Teaching EFL Learners Shadowing for Listening: Developing learners’ bottom-up skills 9781315677118

Table of contents :
Cover......Page 1
Title Page......Page 4
Copyright Page......Page 5
Table of Contents......Page 6
Preface......Page 10
Acknowledgements......Page 16
List of abbreviations......Page 17
1.1.1 Where does it come from?......Page 18
1.1.2 Shadowing for interpreters......Page 19
1.2.1 Shadowing......Page 21
1.2.2 Similar techniques to shadowing......Page 23
1.3.1 Listening process......Page 26
1.3.2 Bottom-up frame in active listening......Page 28
1.3.3 Shadowing and working memory......Page 29
1.3.4 Input and phoneme perception......Page 30
1.3.6 L1 and L2 shadowing and why EFL?......Page 31
1.3.7 Cognitive resource and phoneme perception process improvement......Page 33
1.3.8 L1 shadowing and attention......Page 34
1.3.9 EFL shadowing and attention......Page 35
1.3.10 Attention to speech features......Page 36
1.4 Summary of Chapter 1......Page 37
2 General effectiveness of shadowing......Page 38
2.1 Basic procedure of shadowing-based lessons......Page 39
2.2 The more you practice, the better?......Page 41
2.3 Do learners attend to phonological aspects when shadowing?......Page 42
2.4.1 Assessment used in shadowing research......Page 44
2.4.2 Classroom experiment 1: phoneme perception and listening skill improvement......Page 45
2.4.3 Classroom experiment 2: lower listening proficiency learners’ improvement......Page 54
2.4.4 Classroom experiment 3: shadowing for speaking......Page 58
2.5 Summary of Chapter 2......Page 64
3 Towards more effective shadowing......Page 66
3.1 Classroom experiments 1 and 2: materials......Page 67
3.1.1 Classroom experiment 1......Page 68
3.1.2 Classroom experiment 2......Page 72
3.2 Classroom experiment 3: combination of more and less difficult materials......Page 75
3.3 Classroom experiment 4: when to practice shadowing......Page 81
3.4 Classroom experiment 5: shadowing and smartphones......Page 87
3.5 Summary of Chapter 3......Page 97
4 Shadowing in and out of the classroom......Page 98
4.1 Five frames for active listening......Page 99
4.2 Affective frame......Page 100
4.3.1 General impression of shadowing......Page 101
4.3.2 Minimization of psychological burden......Page 106
4.4.1 Motivational strategies in shadowing......Page 110
4.4.2 What are motivational strategies?......Page 111
4.4.3 Shadowing and motivational strategies......Page 112
4.4.4 Shadowing in a motivational strategy framework......Page 116
4.4.5 Motivational strategies that prevent demotivation......Page 123
4.4.6 Teacher motivation......Page 124
4.5.1 Autonomous language learning......Page 125
4.5.2 Autonomous frame for active listening......Page 126
4.6 Summary of Chapter 4......Page 130
5.1.1 Curriculum......Page 132
5.1.2 Attitudes toward learning English and shadowing......Page 133
5.1.3 Japanese primary and junior/senior high school curriculum......Page 135
5.2 Shadowing and EFL courses......Page 139
5.2.1 Examples of shadowing use in a university EFL course......Page 140
5.3.1 Shadowing and the teaching framework......Page 143
5.3.2 Teaching style in Asia......Page 144
5.3.3 Shadowing and PPP......Page 145
5.3.4 Shadowing in a listening-based lesson......Page 146
5.4.2 Japanese L1 educational style......Page 150
5.4.3 Influence of examination......Page 151
5.4.4 Japanese language and English......Page 152
5.5 Summary of Chapter 5......Page 153
6.1 Limitations of research design......Page 156
6.2 Limitations of shadowing research......Page 159
6.3 Topics for future studies......Page 160
6.3.1 Shadowing and English variations......Page 161
6.3.2 Shadowing and speaking skill improvement......Page 162
6.3.3 Shadowing and assessment......Page 163
6.3.4 Shadowing another language......Page 165
6.3.5 New shadowing method......Page 166
6.4 Examples of future studies......Page 167
6.4.1 Shadowing for speaking skill improvement......Page 168
6.4.2 World Englishes and shadowing......Page 173
6.4.3 Visual–auditory shadowing......Page 179
6.5 Summary of Chapter 6......Page 181
7.1 Theory......Page 184
7.2 Research......Page 185
7.3 Psychology......Page 187
7.4 Practice......Page 188
7.6 Material......Page 190
8 Concluding remarks......Page 192
References......Page 194
Index......Page 204

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Teaching EFL Learners Shadowing for Listening

Shadowing, an active and highly cognitive technique for EFL listening skill development, in which learners track heard speech and vocalize it simultaneously, is gradually becoming recognized. However, there remain a lot of mysteries and misunderstandings about it. This book uncovers shadowing in terms of theory and practice. It cements shadowing as a separate technique from other similar techniques such as elicited imitation, mirroring, and simple repetition, and provides ample empirical data to explain the function of shadowing. It also elaborates on how shadowing should be used in terms of materials, procedure, and learners’ psychology, which will aid instructors’ use of shadowing in teaching. A guide to a method effective in improving learners’ bottom-up listening skills, this book will certainly prove useful to English language learners and instructors in their linguistic pursuits. Yo Hamada is Associate Professor at the Center for Promotion of Educational Research and Affairs at Akita University, Japan.

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Routledge Research in Language Education

The Routledge Research in Language Education series provides a platform for established and emerging scholars to present their latest research and discuss key issues in Language Education. This series welcomes books on all areas of language teaching and learning, including but not limited to language education policy and politics, multilingualism, literacy, L1, L2 or foreign language acquisition, curriculum, classroom practice, pedagogy, teaching materials, and language teacher education and development. Books in the series are not limited to the discussion of the teaching and learning of English only. Books in the series include: Teaching Chinese Literacy in the Early Years Psychology, pedagogy, and practice Hui Li Pronunciation for English as an International Language From research to practice Ee-Ling Low The Role of English Teaching in Modern Japan Diversity and multiculturalism through English Language Education in a globalized era Mieko Yamada Advances and Current Trends in Language Teacher Identity Research Edited by Ying Ling Cheung, Selim Ben Said and Kwanghyun Park Language, Ideology, Education The politics of textbooks in language education Edited by Xiao Lan Curdt-Christiansen and Csilla Weninger Team Teaching and Team Learning in the Language Classroom Collaboration for innovation in ELT Edited by Akira Tajino, Tim Stewart and David Dalsky Teaching EFL Learners Shadowing for Listening Developing learners’ bottom-up skills Yo Hamada

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Teaching EFL Learners Shadowing for Listening Developing learners’ bottom-up skills Yo Hamada

First published 2017 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

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© 2017 Yo Hamada The right of Yo Hamada to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Hamada, Yo, 1982– Title: Teaching EFL learners shadowing for listening : developing learners' bottom-up skills / Yo Hamada. Description: New York : Routledge, 2016. | Series: Routledge research in language education | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2016002695| ISBN 9781138935983 (hardback) | ISBN 9781315677118 (e-book) Subjects: LCSH: English language – Study and teaching. | Second language acquisition. Classification: LCC PE1128.A2 H2875 2016 | DDC 428.0071 – dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016002695 ISBN: 978-1-138-93598-3 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-67711-8 (ebk) Typeset in Galliard by Florence Production Ltd, Stoodleigh, Devon, UK

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Contents

Preface Acknowledgements List of abbreviations

1

What is shadowing?

1

1.1 History of shadowing

1

1.1.1 1.1.2

Where does it come from? 1 Shadowing for interpreters 2

1.2 Definition 1.2.1 1.2.2

1.3.1 1.3.2 1.3.3 1.3.4 1.3.5 1.3.6 1.3.7 1.3.8 1.3.9 1.3.10

4

Shadowing 4 Similar techniques to shadowing 6

1.3 Theoretical explanation of shadowing

2

ix xv xvi

9

Listening process 9 Bottom-up frame in active listening 11 Shadowing and working memory 12 Input and phoneme perception 13 Cohort model 14 L1 and L2 shadowing and why EFL? 14 Cognitive resource and phoneme perception process improvement 16 L1 shadowing and attention 17 EFL shadowing and attention 18 Attention to speech features 19

1.4 Summary of Chapter 1

20

General effectiveness of shadowing

21

2.1 Basic procedure of shadowing-based lessons 2.2 The more you practice, the better?

22 24

vi Contents 2.3 Do learners attend to phonological aspects when shadowing? 2.4 Classroom experiment 2.4.1 2.4.2

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2.4.3 2.4.4

3

Assessment used in shadowing research 27 Classroom experiment 1: phoneme perception and listening skill improvement 28 Classroom experiment 2: lower listening proficiency learners’ improvement 37 Classroom experiment 3: shadowing for speaking 41

2.5 Summary of Chapter 2

47

Towards more effective shadowing

49

3.1 Classroom experiments 1 and 2: materials

50

3.1.1 3.1.2

4

25 27

Classroom experiment 1 51 Classroom experiment 2 55

3.2 Classroom experiment 3: combination of more and less difficult materials 3.3 Classroom experiment 4: when to practice shadowing 3.4 Classroom experiment 5: shadowing and smartphones 3.5 Summary of Chapter 3

58 64 70 80

Shadowing in and out of the classroom

81

4.1 Five frames for active listening 4.2 Affective frame

82 83

4.3 Learners’ psychology in shadowing

84

4.3.1 4.3.2

General impression of shadowing 84 Minimization of psychological burden 89

4.4 Impact of motivation in shadowing 4.4.1 4.4.2 4.4.3 4.4.4 4.4.5 4.4.6

Motivational strategies in shadowing 93 What are motivational strategies? 94 Shadowing and motivational strategies 95 Shadowing in a motivational strategy framework 99 Motivational strategies that prevent demotivation 106 Teacher motivation 107

4.5 Autonomous frame 4.5.1 4.5.2

93

108

Autonomous language learning 108 Autonomous frame for active listening 109

4.6 Summary of Chapter 4

113

Contents

5

Shadowing and teaching paradigm

115

5.1 Shadowing in a language curriculum

115

5.1.1 5.1.2

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5.1.3

Curriculum 115 Attitudes toward learning English and shadowing 116 Japanese primary and junior/senior high school curriculum 118

5.2 Shadowing and EFL courses 5.2.1

122

Examples of shadowing use in a university EFL course 123

5.3 Shadowing in a lesson 5.3.1 5.3.2 5.3.3 5.3.4

126

Shadowing and the teaching framework 126 Teaching style in Asia 127 Shadowing and PPP 128 Shadowing in a listening-based lesson 129

5.4 EFL contexts for Japanese learners 5.4.1 5.4.2 5.4.3 5.4.4

6

vii

133

Teaching practices in Japan 133 Japanese L1 educational style 133 Influence of examination 134 Japanese language and English 135

5.5 Summary of Chapter 5

136

Limitations and future studies

139

6.1 Limitations of research design 6.2 Limitations of shadowing research 6.3 Topics for future studies

139 142 143

6.3.1 6.3.2 6.3.3 6.3.4 6.3.5

Shadowing and English variations 144 Shadowing and speaking skill improvement Shadowing and assessment 146 Shadowing another language 148 New shadowing method 149

145

6.4 Examples of future studies 6.4.1 6.4.2 6.4.3

150

Shadowing for speaking skill improvement 151 World Englishes and shadowing 156 Visual–auditory shadowing 162

6.5 Summary of Chapter 6

164

viii Contents

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7

8

Q&A about shadowing

167

7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5 7.6

167 168 170 171 173 173

Theory Research Psychology Practice Language Material

Concluding remarks

175

References Index

177 187

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Preface

Who am I? My name is Yo Hamada, a male 33-year-old Japanese researcher, as of writing this book in 2015. Born in a rural area in the northern part of Japan, my first encounter with English was at junior high school when I was 13. I had never been to any English conversation schools and had never spoken to an English speaking person. At that time, the “trend” in teaching was grammar translation style, so most of us thought studying English meant translating English into Japanese, but still I liked English. However, as the learning content became difficult, especially in senior high school, I eventually realized that I was not good at listening to English. And when I went to San Francisco for a month abroad, at the age of 19, I was quite shocked to realize that I did not understand what people were talking about because it was my first encounter with “raw” English. After I came back to Japan, I wondered for a long time why listening to English was that difficult and I thought about giving up learning English. Despite the difficulty, I kept studying and after getting a master’s degree in TESOL, I became a junior and senior high school teacher, and then I met lots of students who were suffering from listening to English as I used to. This is the reason why I started to research listening. As a matter of fact, my first research started from studies in demotivation. Working at junior and senior high schools, I saw so many demotivated students. Talking to students as a “near peer teacher,” and interviewing for research, I gradually came to know what demotivated them and also genuinely felt sad about them being demotivated. This is the reason why I always put values on learners’ psychology in my research. Having finished my PhD, I have been working at a university as a researcher and a practitioner and I focus on learners who face challenges, especially with listening.

My experience “What is shadowing? Is it really effective?” “Shadowing is a listening activity? I thought it was a speaking activity.” “Huh? Shadowing is just repetition, isn’t it? Just a leftover from the Audio Lingual Method!” At conferences and in

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x

Preface

small talk, I have experienced this kind of exchange numerous times. On the one hand, I was happy because people have begun to show an interest in shadowing, but on the other, I was surprised that so few people really understand what shadowing is. At the beginning of each semester, I ask my students to raise their hands if they have heard of shadowing. Five years ago, 60 percent of hands went up. This year, 95 percent of my students raised their hands. Shadowing, as a technique for teaching listening, has gradually become increasingly popular in the past ten years in Asian contexts, and particularly in Japan. A growing number of papers about shadowing have been published in Japan, covering Iran and Southeast Asia, yet, mystery still surrounds this approach and it is still too widely misunderstood. If we google SHADOWING, we do not see shadowing related-papers published internationally. Moreover, I have checked a number of textbooks or academic books for listening, but hardly ever have I seen shadowing listed as one of the techniques with a decent explanation. In many cases, shadowing was not even on the list. As an EFL leaner who started learning English at the age of 13, listening has always been my “enemy,” my greatest fear. I can illustrate this with a slightly embarrassing story. One night, not so long ago, while I was attending an AILA 2014 in August, I found myself utterly exhausted. Upon reflection, I realized the cause. I was being exposed to varieties of English that I had not been used to, so I had to focus on listening much harder than usual. I have to admit that the only researchers I could understand clearly were speaking in North-American accents. From an early age, I have learned American English, and thus speak American-based English, so I was not used to the other varieties and my phoneme perception skills were consequently weak. On the airplane back from Australia, I was seriously wondering what I should do, not noticing that the most convenient way to solve the problem was already “there” for me. When I came back to Japan, I rushed to a bookstore and bought a book, titled English around the World (Nakatani, 2004) and for a month I shadowed the audio every day on my way to work. In November, I went to another international conference. Was I exhausted? No. Did I have to continuously concentrate on what people were saying? No. Did I understand? Yes! What kind of advice would you give when one of your Asian students admits to you that they cannot keep up with the speed of a native English speaker? When they say, “it all sounds connected as if it was one long word.” Would you suggest extensive listening? Multiple question type training? Watching English news? These strategies may work, but only if the student’s motivation is high and there is ample time available. In reality, students, especially those still laboring through compulsory education, do not have so much time to spare just for English. And, what if their motivation is low? They are looking for a “medicine” that works quickly. Without one, they may become demotivated, disappointed and frustrated before they acquire good English skills they can enjoy using. As an EFL teacher, I have seen thousands of learners who wish for a “magical” technique to improve their listening. As an applied linguist, it has always been

Preface xi my desire to build a bridge between learners and teachers, and to spread the “seed,” being of help even for an English learner whom I will never be able to meet and cannot teach face-to-face.

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Underlying principle and contents of the book My PhD supervisor taught us the three “Cs” to be a creative researcher: Challenge, Curiosity, and Critical Enquiry. My greatest Challenge researching shadowing is that every student is different and groups have different “cultures and chemistry.” It is challenging under this situation to find a convincing way for students (also journal reviewers, and readers) to understand shadowing, which has appeared relatively recently, and actually to engage in it. I am Curious about how shadowing works, how other people see shadowing, and how it can further evolve as a teaching technique. In a similar vein, I have been Critical about how shadowing research is conducted, given the reality that classroom-based research is often conducted under serious limitations. In most cases, we have to rely on quasi-experimental design, sometimes lacking a control group. I have to be critical and at the same time produce the best outcome in the situation. My principle goal as a researcher is to conduct research that helps my students. Deep from my heart, I thank the students I have been given a chance to teach. I always learn from them and I always want to help their English learning. In order to do so, I have to be creative, and passionately search for more effective teaching techniques. Therefore, teaching methods need to be examined from various perspectives, and they need to keep evolving. The seemingly best teaching methods advanced in TESOL must always be open to challenge. On these grounds, the overarching purpose throughout this book is to elucidate the role of shadowing in listening. The research principle is to revise and develop teaching/learning methods. Unlike purely designed laboratory-type experiments, classroom-based experiments inevitably have uncontrollable factors. Of course I seek to control the factors as far as possible, but sometimes compromise is required. Nonetheless, revealing the mystery of shadowing has been a worthwhile endeavor despite these limitations. As a practitioner and a researcher, I believe there are five critical steps to follow: 1 2 3 4 5

to to to to to

study the theory; examine its effectiveness in the classroom; research improvements that bridge theory and practice; research learners’ psychology as it relates to theory and practice; link theory and practice in the language program.

Given these, the topics of this book are as follows: Chapter 1 Chapter 2

What is shadowing? General effectiveness of shadowing

xii Preface

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Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter

3 4 5 6 7

Towards more effective shadowing Shadowing in and out of the classroom Shadowing and teaching paradigm Limitations and future studies Q&A about shadowing.

The first three chapters (1, 2, 3) carefully analyze the theory and empirical data, while the second four chapters (4, 5, 6, 7) focus on practice, and shadowing usage. Chapter 1 covers the history of shadowing, a clear definition of what it is, and its theoretical underpinnings. Chapter 1 will be useful for EFL/ESL teachers, university researchers, and students of EFL. Chapter 2 introduces the primary function of shadowing in terms of listening skill development, with empirical data obtained from case studies. Chapter 2 begins with a recommended set of procedures on the use of shadowing, so if you would like to quickly see how shadowing-based lessons work, please check the beginning of Chapter 2. In Chapter 3, I put forward suggestions on how shadowing can be used more effectively in the classroom. Practical implications, obtained from case studies, are reported in terms of materials, timing, and technology use. Thus, Chapter 2 and 3 will be interesting for researchers and students who are interested in how classroom-oriented shadowing experiments have been conducted. Chapter 4 expands shadowing further into psychological aspects and discusses shadowing and motivational strategies. Chapter 5 discusses shadowing with rather a wider perspective. It examines the use of shadowing within the EFL course, and provides exemplars of Japanese EFL contexts. Chapter 5 also argues shadowing in terms of teaching principles and autonomous learning. Thus, Chapter 5 should attract practitioners, those not familiar with Asian EFL contexts, or those working in a similar context who plan to weave shadowing into their teaching repertoire. Chapter 6 will be of interest to researchers since it critically evaluates the limits of shadowing and highlights further areas of research. Chapter 7 simply answers questions regarding shadowing, so it will be useful for practitioners whose primary focus is usage and for those who would like to briefly review the contents of the book. Selected case studies regarding shadowing are introduced in this book; the studies included in Chapter 1, 2, 3 are more academic than those in Chapter 4, 5, 6 for three reasons. First, in Chapter 1, 2, 3, the reader can see how shadowing research has been conducted, including the limitations and compromise made, so that the reader can analyze the theory and the practice as carefully as possible. Second, the reader can conduct further research based on these studies. Finally, for the sake of practicality, the case studies in Chapter 4, 5, 6 give only the minimum information, allowing the reader to expand the ideas.

Basics of shadowing Prior to getting into Chapter 1, I would like to explain the basics of shadowing.

Preface xiii

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What is shadowing? The simplest definition of shadowing is to repeat what one hears simultaneously as accurately as possible. What would you do when you want to hum a song that you are not familiar with? Probably you would try to sing with the singer, but technically, you are not singing with the singer but following the singer, with a slight delay, as if you were shadowing the singer. So, whether in one’s first language or in another language, I assume most people have already used this strategy, though not with the intention of necessarily improving listening ability. Another real world example of shadowing is when we pay selective attention to part of a song, such as the bass, and hum along with it. Since the definition of shadowing is to repeat simultaneously what one hears, some people might assume that shadowing is an aspect of the Audio-Lingual repetitive technique. Indeed, I have received similar comments from international reviewers when submitting papers. However, shadowing is not merely an expansion of repetition-based activities; it is more complicated than it appears and is aimed specifically at engendering rapid improvement of learners’ bottom-up skills in listening. For those who find this proposition dubious, I trust this book will change your minds as we unravel the mystery of shadowing.

Why shadowing in EFL? Listening for acquisition is different from listening for comprehension (Rost, 2011). Although ESL and EFL are sometimes seen as interchangeable terms, the situations in which ESL and EFL students find themselves are fundamentally different. In ESL environments such as the US and England, language learners are surrounded by English speakers even outside the classroom, while in EFL environments, such as most Asian countries, learners are not naturally exposed to English outside classrooms, unless they make a deliberate effort. This fundamental disparity between the two environments exerts a great influence on how students should study. In ESL environments, thanks to the rich daily exposure to English, incidental learning can occur through listening for comprehension; but in the EFL environment, to make up for the deficit in input, learners need to study listening for acquisition. They deliberately have to make up for the insufficient exposure to English in classroom.

No room for ESL? I emphasized the difference between EFL and ESL to insist the strong necessity of shadowing in EFL contexts, but it does not completely exclude the potential opportunities in ESL contexts. I believe shadowing helps English language learners especially in schools in ESL contexts. The non-native speaker students are at a disadvantage compared to the native-speaker students. Even in ESL contexts where learners can get much exposure outside the classroom, some are placed in simplified watered-down versions of the school curriculum and left

xiv Preface behind the native speaking students. In other words, their need may be similar to that of EFL learners.

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Why shadowing? Since communicative language teaching has gained prominence, listening has often been integrated with reading, speaking, and writing lessons. However, there is a good reason why listening should be taught independently and deliberately, at least for a little while, until a learner reaches a certain level. Notably, the fundamental problem lower proficiency listeners are confronted with is the lack of bottom-up listening skills. So, what teaching and learning strategies do we have for weak listeners? Conventionally, learners practice listening by answering multiple-choice questions and check the answers with its script. Some try extensive listening. However, these strategies take a long time and quick improvement is rarely observed because they are holistic and integrative methods. Suppose we want to be a fast runner and we only jog every day. There is little hope we make a drastic improvement. We need to diagnose which skill is weaker, then choose an appropriate training menu to reinforce the weak skill. Weak listeners need an effective technique. Shadowing is believed to assist learners’ quick improvement in bottom-up listening skills over a fairly short period of time, so lower-proficiency EFL listeners, who do not have sufficient exposure in the classroom, will benefit most. Here, I do not necessarily equate low-proficiency listeners to low-proficiency learners. In EFL situations in Asia, learners’ reading proficiency is often higher while their listening proficiency remains quite low. In other words, these learners may be high proficient readers but low proficient listeners.

L1 listening, L2 listening, and shadowing The relationships between L1 listening, L2 listening, and shadowing are analogous to walking, sprinting and exercise. L1 listening is an automatic skill that can be compared to the ability to walk. Though it takes infants a few years to master walking, it is an automatic and universal skill, and everybody in general achieves the successful level. The same case applies to the acquisition of L1 listening skills. In contrast, acquiring the ability to sprint well is not quite so automatic and proficiency depends on the individual’s exercise regime. Though the ability to walk is carried over into sprinting, successful sprinting requires conscious effort. Similarly, some aspects of L1 listening skills can be carried over to L2 listening, but L2 listening is never automatically acquired because without practice one cannot achieve the successful level. In order to sprint, other muscles than those that are carried over from walking must be deliberately developed through specific exercises. Similarly in L2 listening, bottom-up skills cannot be automatically carried over, so effective exercise is required. Shadowing, then, can be seen as an intensive exercise regime to train the L2 listening muscle.

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Acknowledgements

In writing this book, I have been encouraged and helped by many people that I would like to acknowledge: Dr Michael Rost for the encouraging and valuable comments he gave throughout the writing process; Dr Keita Kikuchi, for helpful comments and discussions; Tomokazu Nakayama, Yumi Furumoto, Yasuhiro Fujiwara, Yuka Yamauchi, and Rie Tsutsumi for their useful feedback; and James Reid, who has patiently checked my English and given helpful suggestions and comments on all parts of the manuscript. Without James Reid, it would have been impossible to complete this book. Lastly, I would like to express my greatest appreciation to my editor, Christina Low, who offered me this opportunity to write a book about shadowing, and has provided continuous support throughout the process.

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Abbreviations

ANCOVA ANOVA EAP EFL EGP EI EIL ELF ESL ETS IAEW ITA JSL PPP PCPP SLT TOEFL TBLT TSLT VA VOA WE WPM

analysis of covariance analysis of variance English for Academic Purposes English as a Foreign Language English for General Purposes elicited imitation English as an International Language English as a Lingua Franca English as a Second Language Educational Testing Service International Association for World Englishes international teaching assistant Japanese as a Second Language Presentation, Practice, Production Present, Comprehension, Practice, Produce Situational Language Teaching Test of English as a Foreign Language Task-based Language Teaching Task-supported Language Teaching visual–audio shadowing Voice of America World Englishes words per minute

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1

What is shadowing?

Chapter 1 will answer the following four questions. 1 2 3 4

Where has shadowing come from? What is shadowing? How different is shadowing from other similar techniques? How does shadowing contribute to listening?

Chapter 1 covers a brief history of shadowing, a definition of shadowing, and the mechanism of shadowing. In the history of shadowing, we will see how shadowing originated with studies in selective attention and then became popular in the field of simultaneous interpreting before being co-opted for EFL teaching. We will then define shadowing by disambiguating its meaning from the similar techniques of repetition, mirroring and elicited imitation. In the mechanism of shadowing, we will start with an overview of listening processes, referring to working memory, and will focus on the bottom-up processes, especially that of phoneme perception. Since the definite mechanism of shadowing has not been fully established, the mechanism will be discussed from several possible explanations. We will also compare L1 shadowing and EFL shadowing, and in doing so, reveal the secret of why shadowing in EFL contexts benefits learners.

1.1 History of shadowing 1.1.1 Where does it come from? The concept of shadowing came into existence in the 1950s, in the domain of selective attention (Cherry, 1953). In the following decades, shadowing was used in the early stage training of simultaneous interpreters. Tamai (1992) was the first to publish an academic paper on the use of shadowing in EFL learning contexts. Then, the next decade saw the development of shadowing as an EFL teaching technique in Japan, and recently it has been gradually spreading in Asian EFL contexts. Cherry’s experiment is famous for the cocktail party effect. Imagine a situation in a party; your friends are talking about your favorite music band behind

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2 What is shadowing? you. You are just enjoying yourself alone. Though surrounded by various noisy sounds, the conversation about your favorite band will somehow keep coming into your ears. This is an example of the cocktail party effect. In Cherry’s (1953) experiment, the participants were engaged in the dichotic listening task, in which two different messages were presented but one for one ear and the other for the other ear via headphones. The participants were asked to repeat the heard message aloud simultaneously to show they are actually attending to one message. This process is now called shadowing. Interestingly, they were not aware of the message presented in their unattended ear and they could not clearly remember the message they shadowed, due to the fact that participants focus more on vocalization than comprehension. Waugh and Norman’s research yielded the same result (1965, cited in Lambert, 1988). This may sound odd because they actually “listened” but did not recall what they heard. In other words, these results suggest that during shadowing we direct our attention, whether consciously or subconsciously, not to the meanings of the incoming information but to its superficial features.

1.1.2 Shadowing for interpreters Shadowing is relatively well known in the field of interpreting, because it has been commonly used in the early stage of interpreter training to learn how to listen and speak simultaneously (from one language into the same language) before attempting to interpret (Lambert, 1988, 1991, 1992). Because the cognitive load when working on simultaneous interpretation is quite heavy (Tommola and Hyona, 1990), beginner interpreters first practice shadowing in their first language, then move on to simultaneous interpretation. Using Lambert’s (1988) description of the activities involved in simultaneous translation (p. 378), we can compare the general procedure for simultaneous translation and the one for shadowing to see why beginner interpreters practice shadowing before moving on to simultaneous translation practice.

Simultaneous interpretation 1 2 3

to receive part of the sentence (chunk); to begin translating and conveying chunk 1; at the same time as vocalizing chunk 1, chunk 2 is also processed auditorily and stored until chunk 1 has been dealt with.

Shadowing 1 2 3

to receive part of the sentence (chunk); to begin conveying chunk 1; at the same time as vocalizing chunk 1, chunk 2 is also processed auditorily and stored until chunk 1 has been dealt with.

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What is shadowing? 3 When interpreting, the translator holds chunk 2 in an echoic or phonemic store until chunk 1 is transmitted. While producing the translation of chunk 1, the interpreter continuously monitors his/her output for its correctness (Gerver, 1974, cited in Lambert, 1988). When shadowing, the procedure is similar except for the phase of production of the translation of chunk 1. Both of the procedures are similar, and shadowing is like a “non-translation” version of simultaneous interpreting. This is why shadowing was “imported” smoothly from interpreter trainings to EFL education. Some L1 studies have further examined these actions in terms of cognitive process. In the 1970s and 1980s, two studies compared cognitive processes of the three actions: pure listening, interpreting, and shadowing. Gerver (1974, cited in Lambert, 1988) analyzed nine trainee interpreters’ performance in the three conditions, and found the listening group showed the highest comprehension scores (58 percent), and simultaneous interpretation group followed (51 percent), while the shadowing group did not even achieve 50 percent (43 percent). Lambert (1988) adds support to this finding. Analyzing 16 interpreters’ performance, the order was the same as in Gerver’s (1974) study: listening group (87.5 percent), simultaneous interpretation group (75.65 percent), and shadowing group (68.13 percent). Lambert suggests that the listening group can devote their full attention to the processing task and do not share attention between multiple tasks as in the cases of shadowing and simultaneous interpreting. Cherry’s (1953) research reveals that deeper processing occurs during listening than in simultaneous interpretation and shadowing. These results support the basic theoretical underpinnings of shadowing that attention shifts from comprehension to sounds when working on shadowing and that simultaneous interpreting and shadowing are mentally overwhelming tasks, compared to listening. Also, when comparing simultaneous interpreting with shadowing, shadowing involves less comprehension. The cognitive process of shadowing is to be more discussed later in this Chapter 1. We have briefly reviewed the historical beginning of shadowing in the light of selective attention and simultaneous translation training. To approach the topic from a slightly different perspective, we would like to delineate the common aspects that successful language learners and interpreters share. Lambert (1991) enumerates five essentials for success as an interpreter trainee (p. 586). 1 2 3 4 5

profound knowledge of active and passive languages and cultures; ability to grasp rapidly and convey the essential meaning of what is being said; ability to project information with confidence, coupled with a good voice; wide general knowledge and interests, and a willingness to acquire new information; ability to work as part of a team.

The cognitive processes of simultaneous interpreting and shadowing account for why shadowing was “imported” to language learning, and research has exclusively

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4 What is shadowing? focused on these processes. The features above have not been empirically supported but are probably factors that bridge simultaneous interpreting and shadowing. For example, profound knowledge of the target language and culture is essential in understanding what people say. While comprehending another person’s utterance smoothly is mediated through having wide general knowledge, interests, and sensitivity to new information. Indeed this is the basis of communication. Next, just as interpreters need to be confident, confidence also plays an essential role in language learners’ motivation (Clément, Dörnyei, and Noels, 1994). Through shadowing training, learners will eventually grow their confidence in listening, which should ultimately contribute to their confidence in L2 communication and motivation. In addition to the similarity of cognitive process between the shadowing in interpreter training and the shadowing for language learning, these additional features may account for the smooth “import” of shadowing for interpreters to shadowing for EFL shadowing.

1.2 Definition 1.2.1 Shadowing Please first imagine the word shadow, the dark shape that something makes between the object and the light. This may help you understand what shadowing is like in the case of language learning. In L1 contexts, Lambert (1992, p. 266) describes shadowing as “a paced, auditory tracking task which involves the immediate vocalization of auditorily presented stimuli, i.e. word-for-word repetition, in the same language, parrot-style, of a message presented through headphones.” In EFL contexts, Tamai (1997), one of the first well-known researchers who started shadowing research in Japanese EFL contexts, defines shadowing as an active and highly cognitive activity in which learners track the speech that they hear and vocalize it as clearly as possible while simultaneously listening. Since this book focuses on EFL shadowing, whenever the word shadowing appears, it means EFL shadowing from here onward unless specifically defined in other ways such as L1 shadowing. Bearing the definition in mind, let’s see how shadowing has been variously referred to. Shadowing is used as an umbrella term, referring to the repetition of “all or part of what the speaker has said” (Rost and Wilson, 2013, p.114), so there are several variations. The first ones stem from L1 shadowing; phrase shadowing (also called delayed shadowing) and phonemic shadowing (Norman, 1976, cited in Lambert, 1992). The time lag between the input and the output draws the line between the two. In phrase shadowing, one repeats what one hears slightly behind the input, while in phonemic shadowing, one repeats each sound simultaneously. The time lag influences the depth the shadowed message is processed to. Grammatical analysis of the input can occur in phrase shadowing but not in phonemic shadowing. The amount of recall of the shadowed information is larger in phrase shadowing, which implies that deeper processing occurs in phrase shadowing (Lambert, 1992). We have to be aware that the

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What is shadowing? 5 common ground where these arguments are made is in L1 shadowing and the case does not directly apply to EFL shadowing. Expanding the interpretation slightly wider, shadowing varieties are briefly summarized in Table 1.1. These variations cover EFL shadowing as well as L1 shadowing, and application and adjustment of shadowing technique has received more attention than careful examination of the effectiveness of each type of shadowing in EFL contexts. Complete shadowing and phonemic shadowing mean the same. Mumbling is also basically the same but with smaller voice, so it is used when learners are not confident in shadowing or when a classroom contains so many learners that hearing the model audio is disturbed by other people’s voice. In selective shadowing, learners shadow only selected words instead of shadowing everything they hear. For example, teachers can tell learners to shadow only content words or key words. This does not sound very difficult, but selective shadowing is much more challenging than it sounds. Parallel reading allows learners to read aloud the target scripts while shadowing. In content shadowing, learners are toldto shadow and think about the meanings of what they are shadowing simultaneously. Interactive shadowing and conversational shadowing share the same concept that learners shadow in a conversational style. When I use interactive shadowing, learners shadow some parts of the partner’s utterance and add questions, while in conversational shadowing, learners have more freedom, so sometimes shadow one sentence and sometimes a few words of a sentence, and add questions. As explained above, the terminology shadowing in classroom seems to cover a wide range of shadowing-related activities and include some activities that go beyond the territory of shadowing. For example, clinging to the original definition, parallel reading poses a question because learners are supposed to shadow without looking at texts. Interactive shadowing and conversational shadowing also raise a question because shadowing does not involve interaction

Table 1.1 Examples of shadowing varieties (Kadota and Tamai, 2004; Lambert, 1992; Murphey, 2001; Norman, 1976) Name

Procedure

Complete shadowing Selective shadowing Parallel reading Content shadowing Mumbling

Learners shadow everything speakers say Learners select only certain words and phrases to shadow Learners shadow while reading the text Learners concentrate on both shadowing and the meaning Learners silently shadow the incoming sounds without text Selective shadowing, and adds questions and comments to make it more natural and show more involvement on the part of the learners Learners repeat conversation partner’s words Learners shadow phrase by phrase with a slight delay Learners shadow each sound as soon as they hear

Interactive shadowing

Conversational shadowing Phrase shadowing Phonemic shadowing

Source: Based on Hamada, 2016b.

6

What is shadowing?

since interaction would potentially ruin the benefit of shadowing. In essence, shadowing requires simultaneous repetition, so in this book I define shadowing as the act of repeating simultaneously what one hears as accurately as possible.

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1.2.2 Similar techniques to shadowing As was mentioned above, the terminology shadowing has been used as an umbrella term, and it has been “arranged” in various ways. This section, 1.2.2, will lay out the specifics of a teaching methodology that features shadowing as its central component. Because shadowing is often confused with other seemingly similar techniques, we would like to compare shadowing with three other wellknown techniques: repetition, mirroring, and elicited imitation (EI).

Repetition First, shadowing is often associated with rote-repetition and has therefore been criticized as being one of the techniques of audio-lingual pattern practice. Examples of each are shown below: SHADOWING

CD: Ls:

Akita is located in the Tohoku region. It is famous for rice. Akita is located in the Tohoku region. It is famous . . .

REPETITION

CD: Ls:

Akita is located

in the Tohoku region. It is Akita is located in the Tohoku . . .

