Shadowing Practice: TOEFL Speaking TIPS for a Perfect Score - 2026 Edition - Learn English Speaking with Video

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In the TOEFL speaking, when you want to get the highest possible score, the first step is to understand the structure.

There are two task types, listen and repeat, and take an interview.

The first one, listen and repeat, is what it sounds like.

You listen to a statement and repeat.

The statement will be something like this.

Welcome to our office kitchen and break area.

Now that's pretty easy.

It'll get more difficult as you keep going, where number seven is maybe 15 words long or longer.

So, that's it.

You listen and repeat seven times.

After that is take an interview.

Here, you will be asked four questions.

You have a question, one at a time, and then you have 45 seconds to speak.

There's no preparation time.

There's just a question, and then you speak.

The possible topics that you'll get on test day, it should be something familiar.

Something with your lifestyle, habit, education, or school something you should have an opinion about and be able to talk about.

So that's it.

Pretty simple first step.

The second step to getting a perfect score.

Now I know nobody is perfect.

There's always flaws in how we speak, even me.

Somebody will let me know in the comments the mistakes I make.

But to get the highest possible score, the second thing you need to do is understand the grading.

So this is the grading according to ETS, the company that makes the TOEFL for a listen

and repeat they're going to grade you on fluency which how smooth

and natural you speak on intelligibility do they understand what you're saying

and repeat accuracy did you repeat what was actually said and

that that'll probably be the biggest thing did you actually say what was said

and so that's pretty simple take an interview also pretty simple is

that you're graded on four dimensions which are fluency

which is the way that you speak intelligibility do they understand your pronunciation and your speech music going up and down,

your language use, your vocabulary and grammar.

And then, of course, your structure, which is like the organization of how you begin

and how you develop the topic in the middle and how you finish your speaking.

Does it make sense while you're speaking the way that it's structured?

So that's it.

Not only is important to know about the grading criteria, but you have to know what to do with it.

Okay, so you understand it, so what?

What does that mean?

Well, now that you know the grading criteria, you can set goals to try to reach those marks,

which is why you can download the TOEFL goals guide that we have at TST Prep.

It's completely free and we give you goals based on the dimension what you're trying to work on.

If you're trying to work on speed, we give you goals for how to speak faster.

If you're trying to improve your vocabulary, we give you goals to set to try to help improve your vocabulary.

So make sure you download that so you know what you need to do to actually improve in those scoring criteria.

The next tip or next way to improve your score, the next way to get to the perfect score is to always record your speaking.

I say this all the time, but it bears repeating.

I'll say it just really quickly here.

If you want to improve, you have to record your voice.

Not only do you have to record your voice, but you also have to listen to your voice as well.

I know it's painful, I know you hate the sound of your own voice, but that's the way that you're going to improve, so make sure that you do that.

But you can't just record your voice, you also have to grade your own speaking, so I'm going to make this as painful as possible for you.

Not only do you have to record your voice, not only do you have to listen to it, but I also want you to grade your own speaking.

Now, I know you're not a teacher, you don't know to look for

which is why i have this checklist here for both listen

and repeat and for take an interview

so you want to go through this checklist

when you listen to your speaking for example did i include less than three fillers

so if i said uh um uh okay uh if i said

that too much more than three times i'm going to try to do

that less next time so these are questions

that you should be able to answer even though you're not

a trained teacher you can still do this for yourself for both take an interview

and for listen and repeat as well for listen

and repeat i'll show you an example here of how you can actually do this

so i'm going to play a student sample

and you can see how this checklist can help her figure out what she needs to work on

so let's listen to this sample at the end of the day check

that all appliances are turned off

and the trash has been taken out at the end of the day check all the appearances are turned off

and then trash or

take out so you can see

that she has a couple different things going on she doesn't

remember it exactly she missed a couple words she changed the form instead of uh taken out she said take out.

She had a little bit of a hesitation that would hurt her score as well.

So use this checklist to help you.

You can probably, you know, understand your weaknesses, but seeing the text and listening as well is really important

because what you hear is different than what is actually what you actually say.

So make sure you have text to check to make sure that your speech matches the text.

Alright, so this next tip is really, really powerful that a lot of students need to take advantage of.

Before I get to that, I gotta shout out the TOEFL Emergency course.

