Shadowing Practice: The Small Errors Between Band 8.5 and Band 9 Speaking - Learn English Speaking with Video

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Let's start off by talking about high school.

Who was your favorite teacher in high school?

I think my favorite teacher in high school was Miss Malika.

She was my second grade teacher.

And I think she eventually, like at the latest teachers, she became my eighth grade teacher as well.

So I was very familiar with her and she remembered me.

So we had good memories together.

What was your favorite subject in high school?

My favorite subject would be,

I think, English because I liked reading stories and novels and it just kept me engaged,

wherein like with the other subjects you had to, it was more technical, but I enjoyed the reading bit and I still do enjoy reading,

so I'd say English.

Do you ever miss being in high school?

I do actually, because I started working very early.

I did not get to experience the university or college.

So the memories that I have or the friends I have is from high school.

And I do think about times where we could just go back and have a reunion and like have that moment again.

Now let's talk about transportation.

Do you take public transportation or private transportation?

I do not like public transportation.

I moved to Dubai a few years ago

and I got my driving license just because I hated going in metros or buses.

So I got my driving license and I enjoy driving.

Is it easy to catch public transportation in your country?

In my country, yes, it's quite easy and convenient, I would say.

The streets are very busy.

The traffic is crazy.

So it's easy, easier for people to get to work with public transportation.

Is driving a private car popular in your country?

I would say in countryside, it's quite popular as there's not as much modes of transport as in the big cities.

So in the countryside, it's quite popular, wherein in the big cities, people prefer taking public transportation it's faster, it's convenient.

Now let's talk about the internet.

How often do you use the internet?

I think every day.

We are also addicted to internet, so yeah.

What are your favourite websites to visit?

I think it's Instagram.

I think Instagram is the one website I use every single day whenever I'm bored, just to see what my friends are up to.

And that's, yeah, Instagram.

Do you think that you ever use the internet too much?

I'd say when I'm having a bad day,

I would just stay home and like scroll on Instagram and just try to escape reality in a way.

But on the other days, like when I'm out, I do not use Instagram or any social media websites that much.

Now let's talk about your free time.

What do you normally like to do in your free time?

A lot of things, actually.

I think I'm someone who likes variety in everyday life.

So just going out, checking out a new place or trying different activity, seeing my friends.

Yeah, I try to keep busy on my days off.

Are you very active in your free time?

I like to think I'm active yes

if I have nothing to do I just go to the gym

or to the pool read a book

but I try to do something on my free time something

yeah what do you normally like to do on the weekend

like I mentioned earlier I like to see my friends try a different restaurant cafe or an activity.

Just last weekend I went to try this ice bath.

You just jump into a bucket of ice.

So just yeah, try different things.

Describe a day when you thought the weather was perfect.

Where were you?

I was in Dubai a couple of months ago, just when the summer was about to end.

there was this day when I was just standing in my balcony.

It was a bit cloudy that day

and then like a few minutes later I saw the lightning

and the thunderstorm and it just got darker

and then I was standing in my balcony and I saw the lightning and I have the whole view of

Dubai skyline so I could see the Burj Khalifa the Dubai frame

and I saw the lightning on top of like right on top of Burj Khalifa

which was beautiful I recorded it and I posted it on Instagram

and then I saw a lot of people were posting the same stories

but from different places a friend of mine came over we had a glass of wine on the balcony

and then it started to rain

like heavily rain heavily so thunderstorm rain

and it's just not very common to see

that in Dubai that's why I thought the weather was perfect

because it's always hot and sunny and humid

and as soon as like the season starts to change I

think they do something called cloud seeding where um then they make it rain apparently um

so it was very beautiful to see the rain we had

a nice day nice evening in the balcony having a glass

of wine uh looking at the beautiful weather the traffic was

very crazy by the way the roads were flooded um

and i think like a lot of we ordered some food by the way um

and it took us two hours to get the food the deliveries

That's the end of the two minutes and that's the end of part two.

I'm going to move on to part three now.

So we've been talking about a perfect day and we're going to continue to talk about the weather.

What type of weather do people in your country dislike the most?

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that for free all you have to do is just click the link in the description thanks very much

and let's get back to the video um i think um my country india it's quite um hot

and humid especially some parts of India so I suppose people hate the summer

because it can get really intense but where I grew up it's not very hot

so some parts like especially the north it's not very hot

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actually like throughout the year the temperature I'd say would go up to 22 degrees

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but wherein like down from Delhi onwards it gets really hot

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and humid and it's just because a lot of people use public transportation

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and it's not easy to use public transportation or walk around because when it's just so hot.