In both cases, learners do not look at the script and only repeat what they hear, so the only difference is whether they repeat it simultaneously or after a certain time (i.e., the time lag between when they hear and reproduce the sounds). As we see, in shadowing, learners attempt to repeat simultaneously, so there is little time lag between when they hear each sound and when they repeat, but in repetition, there is some time lag. Therefore, shadowing is called an on-line task, while repetition is called an off-line task (Shiki, Mori, Kadota, and Yoshida, 2010). As more details will be explained in 1.3, this time lag makes a great difference in terms of listening skill improvement. Briefly, when shadowing, learners’ attention is tuned to incoming sounds but when repeating, learners’ attention is also split into other aspects such as grammatical analysis of the chunk, comprehension, and so forth. In other words, repetition covers multiple purposes, but the nature of being multiple also runs the risk of blurring what the purpose is. To examine whether this theoretical assumption is supported in the classroom, I conducted a short experiment (Hamada, 2016a): 21 Japanese intermediate level university freshmen (16 males, 5 females) engaged in repetition-based lessons and

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What is shadowing? 7 23 (11 males, 12 females) engaged in shadowing-based lessons for a month (twice a week). Before and after the eight lessons, the participants took 25-item multipletype listening comprehension tests but only the shadowing group’s test scores improved with statistical significant differences. The result suggests that the participants improved their phoneme perception processing exclusively through shadowing training, while the participants in the repetition group could not focus on phoneme perception but had to attend to other multiple aspects as well, so their phoneme perception process did not improve as had been wished.

Mirroring In the field of pronunciation teaching, especially in North America, a method called mirroring is well-recognized. Mirroring is normally associated with the action of “mirroring” the target speaker visually and orally. It was introduced in the 1980s as a teaching method to change learners’ “fossilized” pronunciation. Mirroring is appropriate for a small class size (up to 20 students) in which a teacher works with learners throughout the course, using both group-work and self-study, and providing homework (Acton, 1984). In this sense, mirroring is a project rather than a specific teaching technique and there is no complete procedure, so there is room for adaption. Mirroring has been recently used as a method to help international teaching assistants (ITA) acquire intelligible pronunciation (Gorsuch, Meyers, Pickering, and Griffee, 2010; Meyers, 2013). Meyers (2013) introduces an example of how a mirroring project can be carried out as a 4-week project in the classroom. Within the publication there are links to short videos demonstrating the progress that participants made in the project (2013). Week 1: Choice of a pronunciation focus, speaker, and segment. Students choose an English speaker whom they want to imitate based on the weak area of their pronunciation with the assistance of a teacher. Week 2: Analysis of the spoken language, voice characteristics, and body language. Students analyze the model in terms of tone, level of formality, pauses, pronunciation, even gestures and facial expression by using their transcripts as well as the video. Week 3: Preparation of “cold” version. Students practice reading the transcripts and get ready for recording the initial version of their performance. Week 4: Final version. Students analyze their “cold” version and consider what needs to be further improved. They memorize the scripts, aim for the level in which they are satisfied, and then record the final version. The objective of mirroring is to attain intelligible and comprehensible English, under the principle of simulating the target speaker as accurately as possible.

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8 What is shadowing? The similarity between shadowing and mirroring is that both require learners to mimic the target as precisely as possible. The dissimilarity between the two is that shadowing requires simultaneousness and exclusive concentration on sounds, but mirroring does not need to be simultaneous and includes every feature of the target model; i.e., learners should aim to mimic the target’s intonation, pronunciation, gestures, pauses, and so forth. Shadowing always involves an on-line process and mirroring includes both. In other words, shadowing calls attention only to what they listen to, but mirroring covers wider aspects, directing toward speech improvement. These two may stem from the same root and mirroring may even include shadowing, but the different purposes of its usage separate both. In brief, shadowing is designed mainly for listening training, while mirroring is designed predominantly for speaking.

Elicited imitation (EI) The purpose of the use of EI is different from the aforementioned two techniques (for a more thorough overview, see Vinther, 2002). EI was originally used in the field of L1 research and in second language research for assessing L2 competence. There are two main types of EI: one requires the examinee to repeat the heard stimuli as accurately as possible; the other requires the examinee to repeat the heard sentence that has grammatical errors to repeat by changing the errors. STIMULUS SENTENCE

(examiner) Why can’t a baby write letters? EI (examinee) Why a baby can’t letters? (The examinee was supposed to repeat the stimulus exactly but could not.) STIMULUS SENTENCE

(examiner) I should apologize to my mum yesterday. EI (examinee) I should have apologized to my mum yesterday. (The examinee successfully corrected the error in the target grammatical structure and repeated.) Jessop, Suzuki, and Tomita (2007) explain EI simply as follows. In EI, participants are required to hear and repeat a sentence that includes a target grammatical structure in a laboratory setting; it is assumed to be reconstructive because they

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What is shadowing? 9 go through cognitive processes such as processing a stimulus sentence, reconstructing it with their grammar, and reproducing it (Jessop et al., 2007). Thus, the primary purpose of EI is to test learners’ grammatical skills. Erlam (2006) distinguishes EI from rote repetition. EI is designed to require a main focus on meaning rather than on form, and it includes some delay between the presentation of the stimulus and repetition of the same (Erlam, 2006). EI requires participants to process language stimuli, rather than only repeating what they hear, which means that participants access interlanguage and are thus reconstructive (Erlam, 2006). Examining whether EI is rote repetition or not goes beyond the scope of this book, but despite the criticism levelled at it, research so far suggests that EI measures learners’ interlanguage. In sum, when compared with shadowing, EI is different in three ways. First, EI is an off-line process because learners are required to produce the phrase after the full stimulation, while in shadowing, learners are required to reproduce the phrase they are hearing simultaneously. Second, EI is meaning-based while shadowing is phonology-based. In EI, the task needs to be designed to require primary focus on meaning (Erlam, 2006), but in shadowing, the focus is exclusively on the phonological features of the information. Third, there is a clear difference regarding the purpose of each. While the purpose of shadowing is to improve learners’ listening skills, that of EI is to test their implicit language knowledge.

1.3 Theoretical explanation of shadowing This section will outline the underlying psycholinguistic principles that contribute to its effectiveness. We will examine the role of shadowing alongside listening processes. Then, from a different perspective, we will use Baddeley’s (2007) theory on working memory to see how shadowing functions in the working memory.We will then refer to the Cohort Model and cognitive resource to focus on the relationship of phoneme perception and shadowing. Finally, we will discuss the relationship of cognitive load, attention, and shadowing.

1.3.1 Listening process There are two well-known processes in listening: bottom-up and top-down processing. Bottom-up processing involves understanding what is heard by starting with the smallest units of the acoustic message such as individual sounds, phonemes, which are combined into words, then together making up phrases and sentences. Individual sentences combine to formulate ideas and concepts (Flowerdew and Miller, 2005). Top-down processing, in contrast, puts more emphasis on the use of previous knowledge than the use of the individual sounds and words when processing information. Listeners apply contextual knowledge to interpret by using pre-established patterns of knowledge and discourse structures they already have in mind (i.e., schema). Thus, listeners’ comprehension levels are much higher when they are already familiar with the topic they are dealing with than when they are not familiar with the topic (Flowerdew and Miller, 2005).

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10 What is shadowing? While we have described the two processes independently, when people listen, they often use both types of processes depending on stimuli (Vandergrift and Goh, 2012). This interactive model (Rumelhart, 1975; Rumelhart and McClelland, 1981), allows for the possibility of individual variation in linguistic processing. Some prefer to rely more on top-down processing, while others prefer to rely more on bottom-up processing. In line with this concept, Stanovich (1980) has introduced Interactive Compensatory Hypothesis. This theory assumes that when learners have high confidence, the role of top-down information is small, while when learners have low confidence, top-down information makes a greater compensation. A comparison of two different situations with a Skype (phone) conversation will exemplify this. When we talk with our friend over Skype (regardless of language), having a bad connection in a remote area, we will have problems catching the words he is uttering. In this case, since we are not confident in recognizing everything only by listening, we will draw on contexts or co-text, involving guessing and assuming to compensate for what could not be caught. In contrast, when the line is clear, we will have no problem catching the words, so we can decode what our friend says with high confidence and we do not need to rely too much on guessing or filling in the words we could not hear. In brief, it is not a matter of which process is more plausible but we use both top-down or bottom-up processes by changing the reliance according to situations. In L1 listening, the interactive compensatory hypothesis efficiently works, but in the case of EFL listening, one crucial issue is that learners, especially lowlistening proficiency learners, rely on top-down processing to compensate for their weaker bottom-up processing (Rost, 2011). When they have perceptual problems, the problems can be resolved by drawing on contextual evidence (Field, 2008). Lower-proficiency listeners are apt to spend more time on developing basic bottom-up decoding skills; higher-proficiency listeners are apt to emphasize the development of top-down skills of applying their schema when listening (Flowerdew and Miller, 2005, p. 27). For example, suppose a student is working on a multiple type listening questions for his listening practice, as often seen in the TOEFL and suppose he listens to and recognizes 80 percent of the words he heard easily (bottom-up processing). He could not catch the remaining 20 percent because it was read fast or he does not know the words. He still probably understands the passage roughly and answers some of the questions by connecting the words he heard and using the knowledge he already had about the topic (top-down processing). In this case, the top-down processing compensated for his weak bottom-up processing, and he managed to grasp the conversation he heard. In ESL contexts, thanks to the large amount of exposure outside classroom and the strong necessity of English, learners’ overall listening skills, both bottomup and top-down, may improve gradually. However, in EFL contexts, such as Japan, Korea, and China, exposure to English is often limited to classroom interactions and they rarely have to use English in their daily lives. If the aforementioned test-taker of the TOEFL keeps practicing that way, he may get

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What is shadowing? 11 used to the multiple type questions and achieve higher scores, but his bottomup processing skills would remain weaker due to the limited exposure. If he had stronger bottom-up processing skills, he would utilize his efforts more on dealing with detailed information and listen more effectively. In other words, although listening skills may improve overall, bottom-up processing skills remain weak unless learners deliberately train their bottom-up processing skills in EFL contexts. In summary, since beginner level listeners often lack bottom-up processing skills, they need to reinforce the bottom-up processing, which will eventually contribute to a more effective interactive processing of bottom-up and top-down processing. In the long run, shadowing activates the interactive aspects of listening by reinforcing the bottom-up processing skills, which therefore provides a kind of “total workout” for the learners.

1.3.2 Bottom-up frame in active listening Recently Rost and Wilson (2013) proposed a new framework for listening called active listening. Active listening is a concept that guides practitioners to identify key principles in research in listening and apply these principles in a methodical way. It refers to a “broader range of cognitive and emotional activity that could be described as ‘engaged processing’” (Rost and Wilson, 2013, p. 1). Rather than approaching each area such as top-down processing and bottom-up processing independently, it is recommended to view the five frames integratively. 1 2 3 4 5

Affective frame: focus on enhancing the listener’s personal motivation and involvement. Top-down frame: focus on deepening the understanding of ideas and making stronger interpretations. Bottom-up frame: focus on perceiving sounds, recognizing words and syntactic structures more accurately. Interactive frame: focus on building cooperation, collaboration and interdependence during the listening process. Autonomous frame: focus on developing effective listening and learning strategies.

Although shadowing is often seen as a utility technique, as if it was like a medicine that would work in any situation, the truth is shadowing does have its own territory. Just like in physical training, where push-ups and sit-ups will develop some muscles but not others, shadowing pertains to three (1, 3, 5) of the five frames outlined above. We will focus on the bottom-up frame (3) in this section; the other two (affective and autonomous) are discussed in Chapter 4. We will focus on the bottom-up frame here because this is responsible for perception (listening to sounds and rhythmic patterns) and decoding (recognizing words and parsing the grammar of it in real time). In this frame, I will choose three key research findings from Rost and Wilson (2013, p. 10–12), which are considered to pertain to shadowing.

12 What is shadowing?

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1

2

3

Attention lapses during perception. When learners encounter an unfamiliar sound sequence, they often face the problem of attention failures such as communication breakdown, demotivation, and over reliance on inference. They need to be familiar with phonemes, intonation patterns, and the phonotactic system of the target system. Through shadowing training, learners will be able to grow their resilience to the problems pertaining to attention failures, and also subconsciously get used to the sound system of the target language. Adjustment to fast speech phenomena. Challenges often lie in speech rate and learners suffer from fast speech, called fast speech phenomena. When learners listen to conversation, consonant sounds are assimilated and vowel sounds are reduced. For example, in the sentence “he is the fastest runner in the class,” they would hear something like “fasterunner,” and in the sentence “I like watermelon,” the second vowel “e” and fourth “o” become a central “schwa” sound. A simple theoretical assumption is that when shadowing, learners try to follow and catch up with the fast speech; this may help them to get used to listening to fast speech. In theory, learners eventually become accustomed to these features and speed, which consequently helps them listen better than before. Un-matured automatic word recognition. Word recognition is essential in bottom-up processing but due to limited exposure, spaced repetitions, and various other reasons, learners have problems. Commonly, learners know a word in isolation but cannot recognize it in connected speech because of their immature automatic word recognition. Because shadowing contributes to phoneme perception processing improvement, their word recognition skills are considered to improve as well.

Put simply, the main area where shadowing can contribute is the bottom-up frame, reinforcing learner’s bottom-up processing skills. We will now examine the theoretical underpinnings and how these findings are connected with shadowing below.

1.3.3 Shadowing and working memory Kadota (2007, 2012) provides theoretical explanation of the function of shadowing alongside Baddeley’s (2007) multi-component working memory model. The working memory consists of a phonological loop, visuo-spatial sketchpad, episodic buffer, and central executive. The phonological loop deals with sound-related information; the visuo-spatial sketchpad handles the information that cannot be phonologically coded such as pictures and charts (for the storage of visual information); the episodic buffer holds episodic and experiential information (interface between the other three systems and long-term memory); the central executive controls the information process by monitoring in an integrative way, distributing an appropriate load of work to each component, switching processes, and restoring capacity in each system (in charge of the other three systems).

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What is shadowing? 13 Among the four elements, the function of the phonological loop plays a predominant role in listening to the target language. The phonological loop consists of the phonological short-term store, which temporarily retains phonological information and the articulatory (sub-vocal) rehearsal, which actively rehearses the phonological information. It processes and stores incoming information by retaining phonological information for approximately two seconds in phonological short-term store and repeats it in the subvocal rehearsal (Kadota, 2007). Therefore, in theory, if learners can reinforce the phonological loop’s function, their phonological loop will function more efficiently, which contributes to better listening. Kadota and Tamai (2004) give an additional explanation in terms of rehearsal in the phonological loop. Shadowing is the act of rehearsing information we hear in an explicit way; this is normally done in an implicit way in the subvocal rehearsal in the working memory. Although not everything is vocalized (Nakayama, 2015a) when shadowing, some actions of subvocal rehearsal become visible. Therefore, through practicing shadowing, sub-vocal rehearsal processing will be reinforced, which helps to improve the phonological loop.

1.3.4 Input and phoneme perception Here, we need to consider the initial process of listening. What learners hear is not a string of words but a group of acoustic features and they try to match what they hear with what they know.

Acoustic cues [keik] match to knowledge of sounds ↓ [cake] match to knowledge of words ↓

retrieve word meaning (Based on and modified from Field, 2008) The initial task for learners is to identify the acoustic cues of what they hear and phoneme and word recognition are a major concern for low-level L2 listeners (Goh, 2000). If learners fail at this initial process, it impedes the appropriate processing of the phonological loop. Because of the immature phoneme perception processing, low-level EFL listeners often have problems in recognizing the incoming words that they hear. This limits the amount of information that can

14 What is shadowing?

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be retained in the phonological store and it also limits the amount of information that can be rehearsed in the subvocal rehearsal. Consequently, the phonological loop does not function as efficiently as expected, which impedes the working memory’s function, leading to unsatisfactory bottom-up processing. Sometimes even if learners fail at the initial task, the failure may be compensated for by topdown processing but this places an additional burden on the other processes involved.

1.3.5 Cohort model The importance of the initial stage of listening (i.e., phoneme perception processing) has been emphasized, and we will drill into this topic a bit further. In listening, the first job for learners is to identify the phonemes of the incoming information. However, many low-proficiency listeners are not able to do this successfully. To add theoretical support to the benefit of successful phoneme perception processing, we are going to review the Cohort Model (Marslen-Wilson and Welsh, 1978) and discuss the process of identification of initial phonemes at the lexical level (Marslen-Wilson and Welsh, 1978). Taft and Hambly (1986, p. 260) advocate that “a word is recognized via successive reduction in the number of possible word candidates as each phoneme is perceived. When only one phoneme remains in the cohort of possible words, the word is recognized.” For example, suppose we are going to hear the word “housekeeper”; we recognize the word when we hear /hauski/. We do not yet recognize the word when we hear the phoneme /haus/, because some word choices still remain as candidates, such as house, houseboat, and housecoat. So, if learners fail to identify initial incoming phonemes, there is a higher chance that they will not recognize the word. It seems clear that compensation strategies involving schema and top-down processing would help learners recognize the word, so the cohort model does not take full responsibility for word recognition. But there is no doubt that having a high level of phoneme perception processing will contribute to better listening.

1.3.6 L1 and L2 shadowing and why EFL? When we discuss bottom-up processing and phoneme perception processing, it is worth distinguishing L1 shadowing and EFL shadowing. The action of shadowing itself in L1 or EFL looks alike, but the difference lies in the levels of phoneme perception and language distance. In the process of shadowing, the first procedure is to listen before vocalization. Doing this in L1 is far less demanding than doing it in an EFL setting because phoneme identification is automatized in L1, but not in EFL. Carey (1971, cited in Lambert, 1992) holds that when shadowing in L2, understanding is more hindered than in L1. Therefore, when people shadow in L1, they can focus just on vocalizing, but in an EFL context, they must focus both on listening and vocalizing. In other words, L1 shadowing and EFL shadowing are different because phoneme perception in L1 is automatized but not in EFL.

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What is shadowing? 15 Even in EFL, how difficult shadowing is differs, depending on one’s L1 because of language distance (degree of similarity between two languages). The larger the language distance is, the harder it is to shadow. In fact, Japanese and Korean are ranked the furthest from English, followed by Vietnamese, while French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese are the closest (Elder and Davices, 1998; Kadota, 2015). For example, French, Spanish, and Portuguese all use the Roman alphabet, while many Asian languages do not, and the sound system of many of these languages is fundamentally different. Therefore, many Asian EFL learners are already at a disadvantage even before starting to learn English. Alongside the language distance concept, language family may provide additional support to this discussion. English belongs to the Germanic category, as does Norwegian, Dutch, and Swedish. Spanish, French, Italian belong to the Italic category, but they are still in the same family of Proto-Indo-European. But no East Asian languages belong to the Proto-Indo-European family (Algeo and Pyles, 2005). To see more clearly how much difference the language distance and language family make, let us see examples. We would like to compare the three sentences that basically mean the same. a) Where do you come from? I come from Japan. (English) b) Woher commen sie? Ich comme aus Japan. (German) c) どこから来ましたか？ 日本から来ました。 (Japanese) First of all, we could say the English and German sentences have something in common at a first glance, while the Japanese one does not at all. For example, I in English is equivalent to Ich in German; come is comme; and you is sie in this case. In Japanese, you (sie) and I (Ich) are even omitted. Second, more apparently, both English and German use alphabet, but Japanese does not. Though some differences do exist between how they are read in English and German, compared to Japanese, they are still within the category of “relatives.” For example, both German and English have /r/ but Japanese does not. Furthermore, unlike German and English, in Japanese every consonant is basically accompanied with a vowel. Additionally, German and English are stress-timed languages (i.e., stressed syllables occur at regular intervals and the amount of time it takes to say a sentence depends on the number of syllables that receive stress, not on the total number of syllables, Avery, Ehrlich, and Jull, 1992), while Japanese is a syllable-timed language (i.e., the amount of time it takes to say a sentence depends on the number of syllables, Avery et al., 1992). Therefore, the sound system and grammar rules are totally different. If your L1 is one of the European languages, please imagine shadowing a language that has a totally different system. Taken all together, the concept of language distance and language family is a salient factor that makes shadowing challenging. Additionally, there is another reason why Asian EFL learners benefit most from shadowing. Generally speaking, Asian EFL learners’ listening skills are weaker than those of other countries. For example, the English Testing Service (ETS, 2013)

16 What is shadowing?

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shows that test-takers of 14 out of 31 (45 percent) of Asian countries exceeded 20 points out of 30 in TOEFL iBT listening section, compared to 41 out of 44 (93 percent) for European countries. Of course this does not explain everything, but at least suggests that Asian EFL learners are less proficient listeners in general, than the other EFL learners.

1.3.7 Cognitive resource and phoneme perception process improvement Although the importance of the initial phoneme perception has been repeated, there still remains some argument that the weak bottom-up listening skills will be compensated for by top-down listening skills, so the listeners can still communicate. Indeed, it is true, but its counter-argument is paradoxically also true. If a listener can decode input effortlessly, they can leave a great deal of working memory free for dealing with larger issues such as the overall meaning of the heard speech (Field, 2008). Cognitive load and cognitive resource warrant mentioning when discussing this topic. Please imagine two driving scenes. (1) You are driving a manual car on a rainy day with your friend who is in the passenger seat. (2) You are driving an automatic car alone. In which scenario will it be easier to focus on driving? In case (1), we have to pay attention to multiple things at the same time, changing the gear occasionally (conventionally, let’s spare 25 percent of our attention), talking to your friend (25 percent), wiping the window (25 percent), and paying extra attention and caution to the rainy road (25 percent). In other words, we would divide our attention on these multiple things. In case (2), however, we can spare all our attention on driving (100 percent). The demand of each task is called its cognitive load, and the total capacity that can be spent on these tasks is called cognitive resource. With respect to human capacity to process information, cognitive load generally refers to the cognitive demand of instruction. In working memory, all conscious cognitive activities occur and working memory allows only a limited number (Paas, Renkl, and Sweller, 2003). When learners engage in a heavy cognitive-load activity, the cognitive resources (the amount of capacity one can use when working on cognitive tasks) will be dominantly spent, so working memory cannot handle the task appropriately. Low proficient listeners spend a large part of their cognitive resource on word identification, so their working memory will be overloaded. In other words, if their phoneme perception skill is enhanced, they will be better able to distribute their cognitive resource for better listening comprehension. Compared to L1 listening, the cognitive resources (the total capacity to process information) of EFL listeners are limited; so if EFL listeners use most of their

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What is shadowing? 17 cognitive resources on identifying the heard words, few cognitive resources are left for the other tasks. On the other hand, if the listeners’ phoneme perception processing is reinforced, they can use the cognitive resource for the other tasks to comprehend the heard speech. Probably, a learner’s top-down processing skills can compensate for a few failures of phoneme identification, but suppose she misses the initial phoneme of several words in one sentence. Her cognitive resource would be easily spent up, which would in turn trigger cognitive overload, called Shallow Structured Hypothesis (difficulties in initial perception lead to delays and errors in subsequent syntactic and lexical processing, Clahsen and Felser, 2006). As another example, suppose our student misses the first phonemes of an utterance when talking, she would try to use her top-down processing skills to compensate for the failure. However, if she successfully identified the phonemes, she could use the cognitive resource that would have been spent compensating for her failure to identify these phonemes, for another task such as guessing what will come next, or considering how to respond to the conversation. Therefore, phoneme perception reinforcement is quite an urgent issue for L2 listeners.

1.3.8 L1 shadowing and attention Up to now, the importance of phoneme perception processing in line with the working memory system has been outlined. But how does shadowing improve the phoneme perception process? The underlying concept is attention. The studies of Lambert (1988) and Gerver (1974) allude to this matter. In both studies, comparisons of L1 shadowing, simultaneous interpretation, and listening found that in shadowing and simultaneous interpretation attention is split between listening and vocalizing (and translating), while during listening the whole attention is tuned to processing the information. The concurrent vocal activity is the source of conflict that prevents them from processing the message to any greater extent (Lambert, 1988). Put simply, learners can concentrate most attention on what they hear when only listening, but when they shadow or translate, their attention is shared by listening and repeating (or translating). Carey’s (1971) study adds support to this premise, because here it is shown that when participants shadowed at a fast rate, they could not remember the content of the message. This makes it clear that higher attention was paid to phoneme perception processing and vocalizing the message, rather than recognizing it and storing it, even in L1. Findings from L1 shadowing research add support to this theory. Because shadowing is an on-line task, presumably learners concentrate most attention on sounds, rather than meaning. Carey (1971) conducted an experiment on how the time lag between input and output influences the processes in L1 shadowing. When shadowing a slow message, people have sufficient time to perceive the words and even structures, but at faster rates they have less time. Carey (1971) conducted an experiment to examine whether shadowing would yield higher scores in retention than listening. Six passages of approximately 250 words were recorded at three levels (1 word per second, 2 per second, 3 per second). Thirty-six people

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18 What is shadowing? for a shadowing group and 36 for a listening group participated in the experiment, and took three different tests; a word or lexical recognition test, a semantic content recognition test, and a syntax recognition test. The results indicate that as the rate of presentation increases, retention scores of both groups decline, while the shadowing group achieved higher retention scores at the slowest rate. When we shadow a slow speech in L1, we attend not only to the superficial part of the presented message but also to the content of the message; but when we shadow fast speech, we expend most attention to the superficial part. If we apply this result to EFL shadowing, when learners shadow, their focus will be exclusively on sounds rather than meaning. Taken together, in even L1 shadowing, deeper processing of the heard message is interrupted in shadowing and simultaneous interpretation, and attention in shadowing is predominantly on recognizing the message and vocalizing it, less on the comprehension of the message.

1.3.9 EFL shadowing and attention On these grounds, we will focus specifically on EFL shadowing. As a metaphor, shadowing is like a “switch” of phoneme perception and meaning comprehension (Kadota, 2007), which is similar to the original concept of shadowing described by Cherry (1953), whereby switching of attention occurs between one message or another. By means of shadowing, learners can shift most of their attention to receiving the message and vocalizing it. When not shadowing but only listening, learners would naturally pay the most attention to comprehension. In contrast, when shadowing, most EFL learners automatically pay most attention to recognizing and vocalizing phonemes rather than understanding the overall meaning of the text. To consider this topic further, we can refer to a case study that considers the attention shift. Tanaka (2015) examined perceptual cognitive loads of different reading tasks, by comparing cognitive loads of three activities, oral reading (read

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What is shadowing? 19 aloud the target passage) themselves, listening-while-reading (read the passage, listening to it at the same time), and silent-reading (only read). A total of 63 Japanese EFL university graduate and undergraduate students participated, approximately 20 for each reading mode. The result indicates that cognitive load of listening-while-reading was heavier than silent reading, and there was little difference between oral-reading and silent-reading. The comprehension of silent reading was superior to listening-while-reading, and there was little difference between oral-reading and silent-reading. This implies that when engaging in listening-while-reading, learners’ attention is shared by reading the script as well as listening to it. When working on silent reading, they are considered to concentrate most attention on comprehending the content, which would explain why their comprehension was better when working on silent reading than listening-while-reading. In short, when learners work on a high cognitive-load task, their attention is absorbed and they cannot spare their attention for comprehension, or vice versa. What these results imply about the mechanism of shadowing is that attention shift occurs when we control the task learners are engaged in. When working on shadowing, learners’ attention is placed most on following what they are hearing and vocalizing, so they can exclusively train their listening skills, while other activities inevitably accompany comprehension. Therefore, they can train their phoneme perception process specifically through shadowing training.

1.3.10 Attention to speech features As discussed above, the assumption of how shadowing contributes to listening improvement is, briefly, that learners attend to phonological information when shadowing, so their phoneme perception processing improves, which consequently reduces cognitive load when listening and their overall bottom-up listening skills improve. An alternative assumption is that if shadowing helps learners attend to phonological aspects of the incoming information, they may also attend to its speech features, and their speaking ability will also improve. Because shadowing does not involve conscious processing for meanings in general and learners’ attention would be paid not to contents, but to speech features, the speaking ability in this case would be restricted to segmental and suprasegmental features. We would like to examine this assumption both theoretically and realistically. When we listen to a passage without any instruction, our primary focus is placed on understanding the message and little attention is paid to the segmental and suprasegmental features or at most, subconsciously, if it occurs. Thus in theory, the assumption that shadowing helps with these is not impossible if at least two conditions are met: a) the learner is capable of noticing and distinguishing these features; b) the learner has enough cognitive resource to spare these features.

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20

What is shadowing?

In reality, finding the qualified learners would be quite challenging. As has been argued, even in L1 shadowing, the majority of one’s cognitive resource is spent for the action of shadowing itself. Thus we can infer that in EFL shadowing, most learners would not have any extra cognitive resource for the segmental and suprasegmental features. Additionally, for pronunciation development, multiple type trainings are necessary, such as articulatory, auditory, cognitive phonetic and phonological, multi-sensory trainings (Szpyra-Kozlowska, 2015). What shadowing could contribute is at most to the auditory training only. Taken together, the idea of adopting shadowing to speaking training is theoretically justifiable, but in reality, only a limited number of learners are candidates and its positive effectiveness is not guaranteed. In section 2.4.4 this is to be discussed again with a case study.

1.4 Summary of Chapter 1 In summary, learners can gradually sharpen their phoneme perception process through practicing shadowing by turning their attention exclusively to sounds. Shadowing blocks the top-down processing, and only lets bottom-up processing activate. Because of this, their bottom-up process is reinforced and their overall listening comprehension skills will improve. Consequently, they will be able to rehearse more information processed in the phonological loop; also their working memory and their extra cognitive resource can be used for such process as semantic and syntactic processes to understand meanings. Shadowing makes phonological loop sub-processing, which is unconscious or automatized in the L1, become conscious, thus addressing the deficit predicted by the Native Listening hypothesis (Cutler, 2012) that claims L2 auditory perception is never automatized.

Notes The original version of Hamada (2016a) first appears in The Language Teacher, 40 (1) published by the Japan Association for Language Teaching.

Keywords for Chapter 1 active listening, attention, bottom-up frame, bottom-up process, cognitive source, cohort model, definition of shadowing, EFL shadowing, elicited imitation, history of shadowing, interpreters, mirroring, phoneme perception, repetition

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2

General effectiveness of shadowing

Chapter 2 will answer the following five questions. 1 2 3 4 5

Do learners attend to phonological aspects when shadowing as the theory assumes? What is the optimal amount of practice for shadowing? Do learners in the classroom improve their phoneme perception skills and listening comprehension skills? Do low-listening proficiency learners benefit most from shadowing? In theory, shadowing is training for listening improvement. But, does it also benefit speaking?

Chapter 1 covered theories in shadowing, and we now need to assess whether shadowing is a “one-size fits all” exercise. Since the overarching aim of this book

Table 2.1 A basic shadowing procedure package for daily lessons Step

Task

Notes for teachers

1

Comprehension questions.

2

Listen to the passage and comprehension questions Mumblinga twice

3 4

Parallel reading Check understanding

5 6 7

Shadowing three times Review written Content shadowingb once

8

Listening again and comprehension questions

a

Explain that the purpose is to focus only on phonemics. Explain why step 3 comes after step 2. Emphasize individual pace, to deal with learner differences. Explain the purpose of repeating shadowing. Urge learners to shadow and think about meanings too. Tell learners to realize their improvement during the lesson.

Mumbling = shadowing with a small voice as if you were mumbling. Content shadowing = shadowing, while simultaneously thinking about the meanings of what you are shadowing. b

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22

General effectiveness of shadowing

is to bridge the gap between theory and practice, in Chapter 2, we will first examine how applicable these theoretical assumptions are in real classroom environments. The first discussion targets a basic procedure of shadowing in classroom use. We will review a set of procedures that has already shown positive outcomes. Then, we will discuss the appropriate amount of shadowing exercises. The second discussion targets whether the theory that learners attend to phonological aspects in shadowing applies in the real classroom situation. Then, we will examine the results of previously conducted shadowing experiments in terms of phoneme perception process and listening comprehension skill development, the learners who benefit most, and speaking skill development.

2.1 Basic procedure of shadowing-based lessons Currently, there is no universally accepted procedure for shadowing. However, the data I have collected from previously conducted case studies leads me to recommend a set of procedures based on those of Kadota and Tamai (2004). The procedure in Table 2.1 has strong theoretical underpinnings, and to maximize its effectiveness, I would like to share additional insights that I have found through years of shadowing instruction. Metaphorically, this procedure is like a recipe. Dishes have a certain set and order of procedures to follow, with side notes that a chef needs to consider, but how well the dishes are cooked also depends on the chef’s experience and professional intuition. Shadowing is similar, in that if teachers and learners follow the recipe, listening comprehension skills will improve. But careful attention to the side notes will result in a more flavorsome dish. Step 1 (listening to the passage and comprehension questions) is a warm up when learners only listen to the target passage to get ready for shadowing. They can start shadowing mentally without vocalizing the words. If possible, giving a few of multiple comprehension questions here and in step 8 again will be helpful for learners to compare the accomplishment in each lesson. Steps 2 (mumbling) and 3 (parallel reading) should be explained carefully and repeatedly to students because they are quite demanding. The ultimate purpose of step 2 (mumbling) is to focus exclusively on the phonemic aspects, so it is okay for learners not to be able to shadow perfectly here. In step 3 (parallel reading), they can look at the text as they are shadowing. Theoretically, shadowing is not accompanied with reading the written script aloud, but learners comment that it is useful to know what they are shadowing, and this step has turned out to be effective. Importantly, step 3 should follow step 2 for the following reasons. Step 2 requires learners to focus only on phoneme-related information, but step 3 also requires additional focus on the letters being read. Research has found that the cognitive load of step 3 is quite heavy (1.3.9 for more detail). Because the learners’ cognitive resources (the amount of capacity a learner can use when working on cognitive tasks; please go back to 1.3.7 for more details of cognitive

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General effectiveness of shadowing 23 resource) are limited, especially when using a foreign language, each process involving practice with phonemics and letters should be separately trained. In fact, parallel reading helps learners better reproduce the sounds, but could, at the same time, reduce the attention paid to sounds (Iwashita, 2010) which indicates the need for separation of the two steps. Thus, based on the purpose of shadowing to facilitate enhanced phoneme perception process, step 2 should precede step 3. Hamada (2015b) interviewed participants after having them experience this set of procedures, with most responding that they wanted to read and comprehend the passage before shadowing, suggesting that the participants did not fully understand the benefits of performing these two steps in the recommended order. In some cases, shadowing without visually checking the meaning could demotivate learners. Therefore, an initial explanation and verification of the effectiveness of these steps is crucial to prevent demotivation. Step 4 (comprehension check alone) is delivered to engage learners’ individual differences. The comprehension check means review of the content by checking the notes learners have taken when learning the target content, and check translation if necessary. Since many classrooms contain a mixed range of learner levels, time for the self-study of comprehension allows learners to review material at their own pace. Moreover, based on a questionnaire survey, Oki (2011) reports that checking scripts helps learners shadow better (please see 2–3 below for more detail), so for this purpose, this phrase is necessary. Learners also need to understand the purpose of step 5 (shadowing three times). Kadota and Tamai (2004) recommend shadowing three times for beginners, and twice for intermediate and advanced learners in order to identify challenging words to focus on in the following steps. Learners may feel that it is too redundant to shadow three times because they may fail to shadow successfully due to a text’s difficulty and thus become bored. However, frequently they can shadow better the second time, and shadowing three times helps them identify the parts they cannot shadow well. Hence, a clearer explanation of the need for repeated shadowing is required. After step 5, they check the content again to review what they are still uncertain about or what they are not confident with yet. Then, in step 7 (content shadowing), learners may struggle with focusing on both meaning and sounds. The truth is that content shadowing is quite difficult even in a first language, so this may be demanding for the EFL learners. However, for upper-level learners, this stage may be comfortably challenging. In step 8 (listening again and comprehension questions), learners ideally feel a sense of satisfaction by feeling their improvement in listening. In step 1, learners just listen to the target passage and after the shadowing training, they again just listen to the same passage in step 8. If they can feel the differences between step 1 and step 8 in terms of how well they can listen, it will exert a positive influence on their motivation. In order to make this more effective, using the same comprehension questions as in step 1 will be helpful because it helps learners actually “feel” the change.

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General effectiveness of shadowing

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Small talk A while back, a colleague and I used the same procedure in our respective classes, but only my students improved. We could not adequately research the reason for this variability, but it is probable that getting students into “the world” was the key. In other words, I suspect that I was more successful in convincing the students of the power of shadowing and the importance of following each step. Perhaps my students trusted me because when I teach shadowing, I practice along with them and kept showing my “love” of the method. It is tiring! And makes me realize that introducing techniques is always easier said than done.

