Shadowing Practice: The Surprisingly Simple Band 9 IELTS Speaking Test - Learn English Speaking with YouTube

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Let's start off by talking about art.
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Let's start off by talking about art.
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Do you like art?
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Growing up, a way to express myself and just generally showing my emotions through whatever medium that I choose.
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I actually prefer art more than music in some different ways.
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I like to paint and I like to see people how they express themselves as well through their art.
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So yeah, I do love art.
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Do you think that art classes are important in school?
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I actually feel like art is very subjective.
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Teaching basic theories about art and stuff like that I feel like yes it is sometimes
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necessary so people can understand let's say basic concepts such as color theory
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and whatnot however I don't feel like following a certain concept or how
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to draw this or how to draw that is quite necessary like I feel like your own creative mind
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can go in whatever direction you want it to go to who are your favorite artists so my favorite
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artist in terms of the music industry i would say rihanna i love her music i love like every time i put it on
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my car and i'm driving i just love listening to her music because it it literally changes my mood and I love listening, I love sharing that experience with my friends as well.
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So she's tops my favorite artists.
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Now let's talk about animals.
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Do you have a pet at home?
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I actually have two pets.
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They're both cats.
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I love animals, but specifically cats.
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I love everything about them.
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So I have two cats.
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One, her name is Nooni, the other is Tutti.
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And Nuni kind of describes me as a person, like we kind of share the same behaviors.
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So she's very lazy sometimes.
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She's also introverted, I would say.
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I really love cats.
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I love how fluffy and sometimes friendly they are.
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I also enjoy their company, just them being there.
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Would you like a different pet in the future?
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so i used to have ducks um two ducks and i unfortunately i had to give them
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up to um shelter because i felt like i couldn't um properly take care of them
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in my house so in the future i really hope that i could revisit that memory of them of taking care care of my ducks so hopefully in the near future,
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maybe if I'm fully settled in my own house, I would love to have two more ducks.
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And do you prefer cats or dogs?
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Definitely cats.
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Like, I think it's because I come from like a Muslim family, so we kind of have like a taboo or like an idea of dogs, like it's not clean, and it's not, you know.
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So cats are just the way to go.
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Like I love cats, their personality, the way they look, the way they act, everything about them.
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Now let's talk about reading.
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How often do you read books?
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Back in middle school, I used to be so into books.
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It was basically my personality trait.
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I really, really enjoyed, like I had my alone time is just spending my time reading books.
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And at one point, my family just told me, like, get out of the house.
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Like, what are you doing?
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And even if I did go out of the house, like, I would just carry my book everywhere I go.
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As of recently, I kind of fell off of that habit of reading constantly because just with everything happening in my life, I can't keep up.
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But I would say once every two months I would read books.
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What book would you recommend to a friend?
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So I would recommend All the Bright Places.
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I forgot the name of the author, but I think that book really depicts what a teenager would go through.
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Like I said, I used to read back in middle school and also in high school.
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So I felt like that book really spoke to me.
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I really related to that book and I would recommend it to a friend because I generally feel like it kind of relates to, you know, the adolescents or teenagers in general.
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Do you prefer to read e-books or paper books?
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I generally prefer physical or hard copies because I like the feel of the book being in my hand, especially because I use my phone daily for a lot of things.
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I would like to change up my routine every once in a while.
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So a hard copy would feel like it's a different vibe to my daily routine.
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Now let's talk about photography.
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Who do you normally take photos of?
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Whenever I go out or step out of outside the house, I love taking pictures of whether it's of my friends, my family members or cats.
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I actually enjoy looking at things from a different perspective.
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So let's say just like the book on the table or the light or even just a bird from afar.
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I like taking pictures to show people like through my eyes what I see or how I view the world.
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Do you ever put any of your photos in frames?
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I've actually never thought about that.
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I've never done that before.
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it's actually interesting because I've seen a lot of people do that online where they print out their Polaroid pictures or like a
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physical copy of pictures that they've taken before and they framed it and actually I think I've seen my friends do that before so I mean why not maybe
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once I move out when you are on holiday do you prefer to send postcards or do you prefer to take photos and send them to people?
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I've never done the postcards thing before.
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I feel like it's kind of outdated, but I wouldn't mind doing that or start doing that in my vacations.
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But I usually just take photos and send it on WhatsApp.
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Let's say my family group, I send it just to show them like what I've been up to in my vacation.
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So yeah, just photos.
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I would like to talk about the author or the writer that I would like to meet in the future.
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Unfortunately, she passed away, but the writer is Jane Austen.
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She is the writer of Pride and Prejudice, which is the current read that I'm reading right now.
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The reason why I would like to meet her is because of how
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during her time, which is around 1700s or 1800s,
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I was always interested in the Victorian or how they were in the past, the way they dress, the way they talk,
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especially because people in the past spoke differently, the language or the words that they used were very different.
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Right now I'm reading one of her books, Pride and Prejudice, and sometimes I have to Google what she's saying.
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Like I don't understand what she wrote.
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It's very interesting the way she writes or like the language that she uses describing her like the setting, the story setting.
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I really enjoy it and I would like to find out about her lifestyle specifically
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because again I'm just very interested or intrigued about the idea of like living in that era
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of where the time that she was still alive why I would like to meet her
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is because I'm again very interested in how she speaks or how she spoke and the language or language that she uses.
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Well done, that's the end of the two minutes.
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So we've been talking about a writer that you would like to meet and we're going to continue to talk about reading in section three.
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What kind of books are most popular with children in your country?
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To thank you for watching this video, I want to give you a free course course that has helped thousands of students improve their IELTS speaking score.
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What it's going to do is take you through every single part of the test and give you strategies for part one, part two and part three, and also allow you to practice at home for free and get feedback.
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To sign up for that for free, all you have to do is just click the link in the description.
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Thanks very much.
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And let's get back to the video.
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In my country, to be honest, I'm unaware of, I don't know that much.
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But when I was a kid, I used to like Dr.
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Seuss even now, sometimes if I see Dr.
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Seuss online, I would I would just skim through it because I like how It rhymes.
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It was just fun to read, to be honest.
