Shadowing Practice: The ONLY IELTS Listening Strategy You Need - Learn English Speaking with Video

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We've helped thousands of students get a band 9 in the IELTS listening test.

So in this video, I'm going to show you a simple technique

that we've used to improve the listening scores of thousands of students to a band 9.

I'm also going to give you a free IELTS course at the end of the video

that has helped thousands of students get a band 7, 8, and 9 in their IELTS test.

So as you can see, the key to improving your listening score to a band 9 is in your answers.

the same.

Section 1, 2, 3 and 4.

Section 1 will normally be two people talking.

Section 2 will be one person talking.

Section 3, there could be multiple people talking at the same time.

And section 4 is normally one person giving a lecture in an academic style, for example.

And as you go through these sections, the listening test becomes more and more difficult.

So section 1 is much difficult part.

And they will also ask you a range of different questions.

So here we have note completion, multiple choice, label and match, matching information, and sentence completion.

And there are a range of other types of questions that you might get as well in the listening test.

You also need to make sure that you're using the real official practice tests from Cambridge English.

It's really important that you only use real tests from official sources such as Cambridge English

you use fake tests this technique this strategy will not work

so the first thing you need to do is you need to get one sample test, preferably from one of these books,

and you need to do that practice test under exam conditions.

That means that you've never seen that test before and you do it within the time limit.

So you're recreating what it will be like on test day.

It's also best that you do two or three of these practice tests for this strategy.

But for the purposes of this video, I'm going to show you what it would look like if we were working with a student that just did one.

So this is a perfect band nine.

Every single question here is 100 % correct.

40 out of 40, they would get a band nine.

The key to this strategy is to identify which questions you got wrong and understand why you got those wrong.

And there are generally six different types of students that we work with, and you probably are one of those six.

So I want you to imagine that you get this question wrong, this question wrong, this one wrong, this one wrong, this one wrong,

and this one wrong, and that one wrong.

All the others are correct.

So if I was working with that student, that would be a clear indication that they have no problem with listening skills.

They have no problem with the English language because they're getting all or most of these questions correct,

but they really struggle with labeling maps and multiple choice.

Now for you that might be a completely different type of question, but for or multiple choice question, they get most of them wrong.

So for this student, what they need to work on is simply multiple choice and labeling maps.

They've identified that their key weakness is that type of question.

They learn a strategy for improving that type of question.

They practice it and they turn that into a strength.

So next time they do the test, they get all the questions correct and they get a band 9.

Now let's look at a completely different student.

but they have spelt these answers incorrectly.

So Wednesday, is a weird spelling in English.

Students often get this wrong.

Let's say they spelled opportunity with just one P instead of two Ps.

Capitalism with a K instead of a C.

This student has no problem finding the correct answer.

Their only weakness is spelling.

So if we tried to help this student with labeling maps and multiple choice, it would be a complete waste of their time.

But if we just focus on helping them improve their spelling, then they are going to improve to a band nine.

a short period of time because this technique is not just about helping you get to about nine, it's about helping you get there as quickly as possible.

Now I have something a little bit special for you.

What I've done is I have taken all of the strategies from our VIP course

that we teach for IELTS Listening for every question type.

These are step -by -step strategies

that all you have to do is just follow them and it will dramatically increase your scores.

We've put them into one PDF ebook for you today.

We will not release this for very long.

If you want it, all you have to do is go into the description, click on the link, and you can download this for free.

This is the same PDF ebook that we give our VIP students, so we won't be making this available for free for very long.

It is just our gift to you for being a fan of our YouTube channel.

If you want that, Click the link before it's gone.

Next, this student gets this one wrong, this one wrong, this one wrong, this one wrong, this one wrong, this one wrong and this one wrong.

Nearly all of their wrong answers are in section three.

So if we analyze section three, what is section three about?

Section three is about listening to multiple people talk at the same time.

Often students have been learning English by just listening to one person, and that person has been speaking very slowly and clearly,

as I am doing now.

