Shadowing Practice: How to Get Unstuck in English - Learn English Speaking with Video

Hey, it's Annemarie with Speak Confident English.

Have you ever said one of these three things?

I try to do something in English every day, but nothing works.

I still can't remember new words and I feel stuck.

Or number two, I'm so embarrassed that I can't speak English with my colleagues.

I've studied English for years and I'm still feeling stuck.

Or number three, I'm ashamed because I've spent so much time and money on studying English.

I even lived abroad in England for a year, but I still can't speak English fluently.

Do any of those sound like you if you said yes, you are totally not alone. Number one, I have felt all of those things in my French and number two, those are all things that my students have said to me when they first started learning with me. So in today's lesson, I want to share five reasons that you might be stuck in English and how to get unstuck and we're going to deal with all those negative feelings of frustration, embarrassment, feeling shame, and even feeling guilty.

Why did I include guilty? Maybe like me, when you're stuck, you know there are things that you could do or that you should do, but you don't do them, so you feel guilty and get all these other negative feelings around it.

I don't want you to feel that way.

So today we're going to relieve all that guilt and pressure so that you can focus on taking the right steps to help you move forward. Plus at the end, I have to give a shout out to some amazing people that helped make this lesson possible and I'm going to share with you my favorite strategy for how to get unstuck.

I'm a little nervous about sharing it because I've actually never told anyone else about this before until today. I told one person, I told one of my team members about it and if I can stay brave enough, I will tell you at the end of this video.

Let's dive right in with the first reason that you might be stuck in English and how to get out of it. Number one, I want you to drop that app and that grammar book. Now.

When I say drop, I don't mean like this the way I dropped my pencil.

Sometimes in English we use the verb drop to mean stop doing something, let it go. When we feel stuck, it's natural for us to do things that feel comfortable and familiar.

We even tell ourselves that that's the right thing to do to get unstuck.

So with English, you might tell yourself that if you just understand grammar a little bit more, or if you try a new vocabulary app, you'll finally remember all of those words. Now, grammar books are fantastic.

I have a lot of them and they do help you learn the grammar, the structure of a language and vocabulary apps are a lot of fun.

They introduce you to new words.

But those two things won't help you become a confident fluent speaker.

They won't move you from an intermediate level to an advanced level.

Doing the same old thing will keep you in the same old place.

So the way to get out of a rut is to try something new and challenge yourself.

My students always hear me say, if it doesn't challenge you, it won't change you.

If you need some new ideas for some things to try in English, that will get you out of your comfort zone just a little bit and help you make new progress. I've got two recommendations. Number one, several months ago I did a lesson on five of my favorite ways to get speaking practice in English, so I'll leave a link to that lesson just above here.

And number two, for today's lesson, I asked several of my students to share their number one strategy for how to get unstuck in English.

I've included all of their recommendations in the lesson on the Speak Confident English website. So after you watch this video, get the link just below this video and check out all of those ideas.

You just might find the one solution that is going to help you get out of that rut and start moving forward in your English.

And that brings me to strategy number two for getting unstuck, which is get to step number two. Here's what I mean.

Let's say that you decide you're going to live a healthier lifestyle, so you get a gym membership and you buy lots of healthy food for your kitchen, but then you just eat pizza for lunch and you never go to the gym.

You never eat that healthy food is anything gonna change?

No, and the same is true in English.

It's great to make a decision that you're going to try something new, but if you never do it, nothing's going to change.

Sometimes we tell ourselves that we're doing the right things to make progress.

They're just not working, but I want you to be really honest with yourself and ask if your goal is to improve your fluency and your confidence in speaking.

Are you practicing your speaking?

Are you doing the work or did you stop at step number one, you had an idea, you made a choice, but you never did it.

Or maybe you're still stuck with number one because you're doing the same old things. When we're honest with ourselves about those questions, it does two things. Number one, it actually removes all of that guilt that we feel because secretly we know that we're not doing what we should. And number two, it actually gives you the freedom to make better decisions going forward.

And that's the perfect introduction to the third strategy on how to get unstuck, which is focus on making the right choice for today and worry about tomorrow, tomorrow.

The truth is going from zero to a hundred is really hard.

So if you're struggling with doing something every day in English, then stop worrying about every day.

Try to do three days a week. And if that doesn't work, let's try this.

Every Wednesday I release a new confident English lesson and I want you to do something. I want you to watch the video. And then here's the challenging part.

I want you to summarize it. I want you to speak out loud, take two to three minutes and summarize what you remember.

It's going to give you the speaking practice that you need and an opportunity to repeat or review some of the fun new language that you've learned.

And that is just one day a week. And today's Wednesday, so if you do it today, you are making the right choice for today.

Now you might be thinking, wait a minute, Annemarie, you always say to do something every day in English, even if it's five minutes.

And you're right.

