Shadowing Practice: What reading ACTUALLY does to your brain - Learn English Speaking with Video
Les maken...
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We've all heard that reading is good for you and have probably done a fair bit of it.
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Well, most of us.
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But did you know that reading can actually change your brain?
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Today we're going to take a look at some science and talk about five ways that reading rewires your brain.
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Let's get into it.
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The internet is where most of us get our news, connect with our friends and family, and stay on top of the latest trends and memes.
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And while it's improved our short-term memory and our ability to multitask, it's also unfortunately split our attention.
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And it's not just the internet, the pace of movies is faster than it used to be, and even the music industry has seen a change with songs decreasing about 30 seconds in length over the past two decades.
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It's no wonder there's a public perception that our ability to concentrate has worsened.
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Books have a sequential narrative style with a beginning, middle, and end.
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This gives us the ability to improve our attention span by encouraging our brains to also think in a sequence.
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As a result, we spend more time processing the narrative
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and thinking about the complex layers of stories and how they all fit together.
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The act of reading increases the capacity for longer attention spans, especially in children.
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Reading has the ability to put you into a character's shoes both literally and figuratively.
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Reading fiction, specifically literary fiction, which is a bit more active than genre fiction, presses us to search for meaning
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and to produce our own perspectives on both the story itself and the complex characters they tend to feature.
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Literary fiction tends to paint a more complex picture of social interactions, and since those stories have a bigger focus on the characters over the plot,
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reading those works helps us develop complexity to the degree that we analyze the thoughts and feelings of other people, their behaviors, and our society in general.
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Literary fiction in particular pushes us to assess others as unique individuals, to withhold some of our judgment, and to think more deeply about the world and the people around us.
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Looking at the literal side of reading putting us into a character's shoes, it's been shown that reading increases activity in the brain's left temporal cortex.
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This area of the brain is associated with receptivity for language and primary sensory motor activity.
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Neurons in this region have been associated with tricking the brain into thinking that it's doing something that it's not, which is something known as grounded or embodied cognition.
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So if you're reading about a main character running away from something or someone, neurons associated with the physical act of running are actually activated.
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And this isn't a short term thing either.
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Gregory S.
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Burns was a lead researcher on a study all about this, and they found that reading stories, especially those with strong narrative arcs,
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reconfigures brain networks for at least a few days, maybe up to five.
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Speaking of networks, I had heard of the terms gray matter and white matter as it relates to the brain, spinal cord, and central nervous system,
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but I never really knew exactly what it meant or why it was important before now.
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Gray matter is the areas where the actual processing is done, and the white matter provides the communication between different gray matter areas
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and between the gray matter and the rest of the body.
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White matter-rich areas of the brain mainly consists of structures that allow the signals to be transmitted at high speeds, and it allows our gray matter to work faster.
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Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University found that reading exercises, at least in children, actually cause the brain to physically rewire itself and create more white matter,
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which in turn improves communication.
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Showing that it's possible to rewire a brain's white matter has important implications for treating reading disabilities, as well as other developmental disorders including autism,
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so this is a pretty exciting discovery.
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This creation of additional white matter is necessary because that gray matter and the brain is processing a lot as we're reading.
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It's a neurobiologically challenging activity and it's like a workout for our brains.
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It's been found that all this work has the ability to improve our working memory.
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Reading involves several brain functions like visual processing, phonemic awareness, fluency, comprehension, and more.
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And research shows that reading, unlike watching or listening to media, gives the brain more time to stop, think, process, and imagine the narrative in front of us.
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All these parts of the brain have evolved for other functions like vision, language, and associative learning, and they all connect in a very specific neural circuit for reading,
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which is very challenging.
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This increased mental activity helps keep your memory sharp, very much like how lifting weights keeps your muscles toned.
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Reading and processing what's written from the letters to the words to the sentences to the stories themselves boosts overall brain activity.
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That memory boost is important to note too, because studies have found that daily reading may reduce dementia risk.
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Dementia is an umbrella term used to describe a number of neurological conditions affecting the brain.
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It's the loss of memory, language, problem solving, and other thinking abilities that are severe enough to interfere with someone's daily life.
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Researchers at Hong Kong's elderly health centers tracked more than 15,000 people over the age of 65 for five years,
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and all of them were dementia-free at the start of the study.
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What they found was dementia risk was significantly lower among those who reported daily participation intellectual activities like reading books,
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magazines, and newspapers, and even playing board games.
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The study proves that it's never too late to start.
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For people who initiated a reading regimen later in life, the impact was still significant enough to delay or prevent dementia.
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All of this seems to back up a long-term study from the University of Michigan, which found that people who read books — any kind of books, fiction, non-fiction, poetry,
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prose — for as little as 30 minutes daily over long
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periods of time lived on average about two years longer than people who didn't read.
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As always, I'll drop links down in the description box to all the sources cited in this video, and there was a ton of researching and reading of white papers
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that I did in preparation for this so I'm looking forward to my brain's additional white matter.
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Woordenschat en spreektips bij deze les
Deze spreekles op niveau B2 is gebaseerd op de video “What reading ACTUALLY does to your brain”. Deze woorden komen het vaakst terug: reading, brain, fiction, gray, dementia. Deze video bevat 60 zinnen en 1088 woorden om na te spreken. Het gesproken deel duurt 5:23. De spreker praat snel, ongeveer 202 woorden per minuut, dus reken op verbonden en ingeslikte klanken. 83% van de woorden hoort bij de 3.000 meest gebruikte Engelse woorden; de rest kun je beter vooraf bekijken.
