Shadowing Practice: National Geographic Reading Explorer 1 Unit 9 Snake Catchers - Learn English Speaking with Video
Choose a practice mode
Each mode opens a full-screen practice room.
26 sentences
If sentences are too short or too long, click Edit to adjust them.
1
Skip Snow and Mike Rochford are snake catchers.
2
They work in Florida, in the Everglades National Park.
3
They're looking for Burmese pythons.
4
Burmese pythons are not a native species here.
5
But over the past decade,
6
these snakes have grown in numbers in the Everglades and are now eating too many of the native birds,
7
small mammals, and even large reptiles.
8
Because the pythons are harming the local wildlife,
9
Skip and Mike's team are doing their best to catch and remove this invasive species.
10
They are also studying how the pythons live and move around the swamps.
11
The team puts tiny, harmless tracking devices into several pythons.
12
Then they release the snakes back into the wild, far away from where they were caught.
13
Burmese pythons can grow up to They are 7 meters long and weigh up to 90 kilograms.
14
And they are very good swimmers.
15
Minutes after the pythons are released, the team looks for them.
16
The team uses an antenna to search for signals from the tracking devices.
17
But they can't locate the snakes, so the team uses a plane to help them in their search.
18
The Everglades National Park covers an area of 1.5 million acres.
19
The team's plane has a more powerful antenna, and Mike is hoping it will pick up signals from the snakes.
20
After much searching, a signal appears.
21
The tracking devices show that the snakes have traveled over 56 kilometers back to the place where they were first caught.
22
This tells the team that it will not be easy to get rid of the pythons.
23
These creatures have made the Everglades their home.
24
But Skip and Mike are not giving up.
25
They will continue to catch and remove the pythons.
26
It is important they do this, so that they can protect the many other animals that live in the Florida Everglades.
Download App
Everything you need to speak fluently
AI PronunciationScore every sentence
IPA PracticeMaster every sound
VocabularyBuild your word bank
Vocab GameLearn while playing
Same Channel
B14
National Geographic Reading Explorer 1 Unit 3 The Mozart Effect
Daily ConversationHigh School StudentsUniversity Students
B12
National Geographic Reading Explorer 1 Unit 11 Our Plastic World
Daily ConversationHigh School StudentsUniversity Students
B13
National Geographic Reading Explorer 1 Unit 4 The Red Planet
IELTS PrepTOEFL PrepHigh School Students
B113
National Geographic Reading Explorer 1 Unit 2 Exploring Laponia
Daily ConversationHigh School StudentsUniversity Students
B137
National Geographic Reading Explorer 1 Unit 5 New York Skyscraper
TOEFL PrepCambridge Exam PrepHigh School Students
B12
National Geographic Reading Explorer 2 Unit 3 Walking with Giants
Cambridge Exam PrepHigh School StudentsUniversity Students
B124
National Geographic Reading Explorer 2 Unit 1 Space Food
Daily ConversationHigh School StudentsUniversity Students
B12
National Geographic Reading Explorer 1 Unit 6 Bioblitz
Daily ConversationHigh School StudentsUniversity Students
B13
National Geographic Reading Explorer 1 Unit 8 Fairy tale Castle
Cambridge Exam PrepHigh School StudentsUniversity Students
A22
National Geographic Reading Explorer 1 Unit 10 City in the Clouds
Daily ConversationUniversity Students
C14
National Geographic Reading Explorer 2 Unit 2 The Lion's Roar
IELTS PrepTOEFL PrepUniversity Students
B2National Geographic Reading Explorer 2 Unit 12 Sea Caves
TOEFL PrepUniversity Students
B1National Geographic Reading Explorer 2 Unit 11 Smile Trial
Daily ConversationHigh School StudentsUniversity Students
B1National Geographic Reading Explorer 2 Unit 10 The Sled Dogs of Greenland
Daily ConversationHigh School StudentsUniversity Students
B1National Geographic Reading Explorer 2 Unit 9 The Global Village
IELTS PrepTOEFL PrepCambridge Exam Prep
B2National Geographic Reading Explorer 2 Unit 8 The Legend of Marco Polo
Cambridge Exam PrepHigh School StudentsUniversity Students
B1National Geographic Reading Explorer 2 Unit 7 Flowers from Ecuador
Business EnglishDaily ConversationHigh School Students
B2National Geographic Reading Explorer 2 Unit 6 Ocean Megabuilders
Cambridge Exam PrepUniversity Students
B2National Geographic Reading Explorer 2 Unit 5 Digging into the Past
Daily ConversationHigh School StudentsUniversity Students
B1National Geographic Reading Explorer 2 Unit 4 Dragon Boat Festival
Daily ConversationHigh School StudentsUniversity Students
FOR YOU
Recommend Video
B18
19 sentences
Reading Explorer Foundation, Unit-6 Giants of the Forest
IELTS PrepTOEFL PrepHigh School Students
B11
29 sentences
READING EXPLORER 2 Unit 5A THE SECRETS IN THE SAND
IELTS PrepTOEFL PrepHigh School Students
B13
13 sentences
Pond Ecosystems #shorts #ngscience
TOEFL PrepHigh School StudentsUniversity Students
C13
67 sentences
Why Don't Snakes Poison Themselves?