2.2 The more you practice, the better? Background During workshops, teachers sometimes ask me about the optimum number of shadowing exercises that should be conducted. As applies to every phenomenon, there needs to be an appropriate amount. In order to be a good tennis player, will we just practice day and night, night and day? To be a good singer, will we just practice singing for hours? Neither lack of practice or over practice would maximize the effectiveness of any training. To answer these questions, we will review a previously conducted case study that specifically looked into a question of how many instances of shadowing are necessary before hitting the first plateau. Then we will discuss how many times learners should practice in the classroom, by reviewing the frequency of shadowing in the past classroom-based studies.

Related studies Shiki, Mori, Kadota, and Yoshida (2010) examined the effects of shadowing and repetition on production rate among 48 university students. One group (24 students) was engaged in shadowing, while the other (24 students) was engaged in repetition. Both groups first listened to the target material; then, the shadowing group shadowed and the repetition group repeated the stimuli six times. Statistical analyses show that the repetition group outperformed the shadowing group in terms of reproduction rate only at the first trial, while both groups stopped improving after the fourth or fifth trial. In other words, both groups plateaued after the fourth or fifth trial. This result suggests that five to six times of shadowing and repetitions may be enough when using the same material. Next, we would like to consider how many shadowing-based lessons are necessary for learners’ listening skill improvement. Table 2.2 shows the duration of shadowing training for listening skill improvement in each case study. It shows that 90-minute lessons conducted over five consecutive days are the minimum for a certain degree of listening improvement (Tamai, 1997). The maximum duration to date was 15-minute lessons conducted four times a week over five

General effectiveness of shadowing 25

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Table 2.2 Examples of shadowing research Research

Participants involved in the study

Duration

Weekly

Tamai (1992)

94 high school students

Once

Tamai (1997)

25 university students

Mochizuki (2004) Kato (2009)

30 high school students

50 min ⫻ 13 weeks (3.5 months) 90 min ⫻ 5 straight days 30 min ⫻ 6

5 consecutive days Once

15 min (5 months)

4 times

25–30 min ⫻ 8 20 min ⫻ 8 90 min ⫻ 8

Twice Twice Twice

Hamada (2011a) Hamada (2012a) Hamada (2013)

40 university English majors 44 high school students 59 university students 56 university students

months by Kato (2009). Based on this overview, on average, if it is rather intensive, one month would be sufficient to produce a desirable outcome; and two months would be sufficient if it is rather extensive. As we have discussed, one of the strengths of shadowing is to help low-proficiency listeners improve their bottom-up listening skills quickly, so its classroom implication is to use shadowing for a short period of time intensively and once learners reach a certain level, we teachers engage in various other tasks. Based on these, most of the case studies that I have conducted and that are to be introduced in this book were a one-month study with 5 to 6 times of practice in each lesson.

2.3 Do learners attend to phonological aspects when shadowing? Background The theory in Chapter 1 posits that shadowing helps learners’ attention tune to phonological aspects of what they are listening to rather than the meaning of it. Roughly speaking, shadowing blocks learners’ top-down processing and deliberately activates bottom-up processing, so their bottom-up processing will improve. However, a question still remains whether learners’ attention is actually attending to phonological aspects. In this regard, we will overview Oki’s (2011) study by summarizing related parts.

Purpose of the study The study attempted to examine to which learners’ attention is paid, phonological perception or comprehension, in shadowing; also what types of strategies learners

26 General effectiveness of shadowing use when shadowing.

Methods

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PARTICIPANTS

A total of 146 Japanese EFL senior high school learners and 56 university learners (202 in total) participated in the study. MATERIALS

A 39-item questionnaire with 1–5 Likert scale to examine the participants’ strategies in shadowing was developed. PROCEDURE

Because most of the high school students were not familiar with shadowing, they practiced shadowing for approximately an hour prior to the questionnaire distribution. The university students were already practicing shadowing at that time in class, so the questionnaire was given in one of the classes.

Analysis Descriptive statistics were first calculated. Second, an exploratory factor analysis with promax rotation was conducted to examine the participants’ strategies. The minimum loading was set at |.40|. A scree plot was used to decide the number of the factors.

Results The items with high/low mean scores The three items whose mean score exceeded 4.00 out of 5 were as follows: (1) When shadowing, I try to pronounce as accurately as possible. (2) It is easier to shadow after reading the passage. (3) It is difficult to shadow overall the passage smoothly. The item whose mean score was below 2.00 was (4) “I shadow, having my opinions and ideas.”

Factor analysis Four factors were identified and named as “meaning-centered strategies (mean score =2.63),” “sound-centered strategies (3.01),” “phonological perception and production difficulties (3.81),” and “obstacles by high affective filter (2.80).”

General effectiveness of shadowing 27

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Discussion Based on the brief summary of Oki (2011) above, I would like to discuss the value of the study. First, as Oki (2011) suggests that the frequently used strategy (1) shows, learners’ attention is exclusively on phonological aspects when shadowing. Second, as already mentioned in 2.1, the basic shadowing procedure for classroom use contains a step in which learners check the written script of what they are shadowing (please see 2.1 for more detail). The item (2) supports the procedure. Also, the item (3) describes how difficult shadowing successfully is; and the low mean score of the item (4) suggests shadowing requires higher level process (shadowing simultaneously as accessing the meanings of the speech and even understand it). The low mean score supports that learners focus on phonological information mainly, not sparing their attention on meanings. Second, the results of the factor analysis support the data above. The highest factor was phonological perception and production difficulties, followed by sound-centered strategies, which together support the indication above that learners’ focus is on phonological aspects. In more detail, in addition to the one mentioned above (item (3)), the latter (sound-centered strategies) is composed of an item “catching the pronunciation of each word is difficult when shadowing.” This also shows that learners’ first priority is to listen to each word and replicate it. Third, the factor “obstacles by high affective filter” is quite valuable in that it shows the necessity of teachers’ attention to learners’ perceptions, emotions, and anxiety in shadowing. This factor suggests that learners give up when they fail at some point and they are frustrated. We will consider how we can motivate learners and treat these feelings of learners more in Chapter 4.

Summary The theoretical assumption that learners’ attention is deliberately placed on phonological aspects in shadowing was supported in Oki’s (2011) study. Now that the fundamental theory is confirmed, we will examine whether learners’ phoneme perception process and bottom-up listening skills will actually improve, and whether it will lead to listening comprehension skill improvement next.

2.4 Classroom experiment 2.4.1 Assessment used in shadowing research Prior to reviewing empirical studies, the two popular English standardized tests in Japan (see Table 2.3), which were often used as assessments of listening proficiency skills in shadowing research, will be reviewed. TOEIC is implemented by the Educational Testing Service (ETS) and it consists of two major sections of listening (495 scores) and reading (495 scores). All the questions are multiple-type questions and the listening section is composed of four sections of 100 items (Part 1: Photo, Part 2: Question–Response, Part 3:

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Table 2.3 A brief description of the TOEIC and Eiken Test

Purpose

Skill

Full score

TOEIC

Skills for real-life situations Business

Listening, Reading

990

Eiken

Practical English (daily conversation, general education, business communication)

Reading, Listening Writing (partly) Speaking (partly)

1st grade (7 in total)

Source: This table is based on the information on each homepage (ETS, 2015; Eiken, 2015).

Conversations, Part 4: Short Talks). The reading section is composed of three sections of 100 items (Part 5: Incomplete Sentences, Part 6: Error Recognition or Text Completion, Part 7: Reading Comprehension) (ETS, 2015). In the light of assessing listening skill improvement made by shadowing training, Part 1 and 2 are considered to be appropriate. Part 1 and 2 do not contain many difficult vocabularies and if learners have a certain level of bottom-up listening skills, they can achieve relatively higher scores. Eiken is a standardized test implemented by Eiken Foundation of Japan. The number of test items and sections depends on each grade. It has seven grades of five (junior high basic level), four (junior high intermediate level), three (junior high graduate level), pre-second (senior high intermediate level), second (senior high graduate level), pre-first (university intermediate level), and first (university advanced level). The fifth and fourth grades consist of reading and listening sections. The higher grades than the fourth grade have a second stage, an interview test. Writing is further added to the pre-first and first grades (Eiken, 2015). All the reading and listening questions are multiple type ones. When using the listening tests of Eiken to assess improvement made by shadowing training, the pre-second (20 items) and second (30 items) grades may be appropriate for senior high school learners, and second and pre-first (29 items) grades may be suitable for university learners. When selecting items that would reflect the skills improved through shadowing, items that would assess bottom-up listening skills, rather than items that mainly require top-down listening skills (e.g., a long conversation with questions) are recommended.

2.4.2 Classroom experiment 1: phoneme perception and listening skill improvement Background Several years ago, I serendipitously stumbled upon shadowing, just when I was desperate to learn a new technique for listening. I was teaching at a senior high school and after exams, students always said, “I cannot listen to English. It is

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General effectiveness of shadowing 29 too fast. All the words sound like one word. Then I give up.” Soon I tried the new technique with my students, feeling somewhat skeptical of this “unknown” technique. After several lessons, they seemed to be better at listening to English. The students kept telling me, “I can hear English words more somehow.” Over the years, I studied its mechanism and started experiments to test its effectiveness empirically. The results showed that the participants’ listening comprehension skills improved. Additionally, the theory holds that learners’ phoneme perception processing improves; therefore their listening skills improve accordingly. To examine these topics, we will see the results of a case study (Hamada, 2016b).

Related studies In Japan, several studies have been conducted to examine whether shadowing is effective for improving listening comprehension skills. Chief among these was the research of Tamai (1992), who gave 13 50-minute weekly lessons over three and a half months to a total of 94 Japanese high school students. Tamai gave shadowing-based lessons to 47 students and dictation-based lessons to 47 students. Adopting The Secondary Level English Proficiency (SLEP) test as pre-and posttests, the shadowing group’s score saw statistically significant improvement, while the dictation group’s score saw marginally statistical improvement. Mochizuki (2006) examined the effectiveness of shadowing on listening comprehension skills also in high school classroom settings. Mochizuki gave six shadowing-based lessons to 30 high school students by using an EFL textbook designed for Japanese students. As a measurement, Mochizuki used 20 items from Part 1 and Part 2 2nd grade Eiken tests. After the training, the students’ score increased by 2.4 points from 11.2 to 13.6, a statistically significant difference. Next, Kato (2009) conducted a 5-month longitudinal study with 40 university students (around 20 years old). Kato gave 15-minute shadowing training sessions every week by using a variety of materials taken from an EFL textbook and a textbook designed for shadowing. As a measurement, Kato used 30 items from the TOEIC listening practice tests. After the training, the students saw improved test scores. Outside Japan, shadowing is gradually being researched. One case study was reported in Taiwan. Lin (2009) implemented shadowing-based lessons to examine whether shadowing is effective for improving listening comprehension skills in junior high school in Taiwan. To 25 students (10 males and 15 females), 15 50minute lessons were given for a month using a published textbook; 30 items from General English Proficiency Test (GEPT) were used as pre- and post-tests. After the training, the scores of the listening tests improved statistically. These studies show that learners can improve their listening comprehension skills through practicing shadowing in classroom as the theoretical explanation expects. According to the theory, shadowing is considered to improve learners’ phoneme perception skills, which leads to better comprehension skills. But no studies have attempted to examine whether learners’ phoneme perception skills actually improve in the classroom or not.

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General effectiveness of shadowing

Purpose of this study This study examines whether shadowing training improves learners’ phoneme perception processing and listening comprehension skills.

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Study methods PARTICIPANTS

Forty-three university freshmen (26 males and 17 females) participated in this experiment. They were majoring in health science, education, and engineering at a Japanese national university. In Japan, national university students are commonly considered to have achieved a certain level of academic skills because they need to reach relatively high scores at the national center test for university admissions. The English classes are compulsory and the participants were relatively motivated to study English. The initial number of participants was 60, but 17 of them were excluded from the data analysis. They did not work on the shadowing task seriously, or skipped some classes. Some were absent when the post-test was conducted. Since no one majored in English fields, this compulsory English class was probably the only exposure to the English language during the one-month training period. MATERIALS

In this study, an EFL textbook Reading Explorer 2 (Common European Framework (CEF): B1–B2 level) (MacIntyre, 2009), was used. I could have chosen a textbook specifically designed for shadowing training, but I used an ordinary EFL textbook because the overarching principle in classroom experiments is to apply theory into practice. So, the environment in the experiment should be as natural as possible. TEXTBOOK

The textbook contains 24 stories, and three stories were selected and divided into nine passages (i.e., one passage for one lesson). In Table 2.4 we can see the number of words in each passage and its readability. Flesch Reading Ease indicates how easy the passage is; the high numbers indicating easier reading passages, with 100 being the maximum. Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level is an index that is based on school grades in the US. For example, 10th means the 10th grade. The average speed of the audio recording was 157 words per minute, so it was read at a relatively fast pace. PHONEME PERCEPTION TEST

Choosing an appropriate measurement was challenging. A 20-item dictation cloze was used, following a case study (Kuramoto, Shiki, Nishida, and Ito, 2007) in

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Table 2.4 Word number and readability of the material Class no.

Number of words

Flesch Reading Ease

Flesh-Kincaid Grade Level

WPM

Class 1 Class 2 Class 3 Class 4 Class 5 Class 6 Class 7 Class 8 Class 9

97 129 108 72 103 133 117 161 184

55.2 62.8 50.6 73.6 73.8 59.5 67.6 68.0 60.3

9.5 7.3 10.6 5.9 6.1 8.6 7.4 7.7 9.4

153 168 146 176 168 148 148 164 142

Source: Hamada, 2016b.

which dictation-cloze questions were used to measure learners’ phoneme perception. The passage was taken from the Voice of America (VOA) Special (2011). It was read at approximately 127 words per minute and not particularly difficult because materials in the VOA Special are adapted for EFL learners. A total of 20 function words, mainly articles and prepositions, were duplicated with blanks. Content words were not tested to eliminate the influence of context and each learner’s vocabulary size. If content words were included, learners would naturally rely on context, so it would not test phoneme perception skills only. Also, if content words were included, some learners would know the target word but others would not, which also would not reliably test their phoneme perception skills. The majority of blanks were “a” and “the” in order to test participants’ phonological perception rather than word recognition because word recognition may require knowledge of other factors, such as lexical, syntactic, and semantic features. Also, the participants listened to the audio once and the moment they finished listening they were asked to stop answering because otherwise they may have naturally tried to answer while recalling the context. Lastly, because of the large language distance between Japanese and English, predicting the target function words grammatically or from the context was quite difficult. If the class was mixed with multicultural students, this may not be fair because the perception of articles is affected by participants’ first language differences (Pierce and Ionin, 2011); however, there was little concern about this issue because they all were native Japanese speakers. LISTENING COMPREHENSION TEST

As a listening assessment, two types of listening tests were selected from the Eiken tests. Ten questions were selected from the pre-second grade (Eiken, 2013a), and 12 items from the pre-first grade (Eiken, 2013b). Participants are supposed to select the best answer among the four choices written in the booklet after

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listening to a short 30–40-second dialog. This question type was selected because these items test the ability to understand the short speech with relatively easy expressions. These questions were, theoretically, most likely to reflect an improvement in listening comprehension skills through phoneme perception improvement. Such question types in which the participants listen to more difficult and longer speeches would require effective test-taking strategies and a higher level of vocabulary knowledge. PROCEDURES

Participants were given shadowing-based lessons twice a week for a month (nine times in total). The first 50–60 minutes of the lesson were spent learning the target content. Learners were first engaged in learning vocabulary and new expressions and proceeded to comprehension checks with a bilingual script. Then they reviewed target sentences that include important grammatical items or sentences, occasionally with the assistance of the instructor. In theory, learners should practice shadowing on easy new material to concentrate on phonemes exclusively, but in reality, we use EFL textbooks that contain new and difficult vocabulary in EFL classrooms. Thus, this is a compromise; learners study content first so that they can focus on phonemes when practicing shadowing. The experiment in 3–3 (based on Hamada, 2014a) will examine whether content should be learned before or after the shadowing training. After learning the content, the participants practiced shadowing for 15–20 minutes in each lesson. The participants followed the basic set of procedures (2.1). The pre-tests for phoneme perception skills and listening comprehension skills were conducted prior to the experiment. After the nine lessons, the posttests were conducted. The same tests were used in the pre-and post-tests, although there remained the possibility of practice effects (when taking the same or similar types of tests, the experience the first time sometimes influences the second time). I chose using the same tests over risking reliability when using two different assessment materials. Past research has shown that shadowing improves listening comprehension skills, and that phoneme perception also improves theoretically. Thus, the score increases observed in this study presumably result from shadowing training. Still, to best minimize the disadvantage of the test–retest method, after the pre-tests, all test papers including the questions were collected. There was approximately one month between the pre-test and post-tests, and learners received no explanation about the test content after the pre-test.

Data analysis The data of the listening comprehension skill tests (high school level 10 items and university level 12 items) and the phoneme perception skill were analyzed with descriptive statistics and a two-tailed dependent t-test was performed independently for each test.

General effectiveness of shadowing 33

Results

The group improved the scores of phoneme perception skills (the 20-item dictation test) with statistically significant differences [t (42) = 4.66, p .05], but for the lowproficiency listeners, significant differences were found from pre-test to post-test [F (1, 41) = 28.82, p < .01]. Only the low-proficiency listeners improved their scores for the high school questions. Regarding the university level questions (the 12-item Eiken listening test), little increase was observed in both groups. In the low-listening proficiency group, the mean score increased by 0.28 from 3.40 to 3.68, and in the intermediate group, it increased by 0.11 from 5.72 to 5.83. The ANOVA for tests revealed no significant effects [F (1, 41) = 0.28, p > .05, ␩p2 = .01], groups [F (1, 41) = 24.12, p > .05, ␩p2 = .37], or interaction [F(1, 41) = 0.05, p > .05, ␩p2 = .00]. The results revealed no improvement in the university level questions for either group. In summary, improvements were observed statistically for both groups in terms of phoneme perception skills. Only the low-listening proficiency group

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General effectiveness of shadowing

showed improvement in their scores in the high school level questions, while neither group showed improvement for the university level questions.

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Discussion The results indicate that the shadowing training is effective for improving phoneme perception processing regardless of learners’ listening proficiency level. However, the shadowing training was effective only for improving low-proficiency listeners’ basic listening comprehension skills (high school level questions), and it was not effective for improving advanced listening comprehension skills (university level questions) in either group. We will discuss why improvement in the basic listening comprehension skills was observed only in the low-proficiency listener group. Borrowing support from the cohort model (Marslen-Wilson and Welsh, 1978), learners first need to perceive the initial phoneme of each word, so reinforcement of phoneme perception processing through shadowing training helps low-proficiency listeners to identify more words than before training. Because the vocabulary and expressions in the high school level questions were fairly easy, the phoneme perception reinforcement of the low-proficiency listeners was considered to be simply reflected in the score increase. In contrast, the scores for the high school level questions in the intermediate listener group were originally high, implying they had already reached a certain level of listening comprehension skills, so their score remained high. Taken together, we can assume that the intermediate listener group already had enough basic listening comprehension skills to answer high school level questions, while shadowing training helped the low-proficiency listeners to approach the initial level of the intermediate group. In fact, this result echoes the aforementioned studies’ of Tamai (2005) and Kato (2009), which suggest that low- proficiency learners improved their listening comprehension skills more than advanced students because they already had a relatively high level of listening comprehension. In addition to the interpretation above, we will also discuss why both groups improved their phoneme perception processing but only the basic comprehension skills of the low-proficiency listeners improved. Simply, as named as lowproficiency and intermediate listener groups, their phoneme perception skills and listening comprehension skills were not enough to be called high at the onset of the training. Even so, the intermediate listener group still had sufficient phoneme perception skills and listening comprehension skills to answer the basic questions, while the low-proficiency listener group did not. After the training, the lowproficiency listener group’s phoneme perception skills approached the initial level of the intermediate group, so they scored higher at the basic listening comprehension skills (high school questions). The intermediate listener group’s phoneme perception skills also improved but the university level questions require other skills as well to answer correctly. This interpretation explains the results of this study (see Table 2.5).

General effectiveness of shadowing 41 Table 2.5 Summary of the results Learner type

Phoneme perception level

Bottom-up skills level Top-down skills level Before

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Low Intermediate

Low Intermediate

Low Intermediate

Low Intermediate

After Low Intermediate

Intermediate Intermediate

Intermediate Intermediate

Low Intermediate

Summary In summary, shadowing improves learners’ phoneme perception processing of both low and intermediate levels of listeners; after shadowing training, the lowproficiency listener group approached the initial level of the intermediate group in terms of phoneme perception and listening comprehension skills. Phoneme perception skill improvement only was not sufficient to answer university level questions. This accounts for the limited effectiveness of shadowing training on the improvement of basic listening comprehension skills. Simply put, those who lack basic listening skills benefited the most from shadowing. One pedagogical implication is it is more convenient for low-proficiency listeners to practice shadowing to reach a certain level of phoneme perception skills, and then to work toward improving their top-down skills. This way, they will acquire their listening comprehension skills smoothly, so that they can increase their scores in more advanced tests.

2.4.4 Classroom experiment 3: shadowing for speaking Background Whenever I find a presentation about shadowing in a conference book, I get excited and participate in it. Then I often overhear other participants say, “shadowing looks like a speaking activity” and sometimes presenters say “in my lesson, I use shadowing as a speaking activity.” However, observing students in class when working on shadowing, I just cannot imagine it is meant to be a speaking activity. I would say only a handful of advanced learners could shadow well enough to look as if they were actually speaking, but for a majority of students, it is extremely difficult. Being skeptical, I decided to examine whether shadowing improves speaking skills as well as listening skills at the same time.

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Related studies Although we have overviewed the basic function of shadowing for listening skill improvement, arguably, shadowing is often associated with a speaking activity only because learners look as though they are “speaking” when shadowing. In fact, the number of studies conducted for this topic has still been insufficient to reach a common conclusion; thus we have not yet shared the same agreement about the effectiveness of shadowing on oral production. The only agreement among researchers would be that there is some relation between shadowing performance and speaking performance (Iino and Yabuta, 2013; Miyake, 2009), but it is beyond the scope of this chapter. For the sake of classroom teaching, we would like to focus not on the simple relationship between the two but the effectiveness of shadowing training on speech improvement. Research findings regarding the effectiveness of shadowing on speech production do not always match. Okada (2002) focused on prosody development through shadowing practice. Thirty-five university freshmen participated in her study. During the lessons over four months (twice a week), the participants were engaged in shadowing and were asked to pay attention to such features as function words, content words, tone, and linking; prior to the post-test, they were given a passage that included a target sentence and were told to practice reading aloud the passage (i.e., oral reading, normally referred to a task of reading a text aloud whether listening to its audio or not). So, probably, the outcome observed in this study would reflect the combination of the shadowing training and the oral reading. In the post-test, the participants were asked to read aloud the sentence “We visited Disneyland, as we had a guest from England.” The spectrum of each participant was analyzed and the results indicate that speech duration has become shorter and intonation improvement was observed among some, though inconsistent. To explore detailed acoustic features, Mori (2011) conducted an experiment on the effects of shadowing and oral reading on the improvement of Japanese learners’ prosody. Twenty Japanese second-year university students participated in her study and were engaged in 30-minute shadowing and oralreading practice in ten weekly-classes. Reading-aloud tests that consisted of 86 items of basic English vocabulary were given as pre- and post-tests and two clauses from the passage were chosen for the acoustic analyses. The results indicate significant progress was found in their English rhythm, intonation, and final lengthening; but as Mori (2011) mentions, which of shadowing or oral reading were attributable to the results remained questionable. We will return to Mori’s research in section 6.4. While the above studies did not have a control group, one case study (Iino, 2014) was conducted to examine the effect of shadowing on speaking skills, setting a control group. A total of 64 university sophomores and juniors (23 for the shadowing-based group; 41 for the listening-based control group) participated in his study over eight months (18 times in total). As pre- and post-tests, a picture description task was used. Interestingly, both groups improved but no differences were found between the two groups statistically in their performance, though effect size of grammatical accuracy in the speech was larger in the shadowing group.

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General effectiveness of shadowing 43 As has been seen, there is inconsistency of reports in effectiveness of shadowing on speech production, but Mori (2011) mentions a key point, “the efficacy of shadowing can be assumed only as far as the task of repetition is successfully implemented” (p.2). This may imply that if learners practice shadowing, aiming to shadow perfectly, they may improve their prosody features. If so, however, if they shadow authentic challenging materials, aiming to improve their listening skills, will their prosody features still improve, or not? This premise actually poses a challenge for shadowing in classroom, in which textbooks that are slightly beyond learners’ level (i.e., i+1 level) are commonly used in classrooms. Being able to shadow perfectly does take time and can we spend much time only for that in class? Also, in theory, when learners are working on shadowing, they attend to listening and cannot monitor what they replicate because of its on-line nature, let alone fast-read authentic material. In other words, they cannot direct their attention to the speaking aspect when shadowing in a normal setting.

Accentedness, intelligibility, and comprehensibility Because the aforementioned studies report that shadowing possibly influences learners’ rhythm, intonation, final lengthening, and speech duration, this case study will focus on the aspects that pronunciation research often spotlights. In pronunciation studies, accentedness, intelligibility, and comprehensibility are the most wellknown features. Murphy (2014, p. 261) explains each terminology, referring to Derwing (2010) and Osimk (2009), as follows: Accent: how different the speakers’ pronunciation is from the one listeners are used to. Intelligibility: actual understanding of what one hears. Typically, transcription/dictation, comprehension questions, and written summary tasks are used to measure it. Comprehensibility: the effort to understand what one listens to (i.e., the degree of effort to expend to understand). Accent is a partially independent construct because a heavily accented speaker can be still comprehensible and intelligible but a speaker with low intelligibility and comprehensibility is rated as heavily accented (Munro and Derwing, 1995). Intelligibility and comprehensibility are slightly different, strictly speaking, as the definition above shows but they are similar and often interchangeably used. Therefore, this study will explore whether shadowing can change their comprehensibility and accentedness.

Purpose of the study This study will examine whether shadowing training in an ordinary classroom setting improves speaking skills, focusing on two aspects, accentedness and comprehensibility. In other words, whether the shadowing procedure for listening

44 General effectiveness of shadowing skill development will improve speaking skills of accentedness and comprehensibility will be studied.

Methods

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PARTICIPANTS

A total of 58 national university sophomores (30 males and 28 females) participated in this experiment. One group, 29 health science majors, was engaged in shadowing, and another group, 29 engineering majors, was engaged in repeating. The classes were compulsory but elective, so they voluntarily chose the instructor’s class and generally their motivation toward studying English was high. Since no one majored in English related fields, this compulsory English class was probably the only exposure to the English language during the one-month training period. MATERIALS

In this experiment, an EFL textbook Meet the World (Wakaari, 2014) was used. The textbook contains 20 news articles in 2013, and eight articles were selected (one for one lesson). Each article contains several comprehension questions, and its 100–150 word summary. To measure speaking skill improvement, accentedness and comprehensibility were examined as Derwing and Munro (2005) claimed that two different aspects should be assessed in L2 pronunciation, accentedness (how accented a speaker’s English is) and comprehensibility (how comprehensible a speaker is) (p. 385). Accentedness is known not necessarily to preclude intelligible speech or lead to communication breakdowns (Munro and Derwing, 1995) but this study simply aims to examine the changes reflected by shadowing training. To measure the participants’ comprehensibility and accentedness, seven sentences that were developed originally to measure the role of English specific segmentals in Japanese speakers’ speech production by Saito (2011) were used; three non-loaded and four loaded ones (loaded mean containing /æ, f, v, ␪, ð, w, l, r/). Before and after the training, the participants were asked to read aloud these seven sentences and it was recorded. The reasons why free-speech product was not used were to exclude the factors that arise from learner differences in their vocabulary size, proficiency, and so forth. This study only attempts to examine the influence of shadowing training on accentedness and comprehensibility, so a task that requires deep-process (e.g., creating stories) was avoided. PROCEDURE

Participants were given normal shadowing-based lessons twice a week for a month (eight times in total) as in other studies. The first 50–60 minutes of the lesson were spent learning the target content, including vocabulary learning, followed by a comprehension check.

General effectiveness of shadowing 45

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After learning the content, one group engaged in shadowing practice for approximately 20 minutes, while the other group did repeating practice. The procedure (2.1) was adopted and slightly modified for this study. Because monitoring their shadowing performance by recording was found to be more effective (more details are discussed in 3.4), the participants recorded and checked their performance in step 5 and 8. SHADOWING PROCEDURE

1) 2) 3) 4) 5) 6) 7) 8)

Read and check unknown words Listen with script Shadowing twice Listen and check script Shadowing and record and check Shadowing twice Listen Shadowing and record and check.

Before and after the eight lessons, participants were asked to read the seven sentences, individually in a quiet open space, and their performance was recorded with an IC-recorder.

Analysis To analyze accentedness and comprehensibility, six native speakers of English (three males and three females) were recruited. The instructor explained the procedure, including some sample speech, until the raters fully understood the procedure. They rated by listening to the seven sentences read by each participant. Following Kang’s study (2010), a 1–9 Likert scale was used. For comprehensibility, 1 means the least comprehensible, while 9 the most comprehensible. For accentedness, 1 means the most accented, while 9 the least accented. No information that indicates which audio file is the one for pre- or post-test was given to the raters.

Results The comprehensibility analysis indicates that both groups showed little improvement; the mean score of the shadowing group increased by 0.06 from 4.50 to 4.56, and that of the repeating group was zero, 4.60. A two-way ANOVA with group (shadowing and repeating) and time (pre, post) as factors showed no significant effects of group [F (1, 56) = 0.14, p = .71, ␩p2 = .003] or test [F (1, 56) = 0.36, p = .55, ␩p2 = .006], and non-significant group ⫻ test interaction [F (1, 56) = 0.51, p = .48, ␩p2 = .009]. From the descriptive statistics and the statistical analyses, no comprehensibility improvement was observed in the shadowing and repeating groups.

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46 General effectiveness of shadowing Accentedness also showed little improvement in either group. In the shadowing group the mean score increased by 0.16 from 4.13 to 4.29, while in the repeating group it increased by 0.10 from 4.16 to 4.26. The ANOVA for time (pre, post) revealed a significant effect [F(1, 56) = 10.44, p = .002, ␩p2 = .016], but not for groups [F (1, 56) = 0.00, p = .99, ␩p2 = .00], or interaction [F 0(1, 56) = .46, p = .50, ␩p2 = .008]. If observing these results only, we saw improvement in accentedness for both groups and no differences of improvement between the two; however, when carefully interpreting the results, a 0.1 point increase counts for little in a 1–9 Likert Scale. On this ground, regarding comprehensibility as well, little improvement was observed in either group.

Discussion The results of this study indicate that neither shadowing nor repetition training was effective for reducing learners’ accentedness or improving their comprehensibility, despite the wish that the short shadowing training for listening skill development will also improve learners’ accentedness and comprehensibility. This result is congruent with Iino’s (2014) study in that no statistical differences of pre-post speaking tests were found between shadowing-based lessons and listening-based lessons. Learners’ small improvement on speech production after shadowing actually adds another support to the currently shared understanding about shadowing that shadowing is mainly for listening skill improvement. At the core of the argument is attention. When shadowing, learners concentrate their attention on incoming sounds in order to vocalize them, and they also cannot monitor what they actually vocalize because of its on-line nature. This means that their attention is not directed to output features but exclusively to the input features, which explains the small improvement of accentedness and comprehensibility. Iino (2014) holds that in speaking, if learners can reduce the amount of cognitive resource spent on articulation, they can use the spare resource for building message, verbalization, and monitoring. When shadowing in a normal classroom setting, a fast-read difficult material and audio were used, which is against the suggestion by Mori (2011) that the effects of shadowing are assured on condition that the replication is successful. Combined together, their cognitive resource or attention was considered to be spent exclusively on listening, which hindered speaking improvement. The second argument stems from the process of output. When learners produce output, they access mental lexicon (Levelt, 1989) (mental lexicon is a person’s mental store of words, their meaning and associations, Richards and Schmidt, 2010). However, when they produce output in shadowing, they do not access their mental lexicon or create anything, but only try to reproduce what they hear. There is a huge discrepancy between the output in a normal setting and that in shadowing. It would be unrealistic to expect one-month shadowing training will help learners overwrite their pronunciation and automatize them with a new sound system. Notwithstanding these arguments, interpretation of this result needs careful consideration. While results indicate that the short-term shadowing procedure

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General effectiveness of shadowing 47 that has been shown to be effective for improving listening skill improvement does not guarantee speaking skill improvement, this does not deny shadowing’s possibility for improving speaking skills. Changing the research settings may produce different outcomes. Extending the training period and implementing experiments on high level learners may bring different results. However, since short-term training has been sufficient for improving learners’ listening comprehension skills, the idea of reconciling speaking and listening skill improvement at the same time through shadowing training would be intractable. None of the participants in Iino (2014) or this study was highly proficient, so implementing an experiment with highly proficient listeners may be interesting.

Summary One pedagogical implication of this study is that one month short-term shadowing training is not to be adopted as a technique for speaking skill improvement, but rather for listening skill improvement for ordinary EFL students. Although training high-proficiency learners may yield a different result, this study at least suggests that killing two birds (listening and speaking) with one stone (shadowing) does not work in a normal setting, and proposes short-time shadowing training be used mainly for listening skill improvement.

2.5 Summary of Chapter 2 In Chapter 2, we first outlined a recommended set of basic procedures for classroom use. After we confirmed that learners actually attend to phonological aspects when shadowing, we considered three primary issues regarding the effectiveness of shadowing. Experimental research allows us to conclude that learners’ phoneme perception skills and listening comprehension skills improve after shadowing training, but the results hold that lower-proficiency learners benefit most. We also examined the common “myth” that shadowing improves speaking skills. We saw that a normal short shadowing training that aimed for listening skill improvement would not simultaneously improve learners’ accentedness and comprehensibility. Thus, if we try to improve their speaking skills as well, we may need to develop a new training procedure. Because a month or two months of 8 to 10 lesson-trainings will be adequate for the first listening skill improvement, once learners reach a certain level, we teachers have more opportunities to extend activities in classroom. Now that the basic function of shadowing has been supported both theoretically and empirically, Chapter 3 will consider how to develop shadowing into a more effective teaching technique.

Notes Sections 2.4.2 and 2.4.3 are based on Hamada (2016b), and the contents are modified and edited for this book. The original versions of Hamada (2016b) first appeared in Language Teaching Research, 20(1).

48 General effectiveness of shadowing

Keywords for Chapter 2

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appropriate amount of practice, basic shadowing procedure, phoneme perception process, low-listening proficiency learners, shadowing and speaking

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3

Towards more effective shadowing

Chapter 3 will answer the following four questions. 1 2 3 4

Can we use difficult materials for shadowing training? Which is more effective, use of combinations of difficult and easy materials or use of the same level of materials for shadowing? Should learners study content before or after shadowing? Does self-monitoring and pair-monitoring make shadowing training more effective?

Chapter 2 has discussed the basic function and effects of shadowing on listening skills. We have generally agreed that shadowing is effective for phoneme perception process improvement and listening comprehension skill improvement, and that lower-level listeners benefit most from shadowing practice because quick improvement is produced in their immature bottom-up listening skills. Now, a question would naturally arise, “how can we use it more usefully and effectively?” I believe that the first assignment for me as a “shadowing researcher” is to study the theory, the second assignment is to examine the applicability of theoretical assumptions in the classroom, and the third assignment is to seek to improve its practical usage in the classroom. Thus in this section, I would like to address the question of how shadowing can be used more effectively in the classroom by giving an overview of four case studies. We will approach this question from three areas. The first area is material use. Easier textbooks have been recommended for shadowing use (Kadota and Tamai, 2004) so that learners can focus on phonological aspects rather than worrying about vocabulary, grammar, and content of the textbook. However, it is often unrealistic to focus exclusively on shadowing using just one dedicated book, so we need to consider whether shadowing can be practiced with normal textbooks or authentic materials. Additionally, in searching for more effective ways to use shadowing, we will compare two cases of material use, combinations of more and less challenging materials and similar level of materials. The second area for argument is the question of when should shadowing be practiced in the classroom? Should learners practice shadowing before learning the content of the textbook so that they can focus on phonology? But can they really direct their attention

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Towards more effective shadowing

only on phonology when shadowing a passage that contains unknown words? Based on these two questions, I was interested in creating a more effective method and therefore thought about the efficacy of mixing difficult and easy materials for shadowing training. The third area that needs some discussion is the use of technology. To be a learner-friendly and useful technique for teachers and learners, shadowing should not require highly advanced technology; but now that smartphones have become almost ubiquitous, it seems they are the most useful tool for the task in hand.

3.1 Classroom experiments 1 and 2: materials We should only use easy textbooks for shadowing?

Background It is widely held that easy materials should be used for shadowing practice, but due to this belief, shadowing in the classroom may not be as prevalent as it should be. After all, do we as teachers choose an EFL textbook based on it being easy for the learners to understand? I would suggest that most teachers would say “No.” Textbooks should be challenging enough so that learners are able to acquire new vocabulary and expressions, and expand their knowledge about the target language. Although shadowing training works well with easy material, one day I wondered whether we could exploit textbooks and authentic materials instead. Since there was nothing in the literature researching this issue, I set out to test my idea, which is how the following two case studies came to life.