That does not you're going to have multiple people talking over each other all at the same time.

So for this student, they're just not used to this type of listening.

So to improve their score, what we need to do is give them some podcasts or TV shows or radio shows, where there's multiple people talking at the same time,

get them used to listening to that style of English, and then they're going to dramatically improve their score.

Another student might get all of these correct, but they might get this one wrong, this one wrong, this one wrong, this one wrong and this one wrong.

Now section four is a monologue.

It is normally one person speaking normally like a lecture, a university lecture, something like that.

Now that's a quite a specific type of language that is being used.

It is often using more academic type words, more high -level vocabulary, more unusual vocabulary that you're not used to hearing.

So we might have someone who of the English that they've been listening to might have been in a relaxed social setting.

But once they are listening to this more academic type English, they really struggle.

For this person, they could listen to, you know, one of the millions of university lectures on YouTube or a TED talk or something like that,

just to get them used to that type of listening.

And then you might also get a student that is getting mostly questions towards the end wrong.

So it's quite a common scenario where they get all of section one and all of section two correct, most of section three correct, and most of section four wrong.

So as they go through the test, as it is getting more difficult, they're getting more incorrect.

And this is totally normal and very, very common.

This student really needs to work on their vocabulary and their listening skills.

They just need to improve their listening a little bit more, and then they will eventually get the score that they need.

Now focusing on specific types of question or spelling is not really going to be beneficial to this student.

They could completely master all of the different types of question here

and still get a lower score than they're hoping for because strategy is not really the issue for them.

What is the issue is their listening skills and their vocabulary so they need to work on that.

Then finally you might get a student that is just getting lots of questions

But when you speak to them and ask them, "Why did you get these questions wrong?" They normally say something like, "I don't know," or, "I just lost focus." Now,

if it's the focus one, you need to work on the amount of listening practice that you're doing.

It's kind of like a muscle, you know.

If you go to the gym for the first time and you've not used that muscle, it's going to be very difficult for you.

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But if you progressively overload your muscles and you go, you know, two or three times a week for a couple of months, then it becomes much, much easier.

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A huge number of students quite rarely listen to English and then go into the listening test and like, why can't I improve my listening score?

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Then if there's just, you know,

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a lot of incorrect mentioning a lot of new words,

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unusual words that you do not understand, then you need to work on your vocabulary.

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But you won't know any of this unless you actually do this

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thing use this technique use this strategy and improve your score

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so to summarize it is very rare for a student to

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be bad at listening we work with thousands of students

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and none of the students that got a band nine came in

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and we were like you're just bad at listening you need

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to do a whole big listening course it's normally just one

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or two key areas key weaknesses that they need to work on

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and it's all just about identifying your weaknesses and then turning those weaknesses into So again,

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get real practice tests, do two or three of them.

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At the back of the book, you'll find the correct answers.

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And then you will also find the audio scripts so you can identify, you know, why did I get this question wrong?

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Why did I get this question wrong?

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And then do an analysis and think about what are your key weaknesses and attack those key weaknesses.

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So I want to help you out even more in this

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video to say thank you for being one of our loyal YouTube fans. that many, many students have been asking us to do is the ability

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for me to give them one -on -one feedback on their essays and also create personalized study plans.

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Now, normally this costs a huge amount of money.

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We offer this on our VIP course, and if you were just to buy those two services, it would be $147.

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But we're trialing a brand new premium service.

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What we're gonna do today just for our YouTube viewers is reduce that price by more than 90%.

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and the one -on -one feedback for just $10.

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But because I'm giving my time to this, I can only offer it to a very small number of people.

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So if you go below into the description, click the link, we might have places available, we might not.

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These places normally go very, very quickly because it is an amazing offer.

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What you will get is for just $10, I will give you feedback on your essay, tell you everything you need to know, your band scores, everything, and exactly what to do to improve.

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cool.

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IELTS study plan telling you exactly what to do step by step day by day with Before your test

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so that you can fully prepare normally this costs more than $147

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but today it is just $10 I can't guarantee there will be places available on

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But if you go and check it out, Take one before they are all gone.

