Pratica di Shadowing: To get fluent in a language… find another interest - Impara a parlare inglese con i video
Creazione lezione...
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You know, I've been struggling recently with my Arabic
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and I'm going to talk a bit about that
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and why I've come to the realization that in order to become fluent in a language, you have to change your focus.
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I've done this in the past.
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I'm going to do it in Arabic and I'll explain to you what I mean.
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So we all know, or I've said before, that when we start in a new language, there is that initial period of achievement, triumph.
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We're learning something new, which is always stimulating for the brain.
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We all of a sudden understand certain things.
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There's a lot of high -frequency vocabulary.
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So we're kind of climbing a steep hill, but we're getting that sense of getting somewhere.
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And then we realize that actually it's a long, long road.
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There are a lot of words to learn, a lot of low -frequency words to learn.
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It takes a long time for the brain to get used to a new language, even if we understand certain rules of grammar
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or we understand in theory how the new writing system works
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it takes a long time for the brain to get used to these things so with my Arabic,
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unlike say Persian where I had a lot of interesting content some of it prepared by our tutor at LingQ, Sahra on the history of Iran
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and different aspects of the culture of Iran with Arabic I've
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kind of bounced around from standard Arabic to Egyptian Arabic to Levantine Arabic,
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and I haven't been able to find that same kind of interesting content that I had for Persian, for whatever reason.
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And now I was helped by my tutor Sahra, who not only created good content, but found stimulating podcasts.
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So when I'm engaged in a podcast on a subject of interest, I'm not aware that I'm learning Persian.
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I'm just enjoying the podcast.
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So it turns out
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that there are four reasons why changing your focus from the
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language you're learning to some other subject of interest is essential to staying the course and therefore eventually achieving fluency.
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So point number one, apparently when you engage with a subject of interest, there are all kinds of effects in your brain.
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It opens the door.
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There's sort of a dopamine effect which makes you better at learning, better at remembering.
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It's that reward for discovering things of interest to you that you're intrinsically interested in and you're learning more and more about.
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Apparently, the brain is better able to focus.
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So what I've always felt to be the case, that I learn better when I'm focused on a subject of interest,
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there are lots of neurologic or brain research, cognitive science research, which supports that premise.
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Now, the second reason why it's important to change focus
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and to focus on a subject of interest is not based on cognitive science or, you know, brain research.
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It's the fact that if I have a subject of interest, if I have, say, a podcast on history, I'm interested in getting to the next episode.
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It's something that attracts me back to the language.
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I'm not just fighting to improve in the language.
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My focus is not how quickly can I learn this language?
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Am I learning?
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The focus is rather, you know, on something else beside the language.
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And it attracts me back.
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Again, this is recognized.
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There is a teaching practice called CLIL, Content and Language Integrated Learning.
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So this is something that happens in the classroom, where in some universities, people study a subject.
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Say, if you're at school in English, you'll be learning some of your material in the language that you're trying to learn.
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It's kind of similar to French immersion in Canadian schools or elsewhere.
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The difficulty with this is that very often it's used to favor learning English.
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So kind of, in a way, reinforces the sense that English is the only language worth learning.
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And second of all, of course, it's in a classroom.
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And to some extent, you know, if you're doing your chemistry in a language that's not your native language, you may, in fact, have trouble learning that subject.
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So to that extent, CLIL in schools, to my mind, is less obviously a win than if you're doing it based on your own interests.
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So I don't care if I'm doing the history of the Levant in Arabic and missing some things, because it's that sense of discovering things,
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however imperfectly, in the language that I'm learning that matters to me, not whether I learn it as well as I might have learned it in English.
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And nothing prevents me from, you know, increasing my knowledge by adding to my reading in English.
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But while I'm engaged in the language that I'm learning, in this case, the Arabic, I am in the zone, so to speak.
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And that's the third point.
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If I'm engaging with something of interest to me, I'm less impatient.
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I'm not questioning myself.
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Am I learning right now?
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Am I improving in my Arabic as I sit here and I save words or I listen or I read?
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It's almost as if...
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The language I'm learning, and I mentioned this with regard to Montaigne, it's like a companion.
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I'm not out there to master the language, to defeat the language, to become perfect in the language.
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The language is kind of my companion as I discover other things that are of interest to me.
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And that increases my ability to stay persistent and patient in my learning
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and therefore to stay the course until I achieve a level of fluency.
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It also turns out that if you are learning something of interest, you have a reduced stress level.
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Apparently, there's cortisol in the brain, which is a sort of an indicator of stress.
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And if you can reduce that, you know, production of that stress, which is a resistance to learning, then you will learn more efficiently.
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And finally, point number four, which I have experienced, is if you are focusing on a subject of interest,
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which in my case might be history or for a while it was evolution in my Persian podcast.
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If you stay with the same subject for a while, a number of things happen that are very beneficial for language learning.
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First of all, you become increasingly familiar with that subject and comprehension is based on two things, vocabulary and familiarity with the subject.
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So if you stay with the same subject, you become increasingly familiar with that subject.
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You understand more and more there are more things that you know
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and therefore you notice more new things
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that add to your knowledge of the subject
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but also to your knowledge of the language
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and second of all of course if you're staying with the same subject
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or a limited range of subject matter you know a lot
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of the same low frequency vocabulary is going to appear more often than
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if you had a scattered approach
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so in other words you will increase your ability to learn low frequency vocabulary
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so that's another good reason to stay with a subject of interest,
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to move your focus from learning the language to learning a subject of interest.
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So it becomes less stressful.