Related studies As has been shown in Chapter 1 and 2, most studies examine the mechanism of shadowing and the effects of shadowing, but not many have drilled into the more practical aspect of how shadowing can be more effectively used during instruction. When considering this question, the first issue that we teachers face is about textbooks. It is widely held that materials rated at i–1 (i is the current learner’s proficiency level, i+1 is the slightly higher level, and i–1 is slightly lower) or below are most appropriate for shadowing, so that learners can focus on the act of shadowing only (Kadota and Tamai, 2004). According to this claim, if a textbook contains a sizeable number of unknown words and complicated expressions, smooth shadowing is impeded. Difficult materials at i+1 are not recommended because learners need to direct their focus exclusively on phonological features of the heard speech. For these reasons, what is recommended is a textbook that contains no more than two or three unknown words per 100 words (Kadota, 2007).

Towards more effective shadowing 51 However, if these theoretical assumptions are all true, how can we use shadowing in the classroom when we have to consider the time-constraints of the curriculum? It may be unrealistic to spend a lot of class-time using an easy textbook for shadowing practice.

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Research question To overcome the limitations above, this study aims to investigate the question: Can learners’ listening comprehension skills still improve through shadowing difficult materials? For this purpose, in Hamada (2011a), I conducted two experiments in a senior high school that are summarized below.

Choice of materials In the process of selecting material in the senior high school context, there were at least two options. One was a high level textbook designed for entrance examinations or for examination preparation such as Eiken, the TOEIC, and the TOEFL. The other was a script of authentic material published for a native-speaker audience. Generally speaking, widely used high school textbooks in Japan are considered difficult (Hasegawa, Chujo, and Nishigaki, 2008). Therefore, if we cling to the theoretical assumption that easy materials need to be used for shadowing, most Japanese high school textbooks and test preparation materials (e.g., Eiken, TOEIC, and TOEFL) would not be considered suitable. Second, authentic materials (readings similar to those used in native language instruction such as newspaper or magazine articles and other media) (Richards and Rodgers, 2001) are recommended for occasional use in English teaching contexts. Despite their merits, adhering to the recommendation that shadowing only be practiced with easy texts would rule out the use of most authentic materials. Therefore, to challenge this theoretical assumption, for the first experiment we chose a well-known difficult high school textbook, and for the second experiment we chose a well-known authentic script, President Obama’s Speech.

3.1.1 Classroom experiment 1 PARTICIPANTS

Twenty-three (7 males, 16 females) Japanese senior high school first-year students participated in the study. Most students’ English proficiency is near the national average for Japanese high school students, according to a practice examination made by a well-known company. The proficiency levels of the two groups were found not to differ [F(1,42) =.013, n.s]. Based on my observation, their motivation to learn English was in the medium range. In other words, the participants were typical Japanese average senior high school students.

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A high school English textbook Crown I (Sanseido, 2007) was used in this study, which was authorized by the Ministry of Education and Culture. Crown series textbooks were popular and often used in advanced high schools in Japan (Hasegawa et al., 2008). The number of types and tokens that appeared in Crown series is in the top three out of 35 English textbooks (Chujo, Yoshimori, Hasegawa, Nishigaki, and Yamazaki, 2007). Judging from the participants’ English proficiency level (around average level) and the textbook description, this textbook was considered challenging for the participants. To examine specifically which type of listening comprehension skills would improve through shadowing difficult materials, three types of questions from STEP Eiken 3rd grade were selected. STEP Eiken 3rd grade of 2005 was used as preand post-tests; the June version was for the pre-test and the October version was for the post-test. The STEP Eiken test is one of the most well-known English standardized tests in junior and senior high schools in Japan. The 3rd grade is designed for graduates of junior high school (Eiken, 2013c) and the listening questions consist of three different categories. The first is the visual aid-assisted simple listening comprehension consisting of Q1–10 that contain three sentences with fewer than ten words each. Students listened to a dialogue, while looking at an illustration and then tried to choose the correct response to the last sentence. The second category is the short passage listening comprehension consisting of Q11–20 that contains four sentences with fewer than ten words each. Students listen to a 10–15 second dialogue and then try to choose the correct answer to a comprehension question. The third category is the long passage listening comprehension consisting of Q21–30 that contain longer sentences and passages,

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MATERIALS

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Pre Figure 3.1 Pre-post scores for Q1–Q10.

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Pre Figure 3.2 Pre-post scores for Q11–Q20.

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Pre Figure 3.3 Pre-post scores for Q21–Q30.

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Table 3.1 Descriptive statistics of each question for pre- and post-tests Material (r)

Mean

SD

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Max

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p-value

effect size

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6.57 8.30 7.39 8.13 7.96 7.96

1.53 1.30 1.67 1.46 1.46 2.18

3 6 3 4 4 3

9 10 10 10 10 10

5.21

0.000

0.74

2.92

0.008

0.53

0.00

1.00

0.00

Source: Based on Hamada, 2011a.

and 3–5 sentences each with up to 15 words. Students listen to longer passages and are supposed to choose a correct answer to a comprehension question. PROCEDURE

Thirteen 50-minute classes were conducted with the participants. During the first 25–30 minutes, the instructor explained the target passages in the textbook and the learners worked together on comprehending the content. During the remainder of the class, the participants were engaged in shadowing training based on the basic procedure (2.1). In each lesson the participants studied one or two passages of approximately ten lines. The participants took the pre-test before the shadowing training and took the post-test after the shadowing training. Both tests took about 25 minutes to complete.

Analysis To measure the effectiveness of the shadowing training on each type of question, paired-sample t-tests were performed.

Results The descriptive statistics and results of the t-tests are shown in Table 3.1. The scattered plot of Q1–Q10 (Figure 3.1) show the similar tendency observed in 2.1, in that only a weak correlation (r=. 37) and no linear line was found. Statistically significant improvements were found in questions 1–10, which tested visual aidassisted simple listening comprehension skills, and questions 11–20 (Figure 3.2), which tested short passage listening comprehension skills. To our interest, it showed a strong correlation (r=.71) with a statistically significant difference. However, no improvement was found in questions 21–30 (Figure 3.3), which tested long passage listening comprehension skills. The correlation was quite weak (r=.19). The effect size for Q1–10 and Q11–20 was high, (r=.74, .53 respectively).

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3.1.2 Classroom experiment 2 The results of experiment I indicate that even using difficult high school materials learners can still improve their basic listening comprehension skills. Experiment 2 aims to examine whether difficult authentic materials also lead to similar results.

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PARTICIPANTS

Twenty-nine Japanese senior high school third-grade students (9 males and 20 females) aged 17 to 18 participated in this study. Their overall English proficiency level was slightly above the national average and their motivation was relatively high. MATERIALS

In order to stimulate the participants’ motivation, a timely textbook at that time, The Speeches of Barack Obama (Asahi Press, 2008), was chosen. Because the speeches were delivered by the President of the United States of America, targeting American citizens, the speeches were considered beyond the participants’ English proficiency level. The listening section of STEP Eiken 2nd grade of 2005 was used as pre- and post-tests; the June version was for the pre-test and the October version for the post-test. The tests consist of two parts and in Questions 1–15, the participants listened to a conversation for approximately 20–25 seconds to choose a correct answer from four choices. In Questions 16–30, they listened to longer passages for approximately 25–30 seconds to choose the correct answer from four choices. PROCEDURE

The participants practiced 17 sets of passages intensively over three weeks in eight 50-minute classes. Each lesson was devoted only to shadowing training; two sets of passages were used in each lesson. The training procedure was the same as in Experiment I. Before and after the training, the participants took the pre-and post-tests.

Analysis Paired-sample t-tests were employed for questions 1–15 and 16–30 respectively.

Results Regarding Questions 1–15, the group improved their scores with statistically significant differences [t(28) = 2.415, p = .023, r = .42]. Their mean score increased by 1.21 from 9.03 to 10.24 (SD = 2.85 for pre, 2.50 for post) (Figure 3.4). The correlation between the pre-test and post-test was medium (r = .50). Regarding

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Towards more effective shadowing 57 Questions 16–30, the group did not improve their scores statistically [t(28) = 1.296, p = .21, r = .24] (Figure 3.5). Their mean score increased by 0.56 from 7.41 to 7.97 (SD = 2.91 for pre, 2.58 for post). The correlation between the pre-test and post-test was medium (r = .66)

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Discussion EFFECTIVENESS OF SHADOWING WITH DIFFICULT MATERIALS

The answer to the research question whether learners’ listening comprehension skills still improve by shadowing using difficult materials was yes; participants in these experiments improved their basic listening comprehension skills even using difficult materials. The results of experiment 1 indicate that the shadowing training was effective for improving the scores in Q1–10 and Q11–20. Both of the two types require basic listening comprehension skills. The difference was that Q1–10 contain visual aids while Q11–20 do not. Thus, Q11–20 are more challenging since the participants are only exposed to heard speech. The correlation of Q1–10 between the pre-test and the post-test was not strong(r = .37) and those who scored lower at the pre-test appeared to improve more than the others as other previous studies show (e.g., 2.4.3). In contrast, the correlation of Q11–20 was stronger (r = .71), implying participants improved their scores in the similar degree generally. Still, this result suggests the participants became better able to identify the incoming sounds through the shadowing training, which consequently helped them increase the score at the test. In fact, a similar result was observed in experiment 2 where participants showed a statistical improvement only on Questions 1–15. This also means the students improved their ability to perceive incoming sounds and relate those sounds with their proper meaning when listening to shorter conversations. However, compared to the result in Experiment 1, the correlation was rather stronger; this is probably because the improvement the participants made was smaller (mean score increase was 1.21 for Q1–15 in Experiment 2, while that of Q1–10 in study 1 was 1.87). Taken together, these results reflect the benefit of shadowing to reinforce the skill to identify incoming sounds. On the other hand, in experiment 1, participants’ score of Q21–30 and Q15–30 in experiment 2 did not improve. Both types of questions consist of longer passages, so the students had to listen and temporarily store more information in their working memory to answer correctly. In other words, the bottom-up listening skill improvement alone was not enough to answer these types of questions. These results are congruent with the findings in Chapter 2 that shadowing is effective for improving bottom-up listening skills. In other words, in order to answer questions that consist of longer passages, shadowing training only is not sufficient and learners need to expand the memory span as well as work on improving further skills because they still lack the capacity to hold larger amounts

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of phonemic input in their short-term memory. Additionally, they need to develop their test-taking strategies.

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Limitations First, though a textbook beyond the participants’ level was used, clarifying the distance between the participants’ level and the text level was impossible. The only implication these experiments provide is that we can use difficult textbooks for shadowing practice. Although realistically quite difficult, comparing the effects of shadowing three different difficulty levels (i.e., more difficult, medium, less difficult) would be an interesting experiment. Second, use of difficult materials without giving any opportunity to understand the content would have produced a different outcome. However, along with the overarching principle, practical use in the classroom, though difficult materials were used, the learners were given chances to comprehend the learning materials, which may have influenced the results. As a side note, neither of these experiments had a control group because the purpose was only to examine whether shadowing with difficult materials was still effective or not, with no intention of comparison.

Summary Despite the common notion that we should use easy materials for shadowing training, this study holds that we can still use difficult materials and hope for learners’ basic listening comprehension skill improvement. Using easy material may be ideal, but it is clear that the use of more difficult material can be used for effective shadowing training. The reasons why even difficult materials worked may be because the procedure in the lesson contains not only shadowing but also checking the understanding of content. This topic, shadowing and content, will be considered in section 3.2.

3.2 Classroom experiment 3: combination of more and less difficult materials Background I play baseball and when practicing batting, hitting an 80-mile pitch (124 km) at first bat is difficult, but after watching an 85-mile pitch (130 km), it “looks” slower. I feel as if I can hit the slower one and want to challenge the faster one at the same time. Also, one day I was listening to English and jokingly trying to see how fast I could keep up, I changed the speed of the audio file to 1.5 times the original speed and then 2.0 times the original speed and was able to follow the listening, but beyond that speed, I gave up. Then, suddenly an idea hit me, “maybe this will work for shadowing training as well.” That’s how this study began.

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Related studies The two case studies in 3.1 have given more possibilities of shadowing in classroom use by showing that the use of difficult materials is possible, and this case study would like to approach the material issue from another perspective: learner difference, learner anxiety, and i+1 theory. Critically, choosing either difficult or easy materials is not fully considerate of individual learner differences. A language classroom has a variety of learner levels, so a textbook that is difficult for one student is not necessarily difficult for another student, and vice versa. In theory, the act of shadowing improves learners’ bottom-up listening skills, even if learners cannot shadow perfectly; however, not being able to shadow perfectly would be frustrating for some learners and may even cause anxiety for others, considering shadowing is highly cognitive and intimidating. In addition, as has been mentioned, easy materials are appropriate for shadowing training and materials at i–1 or below level are considered suitable for shadowing, but limiting the materials only to easy ones would in turn limit what can be done in classroom; but limiting the materials only to difficult ones would also trigger anxiety. Given these grounds, it is worth examining what the outcome would be like if mixing two types of textbooks, more challenging and less challenging ones.

Purpose of the study To explore a more effective shadowing technique for teaching, this case study pursues the following question: Will using materials of a combination of two levels of difficulty improve learners’ listening comprehension skills more than using materials of similar difficulty levels?

Methods PARTICIPANTS

Fifty-nine (37 males, 22 females) Japanese national university freshmen, majoring in education, health science, engineering participated. The English proficiency levels of the participants were upper-intermediate. The participants were divided into an experimental group (11 males, 18 females) and a control group (26 males, 4 females). Their listening comprehension skills did not differ [t(57) = 1.02, n.s] based on the pre-listening test. MATERIALS

The TOEIC Test New Official Book (2009) was chosen as a teaching material for the following two reasons. First, since the primary focus of this experiment was the difficulty level, unlike the other studies in this book that look for a better way by using an ESL/EFL textbook, using this type of textbook was more convenient

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to design an experiment. Second, since the participants’ majors varied, the TOEIC textbook was considered to attract more learners than other specialized materials. The difficulty of the materials used in this experiment is measured from two perspectives: cognitive resource and readability. As the number of the sentences increases, learners need more cognitive resource for its process and storage (Osaka, 2010), which would mean the longer the sentences are, the more difficult they become to process. In other words, the length of the sentences partly defines the difficulty of materials in this study. The concept of cognitive resource is well known for reading span test (Daneman and Carpenter, 1980), and the same should apply to listening processes because both listening and reading share a similar process in this respect. In addition, a readability index, Flesh-Kincaid grade, was used. While several readability formulae have been developed, the Flesh-Kincaid index was chosen as it is calculated easily by using Microsoft Word. Flesh-Kincaid is designed to index for which grade the passage is appropriate, based on schools in the US (Microsoft, 2011). As in Table 3.2, the Flesh-Kincaid of odd and even numbers of the control group are around the same level, while those of the control group differ. In other words, the materials that the control group used were at a similar level, while those of the experimental group were different, alternately. For listening comprehension skill assessment, the collection of sample listening questions that consist of 13 questions on the TOEIC Test New Official Book (2008) was used for pre- and post-tests. In an attempt to avoid the test–retest method (using the same test for pre- and post-tests), prior to the study, the sample listening questions on the TOEIC (2009) version and those on the TOEIC (2008) were piloted to another group; however, the difficulty of the two versions were found to differ statistically. Thus, the same questions were used for the current study. PROCEDURE

Following the procedure that has already been introduced in 2.1, eight shadowing-based lessons were conducted. Since the listening section of the TOEIC consists of four parts, Day 1 and 2 were assigned for Part 1, Day 3 and 4 for Part 2, Day 5 and 6 for Part 3, and Day 7 and 8 for Part 4. In every lesson, the experimental group practiced shadowing by using less challenging and more challenging materials alternately (less challenging materials for Day 1, 3, 5, 7; challenging ones for Day 2, 4, 6, 8:) and the control group

Table 3.2 Materials used in the lessons Times

Word average

Flesh-Kincaid average

Word average

Flesh-Kincaid average

Odd (1, 3, 5, 7) Even (2, 4, 6, 8)

78 105

3.9 4.7

78.5 74.5

4.2 4.6

Source: Hamada, 2012a.

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did by using materials of similar difficulty levels. Since the focus of this study is the combination of two levels of materials, more challenging or less challenging does not mean they are difficult or not in general, but means the materials (Day 2, 4, 6, 8) are more difficult than the other set of materials (Day 1, 3, 5, 7) in this context. Before starting the training, the pre-test was conducted. After all the training lessons, the post-test was conducted.

Analysis In addition to the descriptive statistics, to measure which group improved more in listening comprehension skills, an analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was conducted for the results of the listening pre- and post-tests with pre-test being a covariate.

Results The descriptive statistics show that the mean scores of the experimental group increased by 2.24 from 5.59 to 7.83, while those of the control group did by 0.77 from 6.13 to 6.90. The scatterplot (Figure 3.6 and 3.7) does not show a similar tendency between the two groups, although they are similar in that lower proficiency listeners show a greater improvement than the others. However, in the experimental group, many of the lower proficiency listeners improved; one that scored 2 in the pre-test scored 6 in the post-test, and the ones who scored 4 in the pre-test scored 6, 7, and 10 respectively in the post-test. In the control group, those who scored 1 in the pre-test scored 6 and 8 in the post-test, but those who scored 4 in the pre-test did not improve in the post-test. The correlations of both groups between the pre- and post-tests are not strong (r =. 45 for the experimental group; r =. 25 for the control group), which means that there was little consistency of how much improvement they made. The ANCOVA shows a significant differences between the two experimental and control groups [F(1,56) = 6.86, p = .01]. This indicates that the improvement of the group with the combination of two levels of difficulty was greater than that of the other group. In summary, the descriptive statistics, especially the scatterplot, show that the two groups performed differently, and the inferential statistics further confirmed that the group that practiced shadowing with different levels of materials made greater progress.

Discussion In interpreting the results, there are at least three reasons that account for the outcome. First, a combination of the two levels can deal with individual differences of listening proficiencies. In an EFL classroom, each learner’s listening skills vary, inevitably, so there are chances using materials at a certain level may be too easy

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Pre Figure 3.7 Pre-post listening test scores of the experimental group.

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Towards more effective shadowing 63 for one student but too difficult for another. In fact, the post-test scores for only three students declined in the experimental group, while those of nine did in the control group. Possibly, the levels of the materials were not optimal for the nine of the control group. Second, the combination can have a positive influence on learners’ psychology, especially in terms of anxiety and attribution retraining treatment. Anxiety can be positive and negative: “low levels help, whereas high levels hurt” (Gass and Selinker, 2008, p. 400). We can assume that because the learners felt shadowing a challenging material difficult, they felt shadowing a less challenging material easier in the next lesson. Presumably, even if learners could not shadow a challenging material as successfully as they hoped, they knew they could shadow a less challenging material in the next lesson at least better, which could consequently lead to a feeling of relief. Another explanation lends support to research on psychology, the theory of attribution retraining treatment. Dweck (1975) conducted experiments, in which success was ensured in one group, and both failure and success were ensured in the other. The latter group outperformed the former. If we apply this theory to the current shadowing experiment, the learners eventually managed to deal with the failure of shadowing by feeling success when shadowing with less challenging materials, and feeling failure with challenging materials. This psychological treatment possibly influenced their performance, consequently leading to their overall listening comprehension skills. Third, borrowing from Krashen’s (1985) i+1 theory and Kadota and Tamai’s (2004) theory on shadowing, there was a chance that the less challenging materials were at i–1 level for the participants, given that the materials used were easily comprehensible. Ideally, easy materials are recommended so that learners can focus on phonological aspects (Kadota and Tamai, 2004), so with this respect, the textbooks at i–1 level were helpful. On the other hand, there was also a chance that the more challenging materials were at i+1 level; the materials were difficult but still within reach of the learners. From the point of Krashen’s i+1 theory, tasks should be challenging but attainable. Viewed together, the materials used in this experiment possibly met both of the two conditions. However, it needs to be warned that determining the difficulty is quite challenging and complicated and that we may agree with Krashen’s i+1 theory but it also lacks empirical data. Thus, this argument needs careful interpretation.

Limitations The shortcoming of this study in terms of research design is that though it defines difficulty of materials it does not guarantee equal difficulty or easiness for each learner. A material was possibly quite difficult for one learner but the same material may be only somewhat difficult for another. A material was quite easy for one learner but may be less easy for another. In other words, what this result can at least suggest is that combinations of less and more difficult materials are more effective than clinging to a similar level of materials.

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Summary

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This study shed light on the use of a combination of different difficulties of materials. Factors such as learners’ motivation and interests could also affect the results, and this research found a way to use shadowing while addressing individuality and learners’ psychology.

3.3 Classroom experiment 4: when to practice shadowing Background At a conference in 2010, after I presented about the aforementioned case studies (3.1), I was chatting with a friend of mine whom I had known for years. When our topic moved to my research at that time, she just said, “maybe it’s interesting to examine which is better, to shadow before presenting target materials or after.” To be honest, it did not strike me very much at that time because I believed shadowing would work any time, so I only said, “yeah, it sounds interesting.” But about a year later, one day I was watching CNN and shadowing my favorite newscaster and came to realize something: I was trying to understand the content while shadowing simultaneously but could not understand as the aforementioned theory and studies suggest. Then, her words just came back to me suddenly. I wondered if I could shadow better if I already knew the content. It was then that I realized the value of her comment. That’s how this study began.

Related studies In this section, we will specifically direct our attention to when to use shadowing in the classroom; more specifically, shadowing should come before or after learning the target content. Applying the contrasting listening processes of bottom-up and top-down, Kadota (2012) claims two types of shadowing theoretically: top-down shadowing, in which learners practice shadowing after they study the content, structure, and vocabulary of the target passage, and bottom-up shadowing, in which learners practice shadowing before they study the target passage (Kadota, 2012). Bottom-up shadowing is a phonology-based rehearsal task because learners try to listen to the sounds they are encountering for the first time; top-down shadowing is a knowledge-based task because learners rehearse based on the knowledge they have already acquired (Kadota, 2012). When learners practice shadowing fairly easy materials, adopting these two depending on their necessities would contribute to effective learning. In daily lessons in the classroom, then, how can we apply this concept? Unfortunately, the theory and reality do not fit together perfectly as in interactive compensatory hypothesis (Stanovich, 1980). Occasionally we weigh more or less on top-down and bottom-up processing when listening, but we hardly ever attend to only one of them. Similarly, when using shadowing in the classroom, there is

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Towards more effective shadowing 65 an overlap regardless of the degrees between top-down shadowing and bottomup shadowing. In concept, top-down shadowing eventually changes to top-down shadowing after they repeatedly shadow because they may start getting used to and understanding the content. In addition, in the case of bottom-up shadowing, it is too demanding to make learners shadow repeatedly without giving them an opportunity to understand what they are shadowing, and their motivation would not be sustained. Thus, strictly adhering to this concept may be unrealistic. Instead, from a practical point of view, if we shift from debating top-down and bottomup to debating on shadowing before or after learning content, the conceptual problems will be solved and it would make more sense; namely, pre-shadowing and post-shadowing. Before jumping into an experiment, let us consider the advantages and disadvantages of pre-shadowing (i.e., shadowing before learning the lesson content) and post-shadowing (i.e., shadowing after learning the lesson content). In pre-shadowing, learners can direct their attention to the phonological information they are listening to because they do not know much about the content of what they are shadowing, so this practice will reinforce their speech perception skills (Kadota, 2007). However, since little information on the content is given or learned and there should be unknown vocabulary and expressions, shadowing is difficult; consequently the cognitive load of pre-shadowing becomes higher. In post-shadowing, learners may be at a disadvantage at inevitably dividing their attention between both, with the sounds they are listening to and the vocabulary and grammar rules of the target content to some extent (Kadota, 2007). However, because they are already familiar with the target passage, they may be more relaxed and also pay more attention to the phonological information despite the theoretical assumption. As we see, both pre- shadowing and post-shadowing have merits and demerits theoretically.

Purpose of the study The purpose of this experiment is to provide a more effective procedure of shadowing by examining the effectiveness of pre-shadowing and post-shadowing on listening comprehension skills in the classroom.

Methods PARTICIPANTS

A total of 56 freshmen (32 males and 24 females) at a Japanese national university participated in the study. A group of 32 students majoring in engineering (27 males, 5 females) were engaged in pre-shadowing-based lessons, and another group of 24 students majoring in international communication and culture (5 males, 19 females) were engaged in post-shadowing-based lessons. Their English proficiency was at estimated intermediate level, based on the results of placement tests (ELPA, 2012) that they had taken in April. The listening proficiency level

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of the two groups was similar, considering the mean score of the pre-test being 6.38 (pre-shadowing group) and 6.33 (post-shadowing group). According to the observational analysis of the instructor, their motivation was around medium.

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MATERIALS

In this study, an ESL/EFL textbook, Reading Explore 2 (MacIntyre, 2009), was used. For this study, three passages were selected from the book. The length of each passage ranges from approximately 100 to 145 words, so the average words in each lesson ranges from 60 to 70. Flesch reading ease (FRE) score (the maximum is 100; the higher the score, the easier the passage is to read) ranges from 51.0 to 69.0. The Flesch-Kincaid Index (the index for which grade level the passage is appropriate, based on the grade levels of schools in the United States (Microsoft, 2011)) ranges from 7.0 to 12.5. Judging from these readability scores, the passages used in this study were considered fairly challenging for the participants. However, the studies above (3.1) already hold that students can improve their listening comprehension skills by practicing with difficult materials; thus, the negative concern toward participants’ listening skill improvement by using difficult materials was disregarded. As an assessment of listening comprehension skill development, collections of 13 sample listening questions on the TOEIC Test New Official Preparation Book (2008) was adopted for pre- and post-tests. There was a concern about the test–retest method (the influence that would appear in the post-test because the same test as the pre-test was used), but it was compromised because approximately one month elapsed between the pre-test and post-test and learners were given no explanation about the test content after the pre-test. PROCEDURE

Twice a week for a month (eight times in total), the participants were given shadowing-based lessons. As shown in Table 3.3, the pre-shadowing group practiced shadowing before they learned target vocabulary and content and the Table 3.3 Lesson procedures for the two groups Step

Pre-shadowing

1 2

Both groups Listen to the passage

Shadowing practice

(Skip)

3

Vocabulary activities

4

Comprehension of the passage

5

Post-shadowing

(Skip)

Source: Hamada, 2014a.

Shadowing practice

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Towards more effective shadowing 67 post-shadowing group practiced shadowing after they did so. Other than that, the two groups followed exactly the same procedure. Regarding the procedure for shadowing, the participants followed the basic procedure provided in 2.1. For vocabulary learning, a modified version of a vocabulary learning activity introduced by Kasahara (2010, in Aizawa and Mochizuki) was used. In this activity, participants first checked the meaning and pronunciation of target words with the instructor. Then, they worked on memorizing the target English words with their Japanese translation individually for a limited time. Afterwards, they paired up; one partner read aloud the Japanese translation and the other answered in English relying on their memory as spontaneously as possible. Then, the partners changed roles. After both pairs finished, they were given another minute to review, and again they were engaged in this activity.

Analysis After the training session, a t-test was conducted to each group to measure the improvement of the students’ listening comprehension skills respectively.

Results The mean score of the pre-shadowing group increased by 0.53 from 6.38 to 6.91, while that of the post-shadowing group increased by 0.83 from 6.33 to 7.17. Seen in the scatterplot (Figure 3.8), the progress of each learner in the preshadowing group varies to a great extent as the weak correlation (r=.21) also shows. The total mean score of the group improved in the post-test but we see several participants’ scores declined in the post-test or at least remained the same. The post-shadowing group seemed to show a steady improvement (Figure 3.9). The correlation was not strong (r=.45) probably because those who scored higher at the pre-test show a ceiling effect. In fact, a mild linear line is observed in the left side of the plot (i.e., those who scored lower at the pre-test). As discussed in 2.4.3, shadowing benefits relatively lower level proficiency listeners, and a similar tendency was observed in this result as well. The results of the t-tests show that only the post-shadowing group improved with statistically significant differences [t (23) = 2.17, p < .05, d=.41]; the preshadowing group did not [t (31) =. 1.26, p > .05, d=.22]. No drastic improvement was observed in either group, but judging from the effect size (medium for the post-shadowing group, small for the pre-shadowing group) and the t-test results, post-shadowing was effective in improving the listening comprehension skills within a month of study participation.

Discussion The post-shadowing group alone improved their listening comprehension skills with statistically significant differences with a medium effect size. Observational

68 Towards more effective shadowing

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Towards more effective shadowing 69 analysis reveals three possible theoretical interpretations that may account for this result. The first interpretation comes from learners’ attention and anxiety during the training. The theoretical disadvantage of post-shadowing, that they would spare their cognitive resource for both content and sounds, may have turned out to be an advantage. In post-shadowing, the participants had already learned the target content. Despite the assumption, the participants in the post-shadowing group may have sufficiently attended to processing the phonological information because they had already studied the new vocabulary and content. If they had not learned the content, they may have tried to understand the content while shadowing. Additionally, the post-shadowing practice had an advantage of easing the stress and anxiety that may have occurred when shadowing a passage that includes unknown words. In fact, participants who practiced shadowing before learning the target vocabulary and content of the materials in another study (Matsui, 2011, cited in Kadota, 2012) revealed that shadowing unknown English words is difficult and shadowing before learning the content makes learners anxious, with the feedback “shadowing unknown English words is difficult. I felt anxious about shadowing before understanding the content” (p. 199). Generally speaking, the degree of anxiety and the ability to learn are negatively correlated (Clément et al., 1994), so shadowing unknown words or words whose meanings they have not studied may trigger anxiety which can hinder learners’ performance. According to the aforementioned theory (Kadota, 2012), learners can direct their attention to phonological information when using unlearned materials. In this experiment, this theoretical advantage may have ended up being a disadvantage. In the pre-shadowing group, the target passage included new words the participants had not encountered before, which may prevent the learners from paying attention only to the phonological aspects, wondering what the words were. Learners’ anecdotal comments often reveal that when they encounter unknown or unfamiliar words, they sometimes get distracted and go off track. Second, there may be some influence of difficulty of the target passages on their results. Probably, for the pre-shadowing group, in addition to the disadvantage of shadowing new materials that they have just been given, it is understandable that the fairly difficult target passages for this experiment gave an extra burden to the pre-shadowing group. Indeed, if easier passages had been used, it might have helped the participants to focus merely on the phonological aspect, but normally teachers select fairly difficult ESL/EFL textbooks (i.e., i+1 level). The difficulty of the passage used in this experiment might have made pre-shadowing more complex, but it was unavoidable. As Kadota and Tamai (2004) suggest, learners ideally already know approximately 95 percent of the vocabulary in the target content when shadowing. Therefore, this result indicates that new words and expressions should be covered before shadowing training. Third, the activation of previously learned items before the shadowing practice (i.e., schema) may also account for the improvement of the post-shadowing group. This is known as the priming effect, “the phenomenon in which prior exposure to language somehow influences subsequent language processing, which may occur

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70 Towards more effective shadowing in the form of recognition or production” (McDonough and Trofimovich, 2009, p. 1). In each lesson, they learned the target content before shadowing practice, which may have subconsciously activated learners’ semantic and phonological information contained in the target content. The subconscious activation of knowledge of the target passage may have helped the participants in the postshadowing group help shadow smoothly. If we try to apply this process to the priming effect, we can say that the prime stimulation (i.e., the target expressions and content they learned) might enhance the target stimulation (i.e., the target expressions and content they shadowed), leading to students’ improvement in shadowing, and ultimately listening. Recent research has started to examine the relationship between the priming effect and shadowing (Nakayama and Armstrong, 2011), but little data have been accumulated, so more research is expected.

Limitations Two issues that limit interpretation of the results need to be pointed out. First, the participants’ level is intermediate, so a similar outcome will be found in the case of basic level learners. However, an experiment with more advanced learners may produce a different result because it is assumed that the cognitive load of pre-shadowing may not be heavier, compared to the intermediate or basic level learners. Second, it has always been our challenge when conducting classroombased experiments that we are at a disadvantage in setting multiple contrast groups. This matter limits the interpretation of the results, so more replication studies are hoped for.

Summary This experiment suggests that in the case of intermediate level listeners, learning content before shadowing practice helps their listening comprehension skills improve. When they first learn the target materials, they can work on shadowing while feeling less anxious and experiencing less cognitive burden. As has been argued, shadowing is already a cognitively complicated (Kurata, 2007) and demanding task, so reducing the stress is one of the keys in using it in the classroom. Post-shadowing, when used by intermediate learners or maybe basic level learners, may reduce learners’ psychological burden and lower their affective filter (Krashen, 1985).

3.4 Classroom experiment 5: shadowing and smartphones Background I have to admit that when I use shadowing in the classroom I have noticed that learners eventually start to feel intimidated and even bored, especially around

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Towards more effective shadowing 71 day 4 and 5. Though shadowing itself is cognitively demanding, the act of shadowing seems rather simple because it is essentially repeating simultaneously what is heard and can therefore be boring. And, unlike vocabulary learning or other listening activities, we cannot see how well we shadow each time (i.e., performance level). While discussing this problem with a fellow researcher, he mentioned that he was conducting an experiment wherein his participants monitored their shadowing performance with an IC-recorder. It was a striking and timely idea and after reading his results (Nakayama and Suzuki, 2012) I was inspired to conduct the research described below.

Related studies Despite shadowing being recognized as a conventional tool for improving listening skills, one of its main challenges, in terms of language acquisition, is that the monitoring of shadowing performance is difficult because of its on-line nature. When shadowing, learners concentrate most of their attention on perceiving what they hear and vocalizing it as immediately as possible; thus there is little room for them to monitor their performance simultaneously. Simply put, as Tanaka (2004) holds, self-monitoring while shadowing is hindered because learners’ attention is absorbed in shadowing. Almost 35 years ago, Krashen (1982) developed the Monitor Theory, which outlines the great importance of monitoring as a way of linking acquisition and learning. The theory contends that while acquisition occurs subconsciously, learning is a conscious effort and therefore can be used to monitor the acquired system. Though the Monitor Theory has been sometimes criticized, it still holds the truth of the basic theoretical importance of monitoring. The importance of monitoring, specially monitoring strategy belonging to the category of metacognitive strategies, has been discussed in recent years in the field of learning strategies. With metacognitive strategies, learners manage crucial cognitive aspects of language learning (Oxford, 2011). Monitoring strategy influences the subsequent learning, and in essence, there are two distinctive types of self-monitoring: (1) noticing errors one makes while performing and (2) correcting errors the moment they are noticed (Chamot and Kupper, 1989). During shadowing, both types of monitoring are impaired. When we try to make up for the limitation of shadowing in the classroom regarding monitoring, there are two choices: self-monitoring using an IC recorder (an audio-recording device) and pair-monitoring (Nakayama and Suzuki, 2012). If we compare the two, both have advantages. In self-recorded (IC) shadowing, learners would feel less anxious than when monitored by a partner and they can simply focus on self-study (Nakayama and Suzuki, 2012; Ogiwara, 2007). Another strength is that learners can play back their recorded-audio several times, while in pair-monitoring, learners cannot do so (Nakayama and Suzuki, 2012). Taken together, more accurate noticing of errors is likely to occur in self-monitoring than in pair-monitoring shadowing.

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72 Towards more effective shadowing Pair-monitoring also has potential advantages. Because pairs monitor each other’s performance, effective collaboration potentially emerges when learners have questions (e.g., regarding pronunciation of some words) or when one finds a problem the other does not notice (e.g., mispronunciation and wrong pauses). So, learners in a pair-monitoring situation can consider each other’s errors (Edge, 1989), which fosters better noticing. It is worth pointing out, however, that participants in pair-monitoring should be proficient enough to monitor each other’s performance accurately and precisely (Nakayama and Suzuki, 2012; Sakoda, 2010). Learners who worked on pair-monitored shadowing were reported not to outperform their counterparts, those who worked on self-monitoring (Nakayama and Suzuki, 2012) or those who received instructor feedback (Sakoda, Furumoto, Nakagami, Sakamoto, and Goto, 2009). The participants’ low proficiency level was assumed to prevent them from checking details, and interfered with their noticing (Sakoda et al., 2009). We can conclude, therefore, that a certain listening proficiency threshold may be required to benefit from pair-monitored shadowing. The study that is to be introduced in this section was a follow-up of Nakayama and Suzuki (2012). Nakayama and Suzuki compared the effectiveness of selfmonitoring and pair-monitoring on learners’ reproduction rate. A total of 35 Japanese university students participated in the study. They consisted of three balanced groups in terms of numbers (11–12 students each) and English proficiency (judging from the official TOEIC practice listening test they had taken). Participants in the self-monitoring group shadowed and recorded themselves on an IC recorder; then they checked their performance using a written script. Participants in the pair-monitoring group checked each other’s performance using a written script. Participants in the control group shadowed and checked their performance, relying on their recall, using a written script. Each group repeated the shadowing activity three times. The results indicated that the self-monitoring group outperformed the pair-monitoring and control groups in reproduction rate. This result suggests that self-monitoring serves an alternative role to on-line monitoring in shadowing. For the sake of classroom implication, we would like to see how self-monitoring in shadowing contributes to learners’ phoneme perception improvement and general listening comprehension skill improvement over an extended period.

