Fun and effective way to learn English – Speech shadowing

Have you ever wanted to be an actor? Regardless of your answer, you will have so much fun using this language learning technique! 🙂

The technique is called Speech shadowing, or some people refer to it as language parroting. How does it work? Let’s continue reading.

Have you ever wanted to be an actor? Regardless of your answer, you will have so much fun using this language learning technique! 🙂

The technique is called Speech shadowing, or some people refer to it as language parroting.

How does it work? It’s simple. Let me demonstrate the technique in just 3 steps:

1. Pick some English audio / video material you really like

Try to choose materials that have transcript or subtitles – it can be your favourite movie, sitcom or audiobook.

Note: I personally used Speech shadowing technique with the Learn Real English Conversations course. The audio lessons in this course have full PDF transcripts and also special audio MP3 files where one of the teachers – Kristin Dodds describes the new vocabulary / English idioms so you understand everything correctly while shadowing. 🙂

What I appreciate a lot about the course is that it contains real-life English conversations of native speakers so you can practice the original native pronunciation as well. Here’s the my full review of the course if you are interested.

Of course, you can use any other material you like. Important is to have the text transcript of the audio available and enjoy the content. 🙂

As an alternative, you can for example use audiobooks for Speech shadowing. Here’s a short article on how to get audiobooks for free.

2. Listen to the chosen material at least once to get to know the content

If you are not familiar with the English material you chose, it’s worth to listen to it at least once without using Speech shadowing technique. It’s easier to apply the technique on materials that you know a bit already.

Update (August 2015): The teacher A.J. Hoge recommends listening to the audio much more – five to seven times or more before you start shadowing.

And now the fun part comes in. 🙂

3. Do the shadowing!

Listen to the material again and try to imitate actors / narrator. What do I mean by that? Repeat everything what is being said in the audio material. You can try to talk at the same time as the actor / narrator, or you can wait until he/she finishes the sentence and then repeat what he / she said. It is completely up to you but I personaly prefer talking at the same time as the actor.

Note: It’s not easy for the first time! 🙂 Yeah, if you are just starting with the shadowing technique, don’t get discouraged if it feels difficult at first. It’s normal, so keep going! After some time you will get better. Shadowing will be easier for you and you will improve your English a lot.

Tips

• don’t try to be 100% perfect, have fun and enjoy your time
• imitate everything actor does – not just raw words, but try to imitate his/her pronunciation, voice pitch, pauses, everything you can hear from the actor 😉
• if you are looking for movie transcripts, check out this website for example
• chck out the Learn Real English Conversations – it is one my favourite English courses (not just for shadowing)
• search youtube for songs with onscreen lyrics and sing along with the music video 🙂 (but, keep in mind that some of the lyrics on youtube have mistakes in them)
• check out the LibriVox free audiobooks catalogue – you can download there audiobooks completely for free and use the open project Gutenberg to find necessary transcription of your desired audiobook
• do the shadowing with one audio for several days – move to a new audio when you feel you had enough
• use headphones or earphones
• exercise while shadowing – simple walking is enough – it will keep you energized, alert and you will learn more! 🙂

Speech shadowing is simple but powerful method to improve your language speaking skills. It boosts your confidence, improves pronunciation and basically, it’s more of a game where you are having fun and learn language subconsciously.

Instead of giving you any proofs how is this technique fun and effective, try it for yourself with the following video. 🙂

What do you think of Speech shadowing? Have you tried this technique? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comment section below.

BONUS: You can try to make it as a game with your friend(s) – pick up one episode of you favourite sitcom and get subtitles for it. Now each of you can choose one actor to imitate. Have fun. 🙂

Speech shadowing is simple method to improve our language speaking skills. It boosts our confidence and basically, it’s more of a game where we are having fun and learn language subconsciously.

Instead of giving you any proofs how is this technique fun and effective, try it for yourself and share with us your experience in the comment section below. 🙂

Try the Speech shadowing technique right away with the following video.

If you like this article about speech shadowing, share it with your English-learning friends so they can get better in English too! Or simply click the LIKE button below to show me that I should write more content like this. Thank you! 🙂