Shadowing Practice: Chunking: the secret to fluency? - Learn English Speaking with YouTube
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Today, I want to talk about learning languages in chunks.
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Today, I want to talk about learning languages in chunks.
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I'm sure it's a concept that many of you are aware of.
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I'm going to tell you why I think it's important and how we go about learning languages in chunks.
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Quite a while ago, maybe 25, 30 years ago, where up until that point, people tended to think that language learning was all about words and grammar.
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So if you have all these words and you learn the formula.
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Then you'll be able to use the words correctly according to sort of standard usage for that language.
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Then a professor Lewis came along and suggested that, in fact, no, as much as 60 percent of any language, it consists of these sort of formulaic or formula based chunks, words that belong together.
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In my view, it's not just the obvious sort of collocations, you know, by the way, or on the other hand.
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or expressions like that.
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Everything about the language consists of words that normally are used together with other words.
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And I remember when I was correcting English at LingQ, the biggest problem was not grammar per se, but that people would choose the wrong word.
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Word choice, word usage.
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And that has all to do with this idea of chunks.
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And so words are used together with other words.
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And those are chunks.
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So how do we learn the chunks?
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One person suggested back in 1925, a certain Harold Palmer suggested that we should learn the most frequent patterns in the language and learn to use them, memorize them, come out with these prefabricated chunks of language.
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This is kind of like the phrasebook approach.
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Personally, I've found that very difficult.
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I can't remember these.
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Prefabricated phrases.
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I mean, they'll come out naturally at some point if I've kind of acquired them in some way naturally, but to deliberately learn them has never worked for me.
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Now there's been a lot of research and I'm going to leave a link to a very good presentation on the subject of chunking from Cambridge.
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And if you have the time, you can go through it and you will see that one of the sort of proofs that.
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Chunking works that they refer to is that a group of students who went to France and had a lot of exposure to French, they ended up speaking in sort of natural sounding chunks.
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So they had acquired an ability to speak in chunks and that made them sound more natural and they were able to speak more quickly.
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We can't all fly off to the country where the language is spoken that we are trying to learn.
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But as you'll see from this link that I left you, the teachers want to teach.
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So if chunks are important, then they want to teach them, they want to have, you know, do we teach them for frequency?
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Do we teach them for ease of learning?
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They come up with different criteria so that they can deliberately teach the chunks that the learners should learn.
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Which, in my way of thinking, is kind of putting things backwards, as I shall explain.
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Now, of course, part of this desire to teach the chunks, or teach vocabulary, is that if you allow the learner to simply learn from, you know, a lot of meaningful content, they may shy away from deliberately learning the language, deliberately learning the grammar, the rules.
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But maybe that's not such a bad thing.
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I'm a believer in crash, and I believe wholeheartedly in The power of input.
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So I avoid doing too much sort of deliberate learning and more sort of getting the language in me more naturally.
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In fact, you'll see in that study that I sent you to that one commentator said that who was kind of pushing back on the idea of learning chunks that yeah, we can acquire chunks from being exposed to a lot of different contexts.
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And in fact, there is research to show that we learn Patterns and verbs more easily from a variety of contexts, as opposed to sort of frequency of exposure.
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There are more traditional, you know, vocabulary learning techniques.
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We learn it better if we're exposed to a lot of different contexts.
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But this one person said, the sheer enormity of the amount of material that we have to, you know, consume in order to acquire our vocabulary and our text.
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Chunks from sort of input is just, it makes it impossible.
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But then I go back to these students who were studying French, who went to France and came back with natural chunking.
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They didn't do it because they deliberately studied chunks.
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They did it because they had a lot of exposure in meaningful contexts and speaking to people.
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They were interested in what they were hearing.
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They were picking up the language.
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They were trying it out and gradually they spoke more and more naturally.
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Gradually. They used more natural chunks.
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So this brings me back to my Turkish learning.
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So this morning I had a lesson with my Turkish tutor, and of course I struggle mightily to produce, particularly the verb forms, correctly in Turkish.
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And kind of I say to myself, will I ever be able to do that?
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And, of course, I know from experience that I will gradually be able to do that better and better as long as I trust the process.