Research questions The purpose of this experiment was to investigate effective uses of shadowing in classroom by assessing the effectiveness of self-monitoring and pair-monitoring approaches to shadowing. The research questions are twofold: whether self-monitoring and pair-monitoring improve learners’ phoneme perception and general listening skills. As a sub-question that aims to add support to the finding in 2.1, the second research question is whether learners’ improvements in phoneme perception and listening skills differ according to their initial listening proficiency.

Towards more effective shadowing 73

Methods

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PARTICIPANTS

A total of 61 Japanese national university sophomores (25 males, 36 females) participated in the experiment. They consisted of a pair-monitoring group of 30 health science majors (2 males, 28 females), and a self-monitoring group of 31 engineering majors (23 males, 8 females). Because this study aimed to apply theory into practice in classrooms, the participants constituted a representative sample of Japanese university sophomores at intermediate-level; the results of their listening pre-test shows that the mean score was 10.59 out of 22.00, which is neither high nor low. The health science group was selected as pair-monitoring group and the engineering group was a self-monitoring group. Each group was further divided into two listening-proficiency subgroups (higher and lower) to compare between the subgroups. Conventionally, the participants are called either higher or lower, but it does not mean the “higher” participants are high proficient learners in a general sense. As for the “lower” participants, it should be safe to call them lower judging from their initial listening score. MATERIALS

An audio-book version of a famous novel, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (Twain, 1876/2008), was selected for shadowing training. The edition was drawn from a series of graded readers (Oxford’s Bookworms Library collection). Among seven levels, it was the second-lowest of 400 headwords. The first chapter and the beginning of the second chapter were used in this experiment. The number of words in each passage ranged from 159 to 184 and WPM (the average number of words spoken per minute) was 85.9. Flesch Reading Ease (the closer the number to 100, the easier it is) was more than 90 for all passages. The vocabulary mostly belongs to the K1000 and K2000 word lists. Therefore, the vocabulary levels in the texts are considered easy and the used passage was expected to present few problems for comprehension, even on first reading. For the listening comprehension test, because questions needed to measure learners’ listening comprehension skills, the same test that would reflect the bottom-up process improvement expected as a result of shadowing training was used (the same 22-item multiple-type questions used in 2.4.2). To measure phoneme perception improvement, the same one as in 2.4.2 was also used. PROCEDURES

The participants took the two types of pre-test. Then, twice a week for a month (eight times in all), participants practiced shadowing-based lessons for the first 30 minutes of class, using the basic procedure (2.1). In brief, both groups started with listening to the target passage, followed by mumbling twice, parallel reading, and individual comprehension check. Then, the self-monitoring group recorded

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their shadowing and checked themselves. The pair-monitoring group monitored in pairs and gave feedback. Then, they practiced shadowing twice and individually reviewed the content again, then worked on the self-monitoring or pairmonitoring again. Lastly, they filled out a self-reflection sheet. We see the differences of the procedure between the two groups in the monitoring stages. The self-monitoring group recorded their shadowing voices with an IC recorder, and reviewed their performance using a script and a pen, highlighting their errors. In contrast, in the pair-monitoring group, one partner monitored the other’s shadowing performance by using a script and a pen to highlight the errors, and the pair checked their monitored performance together. The post-tests were conducted after the four-week session.

Analysis Descriptive statistics and statistical analyses were used. For the statistical analysis, to compare the improvement of each group’s phoneme perception skills and listening comprehension skills, a mixed-design of two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was employed for each. Listening-proficiency (higher, lower) was the between-subjects factor, and test (time) was the within-subject factor. In 2.4.3, the 22-item listening comprehension questions were analyzed independently according to difficulty (high school level, university level), but in this experiment the 22 items were all analyzed because the participants’ listening proficiency was higher, considering they had already finished the first year English for Academic Purpose classes. Additionally, we would see the learners’ comments on reflection of the monitoring.

Results The results are shown in Table 3.4, and overall, both groups improved their phoneme perception skills. Lower-proficiency listeners in the self-monitoring group improved their listening comprehension skills, but those in the pair-monitoring group did not. Moreover, the higher-proficiency learners in neither group improved their listening comprehension skills. In the case of the pair-monitoring group, the mean score of the lowerproficiency subgroup on listening comprehension skills increased by 1.82, from 8.36 to 10.18, while that of the higher-proficiency subgroup increased only by 0.15, from 14.11 to 14.26 (Table 3.4, Figure 3.10). Interestingly, a relatively higher correlation (r = .67) than the previously conducted studies was observed, which in turn implies few improvement differences between the higher and lower listeners. If the training was sufficiently effective, the degree of the lowerproficiency listeners and that of higher-proficiency listeners would differ, so the correlation would not become high. The two-way ANOVA in Table 3.5 revealed a significant effect of proficiency [F (1, 28) = 42.09, p < .01, ␩p2 = .60], but no significant effects of time [F (1, 28) = 3.73, p = .06, ␩p2 = .12], or proficiency ⫻ time interaction [F (1, 28) = 2.63, p = .12, ␩p2 = .09]. Simply put, the pair-

Towards more effective shadowing 75 Table 3.4 Listening test scores for the self-monitoring and pair-monitoring groups

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Skill

Group (N)

PreMean

SD

PostMean

SD

Improvement

Listening Pair- (11) Pair- (19) Self- (21) Self- (10)

8.36 14.11 7.24 13.4

1.67 2.15 1.92 2.62

10.18 14.26 9.95 13.6

1.95 2.95 2.10 2.97

1.82 0.16 2.71 0.20

Phoneme Pair- (11) perception Pair- (19) Self- (21) Self- (10)

9.55

3.03

12.36

1.87

2.82

12.05 7.29 10.1

3.00 3.24 3.53

14.58 9.52 12.4

2.48 2.87 3.38

2.53 2.24 2.30

Source: Hamada, 2015a.

Table 3.5 Listening test ANOVA results Factor

Time Proficiency Interaction

Group Pair-monitoring

Self-monitoring

F(1, 28) = 3.73, p = .06, ␩p2 = .12 F(1, 28) = 42.09, p < .01, ␩p2 = .60 F (1, 28) = 2.63, p = .12, ␩p2 = .09

F (1, 29) = 6.96, p = .01, ␩p2 = .19 F(1, 29) = 45.53, p < .01, ␩p2 = .61 F (1, 29) = 5.18, p = .03, ␩p2 = .15

Note. ␩p2= partial eta squared, one indicator of effect size. Source: Hamada, 2015a.

Table 3.6 Phoneme perception test’s results of ANOVA Factor

Time Proficiency Interaction

Group Pair-monitoring

Self-monitoring

F(1, 28) = 22.25, p < .01, ␩p2= .44 F(1, 28) = 7.21, p = .01, ␩p2 = .21 F (1, 28) = 0.07, p = .80, ␩p2 = .002

F(1, 29) = 25.95, p < .01, ␩p2 = .48 F(1, 29) = 5.73, p = .02, ␩p2 = .047 F(1, 28) = 0.005, p = .95, ␩p2 = .000

Note. ␩p2 = partial eta squared, one indicator of effect size. Source: Hamada, 2015a.

monitoring group had no statistically significant improvement in their listening comprehension skills. As for phoneme perception, the mean score of the lower listening-proficiency subgroup increased by 2.81 from 9.55 to 12.36, and that of the higher listeningproficiency subgroup also increased by 2.53, from 12.05 to 14.58 (Table 3.4, Figure 3.11). The pre- and post-tests correlate at 0.52. The two-way ANOVA in Table 3.6 revealed a significant effect of proficiency [F (1, 28) = 7.21, p = .01, ␩p2= .21] and time [F (1, 28) = 22.25, p < .01, ␩p2 = .44], but no significant effect

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Pre Figure 3.13 Pre-post phoneme perception test scores of the self-monitoring group.

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of proficiency ⫻ time interaction (F [1, 28] = 0.07, p = .80, ␩p2 = .002). These results indicate that the pair-monitoring group improved their phoneme perception process regardless of their proficiency levels. In the case of the self-monitoring group, the mean score of the lower listeningproficiency subgroup on listening comprehension skills increased by 2.71, from 7.24 to 9.95, and that of the higher listening-proficiency subgroup increased by 0.20, from 13.40 to 13.60 (Table 3.4, Figure 3.12). Unlike the case of the pairmonitoring group, the scatterplot (Figure 3.12) does not show a linear line and the left part of the graph is rather scattered. This again echoes the discussion in 2.4.3 and some of the participants who scored low at the pre-test exhibit noticeable improvement. The pre- and post-tests correlate at 0.60.The two-way ANOVA revealed a significant effect of proficiency ⫻ time interaction [F (1, 29) = 5.18, p = .03, ␩p2 = .15]. The simple main effect of time for the lower listeningproficiency subgroup revealed a statistically significant difference [F (1, 29) = 18.70, p < .01), but that for the higher group did not [F (1, 29) = .20, p = .83]. The simple main effect of listening-proficiency showed a statistically significant difference for both the pretest [F (1, 29) = 51.02, p < .01] and the post-test [F (1, 29) = 14.40, p = .001]. These results indicate that only the lower-proficiency subgroup improved their listening comprehension skills. The mean score on phoneme perception for the lower-proficiency subgroup increased by 2.23, from 7.29 to 9.52, and that of the higher-proficiency subgroup increased by 2.30, from 10.10 to 12.40 (Table 3.4, Figure 3.13). The pre- and post-tests correlate at 0.80.The two-way ANOVA revealed a statistically significant effect of time [F (1, 29) = 25.95, p < .01, ␩p2 = .48) and proficiency [F (1, 29) = 5.73, p = .02, ␩p2 = .047], but no significant effect of time x proficiency interaction [F (1, 28) = 0.005, p = .95, ␩p2 = .000]. From these results, we can see that both proficiency groups improved their phoneme perception skills (Table 3.4).

Discussion The phoneme perception of both pair-monitoring and self-monitoring groups improved, which confirms the established perceptual benefits of shadowing. However, the improvement of listening comprehension skills was limited to the lower-proficiency listeners in the self-monitoring group. We will approach these results from two perspectives, precision of monitoring and noticing and attention. The theoretical advantages of self-monitoring shadowing also appear to be greater in practice, in that precise monitoring was possible. For precision of selfmonitoring, two salient factors in language learning, noticing and attention (Schmidt, 1990, 1993) may effectively occur. In self-monitoring, as mentioned in Nakayama and Suzuki (2012), learners are given the chance to check every part of their performance, playing back the recorded self-performance when necessary. This was considered to reinforce noticing and attention. In fact, they seemed to monitor detailed and even minor phonological aspects. Analyzing the participants’ reflective comments on their monitoring, we can identify a number of functions words that caused listening-related problems (i.e., they could not

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Towards more effective shadowing 79 recognize them, so they could not shadow). The most problematic parts of speech were prepositions and, to a lesser extent, less stressed words. They also managed to reflect on why their shadowing training sometimes failed, “the beginning and the end of a sentence is difficult,” and “longer sentences are difficult.” In pair-monitoring, learners had to rely on their partner’s monitoring and could not actually check their “raw” performance, so the number of reflective comments was not large and their monitoring seemed rather rough. For example, they claim that they could not shadow because the text was read quickly. Also, their analysis leaned toward the metacognitive, such as “when I stumble once, it is hard to continue.” Thus, their level of monitoring was not high in terms of accuracy. Taken together, self-monitoring may help the learners prepare for subsequent shadowing, which helped learners attend to phonology while shadowing more consciously before; the enhanced noticing and attention thanks to the precise selfanalysis may shift the process from unconscious to conscious. Additionally, in consideration of Krashen’s Monitor Theory, the three criteria that are considered necessary, time, focus on form, and knowing the rules are met for the self-monitoring group. They know the rules found in the target material, because it was an easy textbook designed for extensive reading. The selfmonitoring group was given sufficient opportunities to monitor their individual performance, so they could direct their focus on form as well. In summary so far, more precise self-monitoring could contribute to reinforcing the bottom-up process of listening, phoneme perception and then word recognition. Precise monitoring and careful attention may lead to more noticing. Notwithstanding this, improvement in listening comprehension skills was limited to the lower-proficiency listeners in the self-monitoring group. This is understandable because shadowing is more effective for lower-proficiency listeners as examined in 2.4.3. With this theory in mind, we can interpret the results of this experiment as follows: (1) accurate and precise monitoring occurred among the self-monitoring group, activating noticing and enhancing attention, which probably strengthened these learners’ bottom-up listening skills; and (2) because shadowing benefits low-proficiency listeners, the lower-proficiency listeners in the self-monitoring group only improved their listening comprehension skills. Similar improvements in listening comprehension were not seen with the pair-monitoring group, possibly due to the difficulty lower-proficiency listeners experience in the monitoring task (Nakayama and Suzuki, 2012; Sakoda, 2010).

Limitation Before concluding this study, three limitations require attention. First, incorporating a control group would have increased the reliability of the outcome. Another consideration is the imbalanced nature of the two groups and the small sample size, but this issue is often inevitable in this type of classroombased study, so replications of the present study are hoped for. Finally, stricter assessment by means of the TOEIC or TOEFL would always make the findings more reliable.

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Summary We have seen that the use of a recording device to monitor shadowing performance is an effective strategy that compensates for the deficit of shadowing on the one hand and raises attention and may stimulate active, conscious learning on the other hand. This may contribute to a cycle of monitoring–noticing–attention– better monitoring, enhancing the bottom-up listening process by strengthening the quality of phoneme perception and word recognition skills. Further, shadowing basically improves lower-proficiency listeners, which may explain why only lower-proficiency listeners improved in the present study.

3.5 Summary of Chapter 3 In Chapter 3, we have reviewed related case studies under the principle of exploring more useful and effective ways to use shadowing in actual classroom settings. First we approached this topic in the light of Materials (3.1, 3.2), then orders of learning (3.3), and technology use (3.4). Regarding materials, we saw that difficult materials can still assist learners’ listening improvement despite the commonly shared notion that easy materials are better for shadowing practice. Partly adding support to it, studying the target materials before practicing shadowing is advisable, because in normal classroom settings, teachers often need to choose textbooks that are slightly higher than the learners’ current level; so if learners learn the content first and practice shadowing afterwards as a review activity, they can focus on shadowing, not worrying about unknown words or its content very much. Finally, how we can deal with the crucial limitation of shadowing (learners cannot monitor their performance when shadowing because of its’ on-line/real-time nature) was discussed and the suggested solution was the use of a simple technology, a recording device in an iPhone or smartphone to record and check shadowing performance on their own.

Notes Sections 3.1, 3.2, 3.3 and 3.4 are based on Hamada (2011a), Hamada (2012a), Hamada (2014a), and Hamada (2015a) respectively, modified and edited for this book. The original versions of Hamada (2011a) first appeared in The Journal of Asia TEFL, 8 (1). The original versions of Hamada (2012a) and Hamada (2014a) first appeared in The Language Teacher, 36(1) and 38 (1) published by the Japan Association for Language Teaching. The original versions of Hamada (2015a) first appeared in The Asian EFL Journal Professional Teaching Articles, 81.

Keywords for Chapter 3 Difficulty of materials, pair-monitoring, post-shadowing, pre-shadowing, selfmonitoring

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4

Shadowing in and out of the classroom

In Chapter 4, we will answer the questions: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

What are the five frames for active listening? How do learners perceive shadowing? How can we sustain the cognitive load of shadowing? What are motivational strategies? How can we use shadowing as a motivational strategy? How can we prevent demotivation? What is autonomous language learning? How can shadowing contribute to autonomous language learning?

The previous three chapters have provided a theoretical and empirical analysis of the mechanism of shadowing and its effectiveness on listening skill improvement; this chapter will approach shadowing especially in terms of learner psychology. The first half of Chapter 4 will discuss the topic by introducing empirical case studies. The second half will review and synthesize the data presented in the previous three chapters, to approach shadowing from the perspectives of motivational strategies and autonomous language learning. Classrooms consist of a wide variety of learners who possess different kinds of intelligence. According to Gardner’s (1991) theory of multiple intelligences, each learner learns, remembers, performs, and understands in different ways. In principle, the set of recommended shadowing procedure (2.1) works in most situations, and the results of several case studies empirically support the theoretical underpinnings of shadowing. However, the “one-size-fits-all” approach to education is problematic. Statistical data show the observed improvement was not due to chance alone, but this does not mean that shadowing training is guaranteed to improve learning. Therefore, to develop shadowing as a more down-to-earth technique, we will shed light on its psychological aspects. We will first review frameworks for active listening provided by Rost and Wilson (2013) and discuss how shadowing in classroom fits those frames. Then we will look into how learners perceive shadowing and how its psychological burden can

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be reduced, by reviewing case studies. Based on the discussion, we will approach shadowing from slightly different perspectives, motivation and demotivation, to bridge between shadowing and research on motivation. Lastly, we will consider the role shadowing beyond the classroom can play in the area of autonomous language learning.

4.1 Five frames for active listening In Chapter 1, the five frames for active listening (Rost and Wilson, 2013) were mentioned but only the bottom-up frame was focused on in order to explain the mechanism of shadowing. In Chapter 4, we will first mention all of the five frames in order to set the context for the realistic classroom use of shadowing. Active listening is a concept that guides practitioners to identify key principles in research in listening and applying these principles in a methodical way. It refers to a “broader range of cognitive and emotional activity that could be described as ‘engaged processing’” (Rost and Wilson, 2013, p. 1). Table 4.1 shows the role of each frame and how shadowing is related to it. As discussed in Chapter 1 and 2, the bottom-up frame deals with learners’ perceptual processes. Because the top-down feature involves inferential processes such as the attention in comprehension and employment of background knowledge, shadowing does not directly pertain to the top-down frame. Similarly, shadowing does not involve interactive frameworks in nature because the framework covers interaction, communication, and output. On the contrary, due to the nature of shadowing as a cognitively heavy task, learners’ motivational processes play a crucial role, which is also the primary feature of the affective frame; so examining learner psychology in shadowing will be beneficial. Additionally, though shadowing training in the classroom yields a minimal outcome, practicing shadowing outside the classroom will exert positive influences on their listening skill improvement; so the autonomous frame that insists on the necessity of supplemental learning opportunities and integrating technologies will be discussed. We will focus on the affective frame and the autonomous frame in Chapter 4.

Table 4.1 The relationships between shadowing and active listening frames Frame

Focus

Shadowing

Affective

Motivational processes

Learner psychology

Top-down

Inferential processes

Bottom-up

Perceptual processes

Interactive

Interpersonal processes

Autonomous

Strategic processes

Mechanism

Self-study

Shadowing in and out of the classroom 83

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4.2 Affective frame First, let us look into the concept of affective frame, which addresses issues related to motivation and personal engagement. Five topics are introduced in this framework in Rost and Wilson (2013): the impact of motivation; the importance of the instructor; the value of goal orientation; the effect of learner awareness; and the power of learning styles. In this section, we will focus on three among the five and briefly review how they are related to shadowing-based lessons.

a) the impact of motivation Strong motivation compensates for weaknesses, maintains learners’ attention and focus, and defuses anxiety. In shadowing as well, high motivation is necessary since shadowing is a tough task, requiring mental stamina. Prior to discussing the relationship between shadowing and motivation, we will examine the psychological impact that shadowing gives to students.

b) the importance of the instructor Instructors’ course-specific decisions (e.g., materials, teaching methods, tasks) and teacher-specific performance (e.g., enthusiasm, feedback, building relationships with class) are the two important factors. Instructors are like a manager of a sports team. A manager needs to learn how to help each player and make an effective training menu, as well as giving appropriate advice at the right moment and building a rapport with each player. Instructors’ roles were discussed early in this book especially in Parts II and III in terms of how to use shadowing and choose materials. For example, though shadowing basically works with any type of material, the choice of different difficulties of materials yields better outcome (3.2); and the use of audio-recorders to monitor their performance also helps learners improve (3.4). In addition to these, in Chapter 4, we will approach the instructor’s role in learners’ psychological aspects. Dörnyei (2001) has provided a number of practical tips for stimulating learners’ motivation, namely, motivational strategies. We will consider how applicable motivational strategies are in conducting shadowing training. Additionally, we will also try to use the idea of motivational strategies to prevent their demotivation.

c) the effect of learner awareness Bicultural identity and self-awareness (and meta-cognition) can develop a successoriented attitude. The effect of learner awareness was noted in 3.4, in that use of an audio-recorder to monitor their performance also helps learners improve. In addition to this technical perspective, metacognitive strategy use in shadowing training is to be introduced (4.4.4).

84 Shadowing in and out of the classroom

4.3 Learners’ psychology in shadowing 4.3.1 General impression of shadowing

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Background Have you tried shadowing in your second/foreign language? My EFL lessons begin with shadowing in every semester, and I also practice shadowing together with my students. One thing I always feel is that it is so much easier to give an order, “ok, let’s shadow,” but it is quite intimidating to continuously practice shadowing with them in a second/foreign language! Simply, it is easier said than done. Then I simply came to wonder how my learners were feeling when they were shadowing. Even the most effective technique may not work if learners do not like it, so I started genuinely being interested in this question.

Purpose of the study To investigate the relationship between shadowing training and learners’ psychological aspects, Hamada (2011b) examined how learners perceive shadowing and explored its learning costs. “Cost” refers to the psychological or physical burden of a certain task or how much effort one needs to exert for the task (Shioya, 1995). The research questions are twofold: how do learners perceive shadowing? And how heavy or light are the costs of shadowing?

Methods PARTICIPANTS

Thirty-two (13 male, 19 female) Japanese national university freshmen participated in this experiment. They were taking a General English course and most of them majored in education or nursing, and a few were majoring in English. The participants’ English proficiency level was intermediate. MATERIALS

A textbook edited for shadowing training, English shadowing (Tamai, 2004), was chosen as the material. This textbook contains a collection of authentic interviews of Hollywood stars, which would stimulate and motivate the students. For assessment of listening comprehension skill improvement, 15 items from the 2005 Eiken 2nd grade test (Obunsha, 2006) was used for pre-and post-tests (June version for the pre-test, October version for the post-test). The participants listened to a conversation for approximately 20–25 seconds and chose their answer among four choices.

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To measure the costs of shadowing practice, the ten items, which were originally created by Shioya (1995) to measure costs of English learning, were modified and used with a 1 to 6 point Likert-Scale. This questionnaire was given in Japanese; here it is translated into English: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

I am easily distracted when shadowing. Continuing shadowing is hard. Practicing shadowing is a pain in the neck. I cannot motivate myself to practice shadowing easily. I cannot start working on shadowing easily. Shadowing is not that bad. Shadowing is not painful. I can start shadowing easily. I can work on shadowing easily. I can concentrate on shadowing easily.

Additionally, an open-ended questionnaire was given to ask what made their costs high or low. To explore how learners perceive shadowing, more precisely, the impressions and images of shadowing, the Semantic Differential method was used. The author created a 26-item questionnaire, choosing from the list of the 68 most frequently used adjective pairs; 24 adjective pairs in Japanese were chosen from a list made in Inoue and Kobayashi (1985), and two items (cool and useful) relevant to shadowing were added. During development, the 26-item questionnaire was checked by two Japanese university teachers of English and a graduate school student who had worked in junior and senior high school for five years to determine whether it contained incomprehensible words or other problematic words. To obtain reliable data, the questionnaire was written in the participants’ first language, Japanese. PROCEDURE

Prior to the training, the pre-test for listening comprehension skills was conducted and eight shadowing-based lessons (the first 25 minutes in a 90 minute lesson with the basic procedure) were given to the participants. After the training, the ten-item questionnaire to measure costs was distributed and the post-test for listening comprehension skills was conducted. Although the purpose of this study was not to examine whether learners improve their listening comprehension skills, their listening comprehension skill improvement was assessed to confirm the reliability of the shadowing procedure used in this research.

Analysis To assess listening comprehension skill improvement, a paired sample t-test was conducted. To measure the relationship between listening comprehension skill improvement and costs, descriptive statistics were calculated. To explore how

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participants perceive shadowing, an exploratory factor analysis with promax rotation was conducted.

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Results The mean score of learners’ costs for shadowing was 3.91 out of 6 (SD = 1.96). The learners’ pre-listening test score was 7.81 (SD = 2.18) and 9.94 (SD = 1.98) for the post-test. The paired-sample t-test to assess the improvement of listening comprehension skills showed a significant difference [t (31) = 5.71, p

Date

Time (total)

Material

Comments

April 10th

From 10:45–11:00 (15)

VOA special

So difficult!

April 12th

From 15:30–15:50 (20)

CNN online

Better than last time

An example of a worksheet

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EXTENSIVE SHADOWING

Associated with extensive reading or extensive listening, extensive shadowing will definitely exert a great influence on improving learners’ bottom-up listening skills. In this case, use of low-level extensive reading materials (with CDs) is recommended. In class, the learning content contains challenging items and learners should study them before shadowing training. Outside class, using materials that they understand at a first glance is recommended. Their shadowing performance level will increase compared to when shadowing difficult materials. DAILY NEWS SHADOWING

VOA special English kindly offers daily English news programs for non-native speakers of English. Unlike the English or materials used in class, learners can be exposed to “real” English and also acquire world knowledge. The official website is http://learningenglish.voanews.com/. There is an unofficial website that provides script and its audio file is http://gandalf.ddo.jp/. (Though this is a Japanese website, the language would not be an issue.) An interesting idea is that one can shadow a broadcaster and record his/her casting to listen to it afterword. Actually, this is one of my favorite exercises and I even now enjoy doing this sometimes. Since I watch CNN on TV, I try to shadow my favorite anchor. It is quite challenging but after trying this, I feel a sense of accomplishment and the phoneme perception process is brushed up. 2

Connecting to social contexts

Autonomous learning not only provides more opportunities to be exposed to English but connects to social contexts outside the classroom. Although the idea of service learning (engaging students in service to their schools and communities for receiving to authentic exposure) may be possible in ESL contexts, it is difficult to find such environment in EFL contexts. 3

Integrating new technologies

New technologies have provided increasing opportunities to learners for autonomous listening. Nowadays, authentic materials have become rapidly accessible to learners compared to before. Supplementary on-line-based listening instruction contributes to learners’ listening skills and attitudes toward on-line language learning. To compensate for the disadvantage of EFL learners above, taking advantage of the advanced technology is of great help.

Practical ideas USE OF SMARTPHONES

As introduced in 3.4, use of an IC-recorder to record shadowing performance is recommended. Now that smartphones are prevalent, learners can download free voice-memo (or recording) applications and use them.

Shadowing in and out of the classroom 111 KARAOKE SHADOWING

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Though the name shadowing may sound new, this is what everybody has basically done. When we hear a new song and like it, we normally start humming and even try to sing the song, copying the lyrics with our ears. This is indeed shadowing, in that we actually listen to the lyrics and vocalize the song as accurately as possible. Audio-recording our song with an IC-recorder or iPhone would surely work. AUDACITY

For more technical use, audacity (http://sourceforge.net/projects/audacity/) is a handy and useful software application in terms of data editing, controlling speed, and cut and paste data. YOUTUBE

When we go to YouTube and type in shadowing, we can see several hits. However, because some of them do not meet the criteria of shadowing, the checklists are noted below • • •

repeating and shadowing are different; a script of the target audio is needed; the target needs to be within reach of your level.

DVD SHADOWING

Shadowing the English used in movies requires a high level of English proficiency skills, so this may not be quite appropriate for a majority of EFL learners, but is introduced. When shadowing a movie, the following three are the minimal necessities. • • •

a player with a function of showing on/off transcription; a dictionary; a favorite TV show or movie.

Choosing a favorite TV show is recommended. Because DVD shadowing is quite demanding, sustaining motivation by shadowing less attractive materials will be difficult. Also, the primary focus is to enhance the phoneme perceptions process, so comprehending each scene prior to shadowing is recommended as well. For beginner level learners who love family stories, Full House may be still attractive even in the twenty-first century, and for intermediate level learners, Friends may be appropriate. For those who are musical fans, High School Musical may be interesting. For medical students, ER may offer useful practice.

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SPEED SHADOWING

Making use of these technologies, learners can use speed shadowing especially for preparation for exams or right before examination. Simply, play an audio file at a faster speed (e.g., twice faster), and try shadowing. It is almost impossible to shadow the fast-read version perfectly, but after the exercise, speed at normal speed sounds slower and clearer, so this exercise is useful for exam-related cases. However, this exercise is more suitable for intermediate or advanced learners than beginners. 4

Developing instructor support in autonomous learning

The language advising in this sense extends beyond recommending appropriate learning resources even to counseling learners by planning for outside class learning. For some learners, recommending resources is insufficient and the counseling may be effective because shadowing requires heavier cognitive loads than other learning tasks, and shadowing itself is simple inevitably; so chances are that without instructors’ support, learners especially not highly motivated learners, will give up sooner or later. A PRACTICAL IDEA

Simple and traditional, but feedback in diary form still helps learners. For example, teachers can set a rule that learners submit a self-reflection sheet every two days with free comments, and instructors write feedback. Unlike fun activities, shadowing is not very exciting, just like push-ups and sit-ups in exercises, so even these small aids from a teacher will be encouraging and helpful.

Date

Time (total)

Material

Free comments

April 10th

From 10:45–11:00 (15)

VOA special

It was difficult today. I cannot catch up with the speed. (a learner’s comment) For example? Which words were especially harder? (an instructor’s comment)

A sample worksheet

Shadowing in and out of the classroom 113

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5

Developing learning strategies

As its importance is recognized (Oxford, 2011; Vandergrift and Goh, 2012), good language learners adopt learning strategies effectively and they also help instructors understand the possible paths for learners toward autonomous language learning. Especially, teachers are learning how to develop learners’ self-management strategies (organizing and planning their learning, monitoring and managing, and evaluating the outcomes). Indeed, there has been an ironic fact that shadowing does help low-listening proficiency learners improve their listening skills within a short period of time, but it is unlikely to be sustained. Thus, self-management strategies are also requisite to shadowing. A PRACTICAL IDEA

In fact, shadowing is a type of learning strategy for listening skill improvement. As for self-management strategies in shadowing, a mini-portfolio may be of some help. As previously discussed, it is hard to “see” improvement in shadowing training, in addition to the demanding nature of the task. For the purpose of tracing what they did visually, keeping a record themselves each time may be an option.

4.6 Summary of Chapter 4 In Chapter 4, we have approached shadowing from the perspective of learners’ psychology for real classroom use of shadowing. After revealing learners’ perceptions of shadowing, we discussed the relationships between motivational strategies and shadowing, seeking for effective ways to use shadowing to motivate learners, by simultaneously preventing demotivation. Lastly, several ways of shadowing for autonomous language learning were presented. Research in shadowing and motivation would seem to suggest that listening skill improvement through shadowing should motivate learners, and teachers’ considerations with appropriate use of motivational strategies should further improve their listening skills, thus creating a virtuous cycle. Hopefully the learners will grow their autonomy and start studying outside the classroom.

Notes Experiments in Section 4.3 are based on Hamada (2011b) and Hamada (2011c), modified and edited for this book. The original versions of Hamada (2011b, 2011c) first appeared in Journal of the Japan Association for Developmental Education, 6 (1), and 6(2), respectively.

Keywords for Chapter 4 autonomous frame, costs of shadowing, impression of shadowing, motivation, motivational strategies

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5

Shadowing and teaching paradigm

Chapter 5 will consider: 1 2 3 4

shadowing shadowing shadowing shadowing

and a language curriculum; in a language course; in a lesson; and other related factors.

Chapter 5 sees shadowing in a broader picture. It begins with a discussion of the English curriculum, and then narrows the discussion down to language courses and language lessons. Finally, there is a discussion of other factors that may account for the popularity of shadowing in Japan.

5.1 Shadowing in a language curriculum For most language teachers, a language curriculum has been already established and there may not be room for a fundamental change, and establishing a curriculum with shadowing in its center is not realistic, considering that shadowing is not a systematic approach but an exercise. Also, at tertiary level education and at language schools, the curriculum is made based on the needs of each school, while in secondary education the curriculum is controlled by the government. Consequently, with regard to tertiary education, the impact of needs analysis can help determine the place for shadowing, and at the secondary level, the examples of shadowing in Japan may help instructors decide where shadowing belongs in an already-established curriculum.

5.1.1 Curriculum According to Brown (1995), the core of a curriculum is composed of five components; needs analysis, goals and objectives, testing, materials, and teaching. Based on the needs of the learners and other stakeholders, as well as other factors, the curriculum developer will set the goals and objectives of the course. Then the

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116 Shadowing and teaching paradigm tests that can measure whether the goals and objects are achieved and the materials that help to achieve the goals and objectives need to be developed. Here finally comes effective language teaching. Afterwards, the curriculum needs to be evaluated through program evaluation, bearing in mind that this is a cyclical rather than a linear process. In needs analysis, there are five categories that teachers should take into consideration; problems, priorities, abilities, attitudes, and solutions (Brown, 1995). If needs analysis determines a need for listening skill improvement, shadowing use can be considered for inclusion in the curriculum. To do this teachers need to consider what changes can be made to make room for shadowing use. A useful criterion that can be considered here is whether the learners have a positive attitude to English, because learners’ initial attitudes make a great impact on the effectiveness of shadowing in classroom use.

5.1.2 Attitudes toward learning English and shadowing Related studies In order to validate Dörnyei’s (2009) L2 motivational self-system in Asian contexts, Taguchi, Magid, and Papi (2009) investigated the relationships between the ideal L2 self, attitudes toward learning English, and the criterion measures (learners’ intended efforts toward learning English, e.g., I think that I am doing my best to learn English). They made a questionnaire and distributed it to 5000 participants in Japan, China, and Iran. The questionnaire consists of ten categories and the number of items was 67 for the Japanese and Chinese version and 76 for the Iranian version. Overall, the results found from the Hungarian line of research, which Dörnyei had worked on, are not country-specific because a similar pattern was observed in the Asian contexts, so the L2 motivational selfsystem is valid. Also, by conducting a SEM analysis, one finding was that the ideal L2 self predicts the criterion measures (learners’ intended efforts toward learning English, e.g., I think that I am doing my best to learn English) through attitudes to learning English, so attitudes are not the main component of the L2 self-system, but still a factor that cannot be dismissed. Borrowing the scale (attitudes to learning English), Hamada (2015b) examined how learners’ attitudes to learning English is related to their listening improvement through shadowing training, so part of the data obtained from the study will be summarized.

Purpose of the study This study will examine, simply, whether learners’ improvement in listening comprehension skills after shadowing training differ, depending on their attitudes toward learning English (i.e., whether English is interesting for them and they like English lessons).

Shadowing and teaching paradigm 117

Methods PARTICIPANTS

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To obtain a larger sample size, a total of 80 sophomore students at a Japanese national university participated in this study. Half of them majored in health science (3 males, 37 females), and half in engineering (30 males, 10 females). The English proficiency level was assessed as intermediate. MATERIALS

A textbook that consists of a collection of speeches made by famous people, Great Speeches that Changed the World (Hirano and Suzuki, 2009) was chosen for this study. Among the speeches, the inauguration addresses of Barack Obama and J. F. Kennedy, and a biographical speech on Mother Theresa were chosen for the shadowing training. The speeches were divided into approximately 120 to 150 words for each day. As an assessment of the participants’ listening comprehension skills, 47 listening items from the official examination practice book, TOEIC (2008), were used. For the pre- and post-test, the same items were used to avoid the issues caused by using different items. Instead of using only an item with Likert scale, four items were used to assess the participants’ attitudes to increase the reliability of the measurement: I like the atmosphere of English lessons; Studying English is interesting; I look forward to English lessons; and learning English is fun (modified from Taguchi, Magid, and Papi, 2009). They selected an answer from 1 “least applicable” to 6 “most applicable.” PROCEDURE

The two groups (40 health science majors and 40 engineering majors) were given the same eight lessons by the same instructor twice a week on a different day of the week for a month by using the basic procedure (2.1). Prior to the training, the pre-test was conducted, and the participants responded to the four items regarding attitudes. In each class, the participants first learned the content of the target material and shadowing training followed for approximately 20 minutes. After the eight lessons, the post-test was conducted.

Analysis The 80 participants were divided into two groups according to their initial attitudes: 48 in the higher attitude group and 32 in the lower group. Because their total mean score of the four questions was 15.80 out of 24.00, a cut-off point was set at 15.00. This means the shadowing lessons were conducted with the two groups that consist of both higher and lower attitudes learners, and for

118 Shadowing and teaching paradigm the analysis, they were divided by their attitude level. Followed by descriptive statistics, a two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted with group being the between-subject factor and time the within-subject factor.

