Shadowing practice: Learn English Conversation - Oxford English Daily Conversation Part 1

This clip opens on Gary Fenton reading the morning news, then cuts to a family kitchen, a taxi, and a TV newsroom reception desk, all within the first few minutes. It is rated A2, so the sentences stay short and the situations are ordinary ones you actually meet: paying a fare, giving an address over the phone, meeting new colleagues on a first day at work.

At 194 words per minute, faster than 57 percent of the catalogue, it moves briskly enough that keeping pace with the speakers is itself part of the exercise. The British accent runs from formal newsreader diction to relaxed family chat at breakfast, so this single recording covers several registers rather than one flat tone, which makes it useful daily english conversation practice for anyone building everyday english.

Three lines from the opening show how differently people speak depending on who they are talking to. Read them slowly first, then at the recording's own pace.

• "The Prime Minister is in the United States today for talks with the American President at the White House." A full, unbroken news sentence with even, deliberate stress on each content word. Good material for british english pronunciation practice because the newsreader gives every syllable its full value, nothing is swallowed.
• "Your train's at quarter to eight." The contraction "train's" and the quick, warm delivery are a direct contrast to the news line above, a parent hurrying a daughter out the door rather than reading to a camera.
• "My name isn't Julie, it's Julia." A correction, so the stress lands hard on "Julia" the second time it is said. Practising that shift in stress is one of the more useful things you can take from a short exchange like this one, and it carries into how you improve english speaking in real conversations where people mishear your name.

Work through the scene in the order it actually happens rather than jumping around. The shifts between speakers are what make it useful for english shadowing practice at this level.

• Start with line 1, "Good morning, it's 7 .30." Match Gary Fenton's flat, even newsreader pace before moving on, this is the most formal register in the clip.
• Move into the family scene at lines 9 to 17. Practise the quick back and forth, "It's half past seven.", "Your train's at quarter to eight.", "Coming!", where turns are short and overlap.
• Take the taxi line, "That's £4 .50, please." on its own and repeat it a few times, it is the kind of transactional phrase that comes up constantly outside the recording too.
• Pair lines 53 and 57, "How do you spell Tyndall?" and "Can you repeat that, please?", these are two phrases worth keeping for any real conversation where you give an address or a name.
• Finish on line 91, "My name isn't Julie, it's Julia.", and repeat it until the stress on the second "Julia" is automatic, not something you have to think about.