Shadowing Practice: Why Kids Can't Read Anymore - Learn English Speaking with Video
Creating lesson...
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We have zero problem-solving skills.
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There could be a backpack in the path that someone needs to walk, and instead of picking it up,
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walking around it, they'll start whining that they don't know what to do, like their brain short-circuits.
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They literally cannot think to just move it out of the way.
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So many of them will go through the entire hour-long reading period and not read a single word.
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Hi, welcome to another episode of ColdFusion.
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There's something seriously wrong with Gen Alpha in the modern classroom.
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I'm not talking about fighting over a phone with a teacher, or even pepper spraying someone.
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It's a deeper crisis within the current education system.
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It goes without saying that there's plenty of smart kids out there who are doing just Fine, but sadly, there's a growing percentage of kids that can't read, can't do addition or subtraction,
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even when they'll be graduating in a few years.
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I don't know if there's something wrong with my cerebral cortex, but I can't read, bro.
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Teenagers can't read.
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Not confidently, not fluently, and in some cases, not at all.
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The behemoth, it's a victim.
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If this trend continues, it's worth asking what happens to the future of nations and the world as a whole.
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If we look deeper into the past, we see a pattern that leads us to the actual answers to difficult questions.
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What if it's not the kids?
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What if all of us in our own way are responsible?
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But of course, it's not all bad.
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At the end of this episode, we'll take a look at some places that are actually fixing the problem now, today.
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You are watching Told Fusion TV.
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It's no secret that education has been declining for a while, but before we sink our teeth into the topic, Let's take stock of how things are today, and to do that, we need to go back.
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These are kids from the 1960s, imagining what the future would be like.
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The topic of the video isn't the point.
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It's more about how they speak and how they articulate their ideas.
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I don't think there is going to be atomic warfare, but I think there is going to be all this automation.
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People are going to be out of work and a great population, and I think something has to be done about it.
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People will be regarded more as statistics than as actual people.
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I don't think it's going to be so nice.
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Sort of all machines everywhere, everyone doing everything for you.
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You know, you'll get all bored and...
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I don't think it'll be so nice.
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If you look at the comments section to this video, everyone is talking about how the children of yesterday sound more eloquent than the adults of today.
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The English Instagram page Typical Movie documents the fall of knowledge and education in real time.
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So what's the capital of China?
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King Kong King Kong?
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What is it?
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Is King Kong a city?
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I don't know, China isn't it?
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What is 5 plus 5 plus 0 What plus?
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100 What's the capital of India?
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Oh my god, I'm thinking all this Bangladesh Now a question for you here What is another name for a thousand years?
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A trillion?
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Now for you, yeah, what's the past tense for the word deliver?
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Delivery?
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How'd you get to delivery?
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Because you get the word deliver and then you put a Y on the end.
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I don't know.
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Okay, no, it's delivered, it's delivered.
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And it's not just a cherry-picked selection of people either.
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There's hundreds of videos like these.
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Read the index card.
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The animals, yeah I bring clothes that I can't read.
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President, affection, reflected and deeply.
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Ingrade, development, uh, de-ver, deviral resilience.
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According to multiple outlets, Gen Z is officially the first generation to be dumber than the previous.
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Obviously that's not universal.
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There's a lot of smart Gen Z people out there, but this is the average.
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So if this is the state of young adults, how are the kids doing?
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Frankly, not great.
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Why?
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Well, there's many reasons which we'll get into later, but the obvious scapegoat is technology.
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So let's start there and see how true that is.
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Generation Alpha consists of those born between 2010 and 2024, making the oldest of them 16 to 17 years old.
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For them, using a laptop in the classroom has become a prerequisite for an education.
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But the science says that this might not be a great idea.
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Let me explain.
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Have you ever noticed that when you write things down by hand, you tend to recall the information better?
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Why is that?
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Well, it's not because pen and paper is somehow magical, but it's more that the very act of writing itself stimulates the brain in ways typing doesn't.
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When students write by hand, the whole brain lights up at once.
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Regents responsible for memory, sensory integration, and most importantly, the encoding of new information, all fired together.
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But when typing, the brain basically isn't stimulated at all.
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And if you pit those who learnt from a computer versus those who wrote by hand, the handwriting group always wins and by a wide margin.
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One of the premier studies on this was published in 2024.
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It was the culmination of 20 years of work by Norwegian neuroscientist Audrey Vandermeer.
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Her paper showed that writing by hand isn't one motion, but a series of thousands of micro-movements that are coordinated with your eyes in real time.
