Shadowing and reading aloud

Shadowing in language learning means listening to a recording and repeating it aloud almost at the same time, a fraction of a second behind the speaker, like an echo. Research, mostly from university English classes in Japan, finds that it improves listening, especially the ability to pick out words in fast speech, and there’s some evidence it helps fluency and how easy you are to understand. The studies are smaller and fewer than the technique’s popularity suggests, but the results so far are encouraging.

Reading aloud is a close cousin with a different job. Below: what the research actually says about both, how to shadow well, and the mistakes that make it a waste of time.

What shadowing is, and what it isn’t

In shadowing, you speak while you listen. You don’t wait for the end of a sentence, and you usually don’t pause the audio. The point is to track the speech in real time, copying its sounds, rhythm and intonation as you go.

That makes it different from a few things it’s often confused with:

The technique comes from interpreter training, where trainees shadow speech to build the skill of listening and speaking at once. It was introduced into English teaching in Japan in the early 1990s, and Japanese researchers have done most of the published work on it since.

What the research says about shadowing in language learning

Kadota’s framework

The most complete account is Shuhei Kadota’s Shadowing as a Practice in Second Language Acquisition: Connecting Inputs and Outputs (Routledge, 2019). Kadota, a professor of applied linguistics at Kwansei Gakuin University, proposes that shadowing has four separate effects:

1. Input effect. Shadowing trains faster, more automatic perception of speech, which improves listening comprehension.
2. Practice effect. It exercises the “inner voice” that holds sounds in working memory, which helps you learn new words, phrases and constructions.
3. Output effect. It simulates some of the stages of producing speech, without the effort of deciding what to say.
4. Monitoring effect. It trains you to monitor and control your own processing, a metacognitive skill.

Not every part of that model has equal evidence behind it. The listening effect is the best studied.

Listening: the strongest evidence

Yo Hamada’s study “Shadowing: Who benefits and how?” (Language Teaching Research, 2016, doi:10.1177/1362168815597504) set out to test two common claims: that shadowing improves learners’ perception of individual sounds, and that it helps lower-level learners most. Forty-three Japanese university students did a series of shadowing lessons using material from their English course.

The results:

• Sound perception improved in both the lower- and intermediate-proficiency groups, as measured by a 20-item dictation test.
• Listening comprehension improved only for the lower-proficiency group, on the easier of the listening tests. Neither group improved on the harder one.

Hamada’s interpretation is that shadowing works mainly on bottom-up listening: hearing where words begin and end and recognizing them in fast speech. That’s the part of listening that lower-level learners struggle with most, so they have the most to gain. More advanced learners, who already hear the words, need other kinds of practice to improve comprehension.

In a later review, “Shadowing: What is it? How to use it. Where will it go?” (RELC Journal, 2019, doi:10.1177/0033688218771380), Hamada summarizes the research on listening and speaking and suggests that beginners start with shadowing for listening and move to shadowing for speaking later.

Speaking: promising, smaller evidence

Jennifer Foote and Kim McDonough’s study “Using shadowing with mobile technology to improve L2 pronunciation” (Journal of Second Language Pronunciation, 2017, doi:10.1075/jslp.3.1.02foo) is one of the few tests outside Japan. Sixteen learners shadowed short dialogues on iPods at least four times a week, for at least ten minutes a session, over eight weeks, recording themselves as they went. Twenty-two English speakers rated recordings made before, midway through and after.

The learners improved on comprehensibility (how easy they were to understand) and fluency. They did not become significantly less accented. That’s a useful result, because comprehensibility is what matters for communication, and accent is notoriously slow to change.

Conversational shadowing

Tim Murphey’s “Exploring conversational shadowing” (Language Teaching Research, 2001, doi:10.1177/136216880100500203) looked at a different version: quietly repeating some of what a conversation partner says, in real time. He described shadowing as varying along continuums: from silent to fully voiced, and from complete (repeating everything) through selective (repeating key words) to interactive (adding short questions and comments of your own). Selective and interactive shadowing turned out to be a natural way to show a partner you’re following, and to keep your own attention on what they’re saying.

The honest caveats

The research on shadowing has real limits:

• Small samples. Most studies have a few dozen participants or fewer.
• One context. Much of the work is with Japanese university students learning English.
• Few strong controls. Many studies compare learners before and after shadowing without a comparison group doing something else for the same amount of time.
• Mixed findings on individual sounds. Not every study finds that shadowing improves the perception of difficult sound contrasts.

So the best summary is: shadowing reliably helps learners hear words in connected speech, it probably helps fluency and comprehensibility, and the bigger claims are plausible but not yet proven.

What about reading aloud?

