Gradual Improvements Observed in Learners' Perception and Production of L2 Sounds Through Continuing Shadowing Practices on a Daily Basis

Sep 30, 2026

Shadowing, originally proposed in psycholinguistics, has become a common language-education training method for improving L2 sound perception and production. This study combines shadowing-based assessment with longitudinal tracking, using a 42-day Shadowing Marathon where Japanese English learners practiced daily. Four passages were shadowed repeatedly each day to analyze changes in segments and prosody across within-day repetitions and across the full 42-day period, using quantified recordings. Results show significant perception gains without explicit instructions, while production did not significantly improve under self-learning.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages5

Reading Time13 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

1. Introduction

Interspeech 2022 18-22 September 2022, Incheon, Korea Gradual Improvements Observed in Learners' Perception and Production of L2 Sounds Through Continuing Shadowing Practices on a Daily Basis Takuya Kunihara 1, Chuanbo Zhu 1 , Nobuaki Minematsu 1 , Noriko Nakanishi2 1 Graduate School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo 2Faculty of Global Communication, Kobe Gakuin University fkunihara,zhuchb,[mine](mineg@gavo.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp)[g](mineg@gavo.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp)[@gavo.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp](mineg@gavo.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp) , [nakanisi@gc.kobegakuin.ac.jp](nakanisi@gc.kobegakuin.ac.jp) Abstract Shadowing was proposed originally in psycholinguistics to investigate listeners' process of perceiving speech, and now it is used widely in language education in Japan as a training method for learners to acquire a better skill in perceiving and producing L2 sounds. Recently, a shadowing-based assessment method was proposed to quantify learners' skill in perception and production. By integrating the two methods, this study aims at tracking gradual improvements of learners' skill during shadowing practices. We held a special program of 42-day Shadowing Marathon, where Japanese learners of English participated in shadowing practices every day for six weeks. Four new oral passages were presented daily, each of which was shadowed repeatedly. From the obtained data, we analyzed gradual improvements in learners' perception and production of both segments and prosody through repeating shadowing within a day, and through continuing the shadowing practices over 42 days. The results of analysis showed that, while learners' perception of segments and prosody improved signiﬁcantly even with no explicit instructions, their production did not show signiﬁcant improvement in a self-learning condition. The data also showed in what way learners depend on written input and auditory input when they learn perception and production of L2 sounds. Index Terms: language learning, shadowing, perception and production, articulatory and prosodic control, assessment 1. Introduction Shadowing is a task of listening to given utterances and reproducing them with as short delay as possible. It was originally proposed in psycholinguistics [1–4] and in [3], it was used to analyze human behaviors of perceiving spoken words and to model the process of accessing to the mental lexicon that was assumed to exist in mind. Later in [5], shadowing was introduced as a training method to simultaneous interpreters. Here, trainees are not asked to interpret given utterances into another language, but shadow them as they are. Through shadowing and delayed shadowing, trainees can enhance the capacity of their working memory so that they can reproduce a given utterance after listening to its ﬁrst 20 or so words. In the late 1990s, shadowing was introduced to language education by a Japanese teacher of English [6] and it was developed as training method in [7–9] . Learners listen to model utterances, and orally reproduce them as quickly and accurately as possible. Since learners reproduce the model utterances with their speech image intactly stored in memory, by shadowing repeatedly, the learners are expected to get to speak with accurate pronunciation and prosody. Some teachers claim that shadowing is a passive and unidirectional oral activity like parroting, not including any interaction with others. This is reasonable because shadowing was originally proposed as a tool for analyzing listening processes. Recent ﬁndings in brain sciences indicate a scientiﬁc validity of using shadowing as a method of monitoring the listening processes. Although still controversial, researchers claim that listening to an utterance invokes motor neuron activities for articulation, which are a part of the neuron activities that would be observed if the listener reproduced the presented utterance actually and orally. These neurons are called mirror neurons [10–13], and listening seems to invoke

FAQs

What is the main goal of this study?

To track gradual improvements in learners’ L2 perception and production during shadowing practices over both a single day and a 42-day period.

How was the Shadowing Marathon conducted?

Japanese learners of English participated in daily shadowing for six weeks, receiving four new oral passages each day and shadowing each passage repeatedly.

What were the main findings regarding perception and production?

Learners’ perception of segments and prosody improved significantly even without explicit instructions, but their production showed no significant improvement in the self-learning condition.

Sep 30, 2026

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