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So I suppose they would hate the hot climate more than the cold.

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What jobs can be affected by different weather conditions?

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A lot of jobs related to transport I feel would be affected.

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Driving, I'd say, taxis or buses, even the flights, pilots or cabin crew,

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when the weather is not right, the flights might be delayed.

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And then if it's raining, the taxis would not be able to drive because of the water or the floods.

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So I think a lot of transport related jobs, and even food for

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that matter like the deliveries um all the delivery of companies

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they would have an impact of in a way now let's

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talk about weather forecasts what's the best way to get accurate

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information about the weather well i personally use google maps sorry

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google weather reports um i'm not very sure about this one because it depends from person to person.

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For me, I think Google weather reports are quite accurate, but I do not have a clear answer for that.

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Is it easy to predict the weather in your country?

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I suppose it is, yeah, because like I said earlier,

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some parts of India, the weather like cannot the temperature doesn't go over a certain degrees

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but wherein some parts are really hot and humid throughout the years

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so I think it's quite easy to predict but

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when it comes to rain

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or monsoon season it's a bit hard like last year this

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year sorry a few months ago in the north of India it was raining heavily

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and the rain did not stop for I'd say two weeks So that was not predictable.

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That's the end of the speaking test.

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Well done.

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Thank you.

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I'd like to give you some feedback on your performance, because I think that you're capable of getting one of the very highest bands.

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But there are some things that you just need to be aware of.

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So what I'll do is I'll divide the feedback up into part one, part two and part three,

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and then give you feedback on fluency, grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, talk about the technical parts and what band scores you would expect.

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Hope that you become a VIP.

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If not, enjoy the rest of this free video.

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Part one was great.

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You developed your answers enough.

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It was like talking to a friend or talking to a colleague.

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You could tell that you were a little bit nervous, but those nerves didn't really, in part one anyway, didn't really prevent you from doing well.

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And you were answering the questions naturally.

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your nervousness didn't cause any problems with fluency.

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On test day, you might be even more nervous.

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So a lot of my advice to you will be about kind of preventing nerves taking over.

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The way I always describe it is our brain is kind of like a computer and stress is like putting too much, opening too many programs on your computer.

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Like you might have a great MacBook Pro, but if you put it under stress, everything kind of slows down.

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And that's just, I think the same with you.

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You've got a MacBook Pro up there for speaking English, but you're putting a little bit too much pressure on yourself.

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So the enemy is really yourself, if that makes sense.

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And you're more than capable of doing well.

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And what I would always say is, I know it's difficult because you're speaking to an examiner you've never met before,

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but imagine a friend, imagine someone you're close with and they're They're just asking you these questions.

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Imagine you're in a coffee shop in your local area, having a coffee.

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Maybe if they ask you some of these questions, you'd be like, what?

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Why are you asking me that?

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But just that sort of frame of mind, that attitude, that often does help students.

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The other thing to know is, I would not lie to you.

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I'm telling you that you are very, very good.

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You are more than capable.

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So you should have confidence in yourself.

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Part two was good also.

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There was a little bit of repetition halfway through.

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You were like, yeah, my friend came around and had a glass of wine.

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That would be a problem if you constantly did that.

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So if you said something like, there was lightning, my friend came around, we had a glass of wine, we put it on Instagram.

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Yeah, there was lightning that day and my friend came around.

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You didn't do that.

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You just repeated one little bit.

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The reason you did that, I think, I might be wrong, is you were trying to think of more things and you wanted to keep talking while, was that correct?

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Yeah, that's correct okay so the examiner will recognize that

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and probably won't mark you down for that they would only mark you down

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if you you did that a lot

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because there's four bullet points what a lot of students do

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is they will talk about the bullet points the four

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or maybe some other things for a minute

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and then they'll just go back and they'll rehash them they'll just repeat them you didn't do that but again

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on test day

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if you get nervous it's kind of like a defensive thing

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to do is like look at the bullet points again oh i'm just going to talk about those things

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so a good tip is to um add maybe three

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or four more bullet points common things like how you felt past present future examples stories

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things related to that topic and then when you start to think oh i'm running out of things to say

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Just look down, talk about that and then talk about that.

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So just give yourself enough ammunition to use.

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Part three, you did very well.

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In part three, the examiner will ask you more difficult questions.