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Your brain actually does some work and some spatial problem solving during this process.
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You use your finger movements, your intricate finger movements to produce forms on the surface,
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whereas when you're typing it's just these simple finger movements
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that are actually exactly the same for every letter that you're trying to produce.
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And that's why children who have learned to read
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and write on a tablet have difficulty differentiating differentiating between letters that look similar but are each other's mirror image, for example.
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It's not just theory though, but it's been proven in practice.
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And it involves ditching computers and going back to basics, pen and paper.
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Why?
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Because test results are going backwards.
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The pendulum always swings.
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I think we have hit way too far one end of the digital tech in education.
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And I do think it's swinging back.
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In Baroneer, Year 11 and 12 students have the choice to use laptops, but most choose not to.
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Teachers can already see the difference.
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Oh, it's chalk and cheese.
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We've had a significant increase in comprehension.
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There's a lot more work happening, a lot more dialogue happening, and critical thinking has increased as well.
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So do you think devices are making kids dumber?
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No, I don't think they're making kids dumber because I actually think kids are a lot smarter than what we are.
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What I think they are doing is that they're stopping kids thinking themselves.
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Introducing generative AI into the classroom might make things even worse.
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Sure, it has its place, but there's a risk of overusing it.
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And as the publication The Australian points out in regards to Gen Z,
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alarming studies show AI may have already fatally corroded this generation's ability to really think and more importantly to discern.
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Unfortunately, it also turns out that some schools are just being plain lazy by using generative AI to make their lessons.
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Does this map look right to you?
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If you look closely, Kentucky is Vineki, Indiana is Ainolano, Louisiana is Lukong,
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and South Carolina is South Quanto.
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Well that map was in the agenda given to students at a JCPS school.
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The bizarre errors do not end there.
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It appears much of the agenda was generated using AI.
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It might be throwing the baby out with the bathwater to completely ban AI in the classroom, But there's a high risk that if AI isn't integrated properly,
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it can be abused as a way of outsourcing the thinking of the students themselves, and that's the opposite of an education.
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But let's leave AI out of this.
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For Gen Alpha, putting that aside, things are pretty bad.
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In 2024, a K-12 public teacher in Maryland, USA, shared a bizarre experience he's been having with his students over the last 10 years.
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They began struggling with focus more than ever before, and they were having trouble with basic reading skills after the third grade.
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He noticed that the issues only compounded when the students got older.
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Business Insider recounts this story.
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Quote, McGowan, who has a doctorate in education, with struggling readers, he hands each child a book upside down and backwards.
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They should be able to turn the book the right way up and open it at the first page, he says.
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These days, some students aren't able to do that.
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End quote.
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Now to most adults, this is probably an unthinkable scenario, but the fact of the matter is,
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new New devices are changing the brains of adults and they're making unknown changes to what are now called iPad kids.
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They have not known a world without smartphones, social media and iPads.
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According to the Annie Casey Foundation, Gen Alpha kids are becoming proficient with handheld technology at younger ages than previous generations, with 40% having a tablet by age 2,
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58% having one by age 4 and almost 1 in 4 kids having a personal mobile phone by age 8.
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Studies conducted by academic paediatricians indicate that short-form content that damages adult attention spans, unsurprisingly, does the same to kids.
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One teacher told Newsweek, quote, There's been a noticeable shift in student engagement and accountability.
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Many students today appear apathetic and disconnected from their own learning, and it's not simply a matter of motivation, it's systemic.
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Technology is impacting this generation in powerful ways, both good and bad.
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Students have unlimited access to knowledge, that's a gift.
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But with that gift comes a cost, instant gratification.
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And that makes it hard for students to commit to learning processes that are slow, complex or challenging." And again, this isn't just a US problem.
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UNICEF monitors online behaviour, and the use of short-form content and instant gratification is rampant in all countries across the world, and it continues to rise.
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So as much as it is a trope, in conclusion, we can say that the overuse of technology does have a non-zero detrimental effect on students if used incorrectly.
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But, if you can believe it, technology is only a small part of the problem.
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There's also been long-standing structural issues that have also led to this point.
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Coming into the 1980s, many governments around the world started to notice
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that there were some hidden disparities that could be possibly solved at a higher level.
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The UK were among the first to tackle the issue.
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They thought that the lack of regional uniformity was causing problems.
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There was no national curriculum.
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There wasn't a good systemic way to measure performance.
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Local authorities decided what children went to what schools, what books they read, and even the teachers' salary.
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Seeing this issue, the governments got to work.
