SHADOWING: A WASTE OF TIME?

Added: 2026-06-04

[00:00:00]Hello number ones and welcome to Methodons Academy. Have you ever heard of the word shadowing within language learning? Now, it's a technique and I probably will have to, in fact, an exercise more than a technique and I will probably have to make a dedicated video, not a huge fan, but does have some applicable scenarios in which I think it could be good to try. Anyways, since this is not that that dedicated video, we're going to listen to friend of the channel, Evil DEA, because he says the Dreaming Spanish founder responded to my email. I do need to give you a tiny bit of lore here. So, Evil DEA, language learning channel, has been experimenting with a specific type of language learning called ALG, which means automatic language growth, which is an immersive language acquisition method developed by linguist Dr. J.

[00:00:46]Marvin Brown. Now, I don't think Evil DEA likes it very much, but in order to experiment it, he put a thousand hours of learning Spanish through this method.

[00:00:54]As I say, I'm not a huge fan of the method by the way I understand it. We might have to go a little deeper into it. But for now, let's listen to this because it seems like he got an email from the Dreaming Spanish founder.

[00:01:04]>> What's up, grinders? Welcome back to the channel. So, today I'm making this video and this video is about that question I proposed in a previous video titled, "Should I do shadowing in Spanish?" I'm making this video about that topic because I finally have an answer. So, in that video, I was trying to answer the question, "Is shadowing, is parroting, is anything like this, these types of mimicking methodologies, are they acceptable under ALG, are they acceptable under the DEA's implementation of ALG?" Because I couldn't really find any information on it and yet I believe, you know, shadowing would be of great benefit to me in helping me produce this language.

[00:01:40]But >> I personally don't think it would be of great benefit. I think that's a bit of an over-exaggeration. For those who don't know, what is shadowing then?

[00:01:48]Shadowing is this type of exercise where you listen to a native speaker and you repeat after them, but it almost immediately the delay is negligible. So, it's different from the classroom repeat after me where the teacher says everything enunciating properly and then you take the time to listen and then you speak. No, it would be something a bit like like this. Check this out.

[00:02:11]>> Is shadowing >> Is shadowing and parroting >> Is anything like this >> mimicking methodologies >> Are they acceptable >> under ALG >> Are they acceptable >> under the ALG implementation >> Because I couldn't really find any >> Because I couldn't really find any information written yet I believe >> But you know, shadowing >> would be a great >> great benefit to me >> and helping >> me produce this language >> Okay, that's kind of how it works.

[00:02:33]The only thing is that you can imagine that it's not like I have a lot of time to make sure that I'm pronouncing correctly. So, you might think what what's what are you gaining from it if you don't enunciate, right? And in fact, I haven't got a clue what I said cuz I was I don't know what he's saying cuz I don't have time to focus on it.

[00:02:50]It's done mostly, I believe, to acquire rhythm and a certain pace in the language and a certain fluency maybe, but as I say, not a huge fan. Not a huge fan.

[00:03:01]>> Basically ran, you know, the ALG program in Thailand for very, very long time. He he saw shadowing as like, why would you do that? It seems like a waste of time.

[00:03:10]So, I ended up emailing Pablo and that was actually because you guys recommended I do it and I didn't get a response and I didn't expect much of a response by, you know, my 1,000 update because like, well, dude's running a massive business. Like he's got time to respond to some random YouTuber.

[00:03:24]>> that he did.

[00:03:24]>> But he responded.

[00:03:25]>> We have a response.

[00:03:27]>> We have an official response about whether parroting, shadowing, and all this is acceptable according to the methodology. So, let's read this. Hi Richard, sorry for the late reply. I can't quite see shadowing being useful if the principles of OG immersion and ALG are true. So, first >> Well, of course, because ALG they say to delay speaking, right? And pronunciation study, which is the part that as far as I understand, I disagree with the most.

[00:03:50]You should start speaking from day one.

[00:03:52]>> But stop before you even get further into this, I just want to, you know, publicly thank him for actually taking the time out of his day to freaking respond to me.

[00:03:58]>> Sure.

[00:03:58]>> Uh and then write such a decent, like, lengthy response. When I've seen shadowing being mentioned, it was as a way to develop pronunciation. However, when you're shadowing, you need to be listening to something at quite a high volume so that your voice is not louder than what you're listening to, or otherwise you wouldn't be able to hear the next thing that you need to repeat.

[00:04:16]I see they're are basically eliminating the usefulness of starting to speak when you're using our approach. Using our method, you start to speak, and hearing yourself speak, you can hear the difference between the pronunciation model that you have acquired in your head and what's coming out of your mouth. The difference allows you to find what to tune in your articulation to match the expected output. But if you're not hearing yourself speak because you're listening to something else and paying more attention to it, then in my opinion, that gets rid of the usefulness.

