Shadowing Practice: Understand English But Can’t Speak? Fix It Now! - Learn English Speaking with YouTube

Do you ever feel like you understand everything in English?

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Do you ever feel like you understand everything in English?

You can watch movies, you understand podcasts,

and you can read books.

But when you want to speak, you freeze.

That is one of the most common problems English learners have.

Let me tell you why this happens and how to fix it.

Understanding the problem.

There are two things that you need to know.

Input, output.

Now what is input?

Input is whatever goes in.

Whatever you put in is input.

Such as listening and reading.

Because when you listen to something, you're putting information in.

That's input.

Or when you're reading something,

you are reading the information and you're putting that in.

This is input.

You're receiving.

But we also have output.

It is what you put out,

what comes out of you.

That is speaking or writing.

That is when you produce information.

Now the biggest problem is students have good input,

very strong input, but their output is weak.

Why does this happen?

Think about it.

How do you learn English?

You read books, you're watching movies,

you watch YouTube videos, or you listen to podcasts.

of these are different forms of input so it makes sense

that your input is great but your output is weak it makes sense

that you understand english but you cannot speak

so what's the solution the solution is to improve your output

that means you need to work on your writing and speaking skills

and that's what we're going to do right now let's start with the first one writing skills

four ways to improve your writing skill let's start easy i

want you to share your thoughts what does it mean right now you're watching this video on youtube

so i want you to share your thoughts go to the comments section

and start typing what do you think about this video do

you like the teacher do you like what you're seeing do

you like this lesson what would you like to see next

what do you want to see more of share your thoughts

for example i love this video best video ever i learned why i cannot speak

or write because i have never practiced i am going to practice more

thank you for the video this is a very simple

but very effective writing practice do this for every single video

you watch online you're watching a video on youtube go to the comments section

and share your thoughts what do you think about

that video share your thoughts

that was a very easy activity basically that's a warm-up now what's next let's make it more challenging i want you

to make a daily journal.

Every day I want you to write down five to ten sentences about that day.

What did you do?

How did you feel?

What are you going to do tomorrow?

What happened to you yesterday?

Write five to ten sentences every single day about that day.

And listen, you don't have to worry about grammar.

It doesn't matter if your grammar is right or wrong.

At this stage, We don't care about grammar.

Our only focus is on getting your output to work.

So start writing 5 to 10 sentences every day about that day.

Today, I watched a YouTube video.

I realized my problem isn't grammar.

It's writing and speaking.

so I am going to write in my journal every day.

This doesn't take much time but you have to do it every day.

Try to make this a habit.

I know it's difficult.

It will only take probably five to ten minutes of your day.

Please do it.

It's going to help you a lot.

Okay so far we started easy.

As a warm up, you're going to share your thoughts in the comment section

and then you're going to write five to ten sentences every day about

that day now this third activity i want you to do may be a bit more challenging

but it's very good i want you to choose a very simple topic very simple topic

and then write one paragraph about it the topic should be simple for example

what makes me happy or what was the best advice i ever got

or my biggest dream or my dream house

or my perfect holiday for each topic you're going to write at least 100 words one paragraph is enough

but listen the important thing about this activity is

that now grammar is important your grammar

and your structure they matter how can you check your grammar

after you have written the 100 word paragraph i want you to go to chat gpt

or any other ai model gemini or whatever you have

and use this prompt pasted in chat gpt to get feedback

here's the prompt i am trying to improve my writing skill find my grammar

and vocabulary mistakes explain why they are wrong

and show me the corrected version

and then paste your writing in this way you're not only

writing one paragraph about a simple topic you are also correcting your paragraph using chat gpt

or any other ai model and you're getting feedback on what you've written

so your mind starts thinking about accuracy

and structure okay now you have practiced writing one paragraph let's

go to the final level at this level i want you

to write a full essay about a topic start with familiar topics

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and as you get better get to more complicated topics now

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here you're not going to write one paragraph you're going to write at least three to four paragraphs about

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that subject the topics can be more challenging for example is technology improving education this forces you to think

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and to produce more and more and more content.

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It's not just about sharing your thoughts anymore.

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It's about structuring that text.

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It's not just one paragraph.

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It's about three to four paragraphs.

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And again, at this stage,

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grammar and structure, they are very important.

