Shadowing Practice: My 5-Minute At-Home Speech Delay Activity for Parents - Learn English Speaking with Video
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Five minutes of your time is all you need to get your child to start talking to you.
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Doesn't matter if they're on a spectrum, if they're just speech delayed, or there's a language delay or disorder, whatever it is.
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I can assure you, if you go through these steps, five minutes is all you need to get substantial results.
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Now, I don't mean that the generic advice that you go down to your child's level, narrate everything, talk about this and that, no questions, play and being child-led.
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follow their lead and all that.
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By all means, those are really good suggestions, but it's all over the internet.
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Your therapist would have already told you about this.
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In fact, you might have read a book called It Takes Two to Talk.
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I love that book.
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It's right behind me.
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It's great.
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What I'm trying to tell you is five minutes of structured learning.
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Now, before I lose you, okay, structured learning doesn't mean that we're forcing a child to want to work with us,
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In fact, if you force a child to do something, what happens is that they start not to trust you.
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I'll get to the more theory-based stuff afterwards, but I just want to tell you what the structured task means.
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It means you sit your child at a table.
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There's a chair.
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You're sitting next to each other.
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You have one thing that your child has to finish, and then he or she will be rewarded.
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Now, the reward could be something intangible, like a praise, like a high five, or it could be very well a tangible thing such as a snack,
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some screen time even.
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All right, I'm going to get lost stick for saying this.
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It could be anything that is rewarding, actually rewarding for the child.
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So within the five minutes, what we have to do is to define what goal we want to do, teach it, make sure the child doesn't fail, make it successful for them.
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every time they do it reward within those five minutes don't
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reward at the end of five minutes what's going to teach them teach your child is
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that all i got to do is to wait until the session ends
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and it doesn't matter what i do what he
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or she does in terms of their capabilities and abilities
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and performance so we want the child to finish a task get rewarded multiple times within
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that five-minute task now i just spoke to a parent who
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was within our parent coaching she's she was a little bit frustrated
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and she was like hey i mean i've been in this
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coaching with you guys for an extended period of time
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and i'm still stuck so then i looked at what she was doing the mother was doing
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and the the videos that she was sending to her coach
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and when i saw it i was a little bit disappointed and I pointed out that the child was on a sofa,
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sometimes the child was on the floor, sometimes he was jumping around and the mother was trying to get a vowel sound out of the child.
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And other than the vowel sound, the child would be very compliant to do everything.
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But then when it came to the harder task, what he would do is that he would be really cute, he would jump, he would hug,
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he would kiss mommy, and all this is great relationship building.
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but that's the wrong relationship.
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Okay.
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So why do we need the child to sit with us?
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It's because if talking is the hardest thing that your child is experiencing currently,
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you don't want him to be practicing talking or language or listening,
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whatever the hardest thing currently whilst he's out and about on the floor and not at the chair.
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So why do I say this?
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Because let's say if I am, let's say that I'm a Westerner and I'm learning how to use chopsticks, right?
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Would you rather, would I rather learn chopsticks whilst I'm sitting at a table with a proper posture
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and I know what I'm supposed to do?
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I'm supposed to take this and put it there with my chopsticks, right?
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Would I rather do that or would I rather be on the floor and trying to experiment it by myself, right?
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So anyone who is going through any skills, learning any skill, like playing piano,
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learn guitar, would you much rather be all over the sofa trying to play guitar and memorize the chords and, you know, like instantly play a song?
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No, you don't want to.
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You want to have this structured time where it's part of your practice.
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I'm not saying all of it is supposed to be like this
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because then all the speech therapists are going to come after me
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and say it's not evidence-based how dare you talk about something that's not child-led uh it's traumatizing what
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and I'm sure that it's uh
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that there's a lot of research about why child-led is the
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best therapy out there don't get me wrong I do agree
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but then it's not the best for the parent
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because the parent doesn't know what to do what we need to do is within
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that five minutes we have to separate and isolate a certain number of repetitions and goals to do
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when the child is focused with us.
