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Alexander Arguelles’ Shadowing technique | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| robsolete Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5390 days ago 191 posts - 428 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Arabic (Written), Mandarin | Message 17 of 37 19 March 2010 at 5:22pm | IP Logged | ||
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For me, shadowing has been a good aide for developing a correct 'internal reading voice' and helping me refine my pronunciation. I have no need to sound like a native, but I feel like learning to have an accurate-sounding internal monologue is crucial for reaching the intermediate stage, at which point you can switch to reading bilingual or native materials and just trying to converse with native speakers.
For example: I studied Spanish for many years, then it fell into disuse. But I had programmed a good 'internal monologue' voice for Spanish, so picking up reading again felt pretty natural, and I recovered my oral pronunciation fairly quickly. I recently started French, however, and I was completely lost in how to actually read words on the page, both out loud and in my head. I think the feedback loop of reading while speaking while listening is a great aide to subliminally training your internal monologue in a given language. I have only been shadowing French for a few weeks, but notice myself being able to read French texts with more confidence--I am sure I still make mistakes, but I feel like my internal voice is learning the right 'codes' for French. My impression from the shadowing videos was that you read a few short lessons or pages while listening to them and walking. You cycle through a few of them--some purely listening/speaking, some reading your native language while listening/speaking, some reading the target language with listening/speaking. This way you move progressively through a lesson every few days without getting terribly bored. Of course, a language like Mandarin will be much more difficult to shadow than French. So I could see significantly modifying the method. I do agree, though, that it doesn't seem to build conversational skills very quickly. I think it just adds an extra element of hearing/reading/speaking training to the standard lesson format. But then again, in my (limited) experience, very few things build conversational skills except throwing yourself into the deep water with a native speaker, failing horribly a few times, then discovering what words and expressions you need to learn. Then you look those up on your own and hope you do better next time. I think all that shadowing does is help you to develop your internal voice, so that when you go to read native materials or research vocabulary on your own, you will at least have a decent approximation of what it should sound like in your head. Which I think is a pretty crucial skill at the beginning stages unless you want to sound like a phrasebook tourist: "Dondeey eastah ell BANNO, poor fayvoar?° 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| kmart Senior Member Australia Joined 6129 days ago 194 posts - 400 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian | Message 18 of 37 20 March 2010 at 11:49pm | IP Logged | ||
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I've been shadowing Assimil for a couple of months. The benefit for me has been a huge improvement in my listening skills, rather than my conversational skills. I think the reason that it works is that shadowing forces me to pay continual attention to the audio. When I'm just listening, my brain tends to wander off and do other things, LOL.
Like Delta910, around lesson 40 I have started to find it a bit too fast and complex, and I get discouraged and bored. I don't study in small chunks like Hencke, but listen to each lesson a couple of times, then start trying to shadow it where I can, repeating and repeating and filling in the gaps until I can do the whole thing reasonably well, but not usually perfectly. After 7 lessons, I recycle back though them, only doing 2 or 3 passes at each, after each 7 lesson block I go back through the whole lot from the beginning, only doing 1 pass. Probably not the best method, but it's how I protect myself from getting bored - if I'm really struggling with a lesson, I move on with the knowledge that I'll revisit it again, and by going back to the easier lessons I can see how much progress I've made, and also give my brain a bit of a rest. But as I said, I'm finding every lesson a lot of work now, and am getting bored before I get competent enough to satisfy even my lacklustre standards, so I'm giving it a break. I've found a couple of language learning podcasts that have graded levels of audio, so have switched to them for a while, so that I can get additional practice at a level that's not too overwhelming for me. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| boaby Newbie Ireland Joined 5485 days ago 16 posts - 41 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Portuguese, Catalan | Message 19 of 37 22 April 2010 at 1:51am | IP Logged | ||
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Hi.
I recently found some language learning material in my files from the 90s by English teacher Christopher G. Dugdale (BenJX) who at the time had an extensive site of innovative and unorthodox teaching and learning techniques that he claimed had been very successful for his Japanese students. One of these techniques was called Mimicking and it corresponds closely to aspects of Prof. Arguelles' Shadowing. I include here a link to a zipped word file of several detailed articles (22 pages) he wrote on how to use this and why. Dugdale_Mimicking.zip I make no claims for the usefulness of this technique, but his explanation and instructions are detailed and clear and some of you might find it of interest. Some of the technoIogical approaches are now out of date but you can adapt the approach. I can find no trace of these materials on the web nor in published form. They used to live @ http://members.ozemail.com.au/~cdug/homep age/language/learn_ e.html . I also have other materials he wrote if anyone wants more. As far I can tell it seems Mr. Dugdale has changed careers and is now based in Australia. EDIT I just remembered to check the Internet Wayback Machine and some of his site is there. Yay! The links for the individual articles I have in the zip are on this page Edited by boaby on 22 April 2010 at 2:01am 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Americano Senior Member Korea, South Joined 6851 days ago 101 posts - 120 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Korean | Message 20 of 37 22 April 2010 at 4:47pm | IP Logged | ||
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When you guys shadow do you have the volume louder so that it drowns out your voice a bit? I tried this once and I found it is hard to focus on what they are saying when you can hear your own voice.
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| zorglub Pentaglot Senior Member France Joined 7005 days ago 441 posts - 504 votes 1 sounds Speaks: French*, English, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: German, Arabic (Written), Turkish, Mandarin | Message 21 of 37 06 May 2010 at 2:57pm | IP Logged | ||
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What ? There is a glossary in this forum ? Where then ? Thanks
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| zorglub Pentaglot Senior Member France Joined 7005 days ago 441 posts - 504 votes 1 sounds Speaks: French*, English, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: German, Arabic (Written), Turkish, Mandarin | Message 22 of 37 06 May 2010 at 4:10pm | IP Logged | ||
? Uh ? What does that mean ? He does not understand your spoken Mandarin ? You do not understand his ? Both ? Something else ? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6914 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 23 of 37 06 May 2010 at 6:09pm | IP Logged | ||
At the top of this page. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| gogglehead Triglot Senior Member Argentina Joined 6080 days ago 248 posts - 320 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Russian, Italian | Message 24 of 37 07 May 2010 at 12:24am | IP Logged | ||
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I have in fact taken much inspiration from Prof. Arguelles, and far be it from me to question his greatness, nor is that what I intend to do. However, when you speak of "shadowing", does that mean that reading aloud with the audio in a foreign language, something I have been doing for years, was actually "developed" by Professor Arguelles? I was also learning vocabulary from word lists long before I "realised" that this method was "invented" by someone on this forum! Surely the next thing that I will read, is that someone on this forum "developed" the biro that I write with!!! Ludicrous.
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