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They started crafting their own legislation that would push schools to aim for a common educational standard over the next 30 years.
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Things like the UK's Education Reform Act, the United States' No Child Left Behind Act, or Australia's National Assessment Programme became commonplace,
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the idea was to set shared targets for learning.
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Of course, it should be noted that these efforts weren't all identical, but they all introduced standardized testing and encouraged transparency.
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At first, this seemed like an excellent idea.
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In theory, this new focus meant that teachers would be incentivized to make sure that their students succeeded.
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Schools would compete to be the best, ensuring better quality for every student, not just the high achievers.
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And so, a lot of funding was thrown at these initiatives.
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But with all of the funding came extra attention.
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The results that we're seeing in these standardized tests suggest that education is just getting worse, or at best showing minimal progress.
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And across all countries reviewed by the OECD, the decline appears to be much more dramatic between Gen Z and Gen Alpha in mathematics, reading, and science.
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But this only tells part of the story.
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But let's hone in on reading for a second, because apparently there's a reading crisis.
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You may have noticed the recent headlines that have been shared.
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US schools are reporting that anywhere from 40 to 65% of children are no longer able to read.
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But while these articles grab everyone's attention, the issue appears to be far more nuanced.
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This statistic is pulled from the nation's report card, or NAEP, and it organises readers into three distinct categories across American grades 4, 8 and 12.
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Basic, proficient and advanced.
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But here's where things get really interesting, and it has to do with the averages in these standardised tests.
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When it comes to advanced and proficient readers, nothing has really changed, at least not by more than a couple of points.
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It's actually the basic readers that have started falling behind.
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And again, it's not just the US, it's happening globally.
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Overachievers are either stagnating or slightly recovering from previous lows but below average performers are rapidly being left in the dust.
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The gap that standardized testing sought to close between high and low performers is wider than ever before.
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Standardization is kind of a failed experiment that refuses to die.
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The unintended consequences of standardization ended up incentivizing teachers to push for a narrow curriculum in fear of losing their job, and the schools found themselves under similar pressure.
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And as discussed before, although it's gotten worse with Gen Z and Gen Alpha, it's not a new problem.
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All the way back in 2007, David Hirsch at the University of Rochester outlined some extreme consequences for low scores under policies like No Child Left Behind.
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He argues that standardisation pushed teachers to orient their lessons around scores that don't reflect long-term growth,
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but rather how much a student can retain in the shortest amount of time to bump the numbers.
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In 2015, Anja Kamenetz, author of the book called The Test, broke down how this radically changes the way students are taught on a daily basis.
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But because of the high stakes attached to them, districts and schools are increasingly spending more and more time prepping for the tests
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and also giving benchmark and interim exams up to a high of about 113 by the time students graduate.
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Well, 113 tests just seems mind-boggling.
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But we've done several stories about testing on the program.
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What is it in your research that you found that most surprised you?
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Is it about the industry that's grown up around it?
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Is it the variance in different states?
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I think it's, you know, considering the stakes again that we attach to these tests and the amount of stock that people seem to put in them.
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We talk about data-driven decision-making and outcomes as though this were some objective measure.
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But in fact, the psychometricians will tell you that the tests are being used in ways that they were never designed for.
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And that proficiency, which is dictated in the law, No Child Left Behind, doesn't really have a single scientific definition.
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And so there's a real gap there I think between the level of science
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that we're working with and then the decisions that we're making based on those measurements.
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So the seeds were planted decades ago, and this environment combined with new technology has made the situation more precarious than it already was.
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With teachers being more restricted than ever before, and just having to teach to test, combined with shorter attention spans, it's no wonder that the kids just no longer care.
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Teachers are also burned out from long hours, and people like Gabe Denenbring have conducted mass surveys, presenting it as a leading cause of why teachers decide to give up and quit.
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If you look at just the amount of students who no longer feel like their education is important to them, it's so many students that feel this way.
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And I've talked to so many predominantly high school teachers who talk about how they've had
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so many more students that openly don't care about their schooling.
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They don't care, they want to sit on their phones all of class, and they have no desire to do school because they don't find it important.
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Now is that the outlier?
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Maybe.
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There's a lot of great students that are in the classroom every single day.
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So many kids are crushing it.
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But the fact is, there are a lot of students that no longer care about their education, and that's for a number of different reasons, and teachers are struggling with that.
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And if you look at your students...
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But going back to reading for a bit, some kids not being able to read by the time of
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graduation may have to do with more than just testing and wrong metrics.
