Shadowing Practice: Why financial literacy education in the US sucks - Learn English Speaking with Video
Choose a practice mode
Each mode opens a full-screen practice room.
75 sentences
If sentences are too short or too long, click Edit to adjust them.
1
If you've clicked on this video, you're probably familiar with this kind of sentiment.
2
Why aren't we taught financial literacy in school?
3
Imagine if school taught us compound interest over mitochondria being the powerhouse.
4
Credit card debt isn't taught in high school.
5
To some extent, research supports this.
6
According to a 2019 study by the National Bureau of Economic Research, over half of U .S adults are considered financially illiterate.
7
And that lack of literacy is one driving force behind the financial instability a lot of Americans face.
8
We're over a trillion dollars in credit card debt, over a quarter of us don't have any retirement savings,
9
and over a third of us would struggle to cover a $400 emergency expense.
10
So perhaps it's no surprise that 88 % of adults agree that high schools should require financial literacy courses.
11
But for many of us, it's not quite true that we were never taught anything.
12
So maybe the question isn't why didn't we learn this stuff, but rather why don't we remember any of it?
13
And how do we change that?
14
There's actually a pretty straightforward way to determine if you're financially literate.
15
A simple set of questions known as the big three.
16
One about interest rates, one about inflation, and one about risk diversification.
17
Let's pause here to see how you do.
18
If you chose these answers, congrats, you're financially literate.
19
And if you didn't… Someone who is financially illiterate doesn't know what to do with their money,
20
where their money's going, where their money currently lives, and doesn't even know the options.
21
Getting these answers right requires both a knowledge of financial vocabulary and the ability to make mental calculations.
22
It takes time to understand this stuff.
23
You can't just like learn the basics in one or two days and then call it good.
24
In other words, financial literacy is a lot like, well, literacy literacy.
25
You can't just sit through one class on the alphabet and then expect to be able to pick up war and peace.
26
And you can't sit through one lesson on money management and expect to know exactly how to handle your own finances.
27
The problem is, that's exactly how a lot of us were taught about these concepts.
28
Since 1998, the Independent Council for Economic Education has been tracking legislative requirements at the state level for high school financial classes.
29
And their data shows that back then, at least 21 states offered some form of financial education.
30
And by 2011, nearly every state did.
31
It's hard to tell how many of us actually took those classes, given that a lot of them weren't mandatory.
32
But somewhere between learning about the Boston Tea Party for the 10th time, and that one day spent on World War I,
33
your history teacher might have taken a crack at teaching you about credit card debt.
34
But in the not -so -distant past, U .S schools actually taught financial education pretty differently.
35
We'll hear more about that after a word from this video's sponsor.
36
This episode is presented by Metro by T -Mobile.
37
This tax season, Metro wants to help customers avoid wasting dollars by using their tax refunds to catch up on things that they want,
38
not on things they don't.
39
According to Metro, you don't take yada yada in life, so don't take yada yada from your wireless provider.
40
Metro by T -Mobile has no contracts, no credit checks, and no surprises.
41
Metro does not influence the editorial process of our videos, but they do help make videos like this possible.
42
To learn more, you can stop by one of over 6 ,000 Metro stores nationwide.
43
Now, back to the video.
44
We don't have great records of education standards from before the 80s, when the Department of Education was formed.
45
But based on old teaching materials, it seems that up until the 50s or 60s, money management was a fixture in the public school curriculum.
46
Often as part of home economics class.
47
Alongside, you know, sewing and baking, students were learning how to budget for better living, use consumer credit, and save for their weddings.
48
There were also standalone consumer education classes, which seemed to be less gendered.
49
But that started to shift thanks to the space race.
50
Worried that American students weren't measuring up to students in the USSR, in 1958, President Eisenhower signed the National Defense Education Act,
51
which placed an importance on math, science, and foreign languages.
52
And years later, the U .S.
53
Department of Education published a landmark report
54
that partially blamed the country's decline in educational performance on schools spending their time training their students for adulthood.
55
That same document doubled down on Eisenhower's math and science -based educational goals, proposing new basics for nationwide curriculums.
56
Since then, a steady march of legislation has made curriculums more and more focused on standardized testing,
57
leaving even less room for life skills like financial education.
58
But thankfully, for at least the past decade, the pendulum appears to be swinging back.
59
More and more students are receiving the kind of financial education that might stick, spending full semesters learning about things like household budgeting,
60
taxes, credit management, and student loans.
61
In 2022, nine states required a standalone class to graduate.
62
Another 14 required that students receive personal finance lessons within a different course.
63
And five more states offered it as an elective.
64
So access has definitely ramped up dramatically.
65
And as of February 2024, at least seven more states have active bills that would introduce mandatory classes.
66
And there's good reason to be optimistic that more states will follow suit.
67
Many of these bills even have rare bipartisan sponsorship, likely because financial education really works.
68
It's been shown to improve credit scores, lower delinquency rates, reduce risky payday lending and lead students to low interest college financing.
69
It even has a sort of trickle -up effect on the students' families and even the class's teachers.
70
Researchers are also in the early phases of learning more about what kinds of lessons work best, and which don't really stick.
71
Like any planning for retirement.
72
Maybe because that's just a bit too far off for high schoolers.