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Results and discussion Interestingly, despite the differences in their attitudes, the mean pre-test scores of the two groups did not differ initially (higher group 22.92, SD = 4.58; lower group 21.38, SD = 3.58). However, only the higher group increased their score (26.08, SD = 3.99), and the lower group did not (21.47, SD = 4.47). The twoway ANOVA yielded a significant effect of time ⫻ group interaction [F (1, 78) = 8.03, p < .01, ␩p2 =. 09]. A statistically significant difference was found in the simple main effect of time for the higher group [F (1, 78) = .21.32, p < .01], but not for the lower group [F (1, 78) = 0.01, p > .05]. No statistically significant difference was found in the simple main effect of group for the pre-test [F (1, 78) = 2.57, p > .05] but was in the post-test [F (1, 78) = 23.28, p < .01]. Combined together, only the group with better attitudes improved their scores. These results indicate that though there were few differences in the initial listening test scores between the two groups, only the listening scores of the group with better attitudes improved. Thus, these results provide a new finding that attitudes are prominent for improving listening comprehension skills in shadowing. These results reconfirm the important role of measuring attitudes in the needs analysis and the great impact of attitudes on their performance in shadowing training.

5.1.3 Japanese primary and junior/senior high school curriculum All the education at elementary and secondary level in Japan is controlled by a national education guideline made by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), the Course of Study. Under the guideline, learners start experiencing English in the fifth and eleventh grade in elementary school, and they start studying English intensively in junior high school. After three-year junior high school education, they have another three years in senior high school.

Elementary school The overall objective of elementary school foreign language education is: to form the foundation of pupils’ communication abilities through foreign languages while developing the understanding of languages and cultures through various experiences, fostering a positive attitude toward communication, and familiarizing pupils with the sounds and basic expressions of foreign languages. (MEXT, 2015a, p. 1)

Shadowing and teaching paradigm 119 A total of 35 weekly lessons are given. The situation has been drastically changing and more and more research has been conducted with the Japan Association of English teaching in elementary schools (JES).

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Junior high school In junior high school, 50-minute lessons are given four times a week. The goals of the three years in junior high school are to “develop students’ basic communication abilities such as listening, speaking, reading and writing, deepening their understanding of language and culture and fostering a positive attitude toward communication through foreign languages,” (MEXT, 2015b, p. 1) so it is ideal at this stage for students to acquire the basic listening skill, the phoneme perception skills in the bottom-up skills, so that they can acquire higher level skills based on the basic skill. Below can be seen the instruction of each grade required by the course of study (MEXT, 2015b, p. 4) with a sample content from the most widely used junior high school textbooks, New Horizon. New Horizon tends to be consistent in topic choice throughout the three years. Compare the sample pages written for phone conversations below. GRADE 1

[L]anguage activities should be carried out with familiar language-use situations and functions of language taken into account. At this stage of learning, topics should be taken up that draw on communication using simple expressions taken from students’ own feelings and everyday events. (MEXT, 2015b, p. 4) A phone conversation between Erika and Yun-ho (Tokyo Shoseki, 2016a, pp. 72–73.) Erika: Yun-ho: Erica: Yun-ho: Erica: Yun-ho: Erica: Yun-ho:

Hello? Hello, Erika? This is Yun-ho. Oh! Hi, Yun-ho. Are you free on Saturday? It’s my birthday. Yes, I’m free. My party starts at three. Great. See you then. Goodbye. Bye.

GRADE 2

Language activities set with a wider range of language-use situations and functions of language should be carried out on the basis of what was learned

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in Grade 1. At this stage of learning, teachers should provide repeated instruction on what was learned in Grade 1 and have it take root in students’ minds. In addition, such topics as those under which students are engaged in communication that involves conveying factual information or making judgments should be taken up. (MEXT, 2015b, p. 4) A phone conversation between Erika’s father, Erika, and Meg (Tokyo Shoseki, 2016b, pp. 64–65): Erika’s father: Meg: Erica’s father: Erica: Meg: Erika: Meg:

Hello? Hello? This is Meg. May I speak to Erika, please? Sure. Just a second. Hi, Meg. What’s up? It’s warm and sunny today, so I’m going to ride my bike to the park. Why don’t you come? I’m sorry, but I can’t. I have to look after my neighbor’s children. Fine. Maybe some other time.

GRADE 3

Language activities set with an even wider range of language-use situations and functions of language should be carried out on the basis of what was learned in Grade 1 and 2. At this stage of learning, teachers should provide repeated instruction on what was learned in Grade 1 and 2 and have it take root in students’ minds. In addition, such topics as those under which students are engaged in communication that involves expressing various thoughts and opinions should be taken up. (MEXT, 2015b, p. 4) A phone conversation between Meg’s mother and Erika (Tokyo Shoseki, 2016c, pp. 80–81): Meg’s mother: Erica: Meg’s mother: Erika: Meg’s mother: Erika: Meg’s mother: Erika: Meg’s mother:

Hello? Hello, Mrs. Walker. This is Erika. May I speak to Meg, please? I’m sorry, she’s out. Do you want her to call you back? No, it’s OK. But can I leave a message? Sure. Could you tell her to come to my house at two? We’re going to do our papers together. OK. Your house at two. Yes. Thank you, Mrs. Walker. You’re welcome. Say hello to your parents for me.

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Shadowing and teaching paradigm 121 Based on my experience at junior and senior high schools and as a text-editing member of a junior high school English textbook, I would like to suggest where shadowing belongs and how it can be used under this national curriculum. First, as can be seen in the statements and in the sample passage, starting to use shadowing in Grade 1 may be too early. The function of shadowing is to help learners who “suffer” from failing to catch up with the English they hear and the speed, by improving their phoneme perception process. However, in grade 1, because of the basic learning content, the learners do not face this challenge yet. As seen in the sample page of grade 1, sentences consist of less than five basic words. In fact, in a workshop, we discussed with junior high school teachers when we should start using shadowing, and we all agreed that introducing shadowing in Grade 1 is too early and time should be spent for other activities. On the other hand, in Grade 2, the length of sentences is longer, and the possibility for learners to start struggling with bottom-up listening becomes higher. For instance, the sentence, It’s warm and sunny today, so I’m going to ride my bike to the park, contains contraction and weakly pronounced function words. Therefore, we have agreed that Grade 2 will need shadowing practice because the tasks are becoming challenging and some learners do start being left behind. In Grade 3, the sentences are much longer and the volume of the passage increases. The sentences and the learning content become more complex and challenging, so shadowing should work effectively to develop the learners’ bottom-up listening processes. In addition to the discussion of what grade shadowing can be started at, discussion of how it can be effectively used in this curriculum warrants mentioning. To reiterate, shadowing is cognitively demanding (4.3.1), so a key principle is to use it intensively to help learners’ phoneme perception processing improve quickly to a certain high level. Thus, rather than practicing once a week for an extended period, using it intensively for a month or so and then using it occasionally to maintain the improved bottom-up listening skill will be ideal. An analogy can be drawn here with the process required to become a fast swimmer. Specific muscles must be developed (shadowing) and swimming practice completed (EFL listening exercises). Once learned, even after a long break, the individual can still swim (EFL listening), but if not exercised, muscles weaken and the swimming will be slower. However, with regular exercise (shadowing) a certain level of muscle strength is retained and the goal to become a fast swimmer can be achieved (curriculum).

Senior high school In senior high school, under the principle of “developing [sic] students’ communication abilities such as accurately understanding and appropriately conveying information, ideas, etc., deepening their understanding of language and culture, and fostering a positive attitude toward communication through foreign languages” (MEXT, 2015c, p.1), English education is based on the basic skills that the learners acquire at junior high level. The lists of subjects are Communication

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122 Shadowing and teaching paradigm I, II, III, English Conversation, English Expression I and II, and each school is allowed to select based on its situation. As the principle states, in general, the learning materials are more complex, challenging, and longer in senior high schools. If learners’ bottom-up listening skills are weak, as the grade proceeds, the harder it is to catch up with the amount of English they are required to process in terms of listening. Therefore, in this sense, shadowing can fit any time teachers feel the necessity to improve their learners’ bottom-up listening process. From a slightly different perspective, despite the suggestion above, it is also true that there may not be sufficient time to spare for shadowing training under the tight curriculum in junior and senior high schools. For example, in terms of vocabulary size only, recently, the amount of target vocabulary size increased from a total of 900 to 1200 words in junior high, and an additional 1800 words, which used to be 1300, are claimed to be the minimal requirement in senior high school (MEXT, 2015d). On these grounds, Japanese senior high schools commonly have supplementary lessons after school or during holidays, so another idea is to make use of these lessons by implementing intensive shadowing practice to activate or re-activate their bottom-up listening skills.

5.2 Shadowing and EFL courses According to Nation (2007), the activities in a language classroom should be composed of four equal strands: meaning-focused input, meaning-focused output, language-focused learning, and fluency development. The meaning-focused input strand focuses on gaining knowledge from what learners listen to and read. The input needs to be comprehensible and the typical activity is Extensive Reading, in which learners should know 95–98 percent of the vocabulary. The meaningfocused output strand basically shares the same condition as the meaning-focused input strand, but instead focuses on speaking and writing. In the meaning-focused output strand, learners are required to output what they are already familiar with for communicative purposes. The language-focused learning strand (i.e., focus on form, form-focused instruction, intentional learning, and so forth) targets deliberate learning of language features such as pronunciation, spelling, vocabulary, grammar, and discourse. Teachers should note that this strand should not exceed one-quarter of the course time. Lastly, the fluency development strand targets all four skills of speaking, listening, writing, and reading to make the best use of what learners know, so this strand is also meaning-focused. Shadowing for listening belongs to the language-focused strand. In this strand, the expected effects are to add directly to implicit knowledge, to raise consciousness to help later learning, to focus on systematic aspects of the language, and to be used to develop strategies (Nation, 2007). Aside from shadowing, other useful activities in this strand are dictation, mirroring, repetition, and dictogloss (1.2.2). To design a course, goals need to be set. Because of the function of shadowing, one of the goals is “to improve learners’ bottom-up listening skills.” To examine

Shadowing and teaching paradigm 123

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whether learners achieve this goal, the tests should be designed to reflect the bottom-up listening skill improvement, not containing many difficult words, like the ones used in the studies in this book. It is safer to avoid using test items that require multiple skills to answer. As for materials, basically, any materials can be used as long as the content is easy or the learners have already studied and are familiar with the content. So, though easy materials are often recommended for shadowing, we can still use a challenging EFL textbook as well as an easy one.

5.2.1 Examples of shadowing use in a university EFL course Unlike high school, there is no set of national guidelines for EFL curricula in Japan. Each university, department, and major develops curricula reflecting their needs. In some cases, all the courses are conducted in English and students are required to take multiple English classes to graduate; in this case, they normally have an intensive English program first, prior to the lectures in which content is taught in English. In other cases, English lessons are given to only freshmen once a week and lessons are taught in Japanese. Most universities fall somewhere between the two extremes. The most common EFL programs in Japanese universities are English for General Purposes (EGP) and English for Academic Purposes (EAP). EGP targets general English proficiency and EAP targets academic English. Like many universities, the Japanese university I am working for runs EAP courses, so I would like to explain how shadowing can be incorporated into an EAP program. In our engineering science department, the curriculum requires all freshmen to take EAP throughout one year (90-minute lessons twice a week, 60 lessons in total). Based on the basic skill they acquire in the first year, they are required to take another EAP in the first semester of the second year, which also consists of 30 90-minute lessons. The first year EAP aims at the acquisition of basic academic English skills, and the second year students have options to choose a class among reading, writing, presentation, listening, and conversation, based on their need. Teachers for the freshmen EAP use the same textbook but in the second year, teachers are allowed to design the course on their own. I teach EAP for Reading in which the objective is that sophomores read for communication and therefore integrate this skill with speaking and listening. From several years of experience in teaching this course, I discerned that the learner’s listening skills are still quite weak, so the first half of the course focuses more on listening, as well as introducing reading and basic speaking strategies. As the needs analysis, the lessons start with a listening test, in which both the learners and I realize the level of their listening skills. The lessons are contentbased, including reading tasks, comprehension check, and speaking tasks that target basic speaking skill improvement such as explaining vocabulary and paraphrasing the passage using key selected words. After acquiring the target content, the learners are engaged in shadowing training using the passage of which they already know the content. After 8–9 shadowing-based lessons, the learners take a listening test again to realize how much their listening skills have improved.

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124 Shadowing and teaching paradigm Now that their bottom-up listening skills have reached a certain level, based on the listening skill improvement, the lessons then focus more on reading for output, involving interaction. They read longer passages and work on summarizing, using pair-work, which also involves listening to the pair. Finally, their overall speaking skills are assessed. With Nation’s (2007) suggestion in mind, the language-focused strand (shadowing practice) in the course accounts for approximately 25 percent (Table 5.1). Based on Hamada (2011d), which introduced an example of how shadowing was incorporated into TOEIC preparation course (Table 5.2), it will be useful to consider how shadowing is used for a test-preparation course. The TOEIC preparation course is not in the core curriculum in the university but set to meet the needs of the students who are new to TOEIC but motivated to achieve higher TOEIC scores. This type of course can be conducted using either specific TOEIC textbooks, or other test-preparation books. As shown in Table 5.2, shadowing is used following the principles proposed in this book: 1 2 3

improve learners’ bottom-up listening skills first; learn content first, then practice shadowing; based on the enhanced basic listening skills through shadowing, use more top-down based activities and focus on test-taking strategies.

The TOEIC test consists of seven parts (four parts for listening and three for grammar and reading). In the shadowing training (2–9 lessons), by using the contents of Parts 2, 3, and 4, the learners increase their vocabulary and improve their bottom-up listening skills, and based on the skills, in the workshop, they work on more advanced activities. Unlike typical EFL lessons, the ultimate goal of these kinds of test-preparation courses is simple, achieving a higher score, so shadowing may be more easily incorporated. On the first day, a general explanation of the TOEIC test is given to the learners. In the second lesson, they take a pre-listening test. From the second lesson, they start shadowing, in which they first check the target vocabulary on the day, and are given time to answer the comprehension questions of the target passage. Then, they will work on shadowing, using the target passage they had just studied. On the last day of shadowing training (eighth day), they take the post-test. Additionally, based on the basic bottom-up listening skills and basic knowledge about the TOEIC, after the shadowing-based lessons, a workshop is held, in which test-taking strategies that cover the reading section and listening section are covered. As these two examples show, shadowing can fit into an EAP course or off curriculum by adjusting for each situation. There is no need to use shadowing for a long time, but instead anytime learners need basic listening skills, teachers can use it intensively for a certain period of time. Next, let us narrow down the discussion to shadowing and teaching in a daily lesson.

Shadowing and teaching paradigm 125 Table 5.1 Shadowing use in an EAP course Title: English for Academic Purposes (Reading)

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Goal: To be able to 1 read English newspaper (intensive reading) 2 discuss the topics and contents in the newspaper (English speaking) 3 acquire basic listening skills Participants: 40 sophomores Time: Twice a week, 90 minutes each Textbooks: Meet the World: English through Newspapers 2015 (Wakaari, 2015) Even More True Stories (Heyer, 2007) Course Description: • Diagnostic Assessment for listening • Reading and Listening and Speaking (Meet the world) • Formative evaluation on listening skill improvement • Reading and Speaking (Meet the world) • Reading and Speaking (Even more true stories) • Final evaluation on speaking Evaluation • Listening test • Speaking test • Reading test

Table 5.2 A sample of a TOEIC preparation course using shadowing Class #

Length

Section

Aim

1

50

General explanation of the TOEIC

To understand the TOEIC generally

2

50

Pre-test and Part 2

Evaluation

3

50

Part 3

Listening bottom-up skill improvement

4

50

Part 3

5

50

Part 2

6

50

Part 3

7

50

Part 4

8

50

Part 4

9

50

Part 4/ Post-test

Evaluation

10

Whole day

Intensive seminar 1: Basic test-taking strategies and self-study

11

Afternoon

Intensive seminar 2: Advanced listening

12

Morning Intensive seminar 3

Advanced reading

126 Shadowing and teaching paradigm

5.3 Shadowing in a lesson

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In 2.1, the basic teaching procedure of shadowing was described as a “package.” In this section, I would like to approach the topic of fitting shadowing into lessons. First, we will consider where shadowing belongs in a teaching framework. Then, we will look at two cases for possible options: shadowing in an EFL lessons (e.g., EAP) and shadowing in a listening class, which specifically focuses on listening skill improvement.

5.3.1 Shadowing and the teaching framework Communicative language teaching holds that language is for the expression of meaning; the primary function is interaction and communication, and the structure of language is functional and communicative (Richards and Rodgers, 2001). Wills (1996) states that the tasks in TBL are activities where the target language is used by the learner for a communicative purpose to achieve an outcome. Put simply, the underlining principle of these communicative approaches is language is for meaning and communication. There is some room for shadowing to be blended into the communicative approach. As Richard and Rodgers (2001) argue, after presenting a wide range of teaching approaches, teachers need to use approaches and methods flexibly. As discussed in Nation’s (2007) four strands, language classes need a balance of meaning-focused input, meaning-focused output, language-focused learning, and fluency development. Shadowing can play a role in the language-focused strand. Shadowing is aimed at helping learners with achieving communicative skills with specific focus on bottom-up listening skills with which they can have more “active” communication. If Japanese learners’ weak bottom-up listening skills improve, we can see them communicate more smoothly. The repetitive nature of shadowing may seem at odds with the communicative approach, but it does have a place in it. In fact, as Howatt (1984) contends, there is a strong and weak version for communicative language teaching (Richards and Rodgers) and pre-communicative activities (p. 171). In the weak version of communicative language teaching, the principle is more like “learning to use English,” while in the strong version, it is “using English to learn it.” Thus, shadowing still fits in with the weak version. Also, the teaching approach using tasks has two versions: Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT) and Task-Supported Language Teaching (TSLT). While learners acquire a language through engaging in tasks in TBLT, tasks support structure-based lessons in TSLT (Ellis, 2003). Takashima (2005) argues in a situation where the lessons and interaction outside classrooms are limited, that TSLT is more realistic in Japan because teachers can use the orthodox lesson with the help of tasks. Shadowing fits in the TSLT as well. Lastly, I would like to emphasize again that shadowing is not categorized as an Audio Lingual method. Admittedly, because shadowing may resemble repetition, it is often considered to be part of the Audio Lingual style but

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Shadowing and teaching paradigm 127 fundamentally it is different. The primary principles of the Audio Lingual method is the application of structural linguistics to language teaching. A language is taught by systematic attention to pronunciation with intensive oral drilling of basic sentence patterns; thus pattern practice is the basic technique (Richards and Rodgers, 2001). Shadowing does not base its theory on structural linguistics, and systemic attention is not paid to pronunciation. It does focus on phonological features of input with one simple reason, to improve learners’ bottom-up listening skills. While the audio-lingual method holds that practice makes perfect, shadowing does not set a goal of perfection, and it instead emphasizes the process. While a typical audio lingual style lesson begins with pronunciation, morphology, grammar, and drills and exercises, only comprehension of the content before shadowing training is the minimal essential, and pronunciation, morphology, and grammar are not of serious concern in fact. In sum, shadowing differs from audio-lingual method in terms of its theoretical principle or actual practice.

5.3.2 Teaching style in Asia PPP style Since the appearance of the Audio Lingual Approach in the 1950s (Richards and Rodgers, 2001), several approaches have appeared in English teaching history such as Total Physical Response, Competency-based Language Teaching, and Suggestopedia, and the recent trend is Teaching English for communication (e.g., communicative language teaching, task-based learning, and focus on form). There is little doubt about the direction toward learning English for communication and its principle for improving learners’ communicative language skills. However, there has been some concern about its feasibility in Asian EFL contexts. We are working [toward] the direction of task-based teaching, but some teachers believe that we need to give students more grammar to consolidate the grammatical structures. It is our belief that if we give them more grammar exercises it will help. But sometimes the grammar is out of context or it can be quite boring for students. Students are more motivated when they learn through tasks, but we still hesitate as to whether students can learn everything through tasks. (Carless, 2009, pp. 54–55) I assume many teachers working in Asian EFL contexts would not be surprised to see this comment. This quote comes from an interview in a case study that examined the situation of Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT) and Presentation, Practice, Production (PPP) in Hong Kong (Carless, 2009). PPP reflects Situational Language Teaching (SLT) and SLT-based textbooks are still widely used throughout the world especially with a grammatical syllabus (Richards and

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128 Shadowing and teaching paradigm Rodgers, 2001). Represented by this excerpt as well, PPP style has not always been the target of criticism in Asian EFL contexts. Starting in Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and other Asian countries, PPP has been favored because of educational contexts, language proficiency, and class sizes (Miyasako, 2015). PPP is often favored because learners are used to the teaching style and because of teachers’ classroom management point of view (Carless, 2009). Thus, the point is not whether PPP is preferred to or more effective than TBLT or vice versa in Asian EFL contexts, or PPP has been supported entirely, but this at least reflects some part of the current situation, and a direction to completely dismiss PPP may be questionable.

5.3.3 Shadowing and PPP In the current teaching paradigm, shadowing can fit in with the TSLT style. This means that teachers employ tasks with grammar explanation and exercises, following the familiar PPP procedure (Takashima, 2005). Having defended the status of PPP in Asian EFL contexts, I have to admit that PPP is not well-supported by evidence, and that the theory of a precise focus on a particular form leading to learning lacks credibility (Skehan, 1996). Instead, Muranoi (2006) has proposed a modified version of PPP known as PCPP. Given shadowing’s flexibility to be blended in various teaching styles, I would like to discuss the possibility of integrating shadowing into the PCPP style. While PPP stands for Present, Practice, Produce, PCPP stands for Present, Comprehension, Practice, Produce. Table 5.3 summarizes the PCPP process. As has been mentioned, the communicative approach does not fit all contexts and in some of these the PPP style has been favored instead. Muranoi (2006)

Table 5.3 Brief description of PCPP Phase

Aim

Activities

Present

Activation of back ground knowledge Noticing and understanding of forms

Oral introduction Presentation of grammar and vocabulary in contexts

Comprehension

Comprehended input

Reading, Listening Skimming, Scanning

Practice (Preproduction)

Enhancement of language use skill Intake

Pronunciation Meaningful pattern practice Reading aloud

Produce (Postcomprehension)

Integration and internalization of input

Comprehension check Summary, Story telling, Dictogloss, Writing

Source: Muranoi, 2006.

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Shadowing and teaching paradigm 129 points to the merits of the PCPP style as it does not drastically change the teaching direction but instead modifies it to a small degree in order to improve learners’ proficiency. It is especially effective in Japan, where there is currently a shift taking place from Grammar based teaching to the Communicative Language approach. PCPP can be used to achieve this shift because it incorporates communicative activities while not requiring a wholesale change in teaching styles (p. 19). Indeed, with the help of the comprehension phase, the learning becomes meaningful, rather than being dominated by pattern practice. Shadowing belongs to the practice phase in which grammatical usage and automatization of phonological coding and articulation are targeted. Thus, teachers can use shadowing to improve learners’ bottom-up listening skills and enhance their phonological coding skills.

5.3.4 Shadowing in a listening-based lesson Commonly, a typical lesson sequence for listening comprehension involves prelistening, listening, and post-listening (Richards, 2005). In the pre-listening phase, learners’ knowledge related to the target is activated and learners acquire new knowledge. In the while-listening phase, the main listening activity occurs. Then, in the post-listening phase, additional activities are conducted for review, compensation for the insufficient treatment in the main activities, or expansion. Shadowing serves better in the post-listening phase. When trying to use shadowing in a rather orthodox lesson style teachers are already familiar with, task-supported style and PCPP may be more realistic, but if we are allowed to hold a course or lessons that specifically attends to listening skill, we can design them with the Task-based teaching style in mind. Vandergrift and Goh (2012) emphasize the important role of pre- and post-activities in the task-based listening lessons, to develop process-based lessons from listening tasks with a quote, “while an interesting task is an important component of a good listening lesson, it has to be complemented by other process-based learning activities that support learners in processing input for meaning” (p. 179). The rationale of pre-listening activities is how prior knowledge can assist learners in processing information they encounter, so pre-listening activities should retrieve existing knowledge and create new knowledge before the main listening task. Brainstorming, mind-mapping, and games are the examples given. The purpose of post-listening activities is to extend the communicative listening outcomes. The post-listening activities have three functions; meaning elaboration (expanding what they learn to writing, speaking, and reading), language analysis (studying into the specifics of the language in the target material), and evaluation and planning (enhancement of understanding of the listening process). Vandergrif and Goh suggest that language focus should come after the listening task so that learners can shift their attention from meaning to various aspects of language, which occurs in the language analysis phase. Thus, shadowing fits into language analysis. In designing a process-based lesson from listening tasks, it will be more effective to combine multiple activities, making the best of each strength.

130 Shadowing and teaching paradigm Now, the examples below will help to picture a listening-based lesson. As recommended in 3–3 and has been mentioned occasionally, shadowing comes after learners finish studying the content of the materials. Therefore, shadowing belongs to the post-listening phase.

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Pre-listening activities The purpose of pre-listening activities is to retrieve learners’ existing knowledge and create new knowledge to help them process smooth input in the main listening task. Language orientation, knowledge generation, and strategy activation are the primary functions. Brainstorming, mind-mapping, discussion, games, questions, reading, pictures, research are examples of pre-listening activities (Vandergrift and Goh, 2012). Using shadowing in the post-listening activities would not restrict the activities used in the pre-listening activities, so any activities will work if they serve the purpose of the pre-listening activities.

Main listening activities In principle, the main listening activities should have a communicative purpose, and we would like to consider how active listening (see Chapter 1 for more detail please) fits in and choose a sample activity in top-down, affective, and interactive frames. When choosing the main listening activities that would suit shadowing as a post-listening activity, an underlining point is the distance between shadowing and the main activity. If it is too large, little connection will be found between the main activity and shadowing but if it is too close, the function of the main task and shadowing may overlap. In other words, because shadowing has the weakness of lacking top-down process input and interaction, the main activity that involves top-down processing or interaction should work better. Another point to underline is that because shadowing is a language-focused learning activity, in order to design a well-balanced class, we should also choose activities from among the other three strands (Nation, 2007), meaning-focused input, meaningfocused output, and fluency development. Now, let us see one example for the main listening activity in each frame. AFFECTIVE FRAME (ROST AND WILSON, 2013, PP. 49–54)

Activity: Wrong words Aim: Listening for detail Learn language points from music Improve concentration and memory Double-check monitoring, problem evaluation, selective attention Level: intermediate + Description: By using a song with simple lyrics, learners can enjoy listening in pairs. A teacher changes at least ten content words rather than function words in the manuscript of the lyrics of a song in the worksheet. For example, change

Shadowing and teaching paradigm 131 the sentence I heard that you settled down to I heard that you sat in town. Learners cooperate to find the mistakes and correct them in pairs. Materials: Songs and worksheet Procedure:

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1 2 3 4 5

By giving six or seven key words from the song, activate learners’ schema. The learners listen to the song to note any phrases they understand. Distribute the worksheet and tell them to find and correct ten mistakes before listening again. They listen to correct the mistakes, working with a partner. Wrap up with either a simultaneous silent reading and listening or reading the corrected lyrics.

This activity, wrong words, is fun for learners, and also bridges over shadowing in a sense that learners can focus on the detailed phonological parts in the postlistening phase. As mentioned in the introduction and Chapter 4, Karaoke shadowing will be well-suited. Also, though the target is set for intermediate +, if we use an easy song, it serves as a good task for beginners as well. TOP-DOWN FRAME (PP. 71–74)

Aim: Collaborate with others to build comprehension Develop selective attention, linguistic inferencing, personal elaboration, joint task construction Level: Beginner + Activity: Memories Description: A teacher tells a personal story involving memories. By providing each learner one task when listening, this activity is a jigsaw task. Each learner gets together in one group to share what they listened to and try to reconstruct the story in the group. Materials: none Procedure: 1

2

3 4

Tell learners that you (teacher) will give a short speech about a childhood memory, and write several key words or phrases on the board to check they know the vocabulary. Give each student a task Task 1: Note the age of the speaker when the memory took place. Task 2: Note where the memory took place. Task 3: Note how many people showed up in the memory. Task 4: Not what happened by listening to a few key actions. Task 5: Note why it is special. Tell your story. They should take notes to complete their tasks while listening. Divide them into five groups. Each group should consist of one student who has each of the assigned tasks. They collaborate to reconstruct the story.

132 Shadowing and teaching paradigm This activity enhances learners’ selective attention and serves as listening strategy training. After this activity, learners can use the script and practice shadowing, so that they can approach the same texts from both top down and bottom up in a lesson.

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INTERACTIVE FRAME (PP. 155–158)

Aim: Develop the skill of questioning what you hear Use strategies for negotiating meaning Develop comprehension monitoring, persistent attention, contextual inferencing, seeking clarification Level: Beginner + Activity: Whisper dictation Description: Material: Short passages or jokes Procedure: 1 2 3 4 5

6

Put learners into pairs (one scribe, one dictator), and give the dictator the short passage on paper. In a whisper, tell them that they will work on dictation, whispering, and only whispering is allowed. Move the dictators to the ends of the room so that each dictator and the scribe are far from each other. Tell them a time limit (e.g., 2 minutes), but the key is that it has to be a difficult task and they should barely finish in the given time. After the time limit, they go back to their seat and check their texts, but the scribe cannot look at the passage, s/he can only ask questions (e.g., can you repeat the first sentence?) After a few minutes, allow them to check their texts by looking at the passage.

Dictation involves letters, sounds, and meaning, so shadowing overlaps its function because shadowing deals with sounds. Seemingly, these two tasks are close, and because whisper dictation is designed for interaction, it will be a shadowerfriendly task.

Post-listening activities Under the purpose of extending the communicative listening outcomes after a listening task, Vandergrift and Goh (2012) list ten meaning elaboration and language-analysis activities for post-listening learning; personalization, writing, oral presentation, dramatization, joint construction, café talk, publication, perception, transcription, and vocabulary building. Perception is the one that shadowing belongs to, where the focus is to examine the text for phonological features that influence bottom-up processing. Therefore, when perception development is the first priority, shadowing can serve as the main post-listening activity. Also, if we

Shadowing and teaching paradigm 133 try to combine it with others, shadowing will favor such close tasks as transcription and vocabulary building.

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5.4 EFL contexts for Japanese learners Shadowing was discussed in curriculum, language courses, and a lesson above, and I would now like to consider other possible reasons that make shadowing prevalent in Japan: namely, teaching practices, L1 educational style, influence of examinations, and language distance. Because no literature has mentioned the relationships between shadowing and these topics, unlike other sections, the discussion below is based on my perspective.

5.4.1 Teaching practices in Japan Though I have been trying to spread shadowing for years, I have sometimes received negative comments from other teachers such as “shadowing does not work in Western culture because it does not involve interaction,” “it is, simply, boring.” Through my teaching experience at Japanese junior and senior high schools and universities, I have realized one interesting thing; Japanese students do not show resistance to shadowing or similar type of activities. Shadowing is recognized as being boring by some learners, but it does not mean they “do not want to do it.” Japanese learners tend to work on activities without complaint. I feel that Japanese learners are accustomed to these types of activities and I assume these traits can be seen in other Asian countries more or less. Japan has recently started teaching English officially in elementary school, and I was one day talking to an experienced elementary school teacher and felt that Japanese elementary school education contributes to the learners’ “immunity.” I would like to share the conversation with the elementary school teacher. “Reading aloud instruction” begins in the first year of elementary school in Japanese language education, and the instruction consists of two types, “reading aloud for oneself” and “reading aloud for others.” In the former case, children try to read accurately what is written in the textbook in their first language, Japanese. In the latter case, children try to read aloud with their feelings imagining others are listening to it (i.e., imagining the situation and imagining the characters’ feelings in the story by changing intonation and speed). According to the teacher, there should be a correlation between the reading aloud skill and children’s overall grades. It can be assumed that these prior experiences from elementary and junior high school result in Japanese high school and university learners not appearing to show resistance to this type of activity, which perhaps explains why they do not show resistance to shadowing training either.

5.4.2 Japanese L1 educational style Such criticisms as “it does not fit Western style education” or “Only Japanese learners can do it” partly make sense if we consider some factors that may

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134 Shadowing and teaching paradigm possibly account for this “bias.” One presumption is rooted in Japanese education style in L1. In L1 Education, Japan has long appreciated the teacher-centered read-aloud activity, which dates back to the Edo era, the 1600s (Takahashi, 1994). The read-aloud activity has been one of the main streams of the teaching and there are three kinds: Ondoku, Roudoku, Gundoku. Ondoku simply means reading passages aloud. Roudoku is reading aloud while paying attention to intonation, pronunciation, and stress with emotion (similar to recitation). Gundoku is Roudoku together with other classmates, so Gundoku is similar to Chorus reading. Since these activities are already rooted in Japanese L1 education shadowing practice is not a novel departure from their experiences. These “read-aloud” based activities are different from shadowing in theory (i.e., one is on-line and the other is off-line), but all require repetitive practice. Also, they require heavy cognitive load and are demanding, so working on the readaloud activity or shadowing for a long period require patience and mental stamina. The Japanese learners start these read-aloud activities early in elementary school, and throughout high school. Although proving the theory statistically or empirically is difficult, I assume that the Japanese learners owe it to this educational background that they do not show strong resistance to the mentally tiring methods and thus also do not show strong resistance to shadowing.

5.4.3 Influence of examination In relation to the argument above, the backwash (“the effect of testing on teaching and learning,” Hughes, 2003, I) of examination may be another factor of positioning shadowing at the current relatively higher status. In Japan, as in Korea, Taiwan, and so forth, high school students must take a university entrance examination. Basically, Japanese learners need to take the national center test made by a National Center for University Entrance Examinations. In the 2014 academic year, 532,350 people took the test (National Center for University entrance examinations, 2015). The national center test is held once a year in January and it is the first round for the students; they decide which university they apply to based on the scores they achieve. In the second round, they take the examination each university prepares. Therefore, it is quite a high stake test and it is not too much to say that achieving a higher score or not makes a tremendous difference. In the national center exam, the listening section accounts for 50 points and is one-fifth of the total score. Listening sections were incorporated in the 2006 academic year. Hirai, Fujita, Ito, and Oki (2013) examined the washback effect of the introduction of the listening section to the National Center Examination and reported that many students recognized the importance of the listening section and attributed their preparation for the listening section to their performance in the exam, though intended washback effect on their listening skills and the amount of study was still inadequate. In high school, teachers also need to prepare their students for the listening test in the center examination. So, the inclusion of the listening section in the center exam is considered to contribute to the advancement of listening priority in English examination at least to some degree.

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Shadowing and teaching paradigm 135 Another famous English test in Japan is the TOEIC. Listening sections account for half (495) and reading sections the other half (990 in total). While the university entrance examination influences high school students, the TOEIC influences university students and workers at business companies. In fact, 69.3 percent of companies (n =228) take at least some consideration of the TOEIC score of the applicants (IIBC, 2013). For promotion, 15.8 percent are currently taking the TOEIC score into consideration, and 47.8 percent may in the future (TOEIC, 2015). Moreover, the target score ranges from 500 to 600 (TOEIC, 2015), so what is at least required is the basic skills or a certain level of English skills. Shadowing training is considered to contribute to the score improvement, especially in Part 1, 2, and Part 3 and 4 with increased vocabulary size. Eiken is also well recognized in Japan and many junior high and high school students take it. Unlike the TOEIC, which shows score, it has seven grades, so even beginner level students can take it. While the TOEIC score expires after two years, the Eiken grade is permanent. Shadowing is, as some of the studies in this book show, effective for improving the listening scores of the items that assess basic listening skills. As is shown above, these high-stake tests help learners acknowledge the importance of listening comprehension skills, so the shadowing technique “sells” well in Japan. For the test takers in the countries that are similar to the Japanese situation, shadowing may be introduced as a handy and helpful tactic.

5.4.4 Japanese language and English As mentioned in Chapter 1 (1.3.6), the language distance makes a great difference in language learning. The distance of two languages is commonly called linguistic distance or language distance. Hart-Gonzalez and Lindemann (1993, cited in Chiswick and Miller, 2005) report language scores of 43 languages and Japanese is the most distant from English, while Afrikaans is the closest. In the distant group, are Japanese, Korean, Cantonese, Mandarin, and Vietnamese; in the closer group, are Afrikaans, Norwegian, Rumanian, and Swedish. Although the language scores are not criticism free in terms of reliability, these data at least support Japanese and many Asian languages having a large language distance from English. Comparing Japanese and English more specifically leads to a discussion on why listening to English is a challenge for Japanese learners. Because shadowing deals with phonological aspects, we will narrow it down to the differences between the two languages with respect to a phonological perspective. One of the crucial differences between the two languages is that English is a stress-timed language while Japanese is a syllable-timed one. This causes a problem with connected speech. Ito (2015) explains this by using reader-friendly examples citing CelceMurcia, Brinton and Goodwin (1996, p. 152). (1) Cats chase mice. (2) The cats have chased mice.