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And the biggest problem with parents trying to teach delayed children at home is
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that there isn't a clear goal and that the relationship between the child and the mother or the father, like 90% of you guys are women,
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so I'm guessing mothers, they don't have a proper working relationship.
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And to fix this, the only way to do it is the five minutes every day.
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Now, if you're already a veteran, you learned a lot more about this and you're willing to, you can go to agentsofspeech.com slash course and we have all the courses
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that you need to learn about structured tasks at each different language level
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so all you're going to do is start up with five minutes
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and slowly move on to 15
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and 15 to 20 minutes is all you need every day in order to teach new language goals
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or speech goals for that matter
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so let's get back to the working relationship this relationship is very important because I went to church last Sunday,
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as I always do, and the pastor talked about something that really hit me.
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He said that the relationship is the root and the thing that we're trying to do is the fruit, right?
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So this could be your relationship with God, your relationship with your child, but everything stems from, literally,
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from the roots, which is your relationship with that child.
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Now, when the pastor said this, it really hit me because when I see children in real life, which I don't really anymore,
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I focus 100% on online coaching.
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I believe that's the best way to help you and your child.
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I realized the reason why I made a shift was because my relationship with their child had the roots of work.
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When the child didn't know how to say something
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or do something they would ask for me for help
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and you could see this in everything even
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when he couldn't open a bottle he would ask me to prompt him
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when he couldn't say something he asked me to prompt him
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but when he needed comfort he went to the parents so
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when he wanted comfort he wouldn't come to me right
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when he wanted comfort he would go to the parents instead
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so what this told me is
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that the nature of the relationship it creates different fruits
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that creates different things
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that we're hoping to get out of the relationship okay the roots is the relationship
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so that's why in the five minutes every day what you want to do is to create
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that time you want to make sure
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that it's the highest success rate possible for the child therefore you have to set the correct goals right
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and then you have to give the correct prompt so
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that you won't get a failure okay
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so the parent i was talking about one of our clients um what happened was
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that she asked the the child to say seven times without any any prompts
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or decrease in goals what that taught her son was
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that I can actually ignore my mom
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because after seven times my mom's gonna do something easier
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or give up right so then the relationship is that
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when I need something from mom I just need to wait
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and I'll get it so therefore I don't need to talk I don't need to work hard.
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Right.
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So I'm not telling, I'm not telling everyone in the world to have like discipline and, you know, like drill or whip, no children.
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I don't mean that.
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I mean is that
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when you have a good relationship a working relationship like a lot of therapists do with their clients is that
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when they're trying to do something they know the therapist the
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person in front of them are going to help are going
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to reward are going to teach them what to say what to do at
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that certain place in time so when you create a structured environment where it's always that table,
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always that chair, always a reward and a reinforcement that they only get during that structured five minutes of time,
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any child will be very willing to sit down and work with you.
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And within that work, as long as you keep the failure rate as low as possible.
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Now, we talk about this, about prompting and queuing inside the micro course.
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And you can go to, again, agentsofsqueech.com slash course.
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The link is in the description below.
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And you can learn about these things.
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Okay?
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So after we have this five minutes every day, you will be a lot clearer about where your child is at, how you prompt them.
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You build a better relationship with your child so that when they need something or they don't know what to do, they will come to you.
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All these three things will make it much easier for you to communicate, for you to talk to your child, for them to catch up.
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Because every day when they don't know what to say, they're going to look for you.
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You give them a framework.
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They give them an escape plan when they don't know what to do.
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They come to you so that you can prompt them.
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And a lot of therapists, this is my last point, I swear.
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A lot of therapists will say, oh, what's the point of them talking if they didn't want to talk?
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We want them to want to talk.
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That's why we're doing the naturalistic things.
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But the problem is when the parent is doing the therapy, there's a lot of things going into doing naturalistic child-led therapy.
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You need to think about the activity.
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You need to think about how to make it fun, even though the child is leading the play.
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You need to think about how to prompt.
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You need to think about how to react and what to say.
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All these things are going inside their mind.