I do say that because I know that when we truly want to make progress and we want to do it quickly, we have to give our time and our effort regularly, but sometimes trying to do something every day like eating a salad for lunch every day is really hard and if we don't do it, we start to feel guilty and when we feel guilty, we get discouraged and we give up. I don't want you to give up.

I want you to set a goal that you can be successful with and continue.

So if it means starting one day a week with something that you do on Wednesdays that is awesome and make that decision for today.

If you do it again tomorrow, amazing. If you start to do it every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, that's even better.

The key is I want you to set a goal that you can do regularly and then celebrate the fact that you're doing it now for strategy number four and this one might be a little tough. Get professional help when you need it.

I've got a bit of an embarrassing story for this one.

Several years ago before my husband became my husband, we went skiing for the very first time.

He is a skier and he has grown up knowing how to ski.

I never did and the very first day that we went, he asked, do you want to have a trainer today so that you can learn how to ski?

And I said, no, that's only for kids. I don't need a trainer.

I can figure this out.

And then I spent the whole day falling down the mountain watching five-year-old children ski passed me like professionals.

It was embarrassing and it was painful.

If I had just spent time with a professional at the very beginning, I would have learned the right strategies and techniques that I needed.

I would have avoided embarrassment and pain and maybe today I would actually like skiing.

All of that is also true for my own journey in French.

There have been times when I found strategies I could use by myself to help me get unstuck and move forward.

And then there are times when I needed a professional to help me.

I needed someone to teach me the techniques to perfect my skills or to help me see the mistakes that I was making.

A good professional is going to know exactly what you need and they're going to help you do it quickly and effectively. And finally, the fifth way to get unstuck is to give yourself permission to admit what is true. What do I mean by all of that?

I regularly hear students say things like, I really want to be fluent in English, but I just don't have time or I really want to be fluent, but I can't do a class right now.

The truth is things that are important to us, things that are a priority. We find time.

We find a way.

We find the opportunity that we need to make something happen.

So when I hear something like I want to be fluent but I can't, that tells me that yes, you want it and that's great but it's not a priority for you right now.

And that is totally okay.

Just like I mentioned in number two, when you're honest with yourself about what is true about the choices that you're making with your time, with your energy, with your commitment, it lets go of all that guilt and stress.

You are in control.

So if you don't want to make English a priority right now, that's okay, that's totally fine and you don't have to feel guilty about that.

Don't let that guilt make you feel bad because when you do it will make it harder for you to get unstuck.

It's going to make it harder for you in the future to make those great choices and those are your five ways to get unstuck, stop doing the same old things and instead do something new and challenging.

Then get to step two. Actually do it.

Number three, make the right choice for today and worry about tomorrow, tomorrow. Number four, if you need it, get professional help.

And number five, give yourself permission to accept what is true.

Now, I mentioned earlier, I have to give a shout out to some amazing people and there are two groups that I want to thank number one, I had a lot of students who shared their recommendations for how to get unstuck with you and I want to say thank you so much for sharing your strategies so that everyone who watches this video can find something new and challenging to do in English.

I also want to give a shout out to the whole Fluency Community because this week we did something really fun.

I wasn't sure how to title this video, so I asked my Fluency Community to make a choice.

The Fluency Community voted and the number one choice was how to get unstuck in your English.

So thank you everyone for helping me decide what to call this video.

Finally I said that I would tell you my favorite way of getting unstuck.

This one is going to focus on motivation and those moments when you know that you should be doing something but you just don't want to.

Here is how I get out of that funk.

So when I know that I should be doing something in French, or maybe it's related to work, I'm feeling stuck and I know that I should be doing something.

What I really need is a big positive energy push and to help me do that, I secretly love dancing.

I don't dance in front of anybody else except sometimes at weddings, but I only go to weddings every few years.

But when I'm all alone in my office, I love finding the best female-power dance song that I can find, putting on my headphones, blaring the music as loud as possible, and just dancing around my office. I hope some of you do the exact same thing, but it gives me all that positive energy that I need.

It gets me excited and ready. And after five minutes I can sit down, do my French work for 10 or 15 minutes, and then celebrate that I did it that I made that right choice for the day.

If you want to know my current favorite song for doing this, I'll leave a link just below this video. So now I'm curious.

I want to know what is your secret strategy for getting really excited so that you've got the motivation? And number two, what is one new thing that you're going to do in your English that challenges you and helps you move forward? Share those two things with me in the comments.

And if you loved this lesson, please be sure to tell me you can give this video a thumbs up on YouTube and subscribe to this channel so you never miss a lesson. Number two, email it to a friend or a colleague who's also feeling stuck in English.

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And number three, share it with friends on Facebook. With that, have a fantastic week.

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Thank you so much for joining me and I'll see you next time for your Confident English lesson.

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: How to Get Unstuck in English - Learn English Speaking with Video

Why practice speaking with this video?

Grammar & Expressions in Context

Common Pronunciation Traps

What is the Shadowing Technique?