Shadowing Practice: Shakira's speech at #WISE19 (Qatar) - Learn English Speaking with Video
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102 sentences
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Shukran.
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Good morning, Your Highness, Excellencies, friends and colleagues.
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I would like to thank you for the opportunity to be here today.
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It's also an honor to join forces with Educated Child, an organization led by a woman who is an amazing role model,
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a woman who has shown such relentless dedication to getting every child in school.
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This is such an exciting day for us because it marks the beginning of a new era in my home country, Colombia.
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Most of you may know me as an artist,
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as an entertainer, and that's indeed my calling and what I've been doing since I was 13 years old.
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But I never would have imagined when I started out
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that my work as an artist would end up being the
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vehicle for me to serve my greater purpose in life of working towards eradicating poverty through the power of education.
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As a Colombian citizen, inequality is a concept that sadly one becomes very familiar with at a very young age.
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It's a country like many others in Latin America, where a few have a lot, a lot have almost nothing,
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and where if you're born poor, you will almost certainly die poor,
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and where people don't access equal opportunities.
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And because of that, generation after generation after generation live trapped in the same vicious cycle fed by prejudice and inaction.
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Growing up in my country when I was around eight years old,
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I remember I saw kids my age who instead of being in school were already working in the streets,
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were barefoot in the park,
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kids like me whose reality was completely different my mind only because of the circumstances into which they were born.
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It was really hard for me to accept that, to accept that something so unjust didn't have a solution.
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There had to be something that could be done.
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So I often ask myself why the adults around me were
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so resigned to the fact that these kids who were just like me
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or even their own children were living in a parallel reality so different and so cruel.
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As Kofi Annan put it, poverty is intolerable in a world of plenty.
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So as soon as I had some success, the first thing I wanted to do was to invest as
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many resources I could into what later would become the most meaningful project of my life, working for children.
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So I set out to find a team, a team of people who dream big and worked hard
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and thought like me to help me right the wrongs that I had witnessed throughout my entire childhood.
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And that's when our foundation, the Barefoot Foundation, P.S.
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Descalza Foundation was born.
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I knew, and I was only 18 years old then, but I knew that I wanted to focus on children and improving their lives, but I didn't know where to start.
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So I really felt that I needed to learn what the roots of inequality and low social mobility were.
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So I decided to study the reasons why children were working in the streets,
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or why some children were being recruited by the violent organizations like the paramilitary or the guerrillas.
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Why were so many children suffering from chronic malnutrition?
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And I realized that most of the issues that children face in my country had and have a common denominator,
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the lack of access to quality education.
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To me, it became crystal clear
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that education was the surest way to give all of these kids the best fighting chance of improving their circumstances in life,
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because education is the great equalizer.
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When I started building schools in Colombia, we chose the most remote areas, areas where there was literally nothing,
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no infrastructure, no paved roads, no electricity, no potable water and we decided to build in those places
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but not only build schools but state-of-the-art schools schools with comprehensive models
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that included ECD programs school feeding programs parent and teacher training
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and another very important part is we decided to engage the government as a strategic partner
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and made it nearly impossible for them to say no to
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doing their part by showing them results through our holistic model that really proved to work.
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We noticed that as soon as a school is built in those places, everything is transformed.
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The improvements to the infrastructure were jaw-dropping.
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Electricity, potable water were made available, made accessible, roads were paved,
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malnutrition plummeted, but the best part of all is the academic results.
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The kids really, really responded academically,
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and now those kids who could have been recruited by the guerrillas or paramilitaries, or that could have had completely different outcomes for their lives,
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they're now on their way to the university and thriving in their communities.
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Some of them are athletes, some of them are professionals.
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That's why I'm so, it really is a thrill to work for education.
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That's why I'm so passionate about it,
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because I've really seen results that are as palpable as this podium.
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And seeing all these success stories that have a name
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and a last name has been one of the most rewarding things I've done in my lifetime, even more so than winning Grammys, I think.
