Shadowing Practice: 3 Techniques for Managing Speaking Anxiety - Learn English Speaking with Video

So let's get started with anxiety management.

85 % of people tell us that they're nervous when speaking in public.

And I think the other 15 % are lying.

We could create a situation where we could make them nervous too.

In fact, just this past week, A study from Chapman University asked Americans,

"What are the things you fear most?" And among being caught in a surprise terrorist attack, having your identity stolen, was public speaking.

Among the top five was speaking in front of others.

This is a ubiquitous fear, and one that I believe we can learn to manage.

And I use that word "manage" very carefully, because I don't think we ever want to overcome it.

Anxiety actually helps us.

It gives us energy, helps us focus, tells us what we're doing is important, but we want to learn to manage it.

So I'd like to introduce you to a few techniques that can work, and all of these techniques are based on academic research.

But before we get there, I'd love to ask you, What does it feel like when you're sitting in the audience watching a nervous speaker present?

How do you feel?

Just shout out a few things.

How do you feel?

- Comfortable.

- Uncomfortable.

I heard many of you going, "Yes, uncomfortable." It feels very awkward, doesn't it?

So what do we do?

Now, a couple of you probably like watching somebody suffer, but most of us don't.

So what do we do?

We sit there and we nod and we smile or we disengage.

And to the nervous speaker looking out at his or her audience, seeing a bunch of people nodding or disengaged, that does not help.

OK, so we need to learn to manage our anxiety

because fundamentally your job as a communicator rather regardless of

if it's planned or spontaneous is to make your audience comfortable because if they're comfortable, they can receive your message.

And when I say comfortable, I am not referring to the fact that that your message has to be sugar coated and nice for them to hear.

It can be a harsh message.

but they have to be in a place where they can receive it.

So it's incumbent on you as a communicator to help your audience feel comfortable, and we do that by managing our anxiety.

So let me introduce you to a few techniques

that I think you can use right away to help you feel more comfortable.

The first has to do with when you begin to feel those anxiety symptoms.

For most people, this happens in the initial minutes prior to speaking.

In this situation, what happens is many of us begin to feel whatever it is that happens to you.

Maybe your stomach gets a little gurgly, maybe your legs begin to shake, maybe you begin to perspire.

And then we start to say to ourselves, "Oh my goodness, I'm nervous.

Uh -oh, they're gonna tell I'm nervous.

This is not gonna go well." And we start spiraling out of control.

So research on mindful attention tells us that when we begin to feel those anxiety symptoms,

we simply, Greet our anxiety and say, "Hey, this is me feeling nervous.

I'm about to do something of consequence." And simply by greeting your anxiety and acknowledging it, that it's normal and natural.

Heck, 85 % of people tell us they have it.

you actually can stem the tide of that anxiety spiraling out of control.

It's not necessarily going to reduce the anxiety, but it will stop it from spinning up.

So the next time you begin to feel those anxiety signs, Take a deep breath and say,

"This is me feeling anxious." I notice a few of you taking some notes.

There's a handout that will come at the end that has everything that I'm supposed to say.

Okay?

Can't guarantee I'm going to say it, but you'll have it there.

In addition to this approach, a technique that works very well-- and this is a technique

that I helped do some research on way back when I was in graduate school--

has to do with reframing how you see the speaking situation.

Most of us, when we are up presenting, planned or spontaneous, we feel that we have to do it right.

and we feel like we are performing.

How many of you have ever acted, done singing or dancing?

I'm not going to ask for performances now.

OK, many of you have.

We should note that we could do next year maybe a talent show of alums.

It looks like we got the talent there.

That's great.

So when you perform, you know that there's a right way and a wrong way to do it.

If you don't hit the right note or your right line at the right time, at the right place, you've made a mistake.

It messes up the audience.

It messes up the people on stage.

But when you present, There is no right way.

There's certainly better and worse ways, but there is no one right way.

So we need to look at presenting as something other than performance.

And what I'd like to suggest is what we need to see this as is a conversation.

Right now, I'm having a conversation with 100 plus people.

rather than saying, I'm performing for you.

But it's not enough just to say, This is a conversation.

I want to give you some concrete things you can do.

First, Start with questions.

Questions by their very nature are dialogic, they're two -way.

What was one of the very first things I did here for you?

I had you count the number of F's and raise your hands.

I asked you a question.

That gets your audience involved.

It makes it feel to me as the presenter, as if we are in conversation.

So use questions.

