Shadowing Practice: THIS IS WHY YOU BLANK OUT IN IMPORTANT MEETINGS! 🤯 - Learn English Speaking with Video
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46 sentences
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If you are in a room and someone gives you a cue of social rejection.
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What does that look like?
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Okay, so social rejection, eye roll, a sigh.
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Looking away.
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Right, looking away, distancing behavior when we pull our head back and like, when I angle my head back, you know I've just disengaged from you.
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Crossing arms.
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Crossing arms.
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It's just sudden non-verbal rejection.
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Okay, so social rejection cues, and you know this, if you're in a business meeting and you suddenly feel like, am I disliked?
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He's not, he doesn't like this, she doesn't like this.
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When we see a cue of social rejection, our field of vision increases.
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We see wider.
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We literally see wider.
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Our pupils dilate so we see more.
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The reason why that study was like a light bulb for me was our cues are affecting others' physiology.
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Our physiology can change in a room in an instant.
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If we walk into a meeting and we feel not liked, if we feel rejected, if we feel like we're being judged, our own physiology responds.
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So if we're in a room and we're not feeling confident or in control and someone sends us a cue of rejection, One, you want to know what those are because it makes your field of vision bigger.
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So you can see who else is sending me a cue, what's my escape route.
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That's literally what your body's trying to do.
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Ups your adrenaline, ups your cortisol.
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And no one can think well.
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Adrenaline, cortisol.
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That's why in a meeting, it can go downhill so quickly.
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You're in a presentation, you prepare it all week.
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You're like, yeah.
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And then you're like, oh, he just rolled his eyes.
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Oh, she just turned away.
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Oh, I just saw a weird foot uh-huh, and then you lose your spot, you blank out and the rest of the presentation goes badly.
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The good news is, is what Matthew Lieberman found, he's from UCLA, once you label a cue, so if you say that was an eye roll, that was a scoff of exasperation,
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that was a contempt smirk, the moment you label it your amygdala calms down.
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They've proven that if they, when people are in fMRI machines and they show them a fearful face, so fearful faces when we widen the whites of our eyes and we raise our eyebrows up.
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If you're laying in an fMRI machine and you see fear, you will begin to feel afraid.
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Your amygdala begins to activate and your body goes, well, he's afraid.
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I better be afraid.
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But the moment you say in the fMRI, that's just fear, your amygdala stops responding.
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Interesting.
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So I think I've had a really hard time finding confidence.
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It's been a long lifetime journey.
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The way that I've sort of backdoored into confidence is control.
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If I can control the cues that are being sent to me, if I can control the cues I'm sending to others, it's a secret backdoor into confidence.
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How do you control someone else's cues?
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You label them and respond appropriately.
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So you can't control how they act towards you, but you can control how you react to it, how you interpret it, how you transition afterwards?
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Yes, like you can first by labeling it, you just controlled your own physiology.
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So if someone sends you a contempt, an eye roll, you just, you took control back of, nope, I see it, I spot it, I'm disengaging it.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This B2 speaking lesson is built on the video “THIS IS WHY YOU BLANK OUT IN IMPORTANT MEETINGS! 🤯”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: cue, rejection, eye, physiology, amygdala. This video has 46 sentences and 586 words to shadow. The speech runs for 2:38. The speaker talks fast, about 223 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. Only 77% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is demanding.
Key vocabulary in this video
The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| rejection noun | /ɹɪˈd͡ʒɛkʃən/ | The act of rejecting. |
| cue noun | /kju/ | An action or event that is a signal for somebody to do something. |
| physiology noun | /ˌfɪziˈɑ.lə.d͡ʒi/ | A branch of biology that deals with the functions and activities of life or of living matter (as organs, tissues, or cells) and of the physical and chemical… |
| amygdala noun | /əˈmɪɡ.də.lə/ | Each one of the two regions of the brain, located as a pair in the medial temporal lobe, believed to play a key role in processing emotions, such as fear and… |
| cortisol noun | /ˈkoɹ.tɪˌsɔl/ | A glucocorticoid steroid hormone produced by the adrenal cortex that mediates various metabolic processes (such as gluconeogenesis), has anti-inflammatory and… |
| disengage verb | /ˌdɪsɪŋˈɡeɪd͡ʒ/ | To release or loosen from something that binds, entangles, holds, or interlocks. |
| adrenaline noun | /əˈdɹɛnəlɪn/ | Epinephrine, the hormone and neurotransmitter. |
| fearful adjective | /ˈfɪəfəl/ | Frightening; causing fear. |
| contempt noun | /kənˈtɛmpt/ | The state or act of contemning; the feeling or attitude of regarding someone or something as inferior, base, or worthless; scorn, disdain. |
| dilate verb | /daɪˈleɪt/ | To enlarge; to make bigger. |
| exasperation noun | The act of exasperating or the state of being exasperated; irritation; keen or bitter anger. | |
| eyebrow noun | /ˈaɪˌbɹaʊ/ | The hair that grows over the bone ridge above the eye socket. |
| downhill adverb | /ˌdaʊnˈhɪl/ | Down a slope. |
| bulb noun | /ˈbʌlb/ | The bulb-shaped underground portion of a plant such as a tulip, consisting of a shortened stem and many fleshy scale leaves, from which the rest of the plant… |
| appropriately adverb | In an appropriate manner; properly; suitably. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| look away verb | To ignore something; to pretend not to have seen or noticed something; to avoid dealing with something. |
| calm down verb | To become less excited, intense, or angry. |
| turn away verb | To rotate so as not to face someone or something. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- That's literally what your body's trying to do.
- You're in a presentation, you prepare it all week.
- How do you control someone else's cues?
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | I've just disengaged · They've proven · I've had |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | being judged · being sent |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 17 contractions and reduced forms, such as you're, I've, we're. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- Long words — get the stress right: physiology /ˌfɪziˈɑ.lə.d͡ʒi/, amygdala /əˈmɪɡ.də.lə/, adrenaline /əˈdɹɛnəlɪn/
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 rejection, cue, physiology.
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.