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So again, I want you to use the prompt I gave you

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and ask ChatGPT or any other AI models to give you feedback.

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And if you don't like ChatGPT,

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we have built something fascinating for you.

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When you join the POC English Academy,

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you will have access to our latest AI tools.

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You can practice your writing.

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When you write for our AI model,

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it will start processing your answer.

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It will show you your mistakes,

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how to correct them, why you made those mistakes and what was wrong with those sentences,

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and it also analyzes your overall text and gives you four scores of grammar,

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vocabulary, coherence and cohesion, and one overall score.

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This is very helpful.

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I highly recommend joining the POC English Academy by clicking on the link above this video.

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Go ahead, check it out.

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And now, the writing part is over.

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What should we do for our speaking skill?

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Six ways to improve your speaking skill.

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Again, let's start easy.

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The first thing I want you to do is a very basic exercise.

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I want you to open a book and start reading loudly.

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You're going to read the book aloud.

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Now you might say this is reading,

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this is not speaking, but let me tell you one thing.

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This is improving your speaking muscle.

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Yes, speaking is a muscle.

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And you can train it to have muscle memory.

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Think of it as a warm-up.

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You're warming up your speaking muscles.

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This is a very important activity.

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Don't underestimate it.

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Open a book.

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Start reading loudly.

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One of the best ways to improve your English is to join the POC English Academy.

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You will have access to four complete courses,

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AI tools to practice speaking and writing,

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a student community to make friends and find study partners,

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and daily live lessons on Zoom every day.

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Wow!

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See that was very easy, but it's highly effective.

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I want you to do it.

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Now let's go to the second task.

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I want you to do the same thing I want you to open a book

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and start reading loudly

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but this time I want you to stand up walk around the room as you are doing it

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and imagine that you are presenting this information to an audience

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but how does this help again you are improving your speaking muscles you're trying to train muscle memory

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but But at the same time,

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you're doing a trick in your mind.

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What's the trick?

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You are turning a reading activity,

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which basically is input, into an output activity.

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You are training your mind to not only read,

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but also try to deliver.

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You have an imaginary audience,

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you're reading this aloud, but you are trying to read this to them.

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That's the trick are working on the muscle memory here

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and you're also imagining delivering information to others

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that is the first step of improving your spoken output okay

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enough with the easy steps what's the third step the third

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step is the shadowing technique it's very simple very effective

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and very fun to do in the shadowing technique you're going to choose one person that you really like

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a native speaker with a great accent.

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Now the accent can be American,

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it can be British, Australian, whatever you like.

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Choose one person with a very clear accent

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and then find a video on YouTube of that person and this is what you're going to do with that video.

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You're going to play the video,

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listen carefully, pause after every sentence and repeat.

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Play, listen, pause, repeat play listen pause repeat play listen pause repeat that's what you're going to do let me demonstrate

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one of the people

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that i really like in terms of their english is barack

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obama the way barack obama speaks i i don't think i've ever heard anyone as clear as him

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so i've selected one of his videos

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and i'm going to play it listen carefully pause and repeat this is what i want to do let's go

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I wanted to be a basketball player.

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I wanted to be a basketball player.

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You know, architect.

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An architect.

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There were a bunch of different things.

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Politician.

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There were a bunch of different things.

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Politician was not on the list.

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Politician was not on the list.

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The way I came into it.

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The way I came into it.

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I was inspired by social movements.

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I was inspired by social movements.

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Do this every day.

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It's a simple activity.

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You don't have to do a lot.

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You don't have to talk to other people.

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If you are shy, don't worry.

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Just play the video on your laptop,

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on your phone, and then listen and repeat.

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That's called the shadowing technique.

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Now, step four.

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This is something I used to do as a child,

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and this is something

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that i would probably say helped me the most talk to yourself now this is a gem

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because as an introvert as a person who is very shy

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i could not easily speak with other people i was mainly

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at home in my bedroom how could i improve my fluency

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how could i improve my speaking skill i couldn't the only

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way for me to improve my fluency was to sit down

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and talk to myself imagine this situation and imagine

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that i am talking to an audience

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or i'm talking to a good friend of mine or a teacher

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or a coach

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or to my imaginary girlfriend back then you know i think the reason why people are struggling nowadays is

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because the economy is bad it's harder for people to make

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money what do you think mm-hmm totally agree with you yes

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yeah i think you're completely right totally agree with you man you're the best yeah

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so just imagine a situation and start speaking with yourself

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and don't worry if people think you're crazy i had a teacher who used to say

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if you want to improve your speaking skill you need to be a little crazy

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and that's absolutely right you need to be you will look into the mirror talk to yourself in the mirror

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or just sit down Talk to her.

