the culture
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to our life they add they develop our sense of connection to the past right to the present and future.
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But you know what?
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Like my favorite museum, I love the museum of Van Gogh.
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But it's actually, it is a museum of Van Gogh in Amsterdam.
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But you can call it an art gallery because you see paintings.
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Van Gogh museum.
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Love it.
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And there you can see his masterpieces.
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Yeah, dear listener, just Google a couple of museums that you like or you would like to visit,
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for example, the Louvre, and read about them.
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Write out maybe like three five words about the museums for example my favorite is van gogh museum
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which contains his masterpieces masterpiece you know a nice word rory
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are we ready for a joke i have a museum joke we've heard vocabulary now we need a joke
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so the joke is delissa you ready i took my kids to the dinosaur museum today
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I spent the whole day looking up at the giant sculptures of dinosaurs.
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And I discovered a new species.
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My neck is sore.
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Come on, it's funny.
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It's very funny.
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You see, so at Dinosaur Museum,
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and when you look at the dinosaurs,
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they're usually quite tall, and you kind of,
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you look up, you know,
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and you spend a lot of time looking up and then what happens to your neck when you just look up?
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It gets sore or painful.
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Like that joke.
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You feel pain in your neck and we say that my neck is sore.
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Sore meaning like pain.
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Or for example, I have a sore throat.
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If you have pain in your throat.
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so like i was looking up at the giant sculptures of dinosaurs
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and i discovered i invented a new type of a dinosaur
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which is called my neck is so and
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if you remember different names for dinosaurs like oh what are they called like tyrannosaurus stegosaurus yeah like decasaurus
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or something like but my neck is sore.
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What did you say?
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Dekasaurus.
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Dekasaurus?
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Well, let's see, there's a Dekasaurus.
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No, I don't know, I don't know.
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Names of dinosaurs, but they're like funny names.
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Yeah, Tyrannosaurus, Stegosaurus, Velociraptor, Spinosaurus,
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so it's something like Saurus, you see?
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And the joke is like,
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I discovered, I invented a new type of dinosaur.
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My neck is sore.
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My neck is sore.
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My neck is sorus.
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Oh, it's funny.
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Come on.
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It's really good.
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Thank you very much for listening.
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And we'll get back to you in our next episode.
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Okay?
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Bye.
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Bye.
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Do you often visit a museum?
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No. Oh, wow.
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Only when I have to for work, really.
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I'm going to sound like a complete philistine now,
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but having gone to museums once,
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I don't often see the point in going back to them.
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Even if there's a new collection or something,
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I just have other things to do.
277
When was the last time you visited a museum?
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Probably this summer.
279
In fact, it was.
280
I took my class to see the Museum of Oxford,
281
which is like a place dedicated to the social history of the city for lack of a better term.
282
It's tiny, but there was a lot to do, which was quite nice.
283
Are there many museums in your hometown?
284
Quite a few, actually, yes.
285
The first one, in my opinion,
286
is the McManus Galleries, which sounds like an art gallery,
287
but is actually a collection of artefacts from around the world,
288
and they're linked to Dundee,
289
my hometown, in some way.
290
I think that's quite cool,
291
and it's free of charge to get in as well.
292
Do you think museums are important?
293
Um, well, it's probably quite important to have these repositories of items connected to people,
294
places and things, yes.
295
It can give people a chance to find out something new and develop a sense of connection to whatever the focus is.
296
But they're not the most important thing by a country mile.
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Why practice speaking with this video?
This engaging YouTube video on museums serves as a valuable resource for your IELTS speaking practice. By listening to Maria and Roryβs discussions, you can immerse yourself in real-life conversations that mirror what you might encounter during the IELTS speaking test. Practicing speaking with this video not only helps in enhancing your vocabulary but also improves your ability to articulate thoughts clearly and effectively.
Exploring topics like museums provides a context rich in vocabulary and expression related to culture and history, allowing you to expand your language repertoire. Shadow speak along with the hosts as they explore questions such as the importance of museums or personal experiences. This will help you gain confidence in speaking about various subjects, an essential skill for achieving a high IELTS score.
Grammar & Expressions in Context
Throughout the transcript, several interesting grammatical structures and expressions are highlighted that can be beneficial for the IELTS speaking section:
- βI should probably put myself in the Natural History Museum now.β β This sentence demonstrates the use of modal verbs for advice and suggestion, providing a conversational tone.
- βIt can give people a chance to find out something newβ β The modal verb βcanβ expresses possibility, which is crucial for discussing potential outcomes.
- βIn my opinion,β¦β β This phrase is a great way to introduce personal viewpoints. Incorporating such phrases can make your responses sound more rounded and mature.
- βNot the most important thing by a country mile.β β This idiomatic expression emphasizes opinion, adding character to your speech.
By repeating these phrases or grammatical structures while using shadowspeaks, youβll improve your ability to respond fluently in the exam.
Common Pronunciation Traps
Identifying tricky words and potential pronunciation traps is essential for IELTS speaking success. In the video, some challenging terms include:
- Museum β This word can often trip up learners; ensure you emphasize the second syllable: mu ZEE um.
- Artifacts β The stress is on the first syllable: AR ti facts.
- Philistine β Make sure to pronounce the 'ph' as /f/, resulting in: FIL uh stein.
Pay close attention to the accents of the hosts as well; they offer a model for standard pronunciation. Practice in a shadow speech style to mirror their intonations and improve your own speaking clarity. Enhancing your pronunciation will significantly boost your scoring potential in the IELTS speaking test.
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 β like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1β2 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 β making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.
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