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Now.
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Now, that said, our work is far from being done.
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Many, many developing countries are still rife with inequality and internal conflict, and there are a lot of kids who still need to be reached.
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History is not only the past.
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History is made every day in the present.
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What matters now is how we go forward and how we fix what's wrong.
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And that is the real challenge.
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This is the goal of the SDGs and what people like Her Highness
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and myself and so many more of you who are adamant about achieving are here for.
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Facts don't lie, and numbers show what an incredible return on investment a quality education provides.
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For instance, if all students in low-income countries left primary school with basic reading skills,
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171 million people could be lifted out of poverty.
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Systemic change often begins from the bottom up rather than the top down.
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The government must take responsibility and we should all put as much pressure as we possibly can but the rest of all,
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the civil society, should also do their part.
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What we have discovered, both at PS Descalzos and Educated Child, is that many times only one single barrier to entry, such as no access to transportation
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or basic needs like a functioning bathroom can prevent a kid from attending school
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or even put them at risk of dropping out.
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Sometimes all it takes to change a child's life is the security of a hot meal in school
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or the ease of being able to hop on a bus that will leave you safely at your classroom store.
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It's as simple as that.
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And these are simple interventions and they don't cost a lot.
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The biggest effort really is in mapping the communities, in going door to door,
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searching for the out of school children, talking to the parents, talking to their families,
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giving Putting a name and putting a story behind these children is the first step to start rewriting their story.
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Over the next three years, we pledge to get 54,000 kids who are out of school or at risk of dropout into the educational system.
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Ultimately, more than 295,000 people will benefit from this project,
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including children, teachers, families, and community members.
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New schools and classrooms will be built.
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School kits and uniforms will be distributed.
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Children will be enrolled in school feeding and transportation programs.
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Teachers will be trained in strategies
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and in how to identify those students who are at risk so they can receive psychosocial support.
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And we are extremely confident that this partnership is only the beginning
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and will be the model to replicate throughout my country until not a single child is out of school.
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This is our responsibility.
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Thank you.
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This is our responsibility to our children and our debt to fulfill for the generations to come.
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Thank you very much.
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Thank you.
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Who Will Benefit from This Video?
This video is perfect for intermediate English learners ready to level up their speaking and listening skills. If you want to practice understanding natural, heartfelt speech—like a real-world talk—and improve your ability to express complex ideas with clarity, this is for you. It’s also ideal for those using the shadowing technique, as Shakira’s pace is steady, her tone warm, and her message engaging, making it easy to follow along and mimic.
Words & Idioms to Add to Your Toolkit
Here are standout phrases from the video that will make your English sound more natural:
- Join forces with: To work together with others. Example: "I joined forces with my classmates to finish the project."
- Vicious cycle: A repeating pattern of problems. Example: "Lack of education can create a vicious cycle of poverty."
- Crystal clear: Extremely clear. Example: "After the explanation, it was crystal clear how to use the shadowing app."
- Right the wrongs: To fix unfair situations. Example: "She started a charity to right the wrongs she saw in her community."
Mastering the Accent: Tips for Shadowing
Shakira’s speech has a slight Spanish accent, but her English is clear and melodic—great for practicing pronunciation. Focus on these: Intonation: She rises and falls with emotion, especially when talking about her foundation. Mimic this to add feeling to your speech. Stress: Words like "inequality" and "opportunities" have stress on the second syllable—listen closely and repeat. Use the shadowing technique: Pause the video, repeat her lines immediately, and match her rhythm. For extra practice, try a shadowing app to record yourself and compare. This will help you improve English pronunciation and sound more confident. Remember, learning English with videos like this isn’t just about words—it’s about connecting with the message, which makes practice fun and effective!
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | were born · could be done · was born |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | woman who is · woman who has · kids who were |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | has shown · I've really seen · has been |
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.