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The worst thing you can do is when you get a difficult question, a lot of people just laugh and go, no, I don't know, you didn't do that.

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Even though you did get one question that you didn't know a huge amount about, But you did very well because you attempted an answer.

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If you attempt an answer, what you're saying to the examiner is, I don't know about this topic specifically, but there's nothing wrong with my English.

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Remember it's an English test.

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It's not a knowledge test.

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It's not an IQ test.

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Now, band nine is the top mark.

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I think you could be capable of getting a band nine, but let's see whether you would actually get a band nine.

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The first thing is pronunciation.

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The examiner will be thinking about two things.

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Clarity, can they understand all the words that you're saying?

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And then higher level pronunciation features.

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We'll talk about clarity first.

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You're from India and there's nothing wrong with having an Indian accent, a Vietnamese accent, an Irish accent.

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There's nothing wrong with any of those things.

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But a lot of the Indian students that we work with are worried about their accent being too strong.

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I don't think that there's a problem with having a strong accent and any accent.

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But I think what they're saying is that their accent causes problems for the listener with certain words.

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That is not an issue for you at all.

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There's not a single word that I couldn't understand.

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You still have your Indian accent and that's a great thing.

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You should be very proud of it.

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There aren't extra marks for sounding British or sounding American.

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I'm sure that you know lots of Indian celebrities that have an Indian accent but speak English very, very clearly.

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Priyanka Chopra, for example, she speaks with an Indian accent, but you can understand every word.

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That's the same with you.

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So you're doing very, very well there.

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One thing about being nervous and being stressed is

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that people can sometimes speak inside their mouth

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and speak at the back of their throat because it's just a subconscious thing where we We don't want to be criticized.

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We're afraid of saying something wrong.

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So we're going to speak inside our own mouth.

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I used to do it when I was a child.

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My little nine year old boy does it all the time.

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It's about confidence, you know.

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You didn't do that, but I could see that if you were really under pressure and you were very,

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like, let's say you had a visa deadline and you must get this and you know,

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everyone's expecting you, you could go into the test and speak inside your mouth.

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That could affect clarity and could drop your score a little bit.

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It didn't happen this time.

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My best advice would be,

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imagine you're speaking to the examiner and they are sitting against that wall and pointing 10 feet away.

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All right, so we're about six feet away, double that.

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Okay.

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Don't be afraid of, like I'm speaking quite loud to you at the minute.

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Don't be afraid of...

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Because you seem the type of person that maybe thinks speaking loudly at someone is rude and some,

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I don't know, some different cultures.

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Is that the case in India or...?

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Yeah, it is, I think.

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I'm Irish, so we don't care how loudly we...

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If you go to an Irish pub, you'll hear the volume that most people speak.

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Up the volume a little bit.

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Again, pretend that they're 10 feet away instead of six feet away.

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You also use higher level pronunciation features quite well.

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Intonation.

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So the intonation is when our voice goes up and our voice goes down.

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If I come home late and my wife says, fine.

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That's not, that doesn't mean fine.

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So we use intonation to convey meaning.

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So, fine, fine, the same word, two completely different meanings.

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One I'm in trouble, one everything is actually fine.

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When people are nervous, they tend to have quite flat intonation.

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You didn't do that, but on test day, just be aware of that.

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A good tip is to, before the test, record yourself speaking and listen to your intonation.

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If I listen to you speak to your friends, your intonation would be more extreme, I think because, hey, how's it going?

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You know, when people are in a test and they're nervous and they're formal, they tend to speak more like this and very, very formal.

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It is not a formal test.

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And you might get an examiner who is very friendly.

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Sometimes you don't.

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Sometimes they had, you know, everybody has a bad day and their intonation might be quite flat and formal and robotic.

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And people often mirror other people, especially when there's a power dynamic, like someone seems more powerful because they're an examiner.

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Some students go in and they have great intonation outside the test, and then they go into the test and their intonation,

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their speech patterns are a little bit rigid and formal and robotic.

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That wasn't the case, I don't think, with you.

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A little bit maybe, but not a big deal.

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Next is coherence and fluency.

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Coherence is did you answer the question?

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It's like, if I asked you to talk about when the weather was perfect, did you actually mention a day when the weather was perfect?

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And you did all the questions, you actually answered them and you developed them enough

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and even some of the questions in part three

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that you had difficulty with and you developed them enough and

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that that was absolutely fine i have no problems with

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that at all your fluency the only time

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when you had an issue with fluency was in the middle of part two

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when you were you know reformulating things and you were repeating things to try and think of other things.

