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Shadowing - how to do it? | ||
Tags: Shadowing | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| Jamopy Newbie EnglandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4579 days ago 26 posts - 31 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Swedish | Message 65 of 69 20 October 2013 at 2:46pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Another question: Now that i have some material and the corresponding text in the target
language, should i work through the whole 4 hours with blind shadowing, and then go back over it with help from the text, or should i stick to a single story (30 mins) and go over it repeatedly with blind shadowing, and then again with text, until i understand it thoroughly? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4827 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes  Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 66 of 69 20 October 2013 at 6:12pm | IP Logged | |||||
Good that you have some material to work with. Do you also have a translation? Ideally, I think the Prof suggests a parallel text, but a straight translation can also work. Depending how advanced you are already, I'd break it down into as small and manageable chunks as seems reasonable and appropriate. By chapter perhaps, if there are chapters, by page, or even by paragraph. ISTR that Professor Arguelles says he does start off just by blind shadowing the whole text, while out running or similar, and only looks at the book once he's done this. You could try that, but 4 hours seems like a bit of a marathon to me, especially if you are still relatively new to this language. I think if you break it down into smaller chunks you will see some "payoff" sooner, when you realise you can understand a whole sentence, or paragraph, or page, or at least most of it, and this will encourage you to keep going. One thing I used to notice when I first started experimenting with L-R, i.e. listening to the TL and reading my NL (English), it was all too easy to tune out the audio and just read the English. I was actually surprised how easy it was, and this is really not what you want. However, I wasn't attempting shadowing at that point. I think the beauty of shadowing is that it would force you to concentrate on the TL, while keeping an eye on the translation. I think you will find that quite hard at first, so just do it a bit at a time, and take in what you can. Somewhat contradicting myself here: if you think you could go 4 hours of blind shadowing without getting too tired or getting completely fed up, then I don't think it's a bad thing to do, because it should really get the sound and rhythm of the language well bedded into your mind. And because you are having to repeat what you hear, that should help you keep focused, unlike if you were just listening, when it's all too easy to coast along, and just let it be aural wallpaper. Good luck, and let us know how you get on. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Jamopy Newbie EnglandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4579 days ago 26 posts - 31 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Swedish | Message 67 of 69 21 October 2013 at 11:40am | IP Logged | |||||
Thanks for the feedback. No translation for the text yet, but i'm not new at this language, and my reading is at a decent standard, so with the help of a dictionary for the less common words i could translate it myself. The areas where i'm lacking most are listening and speaking, which is what i'm hoping to improve with this method. So if there's no concrete benefit to listening to the whole 4 hours straight off, then i'll do it in chunks to the point i can listen to a whole story and understand it all before going on to the next one. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4827 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 68 of 69 22 October 2013 at 4:44am | IP Logged | |||||
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@Jamopy,
Apologies if I seemed to be assuming you were at a less advanced stage than you are. I'd forgotten whether you said what level you were at. Anyway, I think both L-R and shadowing are quite tricky to accomplish well, but (IMHO) worth putting in the effort. I also think they are applicable at different levels, perhaps used in slightly different ways. The benefit of a parallel text or translation is, potentially at least, to get an instant "translation" of unknown words or phrases, and if done right, it is less disruptive than even a pop-up dictionary would be. But that in itself is a skill that has to be mastered, at least, doing it at speed and without upsetting your flow or concentration. It's a little bit analogous to reading music and playing an instrument at the same time. They are really quite different activities, and yet the brain can handle the combination of them, although it's not easy at first. If you are currently working without translations, and are not new to the language, then perhaps veer towards the idea of trying as far as possible to deduce the word or phrase from the context, rather than automatically going to the dictionary. I've been guilty of the latter too much myself in the past, and have tried to wean myself off it. Of course, there are times when one absolutely has to. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| pandorabrooks Newbie Japan Joined 6205 days ago 9 posts - 10 votes Studies: Spanish Studies: Japanese, French | Message 69 of 69 06 November 2013 at 2:13am | IP Logged | |||||
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I like this thread, so many different methods and suggestions. Just my two cents, but I find shadowing to be great for improving fluency and proper pronunciation. I like to use audio where I understand most of the contents that way I am not looking up words I don't know.
When I am using materials higher than my level then I just listen and shadow only if I have the written text to help me through it. Even then, for someone who wants to sound more natural in their target language, I think shadowing is most beneficial when it's done without looking at the text. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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