[00:04:41]>> I mean, I can agree with the guy, to be honest, on this.

[00:04:44]>> In general, I'm very wary of any kind of activity that has uh has you trying to do different things at the same time.

[00:04:50]>> And it's very it has a it has a significant cognitive load.

[00:04:57]Like, what what I just did a second ago, I couldn't do that for like 15 minutes in a row. I would need an ibuprofen immediately. I think it's too much energy for too little return.

[00:05:07]>> So, I kind of expected that this would be the response.

[00:05:11]And I I'm glad to see that, like, now I know this is the case. So, basically, under ALG, the idea is that because you've built up this mental model of the language, uh when you start speaking, you just start self-correcting quite a lot. And I have been doing that. I have been self-correcting. But I'm not sure if that would apply for, like, every single word, like, you know, every single utterance that would come out of my mouth because >> Right.

[00:05:34]>> I do have a mental model of the language in some ways.

[00:05:36]>> Right.

[00:05:37]>> Like, there's lots of things where I keep correcting myself and it still just doesn't sound right.

[00:05:41]>> [laughter] >> But I don't know what is right. Okay?

[00:05:43]So, >> That comes with a lot of experience.

[00:05:47]Because I can do this. Like what he's saying now, sometimes I do like I make my sentence in English for instance, and then I notice, you know what? There's something wrong with it. Something is off. And sometimes I don't even know why. I mean, most of the times I do, but only because I went deeply into grammar because I became a teacher many years ago.

[00:06:06]But even before that, even before I studied the grammar properly, sometimes I could tell. I was like, what I just said, it's it's wrong. I don't know why, but it doesn't feel right. And so I would rebuild it from scratch in a way that made more sense because of the mental model that I imagined had built in my head, although I did not use ALG and never will. Just going to say I appreciate that he's putting in the hours, but I do think that if instead of doing 1,000 hours of ALG, if he just went for speak from day one, uh his level of Spanish now would be a lot higher. But I I appreciate that he's doing it as a research pro- process project.

[00:06:46]>> Maybe that comes with uh the the speaking practice, which I've just started doing with Worlds Across, okay?

[00:06:53]So, I've already done What was that?

[00:06:55]Like an hour worth? Yeah, I did basically an hour, but it was mainly cross talk. Like it was actually What am I saying? It was like 99.9% cross talk.

[00:07:03]Um just because like I just they were trying to figure out where to start with me, and I was trying to figure out where to start with me, but we've got a plan.

[00:07:11]Anyway, if by parroting you mean doing something similar by pausing after you listen to what you're going to repeat, so that you don't listen and speak at the same time, its effect is probably quite different depending on whether you have already a mental model of the pronunciation of the language or not. If you already have a mental model of the sound of the language based on hundreds of hours of input, then it seems like parroting would be unnecessary since you al- >> Uh you're right, but input alone, if you don't actually speak and get professional feedback or native feedback or both, you think you you don't need it, but you do.

[00:07:45]>> Already so correct as mentioned in the previous paragraph. If you're using parroting before you have developed the model, then I can look at how well children or even adults do in language classes when trying to repeat what the teacher says in beginning classes and know that for most learners it's probably going to be a disaster for their pronunciation. I >> True. I mean, it depends. Some people are really talented or a musical ear, but even people that don't people who don't, but that's the teacher's job to then help course correct and then that's why I believe you have to focus on pronunciation as early as possible rather than waiting and oh, but I'm building a mental model so you It's a muscle. You got to train it.

[00:08:25]>> I think this blog post touches on it quite a bit or quite a relevant points are in this. Now, I actually went and read this um and it talks a lot about, you know, how ALG thinks about things and stuff like that. It's not It doesn't really actually answer this, but this email answers my question enough. So, uh you guys can go check out this link.

[00:08:44]You know, I'll put it down in the description down below if you want. Uh but basically, yeah, no shadowing, no parroting, both ALG and also uh the DS implement >> It doesn't surprise me.

[00:08:53]>> mentation of it. Uh so, that's how I'm going to be operating moving forward. I just wanted to make this super quick video because I >> Well, I appreciate that. Let me know what you think about shadowing though.

[00:09:02]Uh I'd be interested even in a comment if you want. And apart from that, thank you for watching and all the best of luck to you.

[00:09:09]>> If you're enjoying this video so far, please take a moment to check out my Patreon page. With as little as a $5 support, you can help us ensure that we can continue to produce high-quality and high-researched content. And at the same time, you get access to polls, extra videos, unlisted streams, and much more.

[00:09:24]Thank you so much.