Experience with shadowing

[Nikolai]

Hello,

Does anyone already have experiences with shadowing for improving the speaking skills? Does it really work? What do you think about this method? I tried it once and I am feeling embarrassed by speaking loud in English alone.

Please correct my English
Thanks

[Denido]

Hi, if you want, we can talk a little bit english , because i'm learning english , too. Where do you live ? I'm from Germany

[Delfino]

Hi,

I'm from Germany. Where do you live?

If you want, we can talk a little bit in English.
But I do make mistakes sometimes,
because I'm learning English too.

Hello,

Does anyone already have experience with shadowing to improve their speaking skills?
Does it really work?
What do you think about this method?
I tried it once, and I am feeling embarrassed by speaking in English out loud when I am alone.

Please correct my English.

Thanks!

First of all you should always aim to find someone who is much better in English than you are.
Otherwise, you will repeat and thereby learn how to make the same mistakes as your partner.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Job_shadow

Shadowing = You are watching someone with the intend to gain insight.

Shadowing refers to learning tasks by first-hand observation.

Although most native speakers learn their mother tongue by imitating
their parents and peers' use of the language, this is usually not called shadowing.

So I do not think you will be able to improve your speaking skills on your own
using shadowing - unless you are refering to specificly designed learning material.

This is not to say that listing to audio recordings or watching videos with original sound
does not help gaining a better feel for a language, but this is only a passive side effect
of being entertained in English on a regulalar basis over a rather long period of time.

[tiorthan]

In linguistics shadowing means to repeat something immediately after hearing it.

Does it really work?

Yes, because of an effect commonly called "muscle memory". In truth, your muscles play only a minor role in the process and they don't remember anything that's done by the brain. The more often you do something the better you get doing it exactly as it should be done.

But muscle memory also applies to language since correct pronunciation is mainly a matter of control over the muscles in your vocal tract, tongue and lips.

While shadowing, your pronunciation is closer to what you hear than what you'd say on your own. That way, if you repeat things a native speaker says, your pronunciation becomes closer to that of a native speaker and since your brain learns from every execution of a task, it also builds muscle memory from shadowing, thus teaching you how to pronounce things correctly.

Shadowing has its limitations, though. Feedback techniques are much better but they also need someone to provide that feedback.