Reading aloud has had a bad reputation in language teaching, partly because reading aloud in class is slow and stressful and can get in the way of understanding. In “Reading aloud: a useful learning tool?” (ELT Journal, 2008, doi:10.1093/elt/ccm075), Sally Gibson argued that it has been unfairly dismissed, and that it can be useful for specific purposes such as pronunciation practice, as long as it’s used selectively.

There’s also good memory research behind it. Colin MacLeod and colleagues’ paper “The production effect: Delineation of a phenomenon” (Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 2010, doi:10.1037/a0018785) found that people remember words they read aloud better than words they read silently. The catch is that the advantage appeared when people read some words aloud and others silently. Reading a whole list aloud didn’t beat reading a whole list silently. Saying a word aloud seems to make it distinctive, and distinctiveness only helps when not everything is distinctive.

For learners, that suggests a specific use: read aloud the new words and phrases you want to remember, and read everything else silently. Reading a whole novel aloud is slower and won’t make it more memorable.

How to shadow: a 15-minute routine

Choose the right audio

• Short. One to three minutes is plenty. You’ll go over it several times.
• Easy. Pick something you can mostly understand. If you can’t follow the meaning, you’re just making sounds.
• One clear speaker. A podcast host or audiobook narrator is easier than a group conversation.
• With a transcript. You’ll need it for the first few passes.
• A natural speaker. Human recordings are better than text-to-speech for copying rhythm and intonation.

The steps

1. Listen for meaning. Play the audio once or twice without speaking. Read the transcript and look up anything you don’t understand. Shadowing works best on material you already understand.
2. Mumble along. Play it again and murmur along quietly, without worrying about getting every sound. This is about keeping pace.
3. Parallel read. Read the transcript aloud along with the audio. This links the sounds to the written words.
4. Shadow without the text. Put the transcript away and shadow, a moment behind the speaker. Focus on rhythm and intonation first, then on individual sounds.
5. Record and compare. Record one pass, then listen to it next to the original. Pick one thing to fix: a sound, a stressed word, a run of words you blurred together.
6. Come back tomorrow. Shadow the same clip for a few days, then move on to a new one.

Ten to fifteen minutes a day is a good amount. Shadowing is tiring, and quality drops quickly when you’re worn out.

Common mistakes

• Shadowing material that’s too hard. If you don’t understand it, you can’t process it, and you’ll just be copying noise. Step down a level.
• Never looking at the meaning. Shadowing nonsense syllables trains your mouth, not your listening.
• Only ever using the transcript. Parallel reading is a stage, not the goal. The listening benefit comes from tracking speech without the text.
• Doing too much at once. An hour of shadowing a week will do less than ten minutes a day.
• Treating it as a replacement for input. Shadowing is a few minutes of focused practice. Most of your listening should still be relaxed listening to lots of material you understand. (Our post on comprehensible input explains why.)

Where shadowing fits in an input-based routine

Shadowing is a good companion to an input-heavy approach rather than an alternative to it. Your reading and listening build vocabulary and a feel for the language. Shadowing helps you hear the words you already know when they come at native speed, and it’s a gentle bridge to speaking for learners who aren’t ready for conversation.

A good source of material is a video or podcast you’ve already watched and understood. If you use the three-pass method from our guide to learning a language from YouTube, shadowing fits naturally as the final pass: pick a favorite minute and shadow it.

Lumo can help with the “understand it first” part. It imports YouTube videos with an interactive transcript and dual subtitles, so you can look up words in the clip before you shadow it, and you can import your own audio or video files with SRT or VTT subtitles. Read-along text-to-speech highlights each word as it’s spoken, which is handy for linking spelling to sound in parallel reading, though for shadowing itself we’d still suggest a human recording. Lumo isn’t available yet, but it’s coming soon.

FAQ

Does shadowing actually work?

For listening, the evidence is fairly good: studies such as Hamada (2016) find that shadowing improves learners’ ability to perceive words in speech, especially for lower-level learners. For speaking, smaller studies such as Foote and McDonough (2017) found gains in fluency and comprehensibility. Most research is small-scale, so the effects are encouraging rather than proven.

How long should I shadow each day?

Ten to fifteen minutes a day is a good target. Shadowing takes concentration, and short, regular sessions work better than long ones. Use the same short clip for several days before moving on.

Can beginners do shadowing?

Yes, with easy material. Research suggests lower-level learners may benefit most for listening, and Hamada recommends that beginners start with shadowing for listening before using it for speaking. Use slow, clear audio you already understand, and start with a transcript.

Is shadowing better than reading aloud?

They do different things. Shadowing trains listening and fluency by tracking real speech, so it needs audio. Reading aloud doesn’t train listening, but saying selected new words aloud can help you remember them better than reading them silently.

Should I use subtitles or a transcript when shadowing?

Use a transcript to understand the clip and for parallel reading at first. Then put it away. The listening benefit comes from tracking the speech by ear, and reading the text the whole time turns shadowing into reading aloud.