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It approximates what a famous Hungarian, I believe, educator talked about as the,
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the flow, that zone where you are engaged with something that you know is,
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is difficult, but you're so interested in it that it feels less stressful,
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less pressure, you're not aware of the fact that you are learning.
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And so if I look at my current situation with Arabic, where I kind of bounce back and forth between going at the mini stories again,
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which is beneficial because I'm hearing the same material over and over again.
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I'm reinforcing my knowledge of some of the basics of the language, which is a good thing to do from time to time.
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But by the third or fourth mini story that I've done before, Or my interest declines.
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So when you are less motivated, you learn less.
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So then I go from the sort of repeated listening to many stories to difficult content on, for example, MTV Lebanon.
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It's difficult and yet I can make it easier for myself by using sentence mode and all these other things.
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But intrinsically, I have a limited amount of interest in the political parties in Lebanon, for example.
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If I had similar content on the history of the Levant, you know, from the Phoenicians, the Syrians, the Roman Empire,
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the Ottoman Empire, all the stuff that I find fascinating, then I would learn faster.
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So fortunately, I have now engaged with a new tutor who is promising
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that he will put together some of his ideas on the Levant, the cities in Levant, the histories in the Levant, all of that in Levant in Arabic.
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And he may also help me find some podcasts on similar subjects
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so that I can start to build up the same kind of wealth of material
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that helped me in my Persian learning and even my Turkish learning
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and make that available now as I struggle to improve in my Levantine Arabic or Arabic learning.
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I'll still do a bit of standard Arabic, and so by changing my focus from learning the language itself to learning about a specific subject,
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which in this case is going to be the history of the Arabic world, and more specifically the history of, call it, you know, the Levant.
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So just thought I would update you on where I stand in my Arabic learning
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and suggest to you
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that you might benefit from changing your focus from learning the language to developing an interest
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that can keep you going for the long haul.
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Thank you for listening.
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Bye for now.
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Contesto e sfondo: Imparare una lingua con passione
Nel video, un apprendista di lingue condivide la sua esperienza con l'arabo e la scoperta chiave: per diventare fluente, bisogna spostare l'attenzione da "imparare la lingua" a "esplorare un interesse". Iniziare una lingua è stimolante, ma poi la strada si allunga. La soluzione? Abbinare l'apprendimento a un argomento che ci entusiasma, come la storia o l'evoluzione. Questo approccio non solo rende il processo più piacevole, ma anche più efficace, grazie a effetti neurologici e motivazionali.
5 frasi utili per la comunicazione quotidiana
- "I'm gonna talk a bit about that" – "Parlerò un po' di questo" (utile per aprire un argomento).
- "It takes a long time for the brain to get used to" – "Ci vuole molto tempo perche' il cervello si abitui" (per spiegare difficoltà).
- "It's that reward for discovering things" – "E' quella ricompensa per scoprire cose" (per descrivere motivazioni).
- "It attracts me back to the language" – "Mi riporta alla lingua" (per esprimere il legame con la lingua).
- "Comprehension is based on two things" – "La comprensione si basa su due cose" (per spiegare concetti).
Guida passo passo allo shadowing per questo video
Lo shadowing (o "shadow speak") è un metodo eccellente per migliorare la pronuncia inglese e l'fluency. Ecco come usarlo con questo video:
- Ascolta e osserva: Riproduci un frammento di 10-15 secondi. Nota l'intonazione e il ritmo del parlante.
- Ripeti immediatamente: Dopo aver ascoltato, ripeti la frase al massimo vicino possibile, cercando di imitare la pronuncia e l'accento. Usa lo "shadow speech" per creare un legame tra ascolto e produzione.
- Analizza le difficoltà: Se una parola o una struttura ti crea problemi, pausa e ripeti più volte. Focus su frasi come "dopamine effect" o "cognitive science research" per esercitarti con vocaboli specifici.
- Aumenta la lunghezza: Una volta a tuo agio con i frammenti corti, passa a sezioni più lunghe. Questo aiuta a mantenere la concentrazione e a migliorare la fluenza.
Imparare l'inglese con i video e lo shadowing non è solo efficace, ma anche divertente: il video, con il suo argomento stimolante, ti motiva a continuare. Ricorda: il segreto è la costanza e il piacere nell'esplorare argomenti che ti interessano.
La grammatica di questo video
Le strutture che chi parla usa di più, con le parole esatte del video:
| Struttura | Nel video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect have/has + participio passato — un’azione passata che conta ancora adesso | I've come · I've done · I've said |
| Forma passiva be + participio passato — conta ciò che accade, non chi lo fa | was helped · is not based · is recognized |
| Frasi relative who / which + frase — un’informazione in più su una persona o una cosa | new, which is · effect which makes · brain, which is |
Cos'è la tecnica dello Shadowing?
Shadowing è una tecnica di apprendimento delle lingue supportata da studi scientifici, originariamente sviluppata per la formazione dei traduttori professionisti e resa popolare dal poliglotta Dr. Alexander Arguelles. Il metodo è semplice ma potente: ascolti un audio in inglese di madrelingua e lo ripeti immediatamente ad alta voce — come un'ombra che segue il parlante con un ritardo di solo 1–2 secondi. A differenza dell'ascolto passivo o degli esercizi di grammatica, lo shadowing costringe il tuo cervello e i muscoli della bocca a elaborare e riprodurre simultaneamente i modelli di discorso reale. La ricerca dimostra che migliora significativamente la precisione della pronuncia, l'intonazione, il ritmo, il discorso connesso, la comprensione dell'ascolto e la fluidità del parlato — rendendolo uno dei metodi più efficaci per la preparazione alla prova di speaking dell'IELTS e per la comunicazione reale in inglese.