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(3) The cats will chase the mice. (4) The cats have been chasing the mice. (5) The cats could have been chasing the mice. Because Japanese is a syllable-timed language, the reading-aloud speed becomes longer as a sentence gets longer, while in the case of English, all the sentences above are read at the same speed. Sentence (1) consists of three words and (5) has eight, so it should take more than twice as long to read (5) than (1) for Japanese learners. Moreover, content words tend to be stressed and function words do not in English and the weakly stressed vowels are pronounced often as schwa, but Japanese language does not have this rule. These integrative factors trigger learner confusion when listening (Ito, 2015). The language distance also shows that learning English is more difficult when there is a large language distance. Third, the letter difference is another salient factor. English consists of 26 letters of the alphabet, while Japanese has three written forms: logographic Chinese characters known as Kanji; and two syllabaries known as Hiragana and Katakana. There are thousands of Kanji characters, and both Hiragana and Katakana consist of 50 characters each. Typically, for Japanese learners, how the English alphabet is pronounced is not automatized since the link between alphabet and phonology is weak, which makes the listening (or shadowing) process slower. The teaching practice in Japan may help learners acclimatize to shadowing. The influence of examinations and the language distance both lead to advancement of the necessity of listening, which consequently helps shadowing to be favored by Japanese people. In this respect other Asian EFL learners may be in a similar situation.

5.5 Summary of Chapter 5 In Chapter 5, we have seen the influence of learners’ attitudes toward learning English on shadowing performance, referring to the needs analysis phase in the curriculum, and also the position of shadowing in the Japanese secondary school English curriculum. With regard to a language course, I briefly introduced the use of shadowing in an EAP course. Then, we saw that teachers can use shadowing in language-focused strand, weak-form of communicative language approach, and TSLT. Lastly, the possible factors that positively influence shadowing popularity in Japanese English education were overviewed. Although Japanese learners are used to similar types of activities to shadowing, another reason why they can keep working on it is they realize its effectiveness. It may be safe to claim that the main stream of the direction of English curriculum in Asia as well as worldwide is toward communication in English and teachers appear to understand the advantage of Task-Based Language Teaching in theory (Carless, 2009; Jeon and Hahn, 2011; Pei, 2008). However, many teachers probably have difficulty in directing toward teaching English in a completely communicative approach because language curriculum is directly affected by government policy and the situation in each country. I hope the

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examples of the Japanese situation described in Chapter 5 will be of some help for designing a course or lesson with shadowing. Lastly, in terms of designing a course and a lesson, use of shadowing exerts a great influence on learners’ listening skill development. However, relying too much on shadowing may limit learners’ overall proficiency improvement. Since each exercise has its own role and territory, combination with other teaching techniques will lead to a well-balanced approach to improve listening proficiency.

Note The experiment in Section 5.1 is based on Hamada (2015b), edited and modified for this book. The original versions of Hamada (2015b) first appeared in Annual research report on general education Akita University, 17.

Keywords for Chapter 5 communicative language teaching, course of study, curriculum, elementary school education, needs analysis, PCPP, PPP, secondary school education, task-based language learning, task-supported language learning, teaching practice

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6

Limitations and future studies

Chapter 6 will: • • •

summarize the limitations of shadowing research; discuss the topics for future research; see examples of case studies in the topics for future research.

This chapter summarizes the limitations of shadowing from the two perspectives of research design and the nature of shadowing. It then explores further possibilities of shadowing through five topics: shadowing and speaking; shadowing and English variations; shadowing and assessment; shadowing another language; and a new shadowing method. Lastly, it examines how future research can be conducted through an examination of a number of case studies. The first two case studies examine the possibility of using shadowing as a speaking activity (Mori, 2011; Hamada, 2015c). The second two case studies consider the application of shadowing to the concept of English varieties (Hamada, 2012c, 2013), and the last case study introduces a new shadowing method, Visual-Auditory Shadowing (Nakayama, 2011; Nakayama and Mori, 2012).

6.1 Limitations of research design There are a number of factors that limit the interpretation of the findings on shadowing research. Although it can be difficult to control these factors in some research settings, it is still important to consider such limitations and decide whether or not compromises can be made.

Control or contrast group Lacking a control group or contrast group lowers the reliability of the research. Although some studies on shadowing had a control or contrast group, others did not. These experiments were conducted in EFL classrooms in schools, so setting a control group only for the purpose of comparison and in which little outcome is expected is ethically questionable. In laboratory type research or a one-off experiment that require only one class period, a control group can be used, but

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140 Limitations and future studies in the case of long term studies, there is the problem that the control group is not receiving what the instructor feels is the optimum level of care for their learning. In most cases, it can be expected that an experimental group will yield a better outcome than a control group. Therefore, an alternative to having a control group is to set up experimental groups that train in new shadowing techniques and then compare their results (i.e., not an experimental group and a control group but multiple experimental groups with no control group). Another idea would be to use a past experimental group as a control group for the next study. By carefully designing the experiments, the first experimental group can act as the control group in the next study.

Design experiments An alternative research concept from the field of learning sciences is known variously as design experiments, design-based research, and design research (Barab and Squire, 2004; Brown, 1992; Collins, Joseph, and Bielaczye, 2004). This concept (hereafter referred to as design-research) was developed in 1992 and attempts to shift research protocols from studies under tight experimental control to studies that involve all aspects of a period of daily life in the classroom (Confrey, 2006). In a normal setting, we try to control variables and set an experimental group and a control group in a laboratory. In contrast, the design experiments approach research by trying to accept all the phenomena in classrooms (Confrey, 2006). It is predicated on three underlying principles: a constant impulse toward connecting design interventions with existing theory; the generation of new theories instead of simply testing existing theories; and the awareness that it is not possible to return to the laboratory to further test the theoretical claims (Barab and Squire, 2004). Following Collins (1999), Collins, Joseph, and Bielaczyc (2004) compared laboratory studies with design experiments in the light of seven aspects (Table 6.1). In principle, design research attempts to accept everything that happens in classroom by appreciating intervention, while laboratory studies try to single out a cause and effect. Therefore, design experiments base their study on real life situation in which multiple variables are involved, while laboratory experiments prefer controlled settings and minimum variables. While laboratory experiments try to test hypotheses, design experiments try to explore attributable factors to the result. When simply comparing a certain effect of one aspect of shadowing with another, the laboratory type experiment is better. On the other hand, now that major aspects of shadowing have been revealed, the direction of developing shadowing that deeply roots in language classroom with a wider picture will also yield a genuinely positive outcome.

Low-proficiency and low listening-proficiency Second, control of learner varieties is another crucial factor. The greatest concern is the way to categorize learners. In previous research on shadowing, low-proficiency learners and low listening-proficiency learners were used often

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Table 6.1 The comparisons between laboratory and design experiments

Setting Variable Variable control Procedure Social aspect Hypothesis Experimenter

Laboratory experiments

Design experiments

Controlled laboratory setting Single variable Controlling variables Fixed procedures Social isolation Testing hypotheses Experimenter makes all decisions

Real life situation, messy Multiple variables Characterizing the situation Flexible design revision Social interaction Developing a profile Co-participants involves designing and analysis

Source: Collins et al., 2004.

interchangeably, or little concern was given to this matter, so in most cases, the learners were called low-proficiency learners. Low-proficiency learners and low listening-proficiency learners are different in that low-proficiency in English may be highly likely to be equivalent to low listening-proficiency but not all low listening-proficiency learners have low proficiency in other aspects of English. Dividing learners into high and low proficiency by a score of a standardized test in shadowing research poses a problem because whether a learner has a low proficiency in overall English skills or low proficiency in listening is not certain. The best situation for shadowing use is when learners have low-proficiency in listening but intermediate or higher in overall English proficiency. Because their phoneme perception process will improve through shadowing, they will be able to recognize more words when listening, which leads to better listening comprehension. However, if the learners have low-proficiency in English with little grammatical knowledge and a small vocabulary size, phoneme perception enhancement alone would not make much difference because even if they can perceive the sounds they hear, they would not recognize what words they are listening to. From a more critical point of view, low listening-proficiency does not tell whether the learners’ bottom-up or top-down listening skills are low, or they lack listening strategies. If learner’s bottom-up listening skills are high but their topdown listening skills are low, shadowing would not contribute much. If learners’ bottom-up skills are weak, shadowing does exert a powerful impact. Since the specification of proficiency and listening proficiency is incumbent, a listening test that assesses learners’ bottom-up listening skills should be used rather than one that assesses their overall listening comprehension skills.

Sample types Additionally, there remain some small concerns. First, the participants’ gender should be taken into consideration if possible. The atmosphere of a male dominant class and a female dominant class is obviously different, at least in my experience. If it is a one-off laboratory type experiment, it may not be a crucial issue but in

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classroom-based experiments, this factor may influence performance. Second, the participants’ majors should be considered, if possible. Generally, the participants majoring in engineering in my studies were more serious but less talkative. Therefore, these factors may have a bearing on the results. Third, most studies have been conducted on high school students or university students aged 15–22 years old. At this point, there is no research on whether age is related to the rate of improvement in shadowing research.

6.2 Limitations of shadowing research There are a six limitations pertaining to the nature of shadowing.

Obstacles in the classroom The first limitation is that when shadowing is implemented in a classroom that contains 30 to 40 students, learners’ voices can bother others. This may not sound a serious issue and it is difficult for instructors to notice this problem. If we try shadowing together with them, we will easily experience the problem. However, because using a classroom equipped with computers only for shadowing is unavailable, it is simple enough to ask the learners to control the volume of their voices, and to be careful with the volume of the audio. It is advisable to go to the back of the classroom to check whether the audio is loud enough for all learners while they are shadowing.

Simultaneous shadowing or delayed shadowing The interpretation of simultaneous shadowing is another issue. The optimal time lag between when one hears the message and when one replicates it has not been calibrated. Some learners may be able to shadow simultaneously while others may experience a delay. Oki (2011) compared the effects of latencies on shadowing performance by setting three groups of close shadowers, middle shadowers, and distant shadowers. The participants shadowed passages that contained pseudo words. Close means the time lag is short and the learner replicates what he hears immediately and distant means the time lag is long and there is a delay until he replicates what he hears. Close shadowers had a tendency to repeat pseudo words exactly as the words were pronounced, implying they did not use top-down processes. Also, distant shadowers did not necessarily make more errors than the others, indicating delayed shadowing is not necessarily difficult compared to simultaneous shadowing.

Perfectionism in shadowing To what extent learners should be able to shadow is of another concern. When learners’ primary purpose is listening skill development, they do not need to shadow perfectly, copying every part of the speech. What matters more is the

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process of attending to incoming speech sounds and trying to copy the sounds, so that their phoneme perception process will improve. However, no research has examined the relationship between learners’ improvement in shadowing performance and their listening skill improvement.

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Meaning involvement in shadowing In theory, due to the on-line nature of shadowing, when learners are engaged in it, they cannot access the meaning of what they are shadowing. However, in reality, as they practice, especially working on the same material multiple times, meaning is processed. The solution for teachers is to explain again the basic theory of shadowing and purpose of shadowing, and tell the learners to try not to access meaning. Because shadowing is like a switch to concentrate one’s attention on phonological information, what is important is not whether learners can access meaning or not but that they attend to the phonological aspects of what they are hearing. As an exception, those who can shadow perfectly and advanced learners in classroom may be encouraged to try content shadowing, shadowing and accessing meaning simultaneously (2.1) because they may be able to handle the dual task.

i–1 level materials As has been already mentioned, i–1 level materials are recommended for shadowing practice, but the “i” level changes from learner to learner. Although pursuing this issue in research is interesting, rather than clinging to the “i” concept, replacing it with the question of whether “learners know the content” or not will be more practical as examined in 3.3.

Assessment There remains a question about the assessment used to measure the improvement made by shadowing training. Simply put, shadowing will improve learners’ phoneme perception process, which will contribute to better word recognition skills, then to listening comprehension skills. When we design an experiment, we need to be certain which skill the assessment measures. In this regard, research has not distinguished among the differences carefully enough.

6.3 Topics for future studies The areas shadowing research can contribute to learners’ more effective learning encompass the following: (a) shadowing and English variations; (b) shadowing and speaking skill improvement; (c) shadowing and assessment; (d) shadowing another language; (e) new shadowing methods. In each area, I would like to refer to the theoretical background, theoretical assumptions about the outcome, and further topics for exploration.

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6.3.1 Shadowing and English variations

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Theoretical background Due to rapid globalization more and more people use English all over the world. There are more non-native speakers of English than native speakers (Crystal, 2003). Accordingly, a number of different variations of “Englishes” have been spoken. The well-known framework of English varieties is Kachru’s (1985) model that proposes the English-speaking world consists of three circles; the inner circle, outer circle, and expanding circle. The countries in the inner circle are, for example, the United States, Canada, England, and Australia. Countries such as Singapore and India are in the outer circle. Japan, China, Korea, and other countries in which English is used as a foreign language are in the expanding circle. This framework stands for World Englishes (WE) and “native speakers” are in the center. Other popular concepts are English as an International Language (EIL) (Smith, 1976) and English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) (Jenkins, 2000). Because these two concepts share common aspects, distinguishing the two clearly is quite difficult and the debate over the distinction would go outside the scope of this book, but it is safe to say both appreciate the English usage by non-English speaking countries, unlike WE, which draws the lines among inner, outer, and expanding circles. But one clear direction for the English learners is, as a speaker, to produce comprehensible English for others, and, as a listener, to be able to comprehend the English variations. While what kind of English should be a model for EFL learners is debatable, nearly all the audio used in experiments on shadowing were recorded by native speakers of English. American English is the most familiar type of English in Japan (Kawashima, 2009). Having one specific model is convenient in teaching and learning but in reality, learners encounter other variations outside school in EFL contexts. In consideration of this situation, it will be of interest for researchers and learners to attempt to combine Englishes and shadowing for listening training.

Theoretical assumption Because shadowing improves learners’ phoneme perception process (see Chapter 1 for more details), if learners practice shadowing of multiple English variations, their phoneme perception skills toward the variations will presumably improve. Additionally, similar to the case of research on shadowing introduced in this book, which used native speakers’ audio files, learners’ psychological features such as their preference and attitudes toward shadowing with English variations will be other factors that would make a difference.

What can be done? •

Will shadowing with various Englishes improve learners’ overall listening skills towards those variations?

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• •

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How long does it take to improve learners’ overall listening skills toward each variety? What are learners’ perceptions toward shadowing different variations of Englishes? Do learners like shadowing variations of Englishes? Which variation is shadower-friendly? Are costs (cognitive load) in shadowing various Englishes heavy?

In principle, there are two approaches for shadowing and English variations. One is to examine its effectiveness on listening skill development. The phoneme perception skills gained through practicing shadowing native speakers’ English may be transformed, or if not, will the learners have to improve the perception skills toward each variety from scratch? What about the optimal amount of practice? The other is to investigate learners’ perceptions, emotions, and anxiety regarding shadowing and English variations. Even if shadowing different types of Englishes turns out to be a quite influential technique on developing their listening skills, what is happening inside learners cannot be ignored in advancing the technique. These topics will be of interest especially in such academic association or journals as World Englishes, Asian Englishes, Asian English Studies, the International Association for World Englishes (IAWE), English as a Lingua Franca (EFL), and the International Journal of English. We will see how this area can be cultivated with two small case studies: Case 1, which examines whether use of multiple variations of Englishes works in shadowing training, and Case 2, which approaches learners’ psychological perspective by examining which accent is shadower-friendly (6.4.2).

6.3.2 Shadowing and speaking skill improvement Theoretical background In Section 2.4.4, whether shadowing helps learners improve speaking skills was examined. No statistical improvement was observed in the improvement of their accentedness or comprehensibility. In brief, learners’ speaking skills will not improve only by following a standard shadowing procedure. Because most of the learners’ cognitive resource (mental capacity) is absorbed in perceiving the incoming speech and vocalizing it, little cognitive resource is left for additional attention to speaking features. Thus, unless the learners are at quite high level, the standard shadowing training would not change learners’ speaking features dramatically. Based on this tentative conclusion, it will be more realistic to incorporate another output-based task into shadowing training and develop a procedure to help learners improve their listening skills and speaking skills.

Theoretical assumption There are a number of output-based activities, but few of them guarantee listening skill improvement. Therefore, by combining shadowing with another output-based

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146 Limitations and future studies task, learners may improve both listening skills and speaking skills. In speaking skills, the best approach will be pronunciation development (e.g., comprehensibility, fluency, intelligibility, accent). In fact, Mori (2011) reports positive outcome on learners’ prosody through a combination of shadowing and oral reading (see 6.4.1 for more details). Learners cannot produce a sound that they cannot hear (Szpyra-Kozlowska, 2015), so better phonological perception comes prior to pronouncing it, and output activity should come after that. Thus in theory, shadowing will enhance learners’ phoneme perception skills, so combined with an appropriate output task, their pronunciation may improve.

What can be done? • • •

How can shadowing be combined with another task to improve speaking skills? Are there any specific areas in speaking skills that improve through the combination of shadowing and another task? What is the appropriate amount of shadowing practice for speaking skill improvement?

Because there are a number of output-based activities, there are rules of thumb in finding a “match.” For example, coffee would go with most western sweets (e.g., cake, cookies, chocolate), but Japanese tea goes with some of them (e.g., cookies) and not with others (e.g., cakes). Shadowing should also have some preference. The key would be a similarity and the distance between the outputbased activity and shadowing. A similar type or at least sharing some parts would be learner-friendly. For example, as is introduced below (6.4.1), shadowing should go with conversational shadowing because they appear to be similar at a surface level but each serves a different purpose. Another key is that the outputbased activity compensates for the weakness of shadowing in terms of speaking. Because shadowing is an on-line activity, learners cannot monitor their performance or remember what they vocalize (3.4), which is a weakness as an activity; so, some activity that makes up for this weakness will do. Plus, learners in the study in 2.4.4 did not improve their speaking skills, but chances are that if they practiced longer, their speaking skills might improve. In this regard, examining the amount of practice required for speaking skill improvement through shadowing training will be another interesting topic.

6.3.3 Shadowing and assessment Theoretical background Research on shadowing falls into two categories: a one-off experiment that aims to explore what shadowing is and a long-term experiment that applies shadowing to classroom pedagogy (see Chapter 2 for more details), but no major studies have answered the ultimate question; what being able to shadow means, to my

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knowledge. In other words, research has revealed only outcome (i.e., what learners can improve) but the nature of shadowing still remains mysterious. It may sound odd but this makes sense because shadowing in EFL contexts is a teaching/learning technique for listening skill improvement, so findings of positive effect on listening skill improvement rather than what it is are what are hoped for. In summary, now that the accumulated research has revealed what shadowing can do, exploring what shadowing is would add more value on the findings of past studies.

Theoretical assumptions Reviewing the process of shadowing (Chapter 1), learners first need to perceive the incoming sounds, recognize the sounds (possibly recognizing the words), and vocalize them. Repeating this process for a certain period will help learners perceive incoming phonological information more successfully, which leads to bottomup listening skill improvement. Therefore, we can assume there may be some correlation between learners’ phoneme perception skills and shadowing skills. When designing research and interpreting the data, however, two additional issues should be noted. Quite often learners can catch the sounds but cannot shadow well; so, being able to shadow would mean the learners can catch the sounds, but being able to catch the sounds does not necessarily mean they can shadow. Moreover, agreement of the definition of “being able to shadow” is controversial as well because several factors are involved in it. For example, whether we give one point to the replacement of /␪/ as /s/ raises a question. Whether we give a minus point to an omission of a third person singular is also a topic for discussion. In both cases, the word is recognizable even if /␪/ is replaced with /s/ or the third person singular is missing, but whether to accept it as “well-shadowed” or not is another story. Nakayama and Suzuki (2012) refer to Tamai (2005) in their discussion of the problems pertaining to assessment. They point out that there are two types of measurement for shadowing: One is to check all the syllables, while the other is to check some of the target words that raters decide in advance. However, they both have a problem because even if a learner mispronounces one of the two syllables in one word, he can still get one point. For example, if he says “became” for “become,” he gets one though it is not technically correct. Considering these problems, Nakayama and Suzuki (2012) checked all the uttered words on the criteria to evaluate whether each word was recognizable or not. If the pronounced word is recognizable, a point is given regardless of whether there are errors with third person singular and plurals.

What can be done? •

Is there a correlation between bottom-up listening skills and shadowing performance?

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• • •

What is the appropriate latency for learners? Is there any relationship between shadowing and reading skills? Does shadowing improve other skills?

In theory, if learners are able to shadow well, it means they perceive and recognize what they hear; so some correlation is expected between the two. Additionally, if causal effect is discovered, (e.g., using a regression analysis) shadowing performance can be used as a predictor of a language skill (i.e., assessment). As is mentioned above, the latency (the length between when learners hear the sounds and when they reproduce) is another topic for discussion. Oki (2011) categorized learners into three based on their latency but which is the most effective type should be further examined. The other question is whether shadowing contributes to other skills (e.g., reading). The relationship between shadowing and listening has been well-explained but there still remains a possibility that shadowing influences other areas, especially when combined with other tasks. For example, a learning strategy for reading mainly targets reading skill improvement, but if well-combined with shadowing, it may improve both listening and reading skills.

6.3.4 Shadowing another language Theoretical background The primary focus of this book is EFL shadowing, but as a possible idea for further study, shadowing another language is an interesting research direction. In fact, in the field of teaching Japanese as a Second Language (JSL), shadowing has been also adopted. Sakoda (2010), who is one of the leading experts in JSL, especially in shadowing, overviews her year-long research on shadowing to summarize that shadowing in JSL contexts is effective not only for listening skill improvement but improvement in Japanese proficiency exams. This implies that JSL shadowing is effective even for language processing that involves comprehending meaning. However, the participants in shadowing studies in JSL are small. For example, 16 Korean university students in Sakoda (2006); 14 Korean students for one group and 12 for the other in Sakoda et al. (2009). Therefore, further research is required to ascertain effectiveness.

Theoretical assumptions In principle, the larger the language distance is, the more effective shadowing is (see section 5.4), so when speakers whose first language is English work on shadowing in Japanese, a similar effect will be found as in the case of EFL shadowing for Japanese learners. However, the influence of the special traits of Japanese language, having three types of letters (Kanji, Hiragana, and Katakana), on the outcome may be different from the case of EFL shadowing. In other words, the language distance between Japanese and other languages is different from

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that between Japanese and English. Shadowing does not involve letters in principle but when using shadowing in a classroom, we do see the influence of letters and meanings. Therefore, the basic outcome may be similar but potentially there may be new findings when shadowing another language.

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What can be done? • •

Are similar effects found when English speakers shadow another language as in the case of EFL shadowing? Is shadowing effective in other languages than English?

In theory, if the learners have a high level of phoneme perception skills toward the target language, there is little room for shadowing. However, this theory attributes to experiments in EFL shadowing, so whether the same case applies or not is not certain yet. Therefore, examining the opposite case (an English speaker shadowing another language) may be interesting as well. It is probable that the Japanese shadowing done by English speakers and Chinese speakers is different. Additionally, there is ample evidence that shadowing works in EFL contexts but whether it is also effective in another language is not clear as yet.

6.3.5 New shadowing method Theoretical background Because English is a stress-timed language, it is different from a syllable-timed language (e.g., Japanese) in that weak-forms (weakly pronounced words) exist in English. Shadowing does help learners’ phoneme perception process development, but whether it remedies this disadvantage is unclear. To compensate for this disadvantage, Nakayama (2011) has developed a new shadowing method, called Visual Shadowing. Visual shadowing is “a task that requires learners to orally repeat visually displayed input that is synchronized to the speed of auditory input” (Nayakayama and Mori, 2012, p. 57). Nakayama (2011) compared the effects of three types, visual shadowing, combinations of visual shadowing and shadowing, and shadowing. (Type 1) Visual shadowing: On a screen, a sentence appears with no sounds. The moment it appears, participants read it aloud. Then the next sentence appears, and the participants read it aloud the moment it appears on the screen. (Type 2) Visual shadowing and shadowing: First, a sentence appears on a screen without sounds and the participants read it aloud the moment it appears. Then, audio for the same sentence only is played (no script) and the participants shadow the audio. They repeat this set of procedure for the remaining sentences.

150 Limitations and future studies (Type 3) Shadowing: only audio for the same sentence is played and the participants shadow the audio.

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The results indicate that Type 2 (the combination of visual shadowing and shadowing) yields the other two, especially function words. The result indicates that learners will improve their phoneme perceptions of only function words, not content words, by the combination of visual shadowing and shadowing.

Theoretical assumptions Nakayama (2011) assumes that the combination of visual shadowing and shadowing (VA shadowing) enhances phonological coding of both sound and letter information, which will help learners recognize the words that they cannot perceive but they know. For example, some learners may not understand only by listening to the sentence, take out the butter from the fridge, because of the weak stress and the linking/liaison of the words; but when they hear each word separately, they will understand. The visual shadowing may fix this problem. “The visual shadowing may give hope to such learners as have given up with that reason” (Nakayama, 2011, p. 59).

What can we do? • • •

examine the effectiveness of VA shadowing in classroom on listening skills; create a teacher-friendly package of VA shadowing procedure; develop another new shadowing method that compensates for the weaknesses of shadowing.

The effects of VA shadowing were observed in a one-off experiment, so the next step is to apply it to classroom teaching. If fruitful results are observed, making a handy package or useful textbook that teachers can use will be appreciated because making the materials for visual shadowing looks time-consuming. Also, as has been discussed throughout the book, shadowing has limitations such as only/or mainly bottom-up process improvement, lack of interaction, and its simple procedure. If another type of shadowing is developed, it would be helpful for both teachers and learners.

6.4 Examples of future studies In the hope of making the five possible topics more approachable and familiar, I would like to introduce some related studies as samples. The first study examines the topic of shadowing and speaking skill improvement; the second two studies explore shadowing and English variations; and the final study introduces a new method, Visual–Auditory shadowing.

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6.4.1 Shadowing for speaking skill improvement Shadowing and oral reading

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BACKGROUND

Only engaging in shadowing for a certain period of time would not help learners improve their speaking skills (see Chapter 2 for more detail), so future studies should combine shadowing with another activity to improve learners’ speaking skills. As an example of how such kinds of studies are to be conducted, two case studies will be introduced in this section. The first one is a combination of shadowing and oral-reading (Mori, 2011). The second one combines shadowing with conversational shadowing.

Related studies The study in Section 2.4.4 examined whether a standard shadowing procedure for listening would contribute to learners’ speaking skill improvement in their comprehensibility and accentedness, and found little change even after the onemonth shadowing training. As I pointed out, the two factors may have limited the outcome: the participants’ level of proficiency and the one-month training period. Because the participants’ proficiency was not high and the training period was short, their shadowing performance level did not approach high enough to focus on specific phonological aspects; instead, all they could do was to keep up with the speed of the audio, roughly replicating what they heard. In other words, the efficacy of shadowing is assumed only if the task of repetition is successfully implemented (Mori, 2011). In order to use shadowing as a technique for speaking skill development, the minimal condition is that the participants shadow successfully with the help of another activity. Oral reading, the act of reading aloud a written script, was originally considered to be an effective technique to improve learners’ reading skills (Kuramoto et al., 2007), and it facilitates the internalization of new language information, retaining it in long-term memory (Kadota, 2007). Another advantage of oral reading, compared to shadowing, is that learners can check all the words in the script and practice reading at their own pace, while learners cannot do so in shadowing. Therefore, if learners work on shadowing and oral reading, they will be able to shadow more accurately than when they only shadow.

Purpose of the study The study conducted by Mori (2011) and summarized below aims to provide acoustic evidence of the effects of a combination of shadowing and oral reading on the rhythm, intonation, and final lengthening.

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Methods PARTICIPANTS

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Twenty Japanese sophomores participated in the experiment. According to a TOEIC listening practice test, their English proficiency may be around intermediate (mean = 57.4 percent). MATERIALS

In the training, five video news clips in American English were selected and each news clip was divided into two, which were 60–80 seconds long with 150 to 200 words. As pre- and post-tests, a passage that consists of 86 basic English words, taken from Mori (2006), was used. PROCEDURE

A total of ten weekly lessons were given to the participants. In each lesson, they first listened to the news clips several times to be familiar with the content and the expressions. Then they were engaged in the shadowing and oral reading training for approximately 30 minutes. In the shadowing and oral training, they first shadowed the clips for five minutes, then read aloud the script for five minutes. Next, they shadowed the clip for ten minutes, and read aloud the script several times, recording their performance. Before and after the training, they took a pre-and post-test. They were asked to read aloud the 86-word passage.

Analysis Two sentences containing sequences of alternating stressed and unstressed syllables were selected from the passage for acoustic analyses: when it suddenly started raining; I found her sitting next to my seat. For comparison, eight American English speakers also read the passage and recorded it. Waveforms, wideband spectrograms, pitch contours, and intensity contours were made for the acoustic analyses.

Results In terms of change in English rhythm, three phonetic elements of duration, intensity, and pitch were analyzed. The participants increased the intensity of most syllables. A better durational realization of the unstressed syllables was found. The pitch contrast between stressed and unstressed syllables was enhanced. In the posttest, the participants enhanced the phonetic contrast between neighboring stressed and unstressed syllables by using intensity, duration, and pitch of the component syllables, meaning they realized English rhythm better.

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As for intonation and final lengthening, lengthening and larger pitch movements were observed in the segments that constitute the clause-final nouns raining and seat. The improvement found in the final components is considered to contribute to better intonation.

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Summary The participants improved their English rhythm, intonation and final lengthening through the training of shadowing with oral reading. Because no contrast group was used and whether these improvements are attributable to shadowing or oral reading, the results need further studies.

Shadowing and conversational shadowing RELATED STUDIES

As has been shown, the primary purpose of shadowing is not to improve learners’ speaking skills but to improve learners’ bottom-up listening skills quickly. The case study in 2.4.4 shows that even if they engage in shadowing, their accentedness and comprehensibility would not change much. The theoretical explanation holds that most learners spare most of their cognitive resource on listening to the sounds and vocalizing them, so little is left for the segmental or suprasegmental feature of what they are listening to. However, it is also true that instructors hope that shadowing can be used as an output task, since when shadowing, learners look as if they are speaking. In fact, Murphy (2001) proposed an idea called conversational shadowing more than a decade ago but there has been no followup research on this idea. Here is an extract from Murphy (p. 140): Eriko: Wanda: Eriko: Wanda: Eriko: Wanda: Eriko: Wanda:

but my older, ah, younger brother is 16

so ah, ah, he is 16. They um? they ah he is a member of basket club. yes ah really basketball club basketball club So he is tired in home yes so in home at home ah okay oh, really at home aha ah, yeah there is no sound yes it’s quiet oh, really! It’s very quiet?

It warrants mentioning that conversational shadowing may go against the common principle of shadowing, attending to phonological information exclusively. As this example shows, the listener shadows partly what the speaker says, simultaneously comprehending what is being said. Therefore, the cognitive load of this activity is quite heavy and it is highly recommended that teachers implement this once learners have reached a high level of bottom-up listening skills. If this idea works, there are still chances that shadowing may be used for output as well as listening improvement.

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154 Limitations and future studies As for the expected outcome, learners’ comprehensibility and fluency may improve rather than accentedness. As shown in 2.4.4, learners’ accentedness would not change easily with shadowing, but comprehensibility and fluency have a chance for change because the conversational shadowing involves interaction. Additionally, not all the noticeable aspects of an accent will have a serious effect on intelligibility, and these quite negligible features can be worked on after learners’ achieve greater intelligibility (Derwing and Munro, 2014). Thus, comprehensibility (intelligibility) is more prioritized than accent reduction at this stage.

Purpose of this study This study will shed light on developing shadowing as an output task. The research question is whether the combination of shadowing and conversational shadowing improves learners’ fluency and comprehensibility in speaking.

Methods PARTICIPANTS

A group of 23 freshmen at a Japanese national university participated in the study. Their English proficiency level was around intermediate and they were actively engaged in studying in the classes. PROCEDURE

A total of nine lessons were conducted and in each lesson, the participants learned the content of the target material, and they practiced shadowing first following the procedure in 2.1, then conversational shadowing. In conversational shadowing, the participants were paired up and a speaker read the script by chunk, and the moment the pair person heard the chunk, the pair repeated or asked questions regarding the heard chunk, and the speaker answered. The lesson followed the procedure below. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Listen Conversational shadowing with script Content review (self-check) Conversational shadowing without script Content review (self-check) Conversational shadowing without script Content review (self-check).

MATERIALS

The textbook Reading Explore 2 (MacIntyre, 2009), was used and three stories were chosen for the target. Each of the three stories was divided into three so

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that we could spend a lesson for each divided story (three lessons for one story). For pre-and post-tests, the participants took an oral short test (picture description task) in which they described three simple pictures. With respect to speaking skills, this study focused on comprehensibility and fluency.

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Analysis Instead of the dominantly used measurement, a Likert-scale type, this study adopted a dichotomous rating scale (Dolaska and Krekeler, 2013), and the 46 pairs of speech samples were evaluated. The raters gave 0 when they found the speech sample did not change and 1 when the sample changed. Two female American English speakers volunteered to rate the speeches. Prior to the analysis, they practiced several times until they understood the procedure clearly. The commonly adopted Likert scale evaluation was avoided because whether it would measure the change from pre-post accurately was questionable. If the raters were professionally trained, all the data would be assessed equally, but chances were that the assessment would be biased when the two raters felt fatigued and getting used to the traits of the participants’ English by listening to similar speeches over and over. On the other hand, in a dichotomous rating scale, the raters listened to the two versions as a set, so it was much easier to judge whether they are different. When the two raters disagreed, they discussed, sometimes listened again, and came to a conclusion.

Results and discussion The results show the potential possibility for improving learners’ comprehensibility. In detail, 15 of the 23 (65 percent) participants’ comprehensibility improved, 13 of the 23 (57 percent) participants’ fluency improved. The correlation between the two variables (comprehensibility change and fluency change) were .28 (p = .20), which means no relationship was found between the comprehensibility improvement and fluency development. Below are the excerpt from one scene from a pair on the final day. A: The village is served /a celebratory meal of B: The village is served/ /a celebratory and what? A: meal ah-and meat and rice/ / in front of the groom’s house. B: meal! meat and rice . . . A: Some time after midnight, B: Some time after midnight A: the groom picks up the bride, ah, ok, ok, ok, the bride B: the groom picks up? A: and they arrive at the party. B: and they arrive at the party.

ah the bride!

Three perspectives of learners’ attention, interaction, and depth of process may account for the positive results. First, the conversational shadowing involves

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156 Limitations and future studies interaction, so learners’ attention would be naturally on comprehensibility, and the information was deeply processed. Also, there was time pressure, which may have had a positive influence on some learners in terms of concentration. On the other hand, a question remains whether this combination of shadowing and conversational shadowing is applicable in the classroom because more than 30 percent of the participants did not show any progress. Their English proficiency level and L2 working memory might be the reason. Since this activity requires multiple tasks such as recognizing each word and retaining the information temporarily, and speaking it in a conversational way, the minimal condition for learners is that they have already reached a relatively high proficiency level.

Summary The finding of this study is the possibility of adopting conversational shadowing with shadowing in an EFL classroom for speaking skill improvement. The advantage of the two combinations is that the participants can improve both listening skills and speaking skills. The data show that some people improved their fluency and comprehensibility. However, no inferential statistical analysis was conducted, so there is still a risk of generalization of this finding and further studies are necessary.

Small talk As you see, admittedly, this may not go far beyond repetition; however, in the training I kept reminding learners that this was not a simple repetition, but the participants needed to direct their efforts toward conversation. Eventually, they started using some fillers (such as ah, well, ok) to make it more conversational. I presented this case study at a conference (Japanese Society of English Language Education) in 2015, where Professor Tim Murphey, the initial “creator” of conversational shadowing, gave me one idea to make this more conversational and involve deeper language processing: to require the participants to summarize the content after the final pair of conversational shadowing. This final task would help them attend more to each piece of information, evoking deeper language processing in their minds. Thank you, Tim!

6.4.2 World Englishes and shadowing Case 1: Incorporation of English variations into shadowing Related studies This section examines the possibility of using English variations in shadowing. A brief review of English variations is followed by two case studies. The first study simply attempts to examine whether shadowing various Englishes in the

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classroom is effective or not (Hamada, 2012c), and the second examines learners’ psychological aspects (Hamada, 2013).

English variations

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AUDIO USED IN PAST SHADOWING STUDIES

Almost exclusively, the audio used in shadowing studies has been recorded by native English speakers. The audio used in research conducted on shadowing has been recorded by native-speakers of English. For example, Kuramoto et al. (2007) used VOA special English (American English). Miyake (2009) used Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) comprehension tests. Onaha (2004) chose material from CNN, which is also in American English. Hamada (2016b) used questions from Eiken, both of which are normally American English based. All of my studies, except the two below, used audio that was recorded by native speakers of English.

