What is shadowing?

Papo Fluente

Hey, what up family? I know it has been a while, but I promise I will do my best to update this channel more often. That being said. Let me ask you a question. Do you know what “shadowing” is? If your answer was “no”. It's ok. I am a teacher and I didn't know exactly what that was about until today. I've heard of it before, but I’ve never really studied the topic. I’ve been taking this course “Tricky American English Pronunciation” at Coursera.com, you can check it if you want, they offer a great variety of free courses, anyway, and in one of the lessons they focus on “shadowing”. Right in the begging of the lesson there is a video introducing you to the concept. The professor explains how can try this activity. You should start by finding an interesting recorded conversation, by listening to it many times and then by repeating after the speakers. Simple isn’t it? But one thing that is important to keep in mind is that we´re a not robots. What do I mean by that? Simple, more than just listen and repeat like a parrot, by doing this activity we are supposed to pay attention to aspects in the conversation such as rhythm, pauses and the way the speakers´ voices go up and down, and then try to imitate them exactly. Now that I know what shadowing is about, I realize that I’ve used it before, without knowing what it was, in an intuitive way. When I lived abroad I remember observing people around me and paying close attention to the expressions and words they used in some situations, not only that but the rhythm, pauses and intonation of their voices. And guess what I used to do? I used to imitate then when I was by myself many times in my own head, sometimes out loud (specially while taking a shower). Once I was confident I used the expressions I learned in similar situations. It worked for me. If this is not shadowing I don't know what it could be. I believe that ‘shadowing’ is great activity you can perform in order to improve your pronunciation, besides that for those who don’t the chance to practice conversation often, it can be an alternative to speak english regularly. Maybe you’ve been doing it already, without knowing that was actually an activity called “shadowing”, like I did. But if you just got to know about it, I think you should definitely give it a try. Look for dialogues in English on youtube, series you like to watch or even songs, why not? In my opinion the most important thing is finding something you're interesting in, something that calls your attention and that you will enjoy doing. So that is it for today. I hope you liked this episode. Remember that I am on Instagram: @papofluente, you can follow me there and send a question if you want. I'll do my best to answer it. Thank you very much your time and attention. Talk soon. Peace. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/papofluente/message