Learn English by Shadowing - Learn English by Yourself

In this lesson I will give you some tips and  tricks to practice speaking English by yourself.  

Many of you comment here on our videos that you  don’t have anyone to practice your English with.  

I know that can be frustrating and cause you to  lose some motivation to learn English. There are  

some ways though that you can practice speaking  English by yourself. This is the first lesson in a  

series that I will make with different tips about  how to practice speaking English by yourself. 

The first tip to help practice  English speaking by yourself is to use  

shadowing. This is a bit more of an advanced  level tip, but I think English learners of all  

levels can try it. What is shadowing? Shadowing  is a technique to practice English where you  

repeat an audio right after you hear it. You  listen to words and phrases and say them back out  

loud. How does shadowing work? First you find an  audio that you want to use. It can be a podcast,  

a YouTube video, a Netflix show, an audiobook.  Really any piece of audio can work. Next, listen  

to the audio. It is important that you understand  what is being said. Make sure you understand what  

is being said and the vocabulary that you are  listening to. Next, use the audio transcript.  

This step is for any learner but is really  helpful for beginners and lower-level learners.  

If you are a little more advanced, try shadowing  without the transcript. In this case your focus  

should be on listening and mimicking the sounds. When shadowing you should use active learning.  

You should fully engage with the audio you  are shadowing. The more you can focus on  

listening and repeating the audio the better  you will improve. Shadowing is an intense  

activity so don’t try to do too much. You should  only do it for short periods of 10-15 minutes.  

Repeat the audio a few times. Repeating the audio  2 to four times should be enough. Most important  

is to choose an audio you like. It should be  something you are interested in. Finding audio on  

topics you are interested in will make using  this technique much easier. For example, if you  

like soccer, find some audio about soccer. If you  like cooking find some audio about cooking. So,  

where can you find the audio? Find videos you  like on YouTube or Facebook. These are great  

because they usually have an English transcript.  Find movies or shows you like on streaming sites  

like Netflix. These sites will also usually have  transcripts. Find a podcast you like. There are  

many places to find free podcasts these days.  You can try Google podcasts or Apple podcasts. 

Shadowing will help you improve your English  pronunciation and over all rhythm of your  

spoken English. What is rhythm? Rhythm  is the pacing of English. This will  

help you sound more fluent when speaking English. What’s so good about practicing English using  

shadowing? First, you can do it on your  own. It only takes about 15 minutes. It  

is very effective and can be free to do. To  review, find a short audio (10-15 minutes long),  

listen to the audio, and make sure you understand  what is being said. Practice shadowing the audio,  

with or without a transcript. I think you should  make shadowing part of your English learning  

plan. Now you know more about the shadowing  technique. I’ll see you in the next video.