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So I have a lot of words in my vocabulary that I can trot out in our conversation connecting them with very poor grammar.
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And over time, I believe I will get better at it.
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So my strategy is massive.
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So, as I did with Polish, as I did with Danish, as I did with other languages, I find a website which has audiobooks and e books, which in the case of Turkish is Storytel.
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And the big advantage of getting on these websites is that in addition to podcasts that you can subscribe to, you can also, once you connect with audible.
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com, if you're learning English or Spanish, or in my case, Storytel or publio.
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com. PL or, or Saxo, I think it was for Danish.
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It shows up on your Apple CarPlay screen.
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So the minute I get in the car, I just turn on an audio book that I'm listening to in Turkish.
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I'm listening to it.
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I am picking up chunks here and there.
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I don't understand actually what they're talking about, but I do hear very clearly defined chunks that form part of the language that I, eventually want to be able to use.
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And so what I then do is, because I always get the audiobook and the e book, then I go into the e book on LingQ, and in particular, as I'm reading it, where I see some really useful chunks, I can go into sentence mode, I can link some of these words together to form phrases, I can review them, and then I have to reassemble the sentence.
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And in this way, I get a sort of a random exposure to different chunks.
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Of course, it's not the tremendous number of chunks that I will eventually need, but slowly I'm going to be picking up and noticing and collecting more and more of these chunks through massive exposure to the language and the occasional effort at Sort of in isolating and focusing in on certain chunks.
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Based on my experience, I will eventually get better.
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I won't be perfect and it takes a long time to sort of reduce the number of mistakes we make.
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And that's why in, in one of these other links that I leave with you, where they compare, you know, frequency versus time.
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Diversity of context to help you learn vocabulary.
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They sort of say for early production.
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Why for early production?
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We don't need early production.
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We don't need to be able to speak right away.
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I've been at Turkish now for five and a half months.
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I can't expect to speak that well.
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I don't have that sort of goal.
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I want to get the language in me.
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And I will gradually get better, and I can always go back to content that I've done before.
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Even easy content like the mini stories, I can go through it in sentence mode if necessary, focus in on certain chunks, or patterns, or verb forms, and continue to improve.
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All the while enjoying my language learning, and not being too focused in on deliberately learning anything.
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So, there you have it.
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I hope that was helpful.
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Thank you. Bye.
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Context & Background
In the journey of language acquisition, the significance of learning languages in chunks cannot be overstated. A recent discussion highlighted this concept, revealing that up to 60% of any language is comprised of formulaic chunks—words and phrases that routinely occur together. This approach stems from a shift in understanding how we use language more naturally, moving away from the traditional focus on isolated grammar and vocabulary. Teachers and learners alike can benefit from recognizing these patterns and employing techniques that resonate with real-world usage, ultimately leading to increased fluency and improved English pronunciation.
Top 5 Phrases for Daily Communication
- By the way - A common phrase used to introduce a new topic in conversation.
- On the other hand - Useful for presenting contrasting points of view.
- I believe that - A phrase for expressing personal opinions or beliefs.
- For example - Essential for providing clarification or further information.
- You know what I mean? - Often used to confirm that the listener understands the speaker's point.
Step-by-step Shadowing Guide
To tackle the intricacies of understanding and using chunks in spoken English, a shadow speaking practice approach can be highly beneficial. Follow these steps to effectively improve your skills by learning English with YouTube:
- Select a Video: Choose videos that focus on conversational English or real-life situations. Look for speakers who use natural chunks in their dialogue.
- Listen Actively: Play the video and focus on the phrases mentioned. Pay attention to how they are used within context.
- Repeat & Imitate: Pause the video after each chunk or phrase and repeat it out loud, trying to match the speaker's intonation and rhythm. This will help to improve your English pronunciation.
- Practice in Context: Try to use the learned phrases in your own conversations. Engaging in discussions with friends or language partners can reinforce these chunks.
- Reflect: After practicing, reflect on your speech. Are you incorporating these chunks naturally? Make adjustments as necessary and continue refining your approach.
By integrating these chunks into your daily communication, you will not only enhance your fluency but also develop a more natural speaking style, confidently expressing yourself in English through shadowspeak.
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.
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