Shadowing practice: Artificial Intelligence - 6 Minute English

This clip is BBC Learning English's 6 Minute English, a scripted studio conversation between two presenters, Neil and Tim, who then hand over to a university professor for a short lecture segment. That mix of two speaking styles in one recording, quick back and forth banter and then a single voice explaining a concept, makes it good material for english speaking practice: you get natural turn taking rhythm and a slower, denser explanatory register in the same clip.

The level is B1 and the pace is 172 words per minute, which is faster than most of the catalogue, so this is not a clip to start on if you are still finding your feet. The accent throughout is British, and because the presenters articulate clearly for a listening audience, it works well for british english pronunciation practice: you can hear word endings and vowel sounds that get blurred in faster conversational speech.

The opening exchange sets up a small argument you can use as a model for stress and intonation. Tim doubts the topic, Neil corrects him flatly, and the short reply carries all the emphasis on one word.

• "There's a lot of talk about AI these days Neil, but it's still just science fiction, isn't it?" is one long question with a tag at the end, isn't it, said with falling pitch because Tim already expects agreement.
• "That's not true." is Neil's three word reply. Practise it standalone: the stress lands hard on true, and the whole line is short enough to repeat five times in a row without losing the shape.
• "An educated guess is based on knowledge and experience and is therefore likely to be correct." is a definition line, the kind BBC Learning English always includes for its vocabulary items, and it is worth shadowing slowly first because of how many stressed content words it packs in: educated, knowledge, experience, correct.
• "Computer algorithms are helping us drive our cars." is a plain present continuous sentence, useful for practising the weak, almost swallowed us between drive and our.

There are 82 lines in total, so do not try the whole clip in one pass. Work in the order below and you will cover the two registers, quick dialogue and slow explanation, before you ever reach the professor's section.

• Start with line 1, the fixed intro from bbclearningenglish.com. It repeats on every episode of the series, so getting it fluent once pays off if you go on to other clips from this channel.
• Shadow lines 5 and 6 as a pair, Tim's doubt and Neil's flat denial, until the contrast in energy between the two speakers feels automatic, not just the words.
• Take line 15, the algorithm definition, on its own. Read it silently first, then shadow it three times before moving on, this is the density spike of the section.
• Do the Deep Blue quiz, lines 16 to 18, as one continuous stretch. It is a real question and answer exchange, so it forces you to speak english fluently across a change of speaker without a pause to reset.
• Finish this stretch on line 21, the educated guess definition, and compare how your rhythm on it differs from your first attempt at line 15. That difference is what tells you whether the improve english speaking work in this session actually stuck.
• If you found the professor's section, lines 31 onward, harder to follow at full speed, that is expected. It is a single continuous voice rather than dialogue, closer to a short english listening practice exercise than a conversation, so slow it down before you try shadowing it.