The Good

SH A D OW I N G G u i d e
u id e to su p e rcharging your
e a ke rs ’ g
The ‘Extrao rdinary English Sp
—

g
fluency with Shadowin

with Julian Northbrook


Hi —
My name is Julian Northbrook. I
help non-native English speak-
ers using English at work,
because they live in an English
speaking country or because
they are non-native English
teachers, speak exceptional
English to get things done
faster, with less frustration and
less embarrassment.
This short guide will show you
how to supercharge your
English fluency with Shadow-
ing.
The simple daily exercise that makes a massive
difference to the quality of your English Speaking
If you don’t master the natural rhythm and musical quality of English, your speaking won’t
sound fluent or natural. If you speak in a slow word-by-word way like you were taught in
school, you will be hard to understand by the people you converse with, and you’ll lose
confidence with your English speaking. Shadowing is simple exercise that my best clients
use as a part of their daily English improvement routine, and when used correctly can
make a massive difference to the quality of your speech.
The 5 Elements of Fluency
Shadowing is one of the exercises my
clients use to develop the 4th Element Chunk Organisation
of Fluency: Motor Skills. Encoding
True fluency in English is a combina- The 5 Elements
tion of 5 elements working together. of Fluency
First you have to ‘encode’ the blocks Cognitive Activation
of English you need in subconscious Load Motor
— memory. Next, you organise these Skills
into topics in your mind. Your English has to
be properly “activated” to prevent translating from
your first language, as well as that slow feeling when you try
to speak...
Motor Skill is the physical aspect of fluency — this is all about your
mouth and face muscles moving correctly, with the right rhythm and quality.
Shadowing is one of the important exercises we use to develop this part of speech.
Finally, fluent English also requires you to reduce “cognitive load”. This is a technical
term, but it is similar to your computer’s RAM — if you have a lot of software programs
open at once, your computer will run slowly and overheat. Speaking English is the same.
 1 Is “Shadowing” the
The Shadowing
Exercise is powerful...
... but only if used correctly.
Many people say to me:
“Julian, I’m doing
Shadowing but I’m not
getting fluent - why?”
The answer is always the
righ
—
t e xe rc i s e fo r yo u ?
same: they’re using it incor-
rectly. It’s like they’re trying to
use a screwdriver to put in a
nail... when what they should
be using is a hammer.
What Shadowing Is...
Shadowing is used to develop
physical fluency in English to
to sound smooth, fluent
and easy to understand. But
that’s all it’s useful for.
What shadowing is
definitly not...
Shadowing is not a method,
and it is not a “magic pill”.
Just doing shadowing will not
make you master English. This
is like taking painkillers for a
headache, when actually you
have a brain tumor and need
surgery (this happened to my
friend). Different problem,
different solution. If your
problem is related to one of
the other ‘Elements of Fluen-
cy’, you will need a different
exercise to improve fastest.
 2 H ow to “ S h a d ow ”

llow th ese simple steps:

—Once you have this, fo
0%.
Aim to understand 10
1. Study your materials.
nks” his
ve ry ca re fu lly to th e way the speaker “chu he d
2. Listen to how the words are
crus
or her spee ch — listenintonation, rhythm and the way the
together, the pauses, d slows down.
Shadowing is fun and speaker spee ds up an Rinse and Repeat
easy to do... fro nt of yo u, listen to the audio. Sim
ul
There is no correct amount of
3. With th e sc rip t in l at te nt ion
All you need are high-quality sly m im ic th e sp ea ker. Again, pay specia ee ch time to do this.
tane ou ove. Try to match your
sp
materials with a natural audio to things mentione d abr. Just do it for a few minutes
version (don’t use the audio perfe ctly to the speake
adowing each day, spending as much
from textbooks, as this isn’t u fe el co m fo rt ab le with the script, try sh glish
4. When yo the En (or as little) time on each of
Don’t try to memorise
natural English). My Extraordi- using the audio alone. ythm, flow and ‘chunking’ of what your materials as you need to
nary English Speakers use the — just focus on the rh feel comfortable with it.
ones I give them every week. the speaker
is saying.
 3 —
People who pronounce every
individual word carefully are
very difficult for native speak-
ers to understand. Why?
Because native speakers are
not speaking or listening using
individual words and grammar
rules like you were taught in
school.
Don ’t s a y
— “Chunk” it
eve r y wo rd
How native speakers
really speak...
Native speakers store blocks
of words called ‘chunks’ in
long term memory. This allows
us to speak fluently, because
we don’t have to ‘compute’
everything we say like a math-
ematician working on solving
complex equations.
This works two ways: we can
only listen in a fluent, chunked
way if YOU speak in a fluent
chunked way. This is why
something like “make a pic-
ture” sounds awkward and
unnatural (yes; it is grammati-
cal) but “take a picture”
sounds natural.
Practise chunked
speech with
shadowing...
Pay close attention to chunk-
ing when shadowing. It will
make you much easier to
understand, and your friends
will thank you for it.
 4 —
Do you believe natives speak
fast? Well, It's not true. We
don't speak fast... or at least,
not all (or most) of the time.
But we do use the speed of
our voice to add meaning to
what we're saying. When a
speaker wants to convey how
excited they are or make it
Native Speakers
do n ’t s p e a k ‘Fa s t ’
dramatic, they will speed up.
When they are emphasising a
point or talking about some-
thing sad, they will slow down.
They will use long pauses for
effect. Shadowing forces you
to pay attention and copy this:
which is one of the reasons
my Extraordinary English
Speakers all use the exercise
regularly.
Chunks Sound Fast...
but they aren’t
Remember: native speakers
speak in chunks. When we say
something like, “let”s give it a
go" we naturally blend all the
sounds together, and it is
pronounced as a single unit.
When we say, “let’s try to do
it” (not a chunk), we don’t
blend the sounds.
This is a common feature of
chunks — the more frequent
they are, the stronger the
blending. As I said before, you
need to pay attention to this.
 5 —
Shadowing is an intensive
exercise, and it should make
you tired physically (your
mouth and face muscles). It
should also make you mental-
ly tired.
But shadowing
shouldn’t be difficult
If you are finding it difficult,
If you’re finding
Shadowing hard…
you probably need to do other
exercises to develop the other
4 Elements of Fluency. For
example, if you haven’t done
the “Chunk Encoding” part
right (the 1st Element of Flu-
ency), you will find it very
difficult to keep up with the
speaker, and will make mis-
takes and say things wrong.
This is the same in
real conversation
If you make mistakes or say
unnatural things, you probably
need to focus on encoding
first. If you translate in your
head in conversation or find
your English feels slow and
‘asleep’, you need to work on
activation. If you panic or are
stressed when speaking, you
need to work on reducing
cognitive load. If your English
gets confused and messy, it’s
because it is not properly
organised in your brain. You
need to use the right exercises
for your specific problems.
 Accelerate Yo u r Le a r n i n g
The sad reality is most people
who set out to truly master
English never do or even get
past the intermediate stage.
They go on for years, doing
the same (wrong) things and
getting the same results.
Your Next Steps...
Here are two ways to get
started right now: First, join us
on one of the “Rocket Launch
Method” webinars. You’ll learn
the 5 changes my best clients
make to their English learning
routine to accelerate their
speaking. Register at doingen-
glish.com/freetraining.
Show me the webinar...
If you’re ready to get
hands-on, join the Master
English FAST Accelerator
course. It’s a 90 day imple-
mentation course where I
work with you and a group of
14 others to first get you a
massive boost in proficiency
as quickly as possible, then to
create a daily English learning
plan tailored to you personally
that is structured, consistent
and easy to do based on
methods that work, so youcan
keep improving long-term.For
more information go to
doingenglish.com/mefa/enrol.
Show me the info page...