シャドーイング練習: To get fluent in a language… find another interest - 動画で英語スピーキングを学ぶ

You know, I've been struggling recently with my Arabic

and I'm going to talk a bit about that

and why I've come to the realization that in order to become fluent in a language, you have to change your focus.

I've done this in the past.

I'm going to do it in Arabic and I'll explain to you what I mean.

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.

We're learning something new, which is always stimulating for the brain.

We all of a sudden understand certain things.

There's a lot of high -frequency vocabulary.

So we're kind of climbing a steep hill, but we're getting that sense of getting somewhere.

And then we realize that actually it's a long, long road.

There are a lot of words to learn, a lot of low -frequency words to learn.

It takes a long time for the brain to get used to a new language, even if we understand certain rules of grammar

or we understand in theory how the new writing system works

it takes a long time for the brain to get used to these things so with my Arabic,

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

and different aspects of the culture of Iran with Arabic I've

kind of bounced around from standard Arabic to Egyptian Arabic to Levantine Arabic,

and I haven't been able to find that same kind of interesting content that I had for Persian, for whatever reason.

And now I was helped by my tutor Sahra, who not only created good content, but found stimulating podcasts.

So when I'm engaged in a podcast on a subject of interest, I'm not aware that I'm learning Persian.

I'm just enjoying the podcast.

So it turns out

that there are four reasons why changing your focus from the

language you're learning to some other subject of interest is essential to staying the course and therefore eventually achieving fluency.

So point number one, apparently when you engage with a subject of interest, there are all kinds of effects in your brain.

It opens the door.

There's sort of a dopamine effect which makes you better at learning, better at remembering.

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.

Apparently, the brain is better able to focus.

So what I've always felt to be the case, that I learn better when I'm focused on a subject of interest,

there are lots of neurologic or brain research, cognitive science research, which supports that premise.

Now, the second reason why it's important to change focus

and to focus on a subject of interest is not based on cognitive science or, you know, brain research.

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.

It's something that attracts me back to the language.

I'm not just fighting to improve in the language.

My focus is not how quickly can I learn this language?

Am I learning?

The focus is rather, you know, on something else beside the language.

And it attracts me back.

Again, this is recognized.

There is a teaching practice called CLIL, Content and Language Integrated Learning.

So this is something that happens in the classroom, where in some universities, people study a subject.

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.

It's kind of similar to French immersion in Canadian schools or elsewhere.

The difficulty with this is that very often it's used to favor learning English.

So kind of, in a way, reinforces the sense that English is the only language worth learning.

And second of all, of course, it's in a classroom.

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.

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.

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,

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.

And nothing prevents me from, you know, increasing my knowledge by adding to my reading in English.

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.

And that's the third point.

If I'm engaging with something of interest to me, I'm less impatient.

I'm not questioning myself.

Am I learning right now?

Am I improving in my Arabic as I sit here and I save words or I listen or I read?

It's almost as if...

The language I'm learning, and I mentioned this with regard to Montaigne, it's like a companion.

I'm not out there to master the language, to defeat the language, to become perfect in the language.

The language is kind of my companion as I discover other things that are of interest to me.

And that increases my ability to stay persistent and patient in my learning

and therefore to stay the course until I achieve a level of fluency.

It also turns out that if you are learning something of interest, you have a reduced stress level.

Apparently, there's cortisol in the brain, which is a sort of an indicator of stress.

And if you can reduce that, you know, production of that stress, which is a resistance to learning, then you will learn more efficiently.

And finally, point number four, which I have experienced, is if you are focusing on a subject of interest,

which in my case might be history or for a while it was evolution in my Persian podcast.

If you stay with the same subject for a while, a number of things happen that are very beneficial for language learning.

First of all, you become increasingly familiar with that subject and comprehension is based on two things, vocabulary and familiarity with the subject.

So if you stay with the same subject, you become increasingly familiar with that subject.

You understand more and more there are more things that you know

and therefore you notice more new things

that add to your knowledge of the subject

but also to your knowledge of the language

and second of all of course if you're staying with the same subject

or a limited range of subject matter you know a lot

of the same low frequency vocabulary is going to appear more often than

if you had a scattered approach

so in other words you will increase your ability to learn low frequency vocabulary

so that's another good reason to stay with a subject of interest,

to move your focus from learning the language to learning a subject of interest.

So it becomes less stressful.

It approximates what a famous Hungarian, I believe, educator talked about as the,

the flow, that zone where you are engaged with something that you know is,

is difficult, but you're so interested in it that it feels less stressful,

less pressure, you're not aware of the fact that you are learning.

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,

which is beneficial because I'm hearing the same material over and over again.

I'm reinforcing my knowledge of some of the basics of the language, which is a good thing to do from time to time.