This is designed for anybody who wants to get their score as quickly and as easily as possible.

It's designed for people who have less than a month to prepare.

You know, if you just want to get your score quickly, you want to know the most important stuff.

We have study plans for two days, one week, two weeks, and one month.

Everything you need, practice tests, videos.

So it's not just the videos, it's also practice as well.

So check that out, TOEFL Emergency Course.

This is a discount only for the YouTube audience.

I'll put a link in the description to that.

But so the next one is to use technology.

So, of course, most people know about AI, ChatGVT.

I'm sure you know different websites that you can try to practice.

There are a lot of test prep sites that do offer AI, but a lot of them are not great.

So I want to recommend two that I know are really good.

The first one is MySpeakingScore.

This is, they use the same technology that ETS uses to grade the speaking on the TOEFL.

You can trust their scores and their feedback i recommend them

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and also elsa speech analyzer not elsa the app

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but the actual website elsa speech analyzer you can upload up to 30 minutes of audio for free

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and so you can do 30 toefl speaking question examples and

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or take an interview question examples

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and get grades on it it'll show you your pronunciation score uh a lot of different scores grammar score

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and so definitely check that out and take advantage of technology to help you get feedback on your speaking.

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But I really want you to do the checklist first.

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The reason I gave you the checklist first in this video before the technology is

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because you need to get good at identifying your weaknesses yourself.

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If you don't get good at it, you're never going to be able to improve because you don't know when you're making a mistake.

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So definitely, even though it's the more painful part, do the checklist and then use technology to combine with your own feedback.

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The sixth tip here to help you improve

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and get as close as possible to a perfect score is to know how to start.

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So for take an interview in particular, we're going to talk about they ask a question and then the timer starts immediately.

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So you have no time to prepare.

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You have to start speaking as soon as the question finishes.

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So you want to be able to start fast.

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It's hard to get used to speaking on command.

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When I say three, two, one, speak.

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You know, it's very awkward, very uncomfortable, like, oh, you know, you're like, I don't know what to do.

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So you want to have an idea of how you're going to start each question.

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So I have three ways to start.

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The first way is pretty simple.

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It's just to answer the question.

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Don't think too much about a template.

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Don't think too much about stock phrases.

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You just start answering right away.

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So if we look at this question, one example, thank you for joining me today.

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To begin, what kind of activities do you usually do to stay healthy?

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For instance, do you exercise regularly, focus on nutrition, or do something else?

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So you could say something like in my case or a lot of people I know for question number one.

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That can help you kind of start.

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Or you could just say, I try to stay healthy by, I try to stay healthy mainly by running three times a week.

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I just answer the question.

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So you can use one of these phrases for question one, in my case, or a lot of people I know, or you can just answer the question.

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And it's the same thing for question two.

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This example here, the person just starts immediately.

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When I'm stressed, I usually prefer to move around instead of sitting still.

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All right, so that's the first way.

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You just answer the question pretty simple.

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The second way is to have a template.

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So there are some basic templates we give to students for each of these questions for one, two, three, and four.

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Each one is slightly different in the TOEFL speaking, so each one you'll have a slightly different way to start.

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So for example, I already talked about question one about saying in my case or a lot of people I know.

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Question two, usually they ask about your preference.

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Which do you prefer?

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So personally, I prefer, or if I had to choose, I would prefer to.

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So when you have two choices, I personally, I prefer, and then you start talking about it.

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Question three and four is a little different.

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Question three and four ask you to support your opinion on broader issues.

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So that, personally, I prefer, or in my case, for question one, it's not going to work for questions three and four.

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We have to change those templates a little bit.

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We have to change the way you start a little bit.

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So for question three, you could say something like, I do or don't believe or in my opinion.

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I strongly believe that.

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I tend to agree that.

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I'd say that I agree with that idea because.

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So this is for either question three or four.

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So that's the second way to start.

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Another way you can start is to use a stock phrase.

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Now this is the last thing that you do because you really don't want to use too much memorized language, memorized examples when you're doing the TOEFL.

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It actually gives you a warning.

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Don't have like long memorized examples.

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So just the little ones are okay.

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But you could start off, if you need some time to think, like they give you a question, you don't understand it really, or you're not sure how to answer.

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You say, well, to be honest, I've never thought about that.

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But, so you see how this gives you some time?

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Ah, that's an interesting question.

