Today I'm going to show you how you can practise speaking English by yourself, at home using
only materials that you definitely have access to
Now I bet you've heard this advice a lot.
In order to become a good English speaker and to speak in conversation you have to speak
English a lot.
Preferably with native speakers.
And yes, this is true.
To become a good English speaker, the best and easiest way is to speak English in conversation
a lot.
I've given the same advise on my YouTube channel
However unless you live in an English speaking country, or use English every day at work,
I bet thought to yourself
"But I don't have chances to speak English.
I don't have anybody to speak English with!"
And yes, this is a problem for a lot of people.
others, on the other hand, have many chances to speak English.
However they lack the confidence to make use of these chances.
Perhaps they are shy.
Or perhaps they learned English only from textbooks with their eyes and they feel their
pronunciation is not good enough.
And don't know how to say they things that they want to say.
Today I'm going to teach you a technique that both of these kinds of people can use to improve
their English speaking skills and pronunciation.
This technique is of course, shadowing.
The idea behind shadowing is simple.
You listen to some English, and you repeat it at the same time.
It could be a conversation or it could be a monologue.
It doesn't matter.
But you're listening and you're repeating at the same time.
Now, this does several things for you.
The first thing that it does for you is it trains your ear to listen very very carefully
to the way that things are said.
To the tone and the rhythm in which phrases are said.
And the length and the number of pauses that are used in speech.
Because if you can't hear these things you can't copy them so in order to copy them you
have to become very good at hearing them.
So very quickly your ear will become very accustomed to the rhythm and the tone and
way that people speak.
The second thing that it will do is it will really improve your pronunciation and your
accent.
This is because you will get so good at listening to the way that things are said, to the pronunciation,
that you will be able to copy it.
It will also get your mouth muscles moving in the correct way and it will train you to
move your mouth properly when you are speaking.
This will help you weak more smoothly.
Again, with improved pronunciation.
In another video I will show a slightly more advanced way to do shadowing that will help
you remember massive quantities of phrases and vocabulary.
But today I'm going to demonstrate the basic version of shadowing.
So as I said, first you need to find some audio to use for shadowing.
It could be a TV show or it could be a radio programme it could be a podcast or it could
be an audiobook it could be anything like that.
It should be to your level so if you are a beginner don't try to use something very advanced.
Try to use something at your level.
Maybe just a tiny bit more difficult is OK.
But it should be fairly easy for you because the exercise is not to improve your comprehension
the exercise is for you to improve your pronunciation and your speaking and really train your mouth
to move as it should.
OK, so I'm going to demonstrate today using some materials that I designed especially
for shadowing.
Let's go!
So I'm going to be demonstrating shadowing today using some special materials that I
designed just for shadowing.
They're a kind of short story.
and I've printed out a text here and I have an MP3 which I've recorded which is on my
computer just behind this camera.
I have read the text several times and I've looked up any new words in the dictionary.
I understand it perfectly.
I've also listened to the MP3 several times so it's kind of easy for me now.
I understand it really well.
So now I just want to be able to say this really easily.
I'm going to demonstrate with this.
I should point out that because I made these materials I'm going to be shadowing my own
voice, which is a little bit strange to be honest.
You should be shadowing a native speaker.
The goal is to copy that speaker so closely that you become that speaker.
Every single little pause and the rhythm and everything you should be trying to copy those
as closely as you can.
So, again I've read through this and I've listened to the MP3.
What I'm going to do now, is I'm going to shadow whilst I'm reading the text. Which
is quite easy to do.
I've got this here, and I'm going to hit play.
My son and I nearly came to blows over the Olympics.
He came down to stay whilst they were on, and was not impressed with my old 20-inch
television.
"You're not really going to watch the Olympics on that old thing, are you?" he said to me.
"TVs like that went out with the ark. Get yourselves something more modern!"
"There's nothing wrong with this television," I replied, sniffily.
"I don't live in a throw-away culture like some people."
And then I realised it was a good excuse to upgrade, and quietly went out to buy a new,
40-inch flat screen TV.
Ok, so that was reading the text and that was quite easy because I can already see what's
coming next.
What I'm going to do now, which is a little more difficult is I'm going to get rid of
the text and now I'm going to shadow without the text.
here we go.
My son and I nearly came to blows over the Olympics.
He came down to stay whilst they were on, and was not impressed with my old 20-inch
television.
"You're not really going to watch the Olympics on that old thing, are you?" he said to me.
"TVs like that went out with the ark. Get yourselves something more modern!"
"There's nothing wrong with this television," I replied, sniffily.
"I don't live in a throw-away culture like some people."
And then I realised it was a good excuse to upgrade, and quietly went out to buy a new,
40-inch flat screen TV.
Ok so that was much more difficult, not using the text.
I think I did most of that OK, but towards the end I didn't do so great, so I'm just
going to do that one more time.
Here we go.
My son and I nearly came to blows over the Olympics.
He came down to stay whilst they were on, and was not impressed with my old 20-inch
television.
"You're not really going to watch the Olympics on that old thing, are you?" he said to me.
"TVs like that went out with the ark. Get yourselves something more modern!"
"There's nothing wrong with this television," I replied, sniffily.
"I don't live in a throw-away culture like some people."
And then I realised it was a good excuse to upgrade, and quietly went out to buy a new,
40-inch flat screen TV.
And there we go.
Shadowing.
And that is basically it.
it's that simple.
At first you will find this quite hard.
And it is quite hard.
It takes time, but repetition is the key.
I recommend that you pick some audio that you like and is good for your level and that
you repeat the same thing again and again and again and again over the course of a whole
week, because as I said repetition really is the key.
You will find over the course of the week that it will become much much easier, and
the idea is to basically keep practising until you feel like you are becoming the person.
You can copy them so closely that it feels like you are that speaker when you're speaking.
For more advanced learners I recommend using a TV programme of a film.
Try finding a scene where there are two people talking and just shadow one of those two people.
again, try to become that speaker.
Copy them so closely that it feels like you are that speaker having that conversation,
and keep repeating until it becomes easy.
OK, that is it for today's lesson.
In a future video I'm going to show you how you can make shadowing much more efficient
using some computer software that you can download for free.
in the meantime, try the shadowing technique and see how well it works for you.
See how much it can improve your pronunciation and help you to speak English more smoothly
and naturally.
after you've tried it, leave a comment under this video and let me know what you think
of the shadowing technique.
If you haven't already please also go under this video and find the subscribe button and
subscribe to this channel.
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going on with Doing English.
See in the next lesson!