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That is fine because you only did it once in part two.

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It's not like they focus in, oh, you paused one time or you repeated something one time.

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They will listen to the whole thing and base the score on the whole thing.

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And you did an excellent job overall.

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You did pause at some times in part three when you were trying to think, but that had nothing to do with your language ability.

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Some people pause when they're trying to think of the correct, what's the correct adjective or what's the correct verb to use and what's the tense to use.

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You didn't do that.

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It was only really about ideas and again that's related to stress

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and nervousness because people think that the examiner wants the best idea or the correct idea.

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Remember it's a speaking test.

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There are no extra marks for great ideas.

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You could be the leading expert in the world on on weather and weather forecasting,

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or you could know nothing about it, it doesn't matter.

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All that matters is your pronunciation, your fluency, your grammar and your vocabulary.

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So just do what you did.

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And if you get an unusual topic or a topic you're not comfortable with, do what you did, which is attempt it, but explain like, I don't really know much about this.

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And again, just don't put too much pressure on yourself thinking I need to give the world's greatest answer you don't.

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For grammar, so there's two things the examiner will think about.

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One is a range of your grammar.

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Do you have enough grammar?

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So if I ask you about the past, do you know how to use past simple, present perfect?

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If I ask you about things to do in the future, do you have future structures?

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Do you know how to use comparatives and all and superlatives and all of these different little grammar structures?

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Everything that I threw at you, you were able to cope with that.

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So I don't think there's any problem with your range of grammar at all.

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The second thing that the examiner will think about is your accuracy.

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Overall, your accuracy is very good.

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There's no systematic errors.

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What a systematic error is, every time you use that part of grammar, such as articles or prepositions, every time or nearly every time you use it, you make a mistake.

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That means that that system, that part of the grammar, you don't know how to use that yet.

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You don't have that, but you do have little slips every now and again.

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And those are not a huge problem.

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So for example, you have these errors.

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Most of the time you use prepositions correctly, but sometimes you have little slips.

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So most of the time you use articles, you use them correctly, but sometimes you make little slips, but they're quite rare and they don't stop me understanding what you're saying.

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So if you said to me, my friend and I went to a cinema instead of my friend and I went to the cinema,

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that doesn't stop me understanding that you and your friend went to a cinema.

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So for grammar, you would get a very high score,

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but on test day, if you're nervous and that MacBook Pro starts having too much pressure on it,

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just like a computer, we make more mistakes when we're nervous and when we're stressed out.

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So there's nothing wrong with your grammar.

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Again, the biggest enemy is really yourself.

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The more pressure you put on yourself, the more mistakes that you will make.

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Vocabulary.

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So there's two things that the examiner will think about.

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Accuracy.

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Are you using words accurately to describe things and nouns, verbs, adjectives, are those actually accurate, the words that you're using.

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You've no problem with accuracy at all.

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And then the second thing is range.

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When I ask you about weather, do you have enough weather vocabulary to do that?

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When I ask you about, we were talking about high school and education, do you have enough vocabulary?

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You do, but I think that you play it safe a little bit.

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So the weather was nice.

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Are there other ways that you could describe the weather?

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That is not inaccurate.

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There's nothing wrong with that.

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But in a speaking test, you are capable of showing off your vocabulary more.

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Now for the vast majority of people, I would say the opposite.

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Especially people from India tend to show off

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and add in these crazy big long amazing words and they think that will boost their score.

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You have the opposite problem, which I think that which is quite rare, you're capable of using more vocabulary but you play it quite safe.

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And it all depends on what score you want.

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If you want the absolute top score, you don't have to every sentence be throwing in a big complicated word, but you just have to, you know, every now and again,

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throw in something a little bit more advanced and that would really, really help you.

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Am I correct in that you are capable of doing that?

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Yeah.

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Or you are, yeah.

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you what you want to do but that would be my advice

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so for pronunciation if you were nervous

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and you were speaking inside your mouth you would get pro

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on test day you would probably get a band eight

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but i think

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that you are capable of a band nine i think today you were a band nine um

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which is the top score fluency on test day

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if you were repeating things a little bit and you're searching for ideas

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and you're putting too much pressure on yourself you possibly could get a band eight, I think you're capable of getting a band nine.

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Today, I think that you were a band nine, which is the top score.

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What it says for grammar is that even a band nine student can make slips.

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I think that today you probably would get a band nine.