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So why are we doing structured for parents like yourself?
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And if you're a therapist, don't do this.
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Obviously, do whatever that you were taught and your master's degree.
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What you need to do is to focus on these five minutes so that you, the parent, can build up the expertise and prompting and praising
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and rewarding and building a relationship where if a child doesn't know what to do, they'll come to you.
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Right.
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So that's all I wanted to share with you.
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If you want to work with us or you want to take the free courses, all the links are in the description.
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Go check it out.
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And if you have other questions, why not put in the comments as well.
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Okay.
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So that's it for today.
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And you want to see this next video here.
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All right.
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See you.
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Bye.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This B2 speaking lesson is built on the video “My 5-Minute At-Home Speech Delay Activity for Parents”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: relationship, parent, structured. This video has 161 sentences and 2057 words to shadow. The speech runs for 10:50. The speaker talks fast, about 190 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 88% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is easy to follow.
Key vocabulary in this video
The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| prompt verb | /pɹɑmpt/ | To lead (someone) toward what they should say or do. |
| therapist noun | /ˈθɛɹəpɪst/ | Someone who provides therapy, usually professionally. |
| naturalistic adjective | Having the appearance of nature or realism; lifelike or realistic. | |
| vowel noun | /ˈvaʊ.əl/ | A sound produced by the vocal cords with relatively little restriction of the oral cavity, forming the prominent sound of a syllable. |
| sofa noun | /ˈsoʊ̯fə/ | An upholstered seat with a raised back and one or two raised ends, long enough to comfortably accommodate two or more people. |
| pastor noun | /ˈpæs.tɚ/ | A minister or priest in a church. |
| compliant adjective | /kəmˈplaɪənt/ | Willing to comply; submissive; willing to do what someone wants. |
| frustrate verb | /ˈfɹʌsˌtɹeɪt/ | To disappoint or defeat; to vex by depriving of something expected or desired. |
| intangible adjective | /ɪnˈtæn.d͡ʒə.bəl/ | Incapable of being perceived by the senses; incorporeal. |
| memorize verb | /ˈmɛm.əˌɹaɪ̯z/ | To fully learn so as to have entirely available to the memory; to learn by heart, commit to memory. |
| narrate verb | /ˈnæɹeɪt/ | To relate (a story or series of events) in speech or writing. |
| reinforcement noun | /ˌɹiːɪnˈfɔːsmənt/ | The act, process, or state of reinforcing or being reinforced. |
| repetition noun | /ˌɹɛp.əˈtɪʃ.ən/ | The act or an instance of repeating or being repeated. |
| traumatize verb | /ˈtɹɔ.mə.taɪz/ | To injure, e.g. tissues, by force or by thermal, chemical or other agents. |
| isolate verb | /ˈaɪ.sə.leɪt/ | To set apart or cut off from others. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| go through verb | To travel from one end of something to the other. |
| build up verb | To erect; to construct. |
| catch up verb | To pick up suddenly. |
| get back to verb | Return to (an activity) |
| get out of verb | To leave, exit or escape from; to become free of. |
| give up verb | To surrender (someone or something); to inform on (someone). |
| jump around verb | To move erratically by jumping. |
| point out verb | To identify among a group of similar subjects, or in a scene where the subject might not be readily seen or noticed, with a gesture of the body. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- You're sitting next to each other.
- No, you don't want to.
- That's why we're doing the naturalistic things.
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | will be rewarded · were taught |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | anyone who is · roots, which is |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 58 contractions and reduced forms, such as don't, I'm, doesn't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: repetition /ˌɹɛp.əˈtɪʃ.ən/, assure /əˈʃʊɹ/
- Long words — get the stress right: intangible /ɪnˈtæn.d͡ʒə.bəl/, reinforcement /ˌɹiːɪnˈfɔːsmənt/, repetition /ˌɹɛp.əˈtɪʃ.ən/, capability /ˌkeɪ.pəˈbɪl.ɪ.ti/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like prompt, therapist, naturalistic.
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.