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Why do you think that some children don't read very often?
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So I'm a firm believer in terms of how parents reinforce their children.
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So when it comes to, like I've seen, I've personally seen how parents act with their children, giving them iPads or like just letting them watch TV.
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So I believe that if parents enforce their children to read more books or encourage them to start reading together, that would be a fun exercise to do at home.
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Other than that, I feel like the parents are usually the biggest reinforcers.
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Now let's talk about reading for different purposes.
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Do you think that speed reading is a useful skill to have?
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I do think that it is a useful skill.
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So for me, I read really slow.
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Like sometimes I have to reread a paragraph because I couldn't just decipher what it was saying.
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So I feel like in terms of like high demand jobs where they need to get a lot of things done on time.
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So speed reading could be a useful skill.
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Some people believe that reading novels is more interesting or more enjoyable than reading nonfiction.
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Why do you think that is?
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So I feel like reading just generally could give you a timeout from everything.
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I would understand why people would prefer fiction over nonfiction.
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because just in your daily life you're experiencing a lot of you know draining
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energies around you so when it comes to your alone reading time you get to experience or
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I guess be creative in your imagination so yeah that's why I think fiction books are more popular
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Recently, many bookshops have had to close because of competition from online bookstores.
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Do you think that's a good thing or a bad thing?
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I think that it's a bad thing because I personally love when I physically go to the store and look through the books and just read.
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Because I feel like buying a book should feel like an experience rather than like a chore.
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So buying it online diminishes that experience overall.
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So yeah, I feel like it is a bad thing that the physical stores are closing and online stores are overtaking.
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Let me give you some feedback on your performance.
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So you're hoping to get a bad nine.
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And I'll go through the four marking criteria.
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So pronunciation, fluency and coherence, grammar and vocabulary.
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Let's start off with your pronunciation.
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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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The examiner will be thinking about two things.
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One will be clarity.
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Can he or she understand everything that you're saying?
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and I can understand 100% of what you're saying.
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Every word, every syllable is extremely clear.
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The examiner is not really thinking about accents or anything like that.
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What they're thinking about is, do I understand you?
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I can understand you 100%, so that's excellent.
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The examiner will also think about higher level pronunciation features, such as intonation.
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Intonation is when our voice goes up, and our voice goes down.
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We use that to convey meaning and you do that very, very naturally.
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You also use connected speech and sentence stress and word stress very, very well.
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So good start with the pronunciation.
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Let's move on to fluency and coherence.
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Coherence is did you answer the question and did you develop your answers enough?
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Did you give enough information and really dive into the topic.
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For part one, you really did, you nailed every single question, you answered it appropriately, you developed it enough.
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Part two, you're talking about Jane Austen.
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You would be fine for this one.
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It was describe a writer you would like to meet.
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Hypothetically, we could meet someone who has passed away.
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Just be very careful on test day.
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Make sure that you're really, really focusing in on that topic.
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For that one, I don't think any examiner would say, oh, you can't meet Jane Austen, so let's mark you down.
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Because it's kind of one of those questions, who would you like to meet, alive or dead?
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So you would be fine, but just be careful on test day.
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Part three, you did answer each question.
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However, you could have shown the other side of some of the things.
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So for example, why do you think some children don't read books very often?
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So you said it's because of the parents.
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Are there any other sides to that?
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Is it because maybe you could talk about children, maybe they're distracted with other things?
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You did mention that.
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I'm being overly critical just to make sure that you do get the highest mark.
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But also some of the other questions, you know, could you have shown the other side of the argument?
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Could you maybe have thought of different ideas and explored different ideas?
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the way that you did answer it I think would be absolutely fine but on test day towards the end of the test students are
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often tired stressed they just want it to be over and on test day you might just pick it pick an answer pick
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an idea answer it quite quickly without really knowing that you're answering it quickly and then if you do that for all questions in part
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three it could affect your score for this one I don't think it did I'm just being really really cautious a good way to answer those questions is, okay, what do I think?
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What would someone who disagrees with me think?
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Explore the topic a little bit more, if you can.
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You don't have to do it for every answer, because what will happen is if you try to think too much, it could affect your fluency.
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So you could be like, I don't know.
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And then that will affect your fluency a little bit.
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Overall, your fluency was excellent.
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In part three, you could tell when you were thinking.
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Generally, when people pause and hesitate a little bit, it's because they're thinking a lot more.
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But you were only thinking about the next idea.
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You weren't thinking about vocabulary or grammar or which tense am I using or what's a better adjective to use.
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If you were doing that quite a lot, it would lower your score.
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But the examiner recognizes that you're not looking for language, you're not looking for English, you're just thinking about the next idea.
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And you did, you were like, like, I know, you know, at times, but that's quite natural.
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The way you did it was very natural.
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If you and I were speaking, having a normal conversation, you would hear me doing that sometimes.
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So it's the examiner isn't looking for perfection.
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They're looking for, you know, if you went to university in an English-speaking country or you started working in New York or Sydney, would you be able to interact with people and sound natural?
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And you would.
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Your grammar is excellent.
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You have a massive range of grammar.
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You can talk about any topic.
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You also do that very accurately.
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You did make a couple of little tiny, tiny slips, like prepositions.
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I think you said in holiday instead of on holiday, for example.
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But native English speakers do that all the time.
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You can actually make these tiny little slips and still get one of the higher bands because it is a reflection of the fact that native English speakers, including me, who's an English teacher,
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I make little grammar slips from time to time when I'm speaking.
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We used some really, really high level vocabulary like this.
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So this demonstrates that, you know, we asked you about a range of different topics and you had enough vocabulary to discuss any of those topics and all of your vocabulary was very,
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very accurate and you were using great topic specific vocabulary, idiomatic vocabulary.
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It's like speaking to a native English speaker.
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So you would get a band line.
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Well done.
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And yeah, I've every faith that you would, if you did the real test, you would get the highest score.
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well done thank you
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Shadowing English