Purpose of the study The concept of English variation has been embraced, but has not generally been applied in the classroom for the purpose of improving learners’ English proficiencies. On this basis, the case study attempts to integrate the use of English variations into shadowing training, with the research question being whether this is effective for improving learners’ listening comprehension skills.

Methods PARTICIPANTS

A total of 47 Japanese national university freshmen majoring in education, nursing, and engineering participated. Their English proficiency level and motivation toward learning English were at an average level, but they were serious and eagerly worked on the classroom activities. MATERIALS

A textbook equipped with a CD (Nakatani, 2004) that contained varieties of English was used. All passages were taken from interviews with English speakers of different accents (United States, Great Britain, Australia, Argentina, Germany, India, Korea, and Iran). The passages ranged from 118 to 140 words. For listening comprehension skill assessment, 30 multiple-type questions were selected from Part 2 of a TOEIC preparation book (TOEIC, 2008). The audio in the listening test was recorded by English native speakers because the purpose of the experiment was to examine whether shadowing different Englishes improves listening comprehension skills toward English spoken by English native speakers. If this

158 Limitations and future studies experiment is successful, learners can be exposed to various Englishes and still improve their skills in listening to standard forms of English. They were required to listen to conversations and answer the multiple-type questions.

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PROCEDURE

A total of eight shadowing-based lessons were conducted following the basic procedure of 2.1. In each session, the participants were exposed to different English variations; three speakers were from the inner circles, two were from the outer circle, and three were from the expanding circle. A pre-test was administered before the training and the post-test was conducted after the eight lessons.

Analysis To confirm the effectiveness of the shadowing training on listening skills, a pairedsample t-test was conducted.

Results The mean score of the test increased by 1.53 from 12.51 (SD = 3.93) to 14.04 (SD = 2.75) and the t-test shows that the participants improved with a statistically significant difference [t(46) = 2.53, p = .015, r = .35].

Discussion and summary The foremost finding is that the incorporation of English variations into shadowing training yields a positive outcome on learners’ listening comprehension skills. In the training, learners experienced shadowing different kinds of Englishes and improved the listening comprehension skills of English native speakers. No previous research has used textbook-supplementary audio recordings in which the voices of non-native speakers are recorded for shadowing practice. The author’s observational analysis also suggests that exposure to English variations throughout the training appeared to be fun for the learners. This incorporation of English variations in shadowing practice could be more interesting for learners with a higher listening proficiency because they are better able to recognize the different Englishes. In this particular piece of research the training used non-native varieties, but the test audio was narrated by a Native-American English speaker. Therefore, it would be interesting to see how learners would respond to the test if it was also narrated in a non-native English variety. This study did not have a contrast group, so whether incorporation of Englishes into shadowing training is more effective than using only the audio recorded by native-speakers is unknown. Still, this research is a first attempt to incorporate the concept of English varieties into shadowing training and suggests that practicing shadowing with varieties of Englishes helps learners’ listening comprehension skills of English native speakers.

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Case 2: Which accent is more friendly for shadowing?

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Background American English is the most familiar type of English in the Japanese classroom (Kawashima, 2009). Having a model of an American English speaker is convenient in teaching and learning but in reality, what we encounter is not English but “Englishes.” (i.e., we encounter not only one type of English but many variations of Englishes). Given that shadowing enhances the phoneme perception process, it will be of interest for researchers to attempt to combine the concept of Englishes and shadowing in terms of listening skill development. Case 1 explored whether application of English variations into shadowing training was possible, and Case 2 will approach learners’ preferences for which accent is shadowerfriendly.

Related studies Shadowing is, by nature, a cognitively heavy activity as explored in 4.3.1, so additional psychological burden may impede the expected outcome. Therefore, this study will focus on the comfort level of shadowing in terms of English variations.

Purpose of the study The overarching purpose of this study is to direct toward the reduction of the demanding burden of shadowing and to improve learners’ English skills in coping with the reality of English variations. Therefore, this study attempts to examine which accents are the most shadower-friendly? What reasons account for certain accents being more and less shadower-friendly?

Method PARTICIPANTS

A total of 65 university freshmen, majoring in engineering and international communication and culture, were selected. Their motivation was medium and their proficiency level was intermediate. MATERIALS

Pilot study A pilot study was conducted to create the audio recordings and the questionnaire items. Three university students who were familiar with shadowing were involved. To set criteria for shadower-friendliness, three types of English audio files, British (inner-circle), Hindi (outer-circle), and Korean (expanding circle), were selected.

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Conventionally, Kachru’s (1985) model of inner circle, outer circle, and an expanding circle will be used here. The three participants first listened to the three variations, and then tried shadowing without looking at the script, then with the script. A semi-structured group interview was conducted afterwards on the theme of “which accent was easier or more difficult and why?” for approximately 15 minutes. SHADOW-FRIENDLINESS

Based on the pilot study, two criteria were set for shadower-friendliness: perceived familiarity and costs. Generally, familiarity in this context refers to the degree to which learners are acquainted with the target sounds. More specifically, perceived familiarity means how familiar the learners felt with the accent, and familiarity means how familiar they actually were with a given accent. Costs in this case mean how demanding it is to shadow the accented English. QUESTIONNAIRE ITEM DEVELOPMENT

Based on the interview in the pilot study, three items were created to assess the perceived familiarity: (1) How familiar they felt toward the given variety of English in general; (2) whether they were able to interpret certain unique sounds of a given variety of English; and (3) how easy it was to perform shadowing. The participants were asked to rank the three audio files, based on their shadowerfriendliness, from 1 (most shadower-friendly) to 3 (least shadower-friendly), and also to write the reasons for the choices. To examine the learners’ psychological burden, the scale of costs (the psychological or physical burden on the needs of the learner when working on an activity, see more details in 4.3.1 and 4.3.2) was used (a 24-item questionnaire (eight for each speaker) with a 6-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 6 (strongly agree)). THE TARGET PASSAGE AND AUDIO

A 137 word-long passage from a textbook that introduces English variations (Nakatani, 2004) was chosen and three audio files (Yorkshire British, Hindi, and Korean Englishes) were used. Each audio file was read in between 50 and 54 seconds. PROCEDURE

The experiment was conducted for 20 minutes. First, participants were given chances to be familiar with shadowing and they first listened to the passage read by the three different speakers (Yorkshire British English, Hindi English, and Korean English). Second, to control the participants’ burden and practice effect,

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instead of repeating each twice, they were asked to shadow the set of three twice. Lastly, the participants filled out the questionnaire.

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Analysis Descriptive statistics of cost, perceived familiarity, and rank are shown for each variety. Then, a repeated-measure of one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was employed to compare the costs, the rank order, and the perceived familiarity respectively. The data obtained from the open-ended questions were displayed.

Results and discussion The descriptive statistics of rank order for shadower-friendliness show that Korean English is the most shadower-friendly (mean = 1.53; 1.60 for Hindi and 2.78 for Yorkshire British). The cost of only Yorkshire British English (4.09) appears to be the higher (2.94 for Hindi and 3.00 for Korean), and the least shadowerfriendly (2.78). Contrasting this with the common perspective that Japanese learners favor native speakers as their model (Yoshikawa, 2005), the data are intriguing. The ANOVAs for rank order, cost, and perceived familiarity all revealed a statistically significant effect [F (2, 118) = 55.88, p < .001, ␩p2 = .49; F (1.78, 113.83) = 51.10, p < .001, ␩p2 = .44; F (2, 128) = 70.65, p < .001, ␩p2 = .53). Post hoc multiple comparisons revealed that Yorkshire British English was lower with statistically significant differences (p < .05) than the other two in the three categories (rank order, cost, and perceived familiarity); On the other hand, no statistical differences were observed between Hindi and Korean Englishes in any of the three categories. More details of the rank order of the shadow-friendliness, the reasons for the highest and lowest rankings, are summarized in Table 6.2. The inner circle English, Yorkshire British English received the lowest rank while the other two English varieties received positive comments though they are from the outer and expanding circles. The participants’ comments were grouped into three cost-related areas (pronunciation, speed, linking), and two familiarity-related areas (listenability, and being accustomed to the accent). In sum, for the participants in this study, Yorkshire British English was the least shadower-friendly, and most demanding, and the other two English varieties were equally less demanding and more shadower-friendly. Native speakers are considered as speaking a preferred type of English (Holliday, 2006), but the same case would not always apply when shadowing.

Summary The interesting finding is that shadowing with non-native English variations might reduce learners’ cost and may be shadower-friendly. The critical limitation is generalization because it is difficult to define only one speaker and nationality

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Table 6.2 Questionnaire results regarding listenability and being accustomed to the variation Speaker

Listenability

Being accustomed

Britisha

Difficult because it’s native Couldn’t listen to some parts Unnatural Uncomfortable to listen

Koreanb

Easy to listen

Hindib

Easy to listen, especially words Sounded like the English I speak Close to Japanese English, especially words Easy to imagine the speaker Sounded like the English I’m used to hearing

Sounded like CD-English Sounded like test-English Sounded like the English I’m used to hearing Sounded like model English Sounded like American English Close to Japanese English Didn’t sound like typical English

a Yorkshire variant; considered the least shadowing-friendly. b Considered the most shadowing-friendly (tie). Source: Hamada, 2013.

(e.g., Korean) as a representative of each circle. Plus, the Yorkshire British English is a distinct variation among the native Englishes, so this also has a limitation in generalization. It is extremely difficult for EFL learners to understand heavily accented English. If shadowing varieties of English is interesting for learners and it improves their phoneme perception skills toward the variations, it will be of beneficial for EFL learners.

6.4.3 Visual–auditory shadowing Related studies The experiment given by Nakayama (2011) indicates that matching visual input with auditory input by the combination of visual shadowing and shadowing enhances learners’ phoneme perception of weak forms of function words. With this origin, Nakayama and Mori (2012) name this combination visual–audio shadowing (VA shadowing hereafter). The summary of Nakayama and Mori is as follows.

Purpose of study With the purpose of examining whether VA shadowing produces sufficient improvement to facilitate listening comprehension, the study set a research

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question: whether VA shadowing training leads to a greater listening comprehension improvement than auditory (normal) shadowing?

Methods

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PARTICIPANTS

Sixty-seven university students were divided into two groups of 33 VA shadowing group and 34 auditory shadowing group. MATERIALS

Based on Nakayama et al. (2011), Nakayama and Mori (2012) created three scripts and audio materials from Voice of America (VOA) special English, split into five lessons. Each script consisted of 186 to 211 words, read at approximately 116 WPM. For VA shadowing, the first author made PowerPoint slides; when a script consists of 15 sentences, 15 slides (one sentence for each) were made. Two types of tests were used to assess the participants’ changes on listening skills. One was a 100-item TOEIC preparation test of listening section. The other was a 25-item situation model listening comprehension test developed by Nakayama, Suzuki, and Matsunuma (2011). The situation model test consists of three levels of questions; one question asked the participants to describe the topic of the heard passage in Japanese (situation model). For example, “Buy four pens and pay only six dollars” and “You can get six pens only for four dollars,” “You can get your pens just for six dollars” (Taken from Nakayama and Mori, 2012, p. 60). Plus, one or two questions asked them to choose one statement that was different in description (textbase model). The final type of question asked them to select one sentence that was exactly the same as a sentence in the heard passage (surface structure model). PROCEDURE

Prior to the training and after the training, the participants took the two listening tests. In the training, VA group repeated a set of auditory shadowing and visual shadowing three times, while the auditory shadowing group shadowed six times on the same passage. The lessons were given once a week for five times.

Results and discussion After statistical analyses, the advantages of VA shadowing training over the normal shadowing training for listening comprehension improvement was observed. The results of the TOEIC prep listening test shows that the VA shadowing group outperformed the shadowing group. The results of the situation model listening comprehension tests revealed that the VA shadowing group alone improved at the situation model level, which implies the VA shadowing helped deeper

164 Limitations and future studies understanding, which was lacking in the auditory shadowing. VA shadowing facilitates higher cognitive processing that is necessary for listening comprehension.

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Summary The possible limitation of this study is that the authors chose materials that the participants will understand if they are presented visually, so the study cannot tell whether VA shadowing is also effective for unknown words. Also, it does not tell whether it is effective for advanced listeners. Here are the lists of themes we can consider for future studies. • • • •

VA VA VA VA

shadowing for participants who are at different proficiency levels; shadowing with different levels of materials; shadowing improves learners’ pronunciation and prosody? for other language learners (Nakayama, 2015b).

I think VA shadowing is quite interesting because it can do what normal shadowing cannot do, i.e., facilitate learners’ deeper processing of comprehension. Also, when Mr Nakayama and I were discussing shadowing, he mentioned that VA shadowing may be more interesting for JSL learners. Since this study is still at an early stage, if further studies can add answers to the topics above, it will be quite helpful for learners and values the concept of shadowing more.

Small talk As you may have noticed, the idea of VA shadowing is similar to Karaoke in a foreign language. One a screen, the lyrics appear sentence by sentence, and you will sing the phrase. So, even if learners do not show a strong desire to shadow or study English, VA Karaoke shadowing may trigger their interest.

6.5 Summary of Chapter 6 Chapter 6 summarized and discussed limitations of shadowing research, and provided ideas for future studies on shadowing. As examples, four case studies are outlined. Put simply, now that the accumulating data have confirmed that shadowing is effective for bottom-up listening skill improvement, the next step is to explore or develop shadowing for more practical and realistic skills such as speaking skills and communication skills. In this globalized situation, defining what the standard English is has little value and adjusting to the variations is a more practical and realistic direction. With this direction in mind, “cultivating” the field of English variations with shadowing will benefit more EFL learners. Lastly, VA shadowing is a unique and sensational approach in that it can facilitate deeper processing of listening comprehension, which normal shadowing does not. When VA shadowing becomes more accessible, surely it will be more beneficial for us and learners.

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Notes

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Section 6.4.2 was based on Hamada (2012c) and (2013), modified and edited for this book. The original versions of Hamada (2012c) first appeared in A Journal of the Japan Association for Media English Studies, 2. The original versions of Hamada (2013) first appeared in Asian English Studies, 15.

Keywords for Chapter 6 assessment, conversational shadowing, design experiments, delayed shadowing, English variations, speaking skills, simultaneous shadowing, visual–auditory shadowing, World Englishes

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7

Q&A about shadowing

Throughout the book, the theoretical underpinnings and practicality of shadowing have been discussed. In Chapter 1, the fundamentals of shadowing were explained; Chapter 2 tested shadowing theory in the classroom; Chapter 3 considered how shadowing can be used in the classroom more effectively; in Chapter 4, shadowing was approached from the learners’ psychological perspective; in Chapter 5, education policy and language traits pertaining to shadowing were introduced; in Chapter 6, limitations and further possibilities of shadowing were discussed. Chapter 7 takes the form of a Q&A on theory, research, psychology, practice, language, material, and other concerns. It summarizes shadowing as a language teaching technique, reviews what has been discussed and addresses some matters that cannot be tested empirically. Therefore, Chapter 7 will be a quick and practical way to find answers.

7.1 Theory Q. I believe shadowing is a speaking activity. A. Shadowing is mainly a listening activity. Indeed, it does look like learners are speaking if they shadow successfully. However, being able to shadow perfectly is much more difficult than we think, and what is important is the process in which learners try to shadow. In the process, their phoneme perception process improves, which contributes to their bottom-up listening improvement. Having said this, it is likely that learners improve their pronunciation, especially when combined with other activities. In that case, the learners need to be at an advanced level (2.4.4). Q. I understand the theory, but I just can’t “feel” it, being a native speaker of English. A. I know what you mean because when I shadow in my first language, Japanese, I cannot “feel” it either. Because the phoneme perception skills are automatized in our first language, it is difficult to see the improvement made by shadowing yourself. If you try shadowing in another language that has a quite different sound system than English, you can experience how learners of English “feel” (1.3.6, 1.3.8).

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168 Q&A about shadowing Q. As learners practice over and over, meaning gets involved in shadowing. Doesn’t this contradict the theory? A. In theory, when learners shadow a brand new passage for the first time, their attention is on sounds rather than meaning. But it is natural that as they practice shadowing with the same material repeatedly in class, they may be able to think about the meaning as well. Indeed, the research recommends that content should be learned before shadowing training, and the recommended procedure has a step, content shadowing, in which learners are encouraged to shadow and think about the meaning simultaneously. Therefore, what is important when using shadowing in class is not whether shadowing involves meaning or not but to remind learners of the function of shadowing, and emphasize that they should attend all their concentration on the phonological information (2.1, 2.3, 3.3). Q. If shadowing is a listening activity, being able to shadow means being able to listen? A. I would say that being able to shadow could mean being able to listen, but not the opposite. If you shadow well, it means you catch what you hear well, otherwise you cannot replicate it. On the other hand, even if you can listen, it does not guarantee that you can reproduce it well. Also, it depends on what we mean by “listening.” Shadowing performance must have a strong correlation with phoneme perception skills or bottom-up listening skills, but may not have this correlation with top-down listening skills. Q. Can we use shadowing for beginner level learners? A. If the learners have basic English knowledge but their listening ability is weak, shadowing is effective. However, if their English proficiency level is low, they may have more priorities than working on shadowing. The strength of shadowing is to enable learners to listen to what they already know but cannot hear. For example, suppose a learner cannot catch a sentence because of the fast speed, I have a lot of sincere and honest friends. If the learner knows all the words, he will be able to listen through shadowing practice, but if he does not know such words as sincere and honest, shadowing practice would not help him. They should increase their vocabulary size and learn basic grammar.

7.2 Research Q. How can we measure the improvement made by shadowing training? A. The multiple type listening questions that assess bottom-up listening skills are suitable. If you test your students before beginning shadowing training and after, you can see their improvement. For example, learners listen to a short conversation that does not have many difficult words and answer the questions. If it has high level vocabulary or the content is difficult, the learners use their top-down processing as well as their bottom-up processing, which will not reflect the improvement of shadowing. Or simply, a dictation cloze

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Q&A about shadowing 169

Q. A.

Q. A.

Q. A.

Q. A.

test will do as well. In this case, the blanked out words should be ones the learners are familiar with, or the measurement will not tell whether they only fail to listen or they do not know the word in the first place. For example, for Japanese learners, determiners such as a and the or prepositions such as in and at are good candidates because the concept of these in Japanese language and English are so different that learners cannot rely on their grammatical knowledge but only on their ears. Are there any interesting areas that need more research? The area for further research is shadowing for speaking. Shadowing is basically a technique for listening, but there is still room for its development as a technique for output. What has been empirically found is that shadowing is effective for learners with low-proficiency in listening because shadowing directs their attention to bottom-up processing. In other words, the chances are that high-listening proficiency learners may have enough capacity to attend to other features, so exploring the effect of shadowing on high-listening proficiency learners may be of some value. Or, combined with other activities, shadowing may have positive effects on speaking skills. Additionally, no research has revealed the mystery of what being able to shadow means. For example, if learners can shadow 50 percent successfully, what does it mean? What does 80 percent success mean? (Chapter 6). Where should I publish research on shadowing? If it is a major finding that contributes to communication skill development, international journals may publish the research. However, due to the low popularity of shadowing outside Asian EFL contexts, and its repetitive nature, it is currently difficult to publish shadowing research in international journals. Generally speaking, journals that focus on teaching will be more likely to accept shadowing research. What is the difficult issue in publishing research on shadowing? The main issue is that the reviewers are unlikely to be familiar with shadowing, so we need to write based on the premise that the reviewers do not know about shadowing. Related to this, shadowing may seem as only one of the techniques for listening, so we need to organize the literature review section in a quite reader-friendly way. Otherwise, we will easily receive a comment, “it sounds interesting, but spending time for other listening activities may be time-efficient.” Another issue is that this type of classroom-based research has various factors that potentially influence the results, so the findings come with limitations. Why do you use t-test often instead of a more complicated statistical method such as ANOVAs? I normally do not set a research question to compare two groups but set a research question to examine the effect of each. In other words, I do not set a control group but rather set two experimental groups. Technically, if the purpose of the experiment is to compare the two, accordingly, I have to use an ANOVA or ANCOVA. For example, when the RQ is to compare the effectiveness of shadowing on low-listening proficiency group and

170 Q&A about shadowing intermediate group (e.g., 2.4.3), a repeated-measure ANOVA is appropriate. However, when the RQ is to examine the two independent groups, I do not necessarily compare the two, so I use t-tests (4.3.2).

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7.3 Psychology Q. My students don’t want to work on shadowing. What should I do? A. I think there are three conditions to be met: 1 2 3

Q. A.

Q. A.

teachers should like shadowing, or at least “buy” it; students should know the function of shadowing; students need listening skill development.

If these are met, your students would be motivated or at least be able to engage in shadowing even if they are not quite motivated. First of all, students will be attracted by what their teachers love. If teachers are talking about something with great passion, happily, they will be also influenced positively. Second, often, teachers only give instructions and students only follow the instructions without knowing why they are doing it, ending up losing motivation. Shadowing is not an exciting exercise, like daily workouts in sports. In order to repeat a demanding or tough workout, players need to know the reason. So do students. Third, in parallel with the second condition, there should be a need for listening skill development for the students. For more detailed explanation, please go back to Chapter 4, in which I approach shadowing from the perspective of learner motivation (4.4). Is there any way to make shadowing less demanding? This is a tricky question because the toughness of shadowing is the value of shadowing. Through the repeated demanding practice, learners will improve their phoneme perception skills and their general concentration capacity. Instead of trying to make it less demanding, add other tasks such as comprehension questions before and after shadowing training so that they can feel their improvement in listening each day. Also, the atmosphere in the class and the teachers’ enthusiasm will ease the stress as well (4.3). My students lost interest after a couple of shadowing-based lessons. What should I do? To be honest, it is natural, based on my experience over the years, so I do not think students or teachers are to blame. One idea is to tell them honestly that it is natural to lose interest eventually, but instead emphasize the benefits they can get to re-charge themselves. What I recommend is to give them opportunities for self-reflection. Because shadowing is an on-line activity, students cannot monitor how they perform, which may lead them to lose interest. Recording their performance with a smartphone or IC recorder will be helpful, and it will be more effective in improving their listening skills. In addition, I normally give a maximum of eight or nine intensive-lessons because more lessons will be too demanding for students. (3.4, 4.4).

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Q&A about shadowing 171 Q. Shadowing works even without motivation? A. The answer is not really. This is an interesting part of language learning. Even the most effective teaching technique with robust theories may not work if students do not have motivation. For a similar example, even if a cook follows the best recipe, the dishes would not taste as good if his motivation is low with little hope of pleasing customers. This is a mysterious and an interesting phenomenon. In 5.1, I emphasized the importance of learners’ initial attitudes toward studying English in shadowing lessons with the data obtained from a case study. Therefore, we should get them well ready for the training and sustain their motivation till the end of the lessons (5.1.2).

7.4 Practice Q. Is shadowing different from repetition? A. Shadowing is different from repetition. When shadowing, you have to replicate what you hear as soon as possible (i.e., on-line) but when repeating, you have to keep what you hear in mind until the audio/speaker stops then repeat (off-line). Therefore, while you can concentrate on mainly phonetic information when shadowing, your attention is spent on the phonetic information and its meaning in repetition, consequently shadowing enhances listening skills, while repetition may enhance reading and listening skills (1.2.2). Q. Is parallel reading (synchronized shadowing) different from overlapping? A. They look quite similar but they are still different. In parallel reading, learners repeat what they hear while looking at the script, so there is a delay between the audio and their repetition. In contrast in overlapping, learners try to read simultaneously with the audio, so there should be little delay between the audio and their utterances. What this means is that while doing parallel reading learners focus more attention on the incoming sounds than in overlapping, so the process in the brain is slightly different. Q. What is the appropriate speed of the audio for shadowing? A. There has been no research regarding shadowing and its speed. However, if your goal is to be able to listen to authentic fast speech by native English speakers, you should use the audio at fast speed. If your goal is to be able to listen to the clear English such as the one you hear at examination, you can practice with the audio file, that is, read at a similar type of speed. In short, you should choose the speed depending on your goal. Q. What is the best way to introduce shadowing to students? A. If shadowing is new to students, probably the following steps will be learnerfriendly: 1 2 3

a teacher demonstrates a bit; a teacher gives a brief explanation; students try shadowing in their first language, using an audio file in their first language;

172 Q&A about shadowing

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4 5

Q. A.

Q. A.

Q. A.

students try in English; a teacher gives a thorough explanation.

As the proverb “seeing is believing” says, rather than starting with an explanation, students can easily get a grasp of shadowing when a teacher demonstrates shadowing. They will understand a teacher’s brief explanation better after this. Then, before trying in English, trying in their first language will be learner-friendly. To make it a bit funny, you can use a comedian’s or a famous and funny entertainer’s talk. After they understand how to shadow, they can finally try in English, followed by more explanation. However, students will forget the content of the explanation gradually, so teachers are recommended to repeat the explanation occasionally (2.1, 4.4). How can we evaluate students’ shadowing? Up until now, one thing certain is that shadowing is a technique for bottomup listening skill development, so what teachers can do is to assess students’ listening skill development. In other words, little has been known about what being able or unable to shadow means. Having said this, there are two ways to evaluate shadowing performance (Kadota and Tamai, 2004). 1 checking all the words by syllable; 2 checking only the selected words. The first way requires efforts and concentration because the evaluators need to check all the syllables. The second way is more realistic in that the evaluators check only the words already selected in advance. The criteria of successful replication are another challenge in both cases. For example, let’s say the target sentence was I think my right arm is stronger than my left arm. Most Japanese students have difficulty in pronouncing th and r, replacing each with s and l, respectively. If students replace the two sounds with the alternatives, will they receive minus points? If the objective of the evaluation is to examine whether they can shadow accurately, they will get minus but if the objective is to examine whether they recognize the sentence, they will get plus (6.3). I think shadowing needs interaction because of the trend in teaching. If you focus on the pure function of shadowing, shadowing does not require interaction because it would negatively affect the outcome of shadowing practice. So, I would not recommend interaction when shadowing, especially for listening skill development. However, in a normal lesson, combining shadowing with interaction is an idea, but teachers need to understand the purpose of the activity and tell the learners the purpose and the function of shadowing so that the learners can engage in it with a clear purpose (6.4.1). Can learners improve both speaking and listening skills through conversational shadowing? I doubt we can see positive results on listening skill improvement. If you combine shadowing and conversational shadowing, both will improve. In essence, learners need to listen and shadow the target model of English, not partners’ English to improve their listening skills. In this sense, working on only conversational shadowing lacks the exposure to the target model English (2.4.4, 6.4.1).

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Q&A about shadowing 173 Q. I think pair-shadowing will be interesting. A. Pair-shadowing LOOKs interesting but I do not recommend it. The essence of shadowing is that learners can train their phoneme perception process toward the target type of English, but in pair-shadowing, they are only exposed to their partner’s English, which may be demotivating because in most EFL contexts, learners want to achieve more native-like proficiency and prepare for examinations in which native speaker voices are used. Therefore, using native speaker English (e.g., a CD recording) is probably better.

7.5 Language Q. Can I use shadowing for another language than English? A. Yes, shadowing has also been used to teach Japanese as a second language. I believe it can be used in other cases, especially when the system of students’ first language and that of their second/foreign language is quite different. For students who are learning Japanese, visual-auditory shadowing may be more interesting (6.4). Q. Do shadowing in other languages and shadowing in English have the same function? A. Little is known about this topic. However, the basic theoretical assumption that shadowing will improve learners’ bottom-up listening skills is assured. The research on shadowing for learning Japanese has mentioned that shadowing may improve learners’ pronunciation. So, more research is required on this topic.

7.6 Material Q. Should I use easy materials? A. Yes. If you simply want to improve your phoneme perception processing, and if you have time, easy materials are ideal because you can focus on phonological input only when shadowing. Additionally, if your students can study autonomously, easy materials will be ideal. However, it does not mean difficult materials are unsuitable for shadowing. You can still use them after learning the content. (3.1, 3.2). Q. Can I use the difficult textbook that I use in class for shadowing? A. Using only easy materials is unrealistic in classroom. Normally we teachers want to “kill two birds with one stone” (using difficult materials and still improving listening skills). If you want to use normal textbooks that are rather challenging, learners should learn the content first, including vocabulary and expressions they are not familiar with. Then, theoretically the textbook becomes easy because they are familiar with it. Another idea is to use a combination of more and less difficult materials. Sticking to the same level materials may gradually become boring (3.1, 3.2, 3.3). Q. What kind of English should I use for shadowing?

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174 Q&A about shadowing A. It depends on the learners’ goal in learning English. If their goal is to be able to communicate with only English speakers, they can shadow the English spoken by native speakers. However, more realistically in this globalized society, we will have more opportunities to communicate with non-native speakers, so shadowing varieties of Englishes will be more helpful. Another case will be that they urgently need a certain high level of score at an English proficiency test for promotion or entrance examination. In this case, they can target only one specific type of English they will hear in the exam. Q. Can I use authentic materials such as movies for shadowing? A. Yes, but if it is far beyond learners’ level, starting from easier ones will be more effective. Plus, TV shows will be preferable to movies because there are more lines to shadow. Probably, learners’ favorite materials will be motivating for them.

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8

Concluding remarks

Let’s quickly review what this book has covered. Along with the principle that the first three parts emphasize robust theory and findings obtained from empirical studies, Chapter 1 discussed the theory of shadowing. Chapter 2 introduced a shadowing-package for classroom-use, and experiments that attempted to examine the basic function of shadowing on listening skills. Chapter 3 explored how shadowing can be used more effectively in the classroom by showing empirical studies. Then, along with the principle that the second four parts focus more on practice, Chapter 4 studied learners’ perceptions toward shadowing, and looked at shadowing and motivational strategies. Chapter 5 viewed shadowing with course designing and considered how to incorporate shadowing into teaching. Additionally, suggestions were given regarding autonomous learning. Chapter 6 reviewed the limitations of shadowing and proposed what is researchable in the future. Chapter 7 provides a Q&A for the sake of a quick review. Now that all about shadowing has been revealed, for concluding topics, please think about the following. Quite often shadowing is misinterpreted and criticized as below: a)

It is just an Audio-Lingual based repetitive technique. It does not involve interaction, so it does not conform to the mainstream of current teaching principles. b) It only improves bottom-up listening skills. Top-down skills can make up for weak bottom-up skills and eventually the bottom-up listening skills will catch up. c) There are many other techniques for listening improvement. Shadowing is just one of them. Quite often also, shadowing is misinterpreted too optimistically: d) Shadowing is such a powerful technique that it can improve overall English skills. e) When shadowing, learners “speak,” so shadowing is a speaking activity. f) Pair-shadowing may improve communication skills and listening skills.

176 Concluding remarks My responses:

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a)

As I have repeatedly emphasized, shadowing is not an Audio-Lingual based technique, because the theoretical background is different. b) In ESL contexts, probably this theory works, but how can the EFL learners’ bottom-up listening skills catch up under the circumstance that they have little exposure to English outside the classroom? c) Yes, shadowing is one of the techniques for listening. But is there any technique that specifically focuses on learners’ phoneme perception process and bottom-up listening skills with quick improvement? d) As I have repeatedly mentioned, though shadowing may be a powerful technique for listening skill development, it does not guarantee overall English skills improvement. The advantage of shadowing is the limited but specific effectiveness on learners’ phoneme perception skills. e) As a case study showed in Chapter 2, shadowing is a technique for listening primarily. If we want to improve speaking skills by shadowing, combining other out-put activities with shadowing would be better. f) As a case study in Chapter 3 showed, self-monitoring shadowing is recommended. In this sense, shadowing is well suitable for autonomous language learning. Through the process of writing this book, I reconfirmed the importance of the three Cs, creativity, curiosity, and critical enquiry. We, researchers and teachers, will have to keep trying to be creative, curious, and critical for students. I really hope that this book has stimulated you and motivated you to use shadowing in class when there is a need. When I quit being a high school teacher to be a university teacher, I was asked why I quit. My answer was that if I keep teaching as a high school teacher, I can teach the students in front of me, but if I become a researcher, there is a possibility that I can spread the “seed” of what I learn from researching and teaching. I sincerely hope that the “shadowing seed” will fly around and someday land on a flower somewhere I have never been. This book includes the contents of the author’s previous works, supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number 24720247.

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Index

active listening 11, 20, 81–2, 109, 130 anxiety 27, 43, 59, 63, 69, 70, 83, 103, 145 anxious 69–71 attention: attention shift 3, 18, 19; directed attention 103; selective attention xiii, 1, 3, 103, 130–2 attribution retraining treatment 63 Audio Lingual ix, xiii, 6, 126–7, 175–6 authentic material 43, 49–51, 53, 102, 110, 174 autonomous language learning 81, 82, 108, 113, 176 autonomy 95, 107–108, 113 bottom-up xiii, xiv, xvi, 1, 9–12, 14–16, 20, 25, 27–8, 36–7, 41, 49, 57, 59, 64, 72, 79 cognitive load 2, 9, 16, 18–19, 22, 65, 70, 81, 85, 89, 100, 112, 134, 145, 153 cognitive process 3,4, 9, 164 cognitive resource 9, 16–17, 19–20, 22, 36, 46, 60, 69, 145, 153 cohort model 9 cost 84–93, 97–8, 100, 102, 113, 145, 160–1 design: experiments 140–1; research 140–1 design-based research 140–1 dictation 29–31, 33, 37, 39, 43, 89–92, 96, 98, 122, 132, 168 EAP, 123–6, 136 elicited imitation i, 1, 6, 8, 20

frame: affective frame 11, 82–3, 130; autonomous frame 11, 82, 107–9, 113; bottom-up frame 11, 12, 20, 82; interactive frame 11, 82, 130, 132; top-down frame 11, 82, 131 i+1 43, 50, 59, 63, 69, 107 i–1 50, 59, 63, 106, 143 interactive compensatory hypothesis 10, 64 L1 contexts 4 L1 listening xiv, 10, 16 L2 listening xiv Lambert 2–5, 14, 17 language distance 14–15, 31, 133, 135–6, 148 learner difference 21, 56, 100 learning strategy/ies 11, 71, 103, 109, 113, 148 listening strategy/ies 132, 141 metacognitive strategies 71, 83, 103–4 mirroring i, 1, 6–8, 122 monitor: Monitor Theory 71, 79; pairmonitoring 49, 71–6, 78–80; selfmonitoring 49, 71–5, 77–9, 176 motivation: demotivation ix, 12, 23, 81–3, 94, 96–7, 99, 104, 106–7, 113; initial motivation 94, 99–100; motivational strategy/strategies xii, 81, 83, 88, 93–7, 99–101, 106–8, 113, 175 Nation: fluency development 122, 126, 130, 155; language-focused learning 122, 124, 126, 130; language-focused

188 Index

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strand 122, 124, 126, 130; meaningfocused input 122, 126, 130; meaning-focused output 122, 126, 130 national center test/exam 30, 134 needs analysis 115, 118, 123, 136–7 noticing x, 71–2, 78–80 off-line 6, 9, 134, 171 on-line 6, 17, 43, 46, 71–2, 80, 89, 103, 110, 134, 143, 146, 170–1 oral reading 146, 151–3 PCPP 128, 129, 137 perceptual process 82 phonemic input 58 phonological: phonological aspects 19, 21–2, 25, 27, 47, 49, 63, 69, 78, 135, 143, 151; phonological coding 129, 150; phonological features 50, 127; phonological information 27, 65, 69, 70; phonological loop 12–14, 20; phonological perception 27, 31; phonological perspective 135; phonological short-term store 13 post-listening 129–130, 132 PPP 127–8, 137 pre-listening 129–130 priming effect 69–70 read-aloud activity 134 rote repetition 6, 9

self-confidence 94–6, 104–5 self-efficacy 96–7, 99, 102, 107 Semantic Differential method 85 Shadowing: complete shadowing 5; content shadowing 5, 21, 23, 143, 168; conversational shadowing 5, 146, 151, 153–6, 165, 172; EFL shadowing 1, 4–5, 14, 18, 20, 148–9; interactive shadowing 5; Karaoke shadowing 111, 131, 164; L1 shadowing 1, 4, 5, 14, 17, 18, 20; mumbling 5, 21, 22, 73; overlapping 171; pair-shadowing 173, 175; parallel reading 5, 22–3, 73, 171; phonemic shadowing 4–5; phrase shadowing 4–5; post-shadowing 65–70, 80; preshadowing 65–70, 80; selective shadowing 5; VA shadowing 150, 162–4, 173 short-term memory 58 stress-timed 15, 135, 149 syllable-timed 135–6, 149 TBLT 126–8 top-down 9–11, 14–16, 17, 19–20, 25, 28, 37, 41, 64 TSLT 126, 128, 136 word recognition 12–14, 31, 36, 79–80, 143 working memory 1, 9, 12–14, 16–17, 20, 57, 156