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Imagine that you have a bunch of friends around, talk to them.

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Now we are in 2025,

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almost 2026 now, and we have AI, so use it.

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Another activity that you can do right now,

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even if you are shy,

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even if you think your level is not good,

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even if you don't have the self-confidence to start speaking immediately,

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is to practice speaking with AI.

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Speaking with AI.

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I mean, writing to AI is fun,

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it's good, But I prefer speaking because you're trying to improve that muscle memory, remember?

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You're trying to work on your spoken output.

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So don't just type, try to speak.

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And yes, I understand a lot of the AI models,

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if you want to access the speaking feature,

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you need to pay for a premium account.

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But I think if you use Microsoft Co-Pilot or probably now even ChatGPT,

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you get like, I don't know,

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five to ten minutes per day of free speaking access.

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It's very simple.

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You just open ChatGPT and click on the voice mode.

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Wait.

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And then start talking.

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Hi, I'm a student.

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I want to improve my English speaking skill.

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Can you help me?

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Absolutely.

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I'd be happy to help you out.

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We can just have a chat

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and you can practice speaking with me feel free to talk about anything you're interested in

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and i'll give you some feedback

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or tips along the way uh let's just start easy um ask me a question sure let's keep it nice

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and easy how about this can you tell me about a hobby you really enjoy

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and why you like it uh yes i like tennis

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because i think tennis is a very fun sport that's awesome tennis is definitely a fun and and dynamic support.

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See, that is enough.

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I think I proved my point.

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You can use an AI model to practice speaking.

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It's very good.

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But if you wanna do it, you need to pay.

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Also, again, if you join POC English Academy,

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we have built an AI speaking teacher for you.

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You can use this AI tool to work on your speaking skill.

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This AI tool will ask you questions.

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You will have to answer.

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It analyzes your answers, and it will give you feedback on your grammar,

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vocabulary, coherence, and cohesion, and an overall score.

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So again, if you want to have access to all of these cool AI tools that we have built for you,

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together with our four courses and our amazing student community,

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go ahead, click on the link,

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and check out our website.

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Let's get to the final one.

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This is very important, and I think it's fair to say that this is the ultimate goal of learning a language.

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Why do you study English?

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Because ultimately, you want to be able to communicate with other people, right?

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Yes, you can learn English to write better or to,

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I don't know, understand movies and TV series.

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But if you're watching this video,

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that means your understanding is okay.

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You just want to speak.

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And why do you want to speak?

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Because you want to be able to talk to other people, right?

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So this is exactly what I want you to do.

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I want you to talk to other people.

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Yeah, it's going to be hard you're going to have to find someone who is also studying English.

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You're going to have to find a group of people who are also at the same level

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or a similar level to you and are working on improving their English.

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And it's not easy.

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It's hard.

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But we have made it possible.

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We have built an amazing community of more than 1,000 students who are improving their English every day.

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and on our community space our students are connecting with each other they're making friends they're finding study partners

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and they are having daily conversations whenever they have free time they go

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and check who's online and they start a chat

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and a conversation together also we have daily live lessons every day with our teachers

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and our students you can actually engage with other students

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and improve your speaking by talking to people

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if you want to join don't miss this opportunity just click on the link go to our website register

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and start becoming a member of our community

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and that's it guys i hope you've enjoyed this lesson now

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what was the first activity i wanted you to do i wanted you to go to the comment section

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and share your thoughts So go ahead, do it now.

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Go to the comment section and start writing.

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That is your first homework.

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See you soon.

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Bye.

TRENDING

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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Speak English fluently using the Shadowing technique. Listen to native YouTube videos, repeat sentence by sentence, and build real pronunciation and fluency — used by IELTS learners worldwide.

Shadowing Practice: Understand English But Can’t Speak? Fix It Now! - Learn English Speaking with YouTube

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