ESL: How to understand spoken English Improve your listening and speaking skills shadow English

Practice conversational spoken English in the context of of a discussion about office events and improving grades . This conversational exercise will help you improve your English fluency. It will help you improve your pronunciation and it will help you with you confidence in speaking conversational English. If you have trouble understanding spoken English this is the perfect exercise to help you practice understanding and speaking in a natural way. Below you will find a copy of the transcript of the conversation: Do NOT read the transcript while practicing and listening to the video! The only way to improve your speaking and listening skills is to practice speaking and listening! Reading will only prevent you from taking full advantage of the exercise.

Person 1: I really want to thank you Michael, for taking me to the meeting. I just can’t get used to driving on the left..

Person 2: No problem.

Person 1: You used to work for our new chief legal officer. Chrisitne Bender, Didn’t you?

Person 2: Yes, that’s right. She and I started in the legal department five years ago. Then I changed to IT.

Person 1: Christine is so successful. She did an amazing job for us dealing with that whole corruption scandal last year. Don’t you think?

Person 2: Yes, but between you and me, Christine could never have managed that without her team.

Person 1: That’s so true, Michael. She always picks good people to work with her. By the way, I heard on the grapevine that she's going to move to our New York office next.

Person 2: Yes, I heard that too. I wonder how her husband feels about it. He’s a journalist, I think.

Person 1: Well, according to Christine’s assistant, Mrs. Weber, that’s not a problem. He’s going to write articles about New York nightlife. Although I can’t imagine who’s going to look after the children then.

Person 2: Apparently, they’re going to have a nanny. I overheard Christine talking to the boss about it this morning. It must be very expensive, but they'll have enough money.

Person 1: I suppose they might appoint somebody from Christine’s team to carry on her work.

Person: Ah no! It seems that Christine didn’t want to recommend any of them to the boss, so Gabriele from the commercial department will take over. Christine’s team was really angry.