Shadowing Practice: National Geographic Reading Explorer 2 Unit 7 Flowers from Ecuador - Learn English Speaking with Video
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22 sentences
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1
It will be shipped from the farm on a Friday night, gets on a plane on Saturday morning, goes to Miami, and from Miami it's trucked all over the United States,
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and it takes anywhere between one to four days to get to the destinations all over.
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One of those destinations is Allen Wood's flowers.
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At the store, workers cut the flowers and put them in water so they start drinking and growing.
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At this shop we will sell about 4,000 roses on Valentine's Day itself.
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It's the single busiest day of the year for our shop in terms of dollar volume and stress.
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Most of them come from Ecuador.
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Last year we export to the United States around 660 million of fresh cut flowers.
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I will say that from that amount, 100 million dollars are roses.
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25% of roses in the United States come from Ecuador.
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Ecuador's flower industry has grown quickly in recent years.
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This has helped create employment for many people in the northern part of the country.
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Around 60,000 people now work in the industry.
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For myself, this industry is very close to my heart because 50% of the job creation is for women.
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Many of Ecuador's flour companies also operate under fair trade laws.
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This means that workers can expect to receive a fair wage and good working conditions.
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Robin Peña Herrera has worked for 25 years in Ecuador's flour industry.
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He's seen the positive changes the industry has brought about in parts of the country.
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But why are flowers so popular?
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I've always enjoyed them.
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They're kind of addictive.
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It really brings us a magic to an interior.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This B1 speaking lesson is built on the video “National Geographic Reading Explorer 2 Unit 7 Flowers from Ecuador”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: flower, industry, roses. This video has 22 sentences and 268 words to shadow. The speech runs for 2:06. The speaker talks at a steady 127 words per minute, a comfortable pace for shadowing. 88% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is easy to follow.
Key vocabulary in this video
The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| flower noun | /ˈfloʊɚ/ | A reproductive structure in angiosperms (flowering plants), often conspicuously colourful and typically including sepals, petals, and either or both stamens… |
| worker noun | /ˈwɝ.kɚ/ | One who works: a person who performs labor for a living; traditionally, especially, manual labor. |
| destination noun | /dɛstɪˈneɪʃən/ | The place set for the end of a journey or to which something is sent; place or point aimed at. |
| flour noun | /ˈflaʊ.ə/ | Powder obtained by grinding or milling cereal grains, especially wheat, or other foodstuffs such as soybeans and potatoes, and used to bake bread, cakes, and… |
| wage noun | /weɪd͡ʒ/ | An amount of money paid to a worker for a specified quantity of work, usually calculated on an hourly basis and expressed in an amount of money per hour. |
| robin noun | /ˈɹɑ.bɪn/ | A European robin, Erithacus rubecula. |
| export noun | /ˈɛks.pɔɹt/ | Something that is exported. |
| distress noun | /dɪˈstɹɛs/ | Physical or emotional discomfort, suffering, or alarm, particularly of a more acute nature. |
| addictive adjective | /əˈdɪktɪv/ | Causing or tending to cause addiction; habit-forming. |
| dollar noun | /ˈdɑ.lɚ/ | Official designation for currency in some parts of the world, including Canada, the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Hong Kong, and elsewhere… |
| truck noun | /tɹʌk/ | A small wheel or roller, specifically the wheel of a gun carriage. |
| creation noun | /ˈkɹiˈeɪʃən/ | Something created such as an invention or artwork. |
| employment noun | /ɪmˈplɔɪmənt/ | The occupation or work for which one is used, and often paid. |
| interior noun | /ɪnˈtɪ.ɹi.ɚ/ | The inside of a building, container, cavern, or other enclosed structure. |
| operate verb | /ˈɑpəɹeɪt/ | To perform a work or labour; to exert power or strength, physical or mechanical; to act. |
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 | has grown · has helped · has worked |
| Future with “will” will + verb — a decision, promise or prediction | will be · will sell · will say |
Pronunciation to watch
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: destination /dɛstɪˈneɪʃən/, creation /ˈkɹiˈeɪʃən/
- Long words — get the stress right: destination /dɛstɪˈneɪʃən/, interior /ɪnˈtɪ.ɹi.ɚ/
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 flower, worker, destination.
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.