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So now you know exactly how to identify your listening weaknesses, whether it's specific question types like maps and multiple choice or spelling mistakes,

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section three problems or section four academic vocabulary, or just listening skills you need to work on.

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But here's the thing.

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Here's the problem.

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Knowing your weaknesses doesn't actually automatically fix them.

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Just being aware of them won't magically improve your score.

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you struggle with multiple choice questions or section four academic listening, what's the actual strategy to turn your weakness into a strength?

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I'm gonna show you two real students who were stuck at a low score,

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and I'll walk you through the exact techniques they used to fix their specific weaknesses.

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Both of them ended up getting a band nine in IELTS listening.

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You'll see the actual strategies in action and the advice that I give them on how to actually improve.

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their full transformation.

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This B2 speaking lesson is built on the video “The ONLY IELTS Listening Strategy You Need”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: listening, student, section, test, type. This video has 147 sentences and 2139 words to shadow. The speech runs for 12:38. The speaker talks at a natural 169 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. 91% 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
bind verb	/ˈbaɪ̯nd/	To tie; to confine by any ligature.
weakness noun	/ˈwik.nɪs/	The condition of being weak.
vocabulary noun	/vəˈkæb.jə.lə.ɹi/	A usually alphabetized and explained collection of words e.g. of a particular field, or prepared for a specific purpose, often for learning.
spelling noun	/ˈspɛl.ɪŋ/	The act, practice, ability, or subject of forming words with letters, or of reading the letters of words; orthography.
lecture noun	/ˈlɛk.t͡ʃə/	A spoken lesson or exposition, usually delivered to a group.
incorrect adjective	/ˌɪn.kəˈɹɛkt/	Not correct; erroneous or wrong.
dramatically adverb		In a dramatic manner.
magically adverb	/ˈmæd͡ʒ.ɪ.kli/	In a magical manner; by magic, or as if by magic.
monologue noun	/ˈmɑnəˌlɔɡ/	A long speech by one person in a play; sometimes a soliloquy; other times spoken to other characters.
overload verb	/ˌəʊvəˈləʊd/	To load excessively.
personalize verb	/ˈpɜː.sə.nə.laɪz/	To adapt something to the needs or tastes of an individual.
progressively adverb	/pɹəˈɡɹɛsɪvli/	In a progressive manner.
summarize verb	/ˈsʌməˌɹaɪz/	To prepare a summary of (something).
recreate verb	/ˈɹɛk.ɹi.eɪt/	To give new life, energy or encouragement (to); to refresh, enliven.
incorrectly adverb	/ˌɪnkəˈɹɛk(t).li/	In an incorrect manner.

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Word	Meaning
go through verb	To travel from one end of something to the other.
end up verb	To bring to a conclusion.
talk over verb	To discuss; to converse about a matter or issue.

Grammar in this video

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

Structure	In the video
Present perfect continuous have/has been + -ing — an action that started earlier and is still going on	have been learning · they've been listening · have been asking
Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now	We've helped · has helped · you've never seen
Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing	someone who of · students who were

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 38 contractions and reduced forms, such as you're, I'm, they're. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “sh” and “zh” sounds: indication /ɪndɪˈkeɪʃən/, beneficial /ˌbɛn.ɪˈfɪʃ.əl/
Long words — get the stress right: vocabulary /vəˈkæb.jə.lə.ɹi/, personalize /ˈpɜː.sə.nə.laɪz/, progressively /pɹəˈɡɹɛsɪvli/, incorrectly /ˌɪnkəˈɹɛk(t).li/, capitalism /ˈkæp.ə.təlˌɪzm̩/

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 bind, weakness, vocabulary.

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 →

Shadowing Practice: The ONLY IELTS Listening Strategy You Need - Learn English Speaking with Video

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

Key vocabulary in this video

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Grammar in this video

Pronunciation to watch

How to practise with this video

What is the Shadowing Technique?