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Listening and Repeating for Fluency | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| Splog Diglot Senior Member Czech Republic anthonylauder.c Joined 5674 days ago 1062 posts - 3263 votes  Speaks: English*, Czech Studies: Mandarin | Message 9 of 23 25 February 2010 at 5:33pm | IP Logged | ||
My understanding of shadowing was that you could use a transcript on the first one or two passes through a given recording, but pretty soon you don't need it because you can almost remember it, and therefore say it along with the native speaker in the recording. Certainly, I have always read a given lesson maybe once or twice, but shadowed the audio dozens of times (typically shadowing the last 9 lessons plus the current lesson). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Ocius Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5595 days ago 48 posts - 77 votes Speaks: English*, German, Ancient Greek Studies: French, Latin, Sanskrit | Message 10 of 23 25 February 2010 at 6:47pm | IP Logged | ||
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Perhaps I have a mistaken understanding of shadowing, then. But the way I've always
thought of it is the way that Prof. Arguelles explains the method with Assimil or another bilingual text. i.e. Blind shadowing (no transcript, just to work on aural skills), then shadowing while following the native/teaching language, then shadowing while reading along with the target language. After a certain point, of course, you no longer need the transcript. But until that point, the transcript is an important aspect. In any case, discussing the proper technique for shadowing really isn't the point of the thread. Cairo was asking about (a) method(s) of listening and repeating, so I mentioned shadowing as a possible strategy. There are already plenty of threads discussing shadowing proper without turning this one into such a discussion. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Calro2 Triglot Newbie Canada Joined 6745 days ago 26 posts - 32 votes Speaks: English*, Portuguese, French | Message 11 of 23 28 February 2010 at 10:38pm | IP Logged | ||
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Yes, my intention was not to create a thread about shadowing. I'm more curious about what people think of the "Native coach" method I posted a link for in my original post. The owner of the website basically says the key to fluency is repeating sentences you hear one-by-one until you feel comfortable enough to move on to the next one. To counter my earlier concern about just reading off the transcript the whole time, I will experiment with an instruction that two other forum members, Farley and Omicron, mentioned in connection with the old Linguaphone (I think) and Assimil courses, respectively. After seeing a sentence from a transcript, you're also supposed to look away and repeat it from memory. I guess this is a way of "assimilating" the language thoroughly.
Has anyone tried similar methods? If so, what were your experiences like? P.S. To counter the assumption I see in many posts, including this thread, that every forum member is a guy, I will add here that I'm a female, to boost our representation :). Edited by Calro2 on 02 March 2010 at 6:05am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| reltuk Groupie United States Joined 6821 days ago 75 posts - 110 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, French | Message 12 of 23 01 March 2010 at 12:59am | IP Logged | ||
This is a very important part of using courses like Assimil in my opinion. I find that it is very important to repeat the sentence from short term memory, without looking at the transcript or simultaneously shadowing it. This is an excellent check on making sure you're paying attention to grammatical subtleties like the gender of nouns, what contexts adverbs and prepositions are appropriate in, etc., that are easy to not really notice if you're always producing the text while looking directly at it or hearing it just now. It is also a good indicator of what words you've internalized already and what words you're still a little unsure of. Doing this is explicitly recommended in the introduction of at least a few of the Assimil with Ease courses I own, but I don't think it is given the proper stress given how helpful it is. I think I even have a few courses which make no mention of the technique at all in their introductions =/. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| aliebe Diglot Pro Member United States Joined 5840 days ago 59 posts - 63 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Spanish Personal Language Map | Message 13 of 23 19 March 2010 at 6:29am | IP Logged | ||
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Also it seems that if you shadow a text while listening, rather than just listening or listening while reading along, it forces a certain engagement. As for repeating sentences after hearing them, being able to do that well does seem to suggest a certain depth of understanding (unless you are just absolutely amazing at parroting...) I can repeat back quite a long English (my native tongue) text after only hearing it once. This is something I find much more difficult in a language that I am learning. For me to do it easily it is usually because the phrase or sentence contains words and grammar that I already understand well. The parts of a text you have difficulty shadowing, or repeating if you are going that route instead, may well suggest a weak point that could use some revision.
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| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5771 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 14 of 23 19 March 2010 at 3:34pm | IP Logged | ||
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For me, getting a feeling for filler words takes some time and I usually pick them up without much conscious effort from exposure in differing context, rather than from conscious study with repetition. It just lies in the nature of those words that their usage relies heavily of the idiolect of a person, on register and current mood. This doesn't mean that I don't think about those words and look up pointers as when to use them, only that I want to have as many real examples as possible to get an idea of when to use the word.
So for me, repetition until I get a small number of sentences perfect wouldn't enable me to use the filler words used in them. I think the best way would be to try out different approaches, like *audio or text only *transcript + audio at the same time *both transcript + audio but one at a time *longer passages *short passages *single sentences *until you have close to 100% *until you feel comfortable with it *one or two times and then pick out which ones are easy, a nice comfortable challenge, or difficult for your current level. Then do a bit of the difficult stuff every day, a good amount of the comfortable stuff, and when you have some more time left or can't concentrate too well, do the easy exercises. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Keith Diglot Moderator JapanRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6782 days ago 526 posts - 536 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: Mandarin Personal Language Map | Message 15 of 23 16 August 2010 at 4:17pm | IP Logged | ||
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I found the link from the first post went dead.
Here is the link to the story in case anybody was trying to find it. http://www.nativecoach.com/index.php?section=staticpage&page =aboutus 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6016 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 16 of 23 16 August 2010 at 8:06pm | IP Logged | ||
I call that "parroting". It may be an effect physical exercise in that it exercises the muscles you need to produce the sounds, but beyond that it's not a very effective strategy. Speaking is a process of choosing and recalling the appropriate words and structures for a given situation and/or purpose. Repeating the same thing over and over again does not require any choice or recall -- you just make the sounds, like a parrot does. At its core, it's only a pronunciation exercise. Many learners are self-conscious about talking, and the unfamiliarity of the muscle movements require can sometimes cause you to "trip" in your pronunciation, make flumping or thwapping noises, and that can be very disheartening. The author of the website had already done a lot of study in a classroom setting, so he had a lot of knowledge in his head -- he just didn't have immediate access to it. He will have started connecting what he knew with what he was hearing, so it may have worked for him as an "activation" of knowledge, rather than a way of learning. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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