Shadowing Practice: Technical Support Fundamentals #2 Official Course | Google IT Support Professional Certificate - Learn English Speaking with Video

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If you don't like our channel, subscribe and subscribe to the channel.
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So, we will be able to get the notifications.
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So, we will start with the video.
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Welcome to course one technical support fundamentals.
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My name is Kevin Limehouse and I work as a support specialist for platforms building double click at Google.
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Looking back, I can trace where my passion for IT began to an actual moment when I was eight years old.
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My parents were about to throw away our old busted computer, but I managed to convince my mom to let me keep it.
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I remember the moment when I slowly started disassembling it.
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I kept digging deeper and deeper, unscrewing every little piece I could get my hands on, and I was hooked.
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By the time I was 12 or 13 years old, I became the de facto IT support for my entire family,
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and that's no small feat considering I have 11 aunts and uncles and over 35 cousins.
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My parents both grew up in very small rural towns in South Carolina.
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Growing up in the Jimco South through the mid 1950s and 1960s, they were taught at an early age that one of the better methods to get ahead was through education.
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This lesson was instilled in me and my sister and I ended up going to university to study computer science.
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I graduated school right at the end of the 2007-2009 recession, but thankfully I secured a job at Google
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and IT support where I work with users solving their issues and supporting the IT inventory.
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And now I've been working at IT for seven years.
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In my current role as a support specialist, I provide technical and billing support to Google sales teams,
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which involves everything from troubleshooting to creating forms or editing automation scripts.
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And now you know a little bit about me.
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Let's start from the beginning.
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What is information technology?
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Information technology has completely transformed your life in ways that you may not even realize.
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Thanks to IT, we can communicate massive amounts of information to people
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and organizations across the world in the blink of an eye.
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Computers power everything from calculators to medical equipment to complex satellite systems and the trading desk of Wall Street.
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They're powerful and invaluable tools to help people get their work done and enable us to connect with one another.
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So what exactly is information technology?
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IT is essentially the use of digital technology like computers
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and the internet to store
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and process data into useful information the IT industry refers to the entire scope of all the jobs
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and resources that are related to computing technologies within society
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and there are a lot of different types of jobs in
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this field from network engineers who ensure computers can communicate with each other to hardware technicians who replace
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and repair components to desktop support personnel who make sure
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that end users can use their software properly
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but it isn't just about building computers
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and using the internet it's really about the people that's the heart
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and soul of IT support work what good is technology
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or information if people can't use technology
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or make sense of the information IT helps people solve meaningful problems by using technology
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which is why you'll see its influences in education medicine journalism construction transportation entertainment
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or really any industry on the planet IT is about changing the world through the ways we collaborate, share, and create together.
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IT has become such a vital tool in modern society
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that people and organizations who don't have access to IT are at a disadvantage.
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IT skills are becoming necessary for day to day living, like finding a job, getting an education, and looking up your health information.
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Maybe you're from a community where there wasn't any internet, or you couldn't afford a super fast computer and had to use one at your school or library instead.
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There are many social and economic reasons why some people have digital literacy skills and other people do not.
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This growing skills gap is known as the digital divide.
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People without digital literacy skills are falling behind, but people like you are the real solution to bridging that digital divide.
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Overcoming the digital divide not only involves confronting and understanding the combination of socioeconomic factors that shape our experience,
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but also helping others confront and understand those experiences.
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By getting into IT, you'll help serve those in your communities
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or organizations and maybe even inspire a new generation of IT pioneers.
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When I think about solving the digital divide, I can't help but think of all the opportunities and breakthroughs
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that folks from diverse backgrounds and perspectives in the industry can bring.
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By bringing more people of color, more women, more ethnically diverse people into the IT
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we're bound to see unique new ideas and products that we haven't even begun to imagine that benefits everybody.

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What You'll Learn

This video is a goldmine for english speaking practice, helping you build two key skills: conversational storytelling and explaining technical concepts clearly. You’ll learn to structure personal anecdotes (like Kevin’s childhood computer story) with natural flow, and practice simplifying complex ideas (such as defining IT) for everyday listeners. These skills are critical for real-world communication, whether you’re sharing experiences or explaining topics in work or school.

Listen For These Sounds

Pay attention to connected speech patterns that make the dialogue sound natural. Notice how "I remember the moment when I slowly started disassembling it" links "when I" into a smooth "whenI" (wɛn aɪ). Reductions like "I've been" (aɪv bɪn) and "you'll see" (jul si) are common—they keep the speech flowing. Also, listen for the softening of "t" in words like "computer" (kəmˈpjuːdər) and "little" (ˈlɪtl), which is typical in casual English. These sounds are key to sounding less robotic and more like a native.

Say It Like a Native

To mirror the speaker’s rhythm, focus on stress and pauses. Kevin stresses words like "passion," "disassembling," and "people" to emphasize key points—copy this to make your speech engaging. Use short pauses after phrases like "Looking back" or "And now" to create natural breaks. For improve english pronunciation, try shadowing: repeat the dialogue aloud immediately after the speaker, using a shadowing app to match their pace and tone. This technique, often called "shadowspeaks," trains your mouth to form sounds correctly and builds muscle memory for fluent speech. Learn english with videos like this one, and you’ll soon notice your pronunciation and rhythm becoming more natural.

Grammar in this video

The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:

StructureIn the video
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does itwere taught · was instilled · is known
Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters nowhas become · haven't even begun

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.

Shadowing technique: read the full step-by-step guide →