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Well, in my experience, so any of these to try to help you, give you a minute to try to figure out what you want to say, can help you start.

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A couple of examples here.

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To be honest, I never thought about that, but I guess I try to stay healthy mainly by running three times a week.

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So I can buy a couple of seconds by using some of these phrases where, oh, that's an interesting question.

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I guess when I'm stressed.

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So again, giving yourself a couple seconds to think about what you want to say.

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All right.

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So for this next tip to try to get the highest possible score in the TOEFL speaking, let's talk about listen and repeat.

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And let me ask you, what do you think is the hardest thing for test takers for this question type?

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Listen and repeat.

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I'm going to show you an example of a student doing the one thing that makes this really hard.

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Here we go.

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Remember to clean up after yourself and leave the counters tidy.

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Remember to clean up for everyone to use and then clean.

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So basically it's you don't remember what was said okay so

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that that is gonna be the hardest thing is

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that you just listen and then you have to repeat

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and you're like I don't remember exactly what was said so

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that repeat accuracy being able to repeat exactly what was said it's gonna be the hardest thing for you

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so how do you work on that how do you try to improve

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that well you need to test your limit you have to

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see kind of the amount like how many words can you

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repeat comfortably is it eight words ten words on the test they won't give you more than 20 words.

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20 words is probably about the longest, maybe a little bit more.

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How much can you repeat and remember comfortably?

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So you want to test your limits, and you want to see where's that limit, and how can you push past that.

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Okay, I can remember eight words.

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Let me try to do nine words tomorrow.

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Another way to help you improve on this is to speed up the audio.

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So when you practice, this speed up and do 1 .1,

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1 .2, 1 .5 speed so you can get used to listening quickly and repeating what was said.

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This is one way to help you kind of improve on this skill because this is something that, you know, there's not so much strategy I can teach you for this really

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if you heard it and you can remember it great, but I can help you really work on your weaknesses for this and that is to test your limit,

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see how many words you can't, you know, you can't remember very well and try to push back past that little by little.

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See what words, what phrases you're having some trouble with.

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See if there's some patterns in the things that you are struggling to remember and work on them.

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So I hope these tips help you get a perfect TOEFL Speaking Score, get the highest possible score on test day.

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Go to tstprep .com, make a free account.

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We have hundreds of free practice questions, including TOEFL speaking practice.

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And if you want to practice some TOEFL speaking, here's a practice test somewhere here.

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And yeah, thank you guys for watching.

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I appreciate your support and I'll see you in the next one.

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Mastering TOEFL Speaking: Key Insights for Success

For English learners aiming to ace the TOEFL Speaking section, understanding structure and grading is critical. The video breaks down the test into two main tasks: listen-and-repeat and interview-style questions. The first task involves repeating 7 statements, starting simple and growing to 15+ words. The second task requires answering 4 familiar topics—like lifestyle or education—in 45 seconds per question, with no preparation time. These tasks demand both accuracy and quick thinking, making english speaking practice essential.

Grading Criteria: What Matters Most

ETS grades listen-and-repeat tasks on fluency, intelligibility, and repeat accuracy. For the interview, they focus on fluency, intelligibility, language use (vocabulary/grammar), and structure (organization). To meet these standards, set specific goals. For example, if fluency is a weakness, practice speaking faster while maintaining clarity. Tools like a shadowing app can help refine these skills by mimicking native speech patterns.

Actionable Tips: Record, Shadow, Improve

The video emphasizes recording your speech to identify flaws. Pair this with the shadowing technique—repeating audio immediately after hearing it—to boost fluency and accuracy. Here’s a step-by-step guide: 1) Listen to a TOEFL-style audio clip. 2) Pause and repeat it, focusing on intonation and rhythm. 3) Record your attempt. 4) Compare with the original to check for errors. This shadowspeak method trains your brain to process and reproduce language quickly, a key skill for the listen-and-repeat task. For interview questions, practice organizing thoughts into a clear structure (introduction, details, conclusion) while using varied vocabulary. Consistent practice with these techniques will help you meet the TOEFL’s grading criteria and approach a perfect score.

Grammar in this video

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

Structure	In the video
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	will be asked · was actually said · was said
Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing	dimensions which are · structure, which is · anybody who wants
Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now	has been taken · I've never thought

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 →

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