Belangrijke woorden in deze video
De 15 moeilijkste woorden uit de video, met uitspraak en betekenis:
| Woord | Uitspraak | Betekenis |
|---|---|---|
| dementia zelfstandig naamwoord | /dɪˈmɛnʃə/ | dementie |
| researcher zelfstandig naamwoord | /ˈɹiˌsɝ.t͡ʃɚ/ | onderzoeker |
| neuron zelfstandig naamwoord | /ˈn(j)ʊɹɑn/ | neuron, zenuwcel |
| embody werkwoord | /ɪmˈbɒdi/ | belichamen |
| excite werkwoord | /ɪkˈsaɪt/ | prikkelen, opwinden |
| figuratively bijwoord | figuurlijk | |
| fluency zelfstandig naamwoord | /ˈfluːənsi/ | vlotheid |
| phonemic bijvoeglijk naamwoord | /fəˈniː.mɪk/ | fonemisch |
| receptivity zelfstandig naamwoord | ontvankelijkheid | |
| withhold werkwoord | /wɪθˈhoʊld/ | achterhouden |
| worsen werkwoord | /ˈwɝsn̩/ | verergeren |
| neurological bijvoeglijk naamwoord | /nɝəˈlɑd͡ʒɪkəl/ | neurologisch |
| comprehension zelfstandig naamwoord | /ˌkɑmpɹɪˈhɛnʃn̩/ | begrip, verstandigheid |
| temporal bijvoeglijk naamwoord | /ˈtɛm.pə.ɹəl/ | tijdelijk |
| transmit werkwoord | /tɹænsˈmɪt/ | doorgeven |
Phrasal verbs die je zult horen
| Woord | Betekenis |
|---|---|
| back up werkwoord | teruggaan |
| look forward to werkwoord | uitkijken naar, zich verheugen op |
Grammatica in deze video
De structuren die de spreker het meest gebruikt, met de exacte woorden uit de video:
| Structuur | In de video |
|---|---|
| “Used to” used to + werkwoord — een vroegere gewoonte of toestand die niet meer klopt | used to be · used to describe |
| Lijdende vorm be + voltooid deelwoord — het gaat om wat er gebeurt, niet om wie het doet | been shown · is associated · have been associated |
| Present perfect have/has + voltooid deelwoord — iets uit het verleden dat nu nog telt | have probably done · has seen · has worsened |
| Betrekkelijke bijzinnen who / which + zin — extra informatie over een persoon of ding | fiction, which is · not, which is · those who reported |
Uitspraak om op te letten
De spreker gebruikt 8 samentrekkingen en verkorte vormen, zoals we're, didn't, I'll. Spreek ze kort uit, zoals je ze hoort.
- De klanken “sh” en “zh”: dementia /dɪˈmɛnʃə/, associative /əˈsoʊ.ʃi.ə.tɪv/, cognition /kɑɡˈnɪʃ.ən/, implication /ˌɪmpləˈkeɪʃən/, comprehension /ˌkɑmpɹɪˈhɛnʃn̩/
- Lange woorden — let op de klemtoon: associative /əˈsoʊ.ʃi.ə.tɪv/, neurological /nɝəˈlɑd͡ʒɪkəl/, implication /ˌɪmpləˈkeɪʃən/, initiate /ɪˈnɪʃ.i.eɪt/, developmental /dɪˌvɛləpˈmɛntəl/
Klanken die Nederlandstaligen lastig vinden:
- Stemhebbende eindmedeklinker — /b/, /d/, /g/, /z/, /v/ niet verscherpen: associative /əˈsoʊ.ʃi.ə.tɪv/, withhold /wɪθˈhoʊld/, prose /ˈpɹoʊz/, evolve /ɪˈvɑlv/, analyze /ˈæn.əˌlaɪz/
- /æ/ — opener dan de Nederlandse “e”: transmit /tɹænsˈmɪt/, activate /ˈæktɪˌveɪt/, analyze /ˈæn.əˌlaɪz/, span /spæn/
- /w/ — met ronde lippen: rewire /ɹiːˈwaɪə(ɹ)/, sequential /səˈkwɛntʃəl/, withhold /wɪθˈhoʊld/, worsen /ˈwɝsn̩/, workout /ˈwɝk.aʊ̯t/
Zo oefen je met deze video
- Luister de hele video één keer zonder te spreken en noteer de woorden die je niet kent.
- Begin op 0,75× snelheid, spreek zin voor zin na en ga terug naar normale snelheid zodra het makkelijk gaat.
- Neem jezelf op en vergelijk met het origineel; let daarbij op woorden als dementia, researcher, neuron.
Wat is de Shadowing-techniek?
Shadowing is een wetenschappelijk onderbouwde taalleermethode die oorspronkelijk is ontwikkeld voor professionele tolkentraining en gepopulariseerd door polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. De methode is eenvoudig maar krachtig: je luistert naar native Engelse audio en herhaalt het onmiddellijk hardop — als een schaduw die de spreker volgt met slechts 1–2 seconden vertraging. In tegenstelling tot passief luisteren of grammaticadrills, dwingt shadowing je hersenen en mondspieren om echte spraakpatronen tegelijkertijd te verwerken en te reproduceren. Onderzoek toont aan dat het de uitspraaknauwkeurigheid, intonatie, ritme, verbonden spraak, luisterbegrip en spreekvaardigheid aanzienlijk verbetert — waardoor het een van de meest effectieve methoden is voor IELTS Speaking-voorbereiding en echte Engelse communicatie.