Shadowing Practice: What is Psychology? (Intro Psych Tutorial #1) - Learn English Speaking with Video

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Hi, I'm Michael Corayer and this is Psych Exam Review, where I answer common questions and explain the key concepts in psychology.

This is the first video, so I'm going to start with a basic question, that is, what is psychology?

Now if you've ever told someone that you're taking a psychology class, you probably already know that there's a lot of misconceptions about what psychology is.

Despite what people think, it's not about analyzing someone's every move or trying to read people's minds or anything like that.

So we can say that psychology is the scientific study of thought and behavior.

This means that psychologists want to know why people think the things

that they think and why they do the things that they do

and answering these questions can help us to better understand the world.

We can understand the causes of events and behaviors and we can understand how and why people differ from one another.

Now this is a pretty broad field saying

that we're going to study thought and behavior and this means that psychology is really connected to everything that people do.

Anything that you're interested in, psychology can help you to understand it,

but because it's so we have to break psychology up into a number of subfields.

So let's see a few examples of these.

We have cognitive psychology and cognitive psychology focuses on cognition or thought.

So how do our thoughts influence us?

How do they influence our emotional state or our decision -making or our behavior?

We also have evolutionary psychology and evolutionary psychologists want to know how our thinking

and our behavior has been shaped over millions of years of evolution, so how have certain patterns been selected for over time.

We also have developmental psychology, and developmental psychologists also want to know about how we change over time,

but they look at a much shorter time period, the course of a lifespan.

So how do people change from infancy to adolescence or from adolescence to adulthood.

Then we have neuroscience and neuroscience is focused on studying the brain and brain activity.

Now this might be connected to our thinking

so we might look for patterns of brain activity

and how they connect to thought and that would fall under cognitive neuroscience

or we might focus on the relationship between brain activity and behavior and that would be considered behavioral neuroscience.

Now many of these approaches focus on an individual, but we can also think about how being in a group influences thought and behavior.

So how do you change when you're around other people?

And that would fall under social psychology.

And lastly we have abnormal psychology, and this is the area that most people think of when they think of psychology,

and and this is studying thoughts and behaviors that are deemed to be abnormal.

Included within this would be clinical psychology, and that is examining the diagnosis and also the treatment of psychological disorders.

Now these are just a few of the subfields of psychology, there are others, but it's important to remember

that each of these approaches uses slightly different methods and has different ways of studying thought and behavior,

But none of these represents the best approach.

There's not one right way to study thought and behavior.

Instead we should think of all these different approaches as each being a piece of the puzzle that we're trying to solve.

That's a general overview of the field of psychology and

if you found this helpful please like the video and subscribe to the channel for more.

Thanks for watching.

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This speaking lesson is built on the video “What is Psychology?”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: psychology, behavior, neuroscience, brain, psychologists. This video has 11 sentences and 598 words to shadow. The speech runs for 4:18. The speaker talks at a steady 139 words per minute, a comfortable pace for shadowing. 84% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start. 4 of its 11 sentences are questions, so it is good practice for question intonation and short answers.

Key vocabulary in this video

15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
psychology noun	/saɪˈkɑ.lə.d͡ʒi/	The study of the human mind.
connect verb	/kəˈnɛkt/	To join (to another object): to attach, or to be intended to attach or capable of attaching, to another object.
cognitive adjective	/ˈkɑɡ.nɪ.tɪv/	Relating to the part of mental functions that deals with logic, as opposed to affective which deals with emotions.
psychologist noun	/ˌsaɪˈkɑl.ə.d͡ʒɪst/	An expert in the field of psychology.
evolutionary adjective	/ˌiː.vəˈluː.ʃən.ɛɹ.i/	Of or relating to the biological theory of evolution.
developmental adjective	/dɪˌvɛləpˈmɛntəl/	Related to development.
abnormal adjective	/ˌæbˈnɔɹ.ml̩/	Not conforming to rule or system; deviating from the usual or normal type.
select verb	/sɪˈlɛkt/	To choose one or more elements of a set, especially a set of options.
helpful adjective	/ˈhɛlp.fl̩/	Furnishing help; giving aid; useful.
solve verb	/sɒlv/	To find an answer or solution to a problem or question; to work out.
evolution noun	/ˌiːvəˈluːʃ(ə)n/	A manoeuvre of troops or ships.
disorder noun	/dɪsˈɔɹdɚ/	Absence of order; state of not being arranged in an orderly manner.
psychological adjective	/ˌsaɪ.kəˈlɑː.d͡ʒɪ.kl̩/	Of or pertaining to psychology.
diagnosis noun	/daɪəɡˈnəʊsɪs/	The process of, or an instance of, identification of the nature and cause of a medical condition or illness.
examine verb	/ɪɡˈzæmɪn/	To observe carefully or critically to learn about someone or something.

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Word	Meaning
fall under verb	To belong to for purposes of categorization.

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	is really connected · has been shaped · might be connected
Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now	you've ever told · has been shaped

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 8 contractions and reduced forms, such as you're, we're, I'll. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “sh” and “zh” sounds: evolutionary /ˌiː.vəˈluː.ʃən.ɛɹ.i/, evolution /ˌiːvəˈluːʃ(ə)n/, cognition /kɑɡˈnɪʃ.ən/, misconception /ˌmɪs.kənˈsɛp.ʃən/
Long words — get the stress right: psychology /saɪˈkɑ.lə.d͡ʒi/, psychologist /ˌsaɪˈkɑl.ə.d͡ʒɪst/, evolutionary /ˌiː.vəˈluː.ʃən.ɛɹ.i/, developmental /dɪˌvɛləpˈmɛntəl/, evolution /ˌiːvəˈluːʃ(ə)n/

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 psychology, connect, cognitive.

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 →

Shadowing Practice: What is Psychology? (Intro Psych Tutorial #1) - Learn English Speaking with Video

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