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If their parents don't enjoy reading and don't encourage reading from a young age, many kids may just never see the point.
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Some reading researchers such as Myann Wolf state that the modern environment just isn't conducive to reading.
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All around us there's more distractions with quicker dopamine hits.
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Fewer than half of all parents with kids up to age 13 say
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that reading aloud is fun and 41% of children ages 0-4 are read too frequently, a dramatic drop from 60% of 64% in 2012.
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In other words, this isn't a Gen Alpha problem either.
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Instead, it's an issue we all have.
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These kids are leaving high school.
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I have seniors who simply cannot read, and seniors who cannot write.
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I literally broke down in the middle of class because we had two paragraphs to read, one sentence complete to write.
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We annotated together.
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I gave them the answers, and they couldn't do it.
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It sounds dire, but are there any Gen Alpha success stories in other parts of the world?
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Maybe there's something we can learn there.
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There might be other ways of looking at this.
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Let's see how a society adapts to new challenges.
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Singapore is a great example.
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They have just as much, if not more, access to technology.
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Yet they stand way above the rest in terms of academic performance. But why?
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Well, for starters, Singapore has been shifting away from standardized testing.
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They no longer make it the center of the universe.
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And that doesn't mean that they do away with it completely, but they've been aiming to foster social development and decision-making skills over scoring.
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Children often still do have phones, smartwatches and tablets, but the administrators keep a close eye on it.
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They make sure to minimize the detrimental effects.
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They prohibit it during classes, recess and even after certain hours of the night.
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Another example is Finland.
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They score much higher than most European nations.
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However, unlike many of their neighbours, they promote more autonomy for educators instead of managing completely from the top down.
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Finland also shares Singapore's growing interest in low-stakes testing and restricting the reliance on technology in the primary years of education.
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In the UK, when kids aged six to 15 were asked what they wanted to learn, here's what they said.
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Sophie, aged 10.
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I want to learn more about genres of music.
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Nicole, age six.
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Unicorns.
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Sam, age 14.
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Money management, they don't teach you it at school, so you just have to go on your own and experiment.
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And AI is quite scary.
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It has the power to overrule humans, and it could take over the world.
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We learn about it, but not enough.
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In fact, in a related survey, 84% of six to 18 year olds want to receive more financial education in school, with an emphasis on practical skills,
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such as budgeting, how to earn money and build a career, as well as how to achieve milestones like buying a home.
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Other kids said, Abigail, age 7, how to survive in the wild.
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Tara, age 15, psychology, some people judge way too quickly and it's not necessary.
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You should understand someone and actually get to know them before we start judging them.
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Now there's only a minuscule chance that there'll be a class oriented around unicorns,
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but this does dispel the myth that Gen Alpha is just a band of iPad zombies wrecking schools and driving teachers mad.
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In reality, the kids are still curious.
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They still want to learn.
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They want to learn about the world and how to navigate it.
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But the only thing that appears to be stopping them is a system that's failed.
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We should look to countries like Finland and Singapore and know that there is a solution.
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And after all, the first step to solving a problem is admitting that you have one.
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So what do you guys think?
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How did you find school when you were in it?
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When did you go to school?
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Did you find that the education system let you down?
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Or did you enjoy it?
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And what's your thoughts on the declining education standards of today?
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For students today, accessing information has never been easier.
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But getting information and answers to questions isn't necessarily the same as actually understanding it.
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As AI becomes more prevalent, some parents worry about their kids' ability to truly grasp complex topics.
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That's why I find what Brilliant is doing really interesting.
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Brilliant has created a tutor called Koji.
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It's designed for students from grade five through to college.
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But here's the difference.
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Unlike an AI chatbot that simply gives you the answer, Koji does the opposite.
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It works through problems with you, asks questions, and guides you towards figuring it out for yourself.
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I was working through their Thinking in Python course, and I got help directly from Koji to figure out the next steps.
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And that's the part that's really cool.
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If you get stuck, Koji can actually interact with what you're doing on screen, break the problem down step by step, and keep asking you questions until you understand what's going on.
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It doesn't just spit out the answer.
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It's more like having someone sitting beside you
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and helping you think through the problem instead of just doing the work for you.
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If done correctly, tech in education can be really interesting.
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One-on-one tutoring can be incredibly valuable, but tutors can't always be available, or sometimes it's just not practical.
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But something like Koji can help whenever a student needs it.
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Brilliant covers subjects ranging from fractions in algebra through to calculus, coding, and logical reasoning.
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So there's plenty for students at different stages.
