Shadowing Practice: READING EXPLORER FOUNDATIONS UNIT 8 8A A PENGUIN’S YEAR - Learn English Speaking with Video
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8. A Penguin's Year Our emperor penguins are the largest penguins on earth.
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Each adult is over a metre tall and can weigh up to 40 kilograms.
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B. For many months each year, emperors live near the sea in large groups.
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However, the weather gets colder in May and ice covers large areas of ocean.
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Each group moves many kilometres from the water.
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There, each mother penguin lays just a single egg.
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Then all the hungry mothers walk back to the ocean to find food.
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The father penguins put their eggs on top of their feet.
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They cover the eggs with a special piece of skin called the brood pouch, sharing the work.
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See, for two months, the father penguins protect the eggs and keep them warm.
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They do this through some of the coldest weather conditions on Earth.
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By July, it is winter in Antarctica.
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Most other animals leave for warmer places, but the father penguins stay.
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D by August, each mother penguin returns just in time to see her baby hatch.
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The chick is then moved to her brood pouch.
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This can be difficult.
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If the chick falls, it can freeze quickly.
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The penguin parents must be very careful.
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Once the chick has been moved, the father penguin can go back to the ocean to find food.
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New life.
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E. Over the next few months, penguin parents take turns, three going to the ocean for food.
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They each make the trip several times, bringing back food for the chick.
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The chick is always hungry and grows rapidly.
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Into the water F.
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By December, winter is ending.
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The chick can now live on its own.
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Soon it enters the water for the first time.
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It will swim and eat until next April and then return.
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After a few more years, it too will start its own family.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This B1 speaking lesson is built on the video “READING EXPLORER FOUNDATIONS UNIT 8 8A A PENGUIN’S YEAR”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: penguin, chick, egg, ocean, father. This video has 29 sentences and 306 words to shadow. The speech runs for 1:59. The speaker talks at a natural 154 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. 83% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.
Key vocabulary in this video
The 12 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| penguin noun | /ˈpɛŋ.ɡwɪn/ | Any of several flightless sea birds, of the family Spheniscidae within the order Sphenisciformes, found in the Southern Hemisphere, marked by their usual… |
| chick noun | /t͡ʃɪk/ | A young bird. |
| brood verb | /bɹud/ | To keep an egg warm to make it hatch. |
| pouch noun | /paʊt͡ʃ/ | A small bag usually closed with a drawstring. |
| emperor noun | /ˈɛmp(ə)ɹə/ | The male monarch or ruler of an empire. |
| 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… |
| kilometre noun | /kɪˈlɑmɪtəɹ/ | An SI unit of length equal to 10³ metres. Symbol: km |
| metre noun | /ˈmiːtəɹ/ | The basic unit of length in the International System of Units (SI: Système International d'Unités), equal to the distance travelled by light in a vacuum in… |
| hatch verb | /hæt͡ʃ/ | To emerge from an egg. |
| weigh verb | /weɪ/ | To determine the weight of an object. |
| freeze verb | /ˈfɹiːz/ | Especially of a liquid, to become solid due to low temperature. |
| swim verb | /swɪm/ | To move through the water, without touching the bottom; to propel oneself in water by natural means. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| bring back verb | /ˈbɹɪŋ bæk/ | To fetch something. |
| go back to verb | To stem from; to originate in. |
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Superlatives the -est / the most … — the top or bottom of a group | the largest · the coldest |
| Future with “will” will + verb — a decision, promise or prediction | will swim · will start |
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 penguin, chick, brood.
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.