Learn

Fix your ears: shadowing and dictation

By Michael Ukwuma

Strategy is not enough if fast speech sounds like a blur. Two short drills that train your hearing.

Here is something most CELPIP courses never tell you. Many listeners know the words. They just cannot hear them in fast, connected speech. 'What are you going to do' becomes 'whatcha gonna do'. Strategy cannot fix that. Your ears need training.

Research on vocabulary for listening found that understanding everyday speech may need fewer words than reading. That supports the same point: the problem is often recognizing known words at speed.

Drill 1: Shadowing (10 to 15 minutes)

Shadowing means repeating a recording aloud, a moment behind the speaker, like an echo.

1. Choose a clip of one to two minutes that you already understand. Use a practice recording you have checked.
2. Listen once while reading the transcript.
3. Play it again and shadow with the transcript.
4. Shadow without the transcript. Repeat five or six times in total.

A summary of shadowing research suggests that two short sessions a week for a month can bring noticeable change, and that five or six repetitions of a passage are enough. It is tiring, so keep sessions short.

The rest of this lesson is part of full access.