Shadowing Practice: Tuvalu’s Battle with Climate Change - BTN High - Learn English Speaking with Video
Creating lesson...
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I grew up in Tuvalu and I was also born there.
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Life in Tuvalu is very easy and it's beautiful.
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We have coconut trees.
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When it's hot they go swimming, fishing.
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And cooking the traditional food, the language and the cultural dance.
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It's very important so that we can keep our traditional culture on going.
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Poeva and Akisa are sisters from the small Pacific nation of Tuvalu,
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which is around 4,000 kilometres northeast of Australia.
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It's made up of a group of nine small islands and is home to around 11,000 people.
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But despite their love for their home country, many Tuvaluans, like Poweva and Akisa, have made the tough decision to leave.
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My family moved here to Australia for better opportunities, like, especially for education and work.
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And the climate change is also affecting Tuvalu, so moving here makes us feel more safer about our future.
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Climate change and sea level rise, It's, like, affecting our houses, so that's why we came in.
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Like, strong winds happened, like, lately, and it's destroying our houses, and the sea level rise, it's, like, flooding everywhere.
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I don't want to see my country disappear.
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At its highest, Tuvalu is only about 4.5 metres above sea level.
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So, as sea levels rise due to climate change, Tuvalu is starting to disappear.
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It's predicted that by 2050, half of the capital, Fulnafuti, will be flooded.
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On top of that, extreme weather events are eroding the Tuvaluan coasts, threatening homes and destroying crops.
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Some experts say the country could be uninhabitable by the year 2100.
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Tuvaluwan leaders have been calling for support from other countries and in 2023, they made an agreement with Australia.
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I believe that developed nations have a responsibility to provide assistance, and that is precisely what we are doing.
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Australia promised millions of dollars to help Tuvalu adapt to climate change and pay for critical services and security.
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It also created a new visa system, which allows a small number of Tuvaluans to migrate to Australia each year.
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280, to be exact.
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The most significant agreement between Australia and a Pacific Island nation ever.
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This partnership stands as a beacon of hope.
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Last year, more than 8,000 Tuvaluans applied for visas to Australia.
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Pastor Manu was one of the first to be granted one.
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We are all lowland islands, alive.
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There is, like, the ocean is our friend.
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Every day we wake up.
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If you look around, the ocean is just beside you.
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Right or left, look around, it's all over there.
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Climate change really, the things are now happening at home.
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Yeah, it's happening.
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Because the land has been taken out by the sea.
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Manu is happy to be here in Australia and lives in Narricourt, a regional town in South Australia.
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But he says one of the things he
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and many other Tuvaluans worry about is how to maintain their culture in a new country.
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Culture is life.
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Without culture, you cannot navigate in this life.
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That's in the perspective of a Tuvaluans person.
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It's a different kind of world here.
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For many, Tuvaluans culture is centred around faith and family.
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On each Tuvaluan island, there are communal meeting places called Fale Kupule Houses.
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Here, people gather to listen to elders and learn about culture and traditions.
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And Manu says things like this aren't easy to replicate in Australia.
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So, that house already is a special house for learning.
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So, we learn things from there, not academic, but part of living as a Tuvalu in the land, because we have to have knowledge how to live,
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like fishing, cultivating, you know, things like that, there will come a time.
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We cannot force growing kids to maintain our culture because they are starting to absorb some of the things from other people,
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all their friends.
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Manu is trying to do what he can here in Australia to build a strong Tuvaluwan community.
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In Narakaw, there are about 30 Tuvaluwan migrants, and he says this makes things easier.
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It gives us opportunity to maintain our way of living.
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And also, because we have kids, they really need this.
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You need to maintain your way of living
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so that you can be identified as a Tuvaluwan person because our behaviour really helps us with our identification.
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Poeva and Akisa are part of this Narraquat community and both are still adjusting to life here.
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Akisa says she's struggling with the weather and the language and she misses her friends and family.
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Some of my friends are, like, going to New Zealand and Fiji and some are staying because,
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like, they can't leave their grandparents.
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I miss the close community and the families surrounded by family and culture.
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Pueva hopes to one day go back to Tuvalu as a lot of her friends chose not to leave.
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But she says she wants to do what she can within her community here in Australia to keep her culture alive.
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We strongly maintain our language and other traditional culture in our house,
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so we don't have to forget or leave our culture, our tuvaluant life.
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I just hope that people understand that we move here for safety and opportunities,
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not because we want to leave our culture behind.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This B2 speaking lesson is built on the video “Tuvalu’s Battle with Climate Change - BTN High”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: culture, Australia, Tuvalu, Tuvaluan, maintain. This video has 70 sentences and 863 words to shadow. The speech runs for 6:52. The speaker talks at a steady 126 words per minute, a comfortable pace for shadowing. 86% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.
Key vocabulary in this video
The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| disappear verb | /dɪsəˈpɪɹ/ | To vanish. |
| visa noun | /ˈviːzə/ | A permit to enter and leave a country, normally issued by the authorities of the country to be visited. |
| cultivate verb | /ˈkʌltɪveɪt/ | To grow plants, notably crops. |
| grandparent noun | /ˈɡɹæn(d)pɛəɹənt/ | The parent of someone's parent. |
| kilometre noun | /kɪˈlɑmɪtəɹ/ | An SI unit of length equal to 10³ metres. Symbol: km |
| lowland noun | An area which is considered particularly low or lower than surrounding areas. | |
| migrate verb | /maɪˈɡɹeɪt/ | To relocate periodically from one region to another, usually according to the seasons. |
| uninhabitable adjective | /ˌʌnɪnˈhæbɪtəbəl/ | Not fit for people (or other living things) to live in; not able to be inhabited. |
| replicate verb | /ˈɹɛplɪkeɪt/ | To make a copy (replica) of. |
| navigate verb | /ˈnæv.ɪ.ɡeɪt/ | To plan, control and record the position and course of a vehicle, ship, aircraft, etc., on a journey; to follow a planned course. |
| communal adjective | /kəˈmjuː.nəl/ | Pertaining to a community or a commune. |
| beacon noun | /ˈbiːkən/ | A signal fire to notify of the approach of an enemy, or to give any notice, commonly of warning. |
| migrant noun | /ˈmaɪɡɹənt/ | A migratory animal, in particular a migratory bird. |
| metre noun | /ˈmiːtəɹ/ | The basic unit of length in the International System of Units (SI: Système International d'Unités), equal to the distance travelled by light in a vacuum in… |
| surround verb | /səˈɹaʊnd/ | To encircle something or simultaneously extend in all directions. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| look around verb | To inspect a building or area. | |
| go back to verb | To stem from; to originate in. | |
| take out verb | To remove. | |
| wake up verb | /ˌweɪk ˈʌp/ | To stop sleeping; to awake. |
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 | was also born · will be flooded · be granted |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | have made · has been taken |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 4 contractions and reduced forms, such as don't, aren't, can't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: threaten /ˈθɹɛt.n̩/, northeast /noːˈθɪjst/
- Long words — get the stress right: kilometre /kɪˈlɑmɪtəɹ/, uninhabitable /ˌʌnɪnˈhæbɪtəbəl/, identification /aɪˌdɛn(t)ɪfɪˈkeɪʃn̩/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Shadow it sentence by sentence at normal speed, repeating each one until your rhythm matches the speaker.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like disappear, visa, cultivate.
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.