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And personally, this is more more in line with the tech that I'm actually more excited about.
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Not replacing someone's thinking, but helping them become better at it.
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You can try Brilliant's tutor for free by clicking the link below, or scanning the QR code on screen, and you can upgrade to premium to unlock all courses.
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And right now, ColdFusion viewers can save 20% off an annual subscription at brilliant.org slash coldfusion.
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Thanks to Brilliant for supporting this part of the episode.
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Anyway, that's about it from me.
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My name is Dagogo, and you've been watching ColdFusion, and I'll catch you again soon for the next episode.
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Cheers, guys.
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Have a good one.
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Cold fusion, it's new thinking
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This B2 speaking lesson is built on the video “Why Kids Can't Read Anymore”. This video has 293 sentences and 3900 words to shadow. The speech runs for 22:49. The speaker talks at a natural 171 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
The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| classroom noun | /ˈklɑːsɹʊm/ | A room, often in a school, where classes take place. |
| standardized adjective | Designed or constructed in a standard manner or according to an official standard. | |
| proficient adjective | /pɹoʊˈfɪʃ.ənt/ | Good at something; skilled; fluent; practiced, especially in relation to a task or skill. |
| tablet noun | /ˈtæblət/ | A slab of clay, stone or wood used for inscription. |
| stake noun | /steɪk/ | A piece of wood or other material, usually long and slender, pointed at one end so as to be easily driven into the ground as a marker or a support or stay. |
| generative adjective | /ˈd͡ʒɛnəɹətɪv/ | Having the power of generating, propagating, originating, or producing. |
| gratification noun | /ˌɡɹætɪfɪˈkeɪʃən/ | The act of gratifying or pleasing, either the mind, or the appetite or taste. |
| standardization noun | /ˌstæn.də.daɪˈzeɪ.ʃən/ | The act, process, or result of complying with a standard. |
| unicorn noun | /ˈju.nɪ.kɔɹn/ | A mythical, horselike creature with a horn on its forehead, supposed to be very rare and to be drawn to virgins and other chaste maidens. |
| detrimental adjective | /ˌdɛtɹɪˈmɛntəl/ | Causing damage or harm. |
| differentiate verb | /dɪf.əˈɹɛn.ʃi.eɪt/ | To modify so as to create a difference or distinction. |
| tutor noun | /ˈtjuːtəː/ | One who teaches another (usually called a student, learner, or tutee) in a one-on-one or small-group interaction. |
| backward adjective | /ˈbækwɚd/ | Situated toward or at the rear of something. |
| systemic adjective | /sɪˈstɛm.ɪk/ | Embedded within and spread throughout and affecting a whole system, group, body, economy, market, or society. |
| performer noun | /pɚˈfɔɹmɚ/ | One who performs for, or entertains, an audience. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| leave behind verb | To abandon. |
| go back to verb | To stem from; to originate in. |
| work through verb | To get past a difficult or stressful situation by thinking or talking about it. |
| break down verb | To stop functioning. |
| do away with verb | To abolish; to put an end to; to eliminate. |
| end up verb | To bring to a conclusion. |
| fall behind verb | To be late (for a regular event) |
| figure out verb | To come to understand; to discover or find a solution; to deduce. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- What if it's not the kids?
- What if all of us in our own way are responsible?
- How'd you get to delivery?
- Does this map look right to you?
- When did you go to school?
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect continuous have/has been + -ing — an action that started earlier and is still going on | has been declining · has been shifting · they've been aiming |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | has become · have learned · have hit |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | be done · will be regarded · isn't stimulated |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | those who learnt · children who have · proficiency, which is |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 65 contractions and reduced forms, such as don't, isn't, can't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: myth /mɪθ/, mathematics /mæθ(.ə)ˈmæt.ɪks/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: proficient /pɹoʊˈfɪʃ.ənt/, gratification /ˌɡɹætɪfɪˈkeɪʃən/, standardization /ˌstæn.də.daɪˈzeɪ.ʃən/, differentiate /dɪf.əˈɹɛn.ʃi.eɪt/, fusion /ˈfjuː.ʒən/
- Long words — get the stress right: generative /ˈd͡ʒɛnəɹətɪv/, gratification /ˌɡɹætɪfɪˈkeɪʃən/, standardization /ˌstæn.də.daɪˈzeɪ.ʃən/, detrimental /ˌdɛtɹɪˈmɛntəl/, differentiate /dɪf.əˈɹɛn.ʃi.eɪt/
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 classroom, standardized, proficient.
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.