73
So it might only be a matter of time before
74
Americans remember as much about compound interest as they do about cellular energy production, and as much about inflation as the dimensions of triangles.
75
Thank you.
Download App
Everything you need to speak fluently
AI PronunciationScore every sentence
IPA PracticeMaster every sound
VocabularyBuild your word bank
Vocab GameLearn while playing
Same Channel
B21
How cruise ships got so big
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
C11
Why no aquarium has a great white shark
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C11
Inside the secret race to build artificial intelligence | The Gray Area
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B26
Five things you need to know for the 2026 midterms | America, Actually
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
B21
How to be less neurotic | The Gray Area
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B22
We’re already using AI more than we realize
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
B21
The Ticketmaster monopoly is over, now what?
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
B22
The biggest peach myth in America
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
B28
How to solve problems like a designer
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
B22
The origin of the '80s aesthetic
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
B217
Why “Buy one, get one free” isn’t a great deal
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
B22
How F1 drivers survive their own cars
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
B22
White, pink, and brown noise, explained #shorts
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
B210
Why 350°F is the magic number for baking
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
B26
How did pink become a girly color?
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
C12
Why China's population is shrinking
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B22
The real reason Boeing's new plane crashed twice
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
B21
Why AI art struggles with hands
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
B22
Why is everything getting so expensive?
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
B21
Proof of evolution that you can find on your body
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
FOR YOU
Recommend Video
C12
322 sentences
How Money & Banking Work (& why they're broken today) - Lyn Alden
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B210
33 sentences
Crash Course Sex Ed Preview
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C111
39 sentences
You Will Only Like Half of This Video
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B21
13 sentences
Financial success is a marathon, not a sprint
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
B21
749 sentences
Unforgettable Calls Vol. 1 | Dave Ramsey's Greatest Hits
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
B2201 sentences
How Jews Teach Kids About Money Differently, And Why It Works | Jewish Financial Education
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
C12
582 sentences
You've (Likely) Been Playing The Game Of Life Wrong
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C13
235 sentences
The Psychology of Money in 20 minutes
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
C12
198 sentences
To Save the Economy... We’re About to Break It
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
C13
116 sentences
How To Become Dangerously Self-Educated (complete plan)
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B11
5 sentences
10 сентября 2026 г.
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
B21
131 sentences
How to Build Wealth in 5 Years (Realistic Version)
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This speaking lesson is built on the video “Why financial literacy education in the US sucks”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: financial, student, credit, literacy, Metro. This video has 75 sentences and 1054 words to shadow. The speech runs for 5:55. The speaker talks at a natural 178 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. 84% 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
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| literacy noun | /ˈlɪtəɹəsi/ | The ability to read and write. |
| financially adverb | In terms of finance or money. | |
| lesson noun | /ˈlɛs.ən/ | A section of learning or teaching into which a wider learning content is divided. |
| curriculum noun | /kəˈɹɪk.jə.ləm/ | The set of courses, coursework, and content offered at a school or university. |
| compound noun | /ˈkɑmpaʊnd/ | Anything made by combining several things. |
| mathematics noun | /mæθ(.ə)ˈmæt.ɪks/ | An abstract representational system studying numbers, shapes, structures, quantitative change and relationships between them. |
| inflation noun | /ɪnˈfleɪ.ʃən/ | An act, instance of, or state of expansion or increase in size, especially by injection of a gas or liquid. |
| mandatory adjective | /ˈmæn.dəˌtɔɹ.i/ | obligatory; required or commanded by authority. |
| nationwide adjective | /ˌneɪ.ʃənˈwaɪd/ | Extending throughout an entire nation. |
| extent noun | /ɪkˈstɛnt/ | A range of values or locations. |
| household adjective | /ˈhaʊshoʊld/ | Belonging to the same house and family. |
| alongside | /əˌlɔŋˈsaɪd/ | Side by side with. |
| economics noun | /ˌiːkəˈnɒmɪks/ | The study of resource and wealth allocation, consumption, and distribution, of capital and investment, and of management of the factors of production. |
| skill noun | /skɪl/ | A capacity to do something well; a technique, an ability, usually acquired or learned, as opposed to abilities that are regarded as innate. |
| crack noun | /kɹæk/ | A thin and usually jagged space opened in a previously solid material. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| sit through verb | To unwillingly stay seated until the end of an event. |
| pick up verb | To lift; to grasp and raise. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- Why aren't we taught financial literacy in school?
- Let's pause here to see how you do.
- If you chose these answers, congrats, you're financially literate.
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 | isn't taught · are considered · were never taught |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | you've clicked · has made · has definitely ramped |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 25 contractions and reduced forms, such as don't, can't, you're. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: inflation /ɪnˈfleɪ.ʃən/, nationwide /ˌneɪ.ʃənˈwaɪd/, congratulations /kənˌɡɹæt͡ʃəˈleɪʃ(ə)nz/, partially /ˈpɑɹʃəli/, dimension /daɪˈmɛn.ʃən/
- Long words — get the stress right: literacy /ˈlɪtəɹəsi/, curriculum /kəˈɹɪk.jə.ləm/, mathematics /mæθ(.ə)ˈmæt.ɪks/, mandatory /ˈmæn.dəˌtɔɹ.i/, economics /ˌiːkəˈnɒmɪks/
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 literacy, financially, lesson.
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.