But by the third or fourth mini story that I've done before, Or my interest declines.

So when you are less motivated, you learn less.

So then I go from the sort of repeated listening to many stories to difficult content on, for example, MTV Lebanon.

It's difficult and yet I can make it easier for myself by using sentence mode and all these other things.

But intrinsically, I have a limited amount of interest in the political parties in Lebanon, for example.

If I had similar content on the history of the Levant, you know, from the Phoenicians, the Syrians, the Roman Empire,

100

the Ottoman Empire, all the stuff that I find fascinating, then I would learn faster.

101

So fortunately, I have now engaged with a new tutor who is promising

102

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.

103

And he may also help me find some podcasts on similar subjects

104

so that I can start to build up the same kind of wealth of material

105

that helped me in my Persian learning and even my Turkish learning

106

and make that available now as I struggle to improve in my Levantine Arabic or Arabic learning.

107

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,

108

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.

109

So just thought I would update you on where I stand in my Arabic learning

110

and suggest to you

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that you might benefit from changing your focus from learning the language to developing an interest

112

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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なぜこの動画で英語学習をするのか？

「言語を流暢にするには、他の興味を見つけよう」というテーマのこの動画は、shadow speak（シャドースピーク）の練習に最適です。話者が自身の言語学習体験を率直に語る様子は、自然な会話のリズムやイントネーションを学ぶのに理想的です。特にIELTSスピーキング対策にも役立つ、「自分の経験を伝える」「論理的に説明する」という文脈が豊富です。興味のあるテーマに焦点を移すことで学習効率が上がるという内容は、shadowspeakの練習を継続的に行うモチベーションにもなります。

文脈の中の文法と表現

動画で使われているキーな表現をいくつか見てみましょう。

「I've been struggling recently with...」：現在完了進行形を使って「最近～に苦しんでいる」と継続的な状態を表しています。日常的な悩みを伝えるのに便利な表現です。
「it turns out that...」：「結果的に～であることが分かった」という意味で、調査や体験から得た結論を述べる時に使われます。論証的な発言に適しています。
「there's sort of a dopamine effect」：「一種のドーパミン効果がある」というように、「sort of」で「一種の」「なんとなく」というニュアンスを加え、柔らかい表現にしています。自然な会話でよく使われる表現です。

発音の注意点

動画の中で発音が難しい単語やアクセントに注意しましょう。

「dopamine」：ドーパミンの発音で、「ドーパミーン」となりがちですが、正しくは「ドーパミン」（最後の音は「ン」ではなく「ミン」）です。
「cortisol」：コルチゾールの発音で、「コルティゾール」と発音する人が多いですが、正しくは「コルチゾール」（「ティ」ではなく「チ」）です。
「Levantine」：レバント地方の発音で、「レバンティン」となりがちですが、「レバンタイン」が正しい発音です。

これらの表現や発音をshadowspeaksの練習で覚えることで、IELTSスピーキング対策や日常会話のスキルが向上します。動画で英語学習をする際は、話者のリズムに合わせて繰り返し練習してみてください。

この動画の文法

話し手がよく使っている文型を、動画の実際の表現とともに紹介します。

文型	動画での表現
現在完了形 have/has + 過去分詞 — 過去の出来事が今も関係している	I've come · I've done · I've said
受動態 be + 過去分詞 — 誰がするかより、何が起きるかに焦点を当てる	was helped · is not based · is recognized
関係詞節 who / which + 節 — 人や物について情報を加える	new, which is · effect which makes · brain, which is

シャドーイングとは？英語上達に効果的な理由

シャドーイング（Shadowing）は、もともとプロの通訳者養成プログラムで開発された言語学習法で、多言語習得者として知られるDr. Alexander Arguelles によって広く普及されました。方法はシンプルですが非常に効果的：ネイティブスピーカーの英語を聞きながら、1〜2秒の遅延で声に出してすぐに繰り返す——まるで「影（shadow）」のように話者を追いかけます。文法ドリルや受動的なリスニングと異なり、シャドーイングは脳と口の筋肉が同時にリアルタイムで英語を処理・再現することを強制します。研究により、発音精度、抑揚、リズム、連音、リスニング力、そして会話の流暢さが大幅に向上することが確認されています。IELTSスピーキング対策や自然な英語コミュニケーションを目指す方に特におすすめです。

シャドーイングのやり方: ステップ別の完全ガイドを読む →

シャドーイング練習: To get fluent in a language… find another interest - 動画で英語スピーキングを学ぶ

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なぜこの動画で英語学習をするのか？

文脈の中の文法と表現

発音の注意点

この動画の文法

シャドーイングとは？英語上達に効果的な理由