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About This Lesson

In this lesson, learners will practice speaking English through an engaging discussion about personal interests in art, animals, reading, and photography. By exploring these topics, learners will enhance their vocabulary and build confidence in expressing opinions, making it an effective way to prepare for the IELTS speaking test. This session is designed to help you improve your English pronunciation and speaking fluency using the shadowing technique, allowing you to mimic native speech patterns and intonations.

Key Vocabulary & Phrases

  • Subjective: Based on personal opinions and feelings rather than facts.
  • Express myself: To convey thoughts and feelings through words or art.
  • Detrimental: Causing harm or damage.
  • Personality traits: Characteristics that define an individual's behavior.
  • Perspective: A particular way of viewing things; a standpoint.
  • Art medium: The materials or tools used by an artist to create their work.
  • Resonate: To evoke a feeling of shared emotion or experience.

Practice Tips

To effectively use the shadowing technique in this lesson, follow these tips:

  • Start Slow: Begin by shadowing short phrases. Focus on the speaker's tone and rhythm before attempting longer sentences. This helps in improving English pronunciation.
  • Mimic Emotion: Pay attention to how emotions are expressed. Try to replicate not just the words but the feelings behind them. This adds depth to your speaking skills, making your practice more realistic.
  • Record Yourself: After shadowing, record your voice and listen to it. Compare your pronunciation and intonation with the original video. This self-assessment is valuable for understanding areas in need of improvement.
  • Repetition is Key: Don’t hesitate to repeat segments multiple times. This will help solidify your understanding of the vocabulary and phrases used in the video.
  • Engage with the Content: As you shadow, imagine you are part of the conversation. This will encourage you to naturally use the vocabulary in your discussions and help with IELTS speaking practice.

By integrating these techniques into your learning, you can maximize the benefits of shadow speak and significantly enhance your English speaking abilities.

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.

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