I have my students do shadowing with a recording every day, and after only two weeks, several of them are already saying they want to give up.

There’s nothing wrong with the method—I use it all the time when teaching international students, too. What have you been having them listen to?

TED Talks. The content is pretty interesting, and the speaking speed is just normal conversational speed.

Then it’s no wonder. If they can’t understand half the words, they’re reciting along with their mouths while their minds are blank. Doesn’t that just become “a little monk chanting scriptures—his mouth is moving, but his heart isn’t in it”?

That’s exactly what’s happening. One student told me that after shadowing for a week, he still had no idea what the speaker was talking about.

The material should be something they can understand 80 or 90 percent of. Have them figure out the meaning first, then shadow it sentence by sentence. That way, they can tell where their speech differs from the recording.

Then should I switch to the textbook recordings? They’ve all studied those texts.

That’s precisely why they’re good for shadowing. Once they can keep up and imitate the pronunciation well, you can gradually increase the difficulty.

All right, I’ll switch tomorrow. But first I need to think about how to explain it to them. Otherwise, they’ll feel like they’re just going back to reciting the textbook, which will be even more boring.