IELTS PrepTOEFL PrepUniversity Students
B11
28 sentences
City or Country Life?
Daily ConversationHigh School StudentsUniversity Students
B113
40 sentences
READING EXPLORER 1 UNIT 1B MASTER OF DISGUISE
TOEFL PrepCambridge Exam PrepHigh School Students
B1405
20 sentences
Nature Is Speaking – Ian Somerhalder is Coral Reef | Conservation International (CI)
IELTS PrepTOEFL PrepUniversity Students
B221
43 sentences
RE2 Unit 12B
IELTS PrepTOEFL PrepUniversity Students
B11
21 sentences
Reading Explorer Foundation, Unit-11 Ichthyosaurs
IELTS PrepTOEFL PrepHigh School Students
B25
45 sentences
RE3 Unit 3B
IELTS PrepTOEFL PrepUniversity Students
C11
42 sentences
2014 Three Minute Thesis winning presentation by Emily Johnston
IELTS PrepTOEFL PrepUniversity Students
Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This B1 speaking lesson is built on the video “National Geographic Reading Explorer 1 Unit 9 Snake Catchers”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: pythons, snake, Everglades, Burmese, Skip. This video has 26 sentences and 303 words to shadow. The speech runs for 2:54. The speaker talks slowly, about 104 words per minute, so there is time to copy every sound. Only 81% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is demanding.
Key vocabulary in this video
The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| snake noun | /sneɪk/ | Any of the suborder Serpentes of legless reptiles with long, thin bodies and fork-shaped tongues. |
| antenna noun | /ænˈtɛn.ə/ | An appendage used for sensing on the head of an insect, crab, or other animal. |
| kilogram noun | /ˈkɪləɡɹæm/ | In the International System of Units, the base unit of mass; conceived of as the mass of one litre of water, but now defined by taking the fixed numerical… |
| mammal noun | /ˈmæməl/ | A vertebrate animal of the class Mammalia, characterized by being warm-blooded, having fur or hair and producing milk with which to feed their young. |
| reptile noun | /ˈɹɛp.taɪl/ | A (typically scaly and egg-laying) cold-blooded vertebrate tetrapod animal, of the class Reptilia (excluding birds), such as a lizard, turtle, snake… |
| swimmers noun | A swimsuit. | |
| catcher noun | /ˈkæt͡ʃəɹ/ | Someone or something that catches. |
| invasive adjective | /ɪnˈveɪsɪv/ | Of or pertaining to invasion; offensive. |
| harmless adjective | /ˈhɑɹmləs/ | Incapable of causing harm or danger; safe. |
| swamp noun | /ˈswɑmp/ | An area of wet (water-saturated), spongy (soft) land, often with trees, generally a rich ecosystem for certain plants and animals but ill-suited for many… |
| acre noun | /ˈeɪ.kɚ/ | An English unit of land area (symbol: a. or ac.) originally denoting a day's ploughing for a yoke of oxen, now standardized as 4,840 square yards or 4,046.86… |
| locate verb | /ˈloʊˌkeɪt/ | To place; to set in a particular spot or position. |
| weigh verb | /weɪ/ | To determine the weight of an object. |
| meter noun | /ˈmitəɹ/ | A device that measures things. |
| wildlife noun | /ˈwaɪldlaɪf/ | undomesticated animals, especially mammals, birds, and fish, which live in the wild. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| give up verb | To surrender (someone or something); to inform on (someone). |
| move around verb | To relocate to new homes repeatedly; to not live in any one place for long. |
| pick up verb | To lift; to grasp and raise. |
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | have grown · have traveled · have made |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | were caught · are released |
| Present continuous am/is/are + -ing — something happening right now or around now | They're looking · are now eating · are harming |
| Future with “will” will + verb — a decision, promise or prediction | will pick · will not be · will continue |
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Shadow it sentence by sentence at normal speed, repeating each one until your rhythm matches the speaker.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like snake, antenna, kilogram.
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.