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On test day, if you're nervous and you make them a wee bit more regularly, you would get a band eight.

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Vocabulary, I think today you were a band eight

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because you all of your stuff is accurate and

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but you're playing it too safe today you would get a very very high score

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but in our next test i'll be expecting an even higher score

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because i think you can do way better than

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that you're you're currently showing what do you think about that any questions or anything no no

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This B2 speaking lesson is built on the video “The Small Errors Between Band 8.5 and Band 9 Speaking”. This video has 364 sentences and 4394 words to shadow. The speech runs for 26:44. The speaker talks at a natural 164 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. 87% 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.
examiner noun	/əɡˈzæmɪnɚ/	A person who investigates someone or something.
grammar noun	/ˈɡɹæm.ə(ɹ)/	A system of rules and principles for the structure of a language, or of languages in general.
accent noun	/ækˈsɛnt/	A higher-pitched or stronger (louder or longer) articulation of a particular syllable of a word or phrase in order to distinguish it from the others or to…
intonation noun	/ɪntəˈneɪʃən/	The rise and fall of the voice in speaking.
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.
fluency noun	/ˈfluːənsi/	The quality of smoothness of flow.
pronunciation noun	/pɹəˌnʌn.siˈeɪ.ʃən/	The formal or informal way in which a word is made to sound when spoken.
humid adjective	/ˈhjuːmɪd/	Containing perceptible moisture (usually describing air or atmosphere); damp; moist; somewhat wet or watery.
wherein	/wɛˈɹɪn/	Where, or in which location.
balcony noun	/ˈbælkəni/	An accessible structure extending from a building, especially outside a window.
clarity noun	/ˈklæɹ.ɪ.ti/	The state or measure of being clear, either in appearance, thought or style; lucidity.
pause noun	/pɔːz/	A temporary stop or rest; an intermission of action; interruption; suspension; cessation.
cinema noun	/ˈsɪn.ə.mə/	A movie theatre, a movie house.
adjective noun	/ˈæd͡ʒ.ɪk.tɪv/	A word that modifies a noun or noun phrase or describes a noun’s referent.

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
come around verb	/kʌ.məˈɹaʊnd/	To change one's mind, especially to begin to agree or appreciate what one was reluctant to accept at first.
go back verb		To return to a place or state after having been there at a previous time.
show off verb		To exhibit the best attributes of something.
check out verb		To record the departure or withdrawal of someone or something (such as guests, employees, books, etc.).
come over verb		To affect in a sudden, unprecedented or surprising manner; to overwhelm a person's ordinarily contrary impulse.
get back to verb		Return to (an activity)
go down verb		To descend; to move from a higher place to a lower one.
go out verb		To leave, especially a building.

Sentences worth repeating

Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:

Who was your favorite teacher in high school?
What was your favorite subject in high school?
Do you ever miss being in high school?
Do you take public transportation or private transportation?
Is driving a private car popular in your country?

Grammar in this video

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

Structure	In the video
Conditional sentences if + clause, will/would + verb — a condition and its result	if it's raining, the taxis would not
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	are also addicted · were flooded · can be affected
Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing	someone who likes · did, which is · that which is
Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now	has helped · you've never met

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 108 contractions and reduced forms, such as you're, don't, I'm. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “th” sounds: thunderstorm /ˈθʌn.dɚˌstɔɹm/, eighth /eɪtθ/
The “sh” and “zh” sounds: intonation /ɪntəˈneɪʃən/, pronunciation /pɹəˌnʌn.siˈeɪ.ʃən/, preposition /ˌpɹɛpəˈzɪʃən/, rehash /ɹiːˈhæʃ/, repetition /ˌɹɛp.əˈtɪʃ.ən/
Long words — get the stress right: examiner /əɡˈzæmɪnɚ/, intonation /ɪntəˈneɪʃən/, vocabulary /vəˈkæb.jə.lə.ɹi/, pronunciation /pɹəˌnʌn.siˈeɪ.ʃən/, preposition /ˌpɹɛpəˈzɪʃən/

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, examiner, grammar.

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 Small Errors Between Band 8.5 and Band 9 Speaking - Learn English Speaking with Video

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Unit 1 | Growing up | Vocabulary for IELTS | All English 4U

Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

Key vocabulary in this video

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Sentences worth repeating

Grammar in this video

Pronunciation to watch

How to practise with this video

What is the Shadowing Technique?

Cambridge IELTS 18 – Test 1 – Section 1 (Listening, 1–10)