They can be rhetorical, they can be polling, perhaps I actually want to hear information from you.

In fact, I use questions when I create an outline for my presentations.

Rather than writing bullet points, I list questions that I'm going to answer.

And that puts me in that conversational mode.

If you were to look at my notes for today's talk, you'll see it's just a series of questions.

Right now, I'm answering the question, "How do we manage our anxiety?" Beyond questions,

another very useful technique for making us conversational is to use conversational language.

Many nervous speakers distance themselves physically.

If you've ever seen a nervous speaker present, he or she will say something like this, "Welcome, I am really excited to be here with you."

They pull as far away from you as possible because you threaten us, speakers.

You make us nervous, so we want to get away from you.

We do the same thing linguistically.

We use language that distances ourselves.

It's not unusual to hear a nervous speaker say something like, "One must consider the ramifications Or today we're going to cover step one, step two, step three.

That's very distancing language.

To be more conversational, use conversational language.

Instead of one must consider, say, this is important to you.

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We all need to be concerned with, do you hear that inclusive conversational language?

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It has to do with the pronouns.

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Instead of step one, step two, step three.

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First, what we need to do is this.

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The second thing you should consider is here.

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Use conversational language.

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So being conversational can also help you manage your anxiety.

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The third technique I'd like to share is research that I actually started when I was an undergraduate here.

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I was very fortunate to study with Phil Zimbardo.

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of the Stanford Prison Experiment fame.

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Many people don't know that Zim actually was instrumental in starting one of the very first shyness institutes in the world,

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and especially in the country.

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And I did some research with him that looked at how your orientation to time influences how you react.

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And what we learned is, if you can bring yourself into the present moment, rather than being worried about the future consequences, you can actually be less nervous.

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Most of us, when we present, are worried about the future consequences.

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My students are worried they're not going to get the right grade.

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Some of you are worried you might not get the funding, you might not get the support, you might not get the laughs that you want.

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All of those are future states.

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So if we can bring ourselves into the present moment, We're not going to be as concerned about those future states, and therefore, we'll be less nervous.

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There are lots of ways to become present -oriented.

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I know a professional speaker, he's paid $10 ,000 an hour to speak.

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It's a good gig.

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He gets very nervous.

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He's up in front of crowds of thousands.

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Behind the stage, what he does is 100 push -ups right before he comes out.

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You can't be that physically active.

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and not be in the present moment.

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Now, I'm not recommending all of us go to that level of exertion, because he starts out of breath and sweaty.

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But a walk around the building before you speak?

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That can do it.

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There are other ways.

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If you've ever watched athletes perform, and get ready to do their event, They listen to music.

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They focus on a song or a playlist that helps get them in the moment.

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You can do things as simple as counting backwards from 100 by tough numbers like 17.

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I'm gonna pause 'cause I know people in the room are trying.

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Yeah.

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Gets hard after that third or fourth one, I know.

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My favorite way to get present -oriented is to say "tongue twisters."

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Saying a tongue twister forces you to be in the moment, otherwise you'll say it wrong.

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And it has the added benefit of warming up your voice.

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Most nervous speakers don't warm up their voice.

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They retreat inside themselves and start saying all these bad things to themselves.

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So saying a tongue twister can help you be both present -oriented and warm up your voice.

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Remember I said today we're going to have a lot of participation?

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I'm gonna ask you to repeat after me my favorite tongue twister.

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And I like this tongue twister because if you say it wrong, you say a naughty word.

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And I'm going to be listening to see if I hear any naughty words this morning.

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Repeat after me, it's only three phrases.

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"I slit a sheet.

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- I slitted.

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- A sheet I slit.

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- A sheet I slit.

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- And on that slitted sheet I sit.

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and all the best of the history.

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Very good.

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No shits excellent very good now in that moment I In that moment,

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You weren't worried about, "I'm in front of all these people.

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This is weird.

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This guy's having me do this." You were

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so focused on saying it right

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and trying to figure out what the naughty word was that you were in the present moment.

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That's how easy it is.

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So it's very possible for us to manage our anxiety.

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We can do it initially by greeting the anxiety when we begin to feel those signs, We can do it when we reframe the situation as a conversation.

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and we do it when we become present -oriented.

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Those are three of many tools that exist to help you manage your anxiety.

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Thank you.

What is the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.

Shadowing Practice: 3 Techniques for Managing Speaking Anxiety - Learn English Speaking with Video

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What is the Shadowing Technique?