シャドウィング(shadowing)は、元々通訳者の訓練に使われていたようですが、最近ちょっとブームになっている感じです。文字通り影のようにnativeのスピーチを真似てしゃべる手法です。これはlistening, speaking, さらにはreadingにも効果的だとか。

本当にそうなのかとふと疑問に思い私なりに文献やらサイトやらを調べてみたところ、確かに効果的なようです。英語をそのまま再生するので、自分の発音の癖を直すことができ、英語をチャンク（固まり）で処理するクセもつけられる。

Flow: Image: Cea. via FlickrAs a teacher in Japan, I was surprised by how many people want to be able to speak English like a native speaker. Tetsuya 'Ted' Yasukochi of 東進ハイスクール has noticed it too:

"Strangely, almost everybody learning English in Japan, even beginners, wants to be like a native speaker, and some people are ashamed of speaking English which is even a little bit short of that of a native speaker."

According to Yasukochi-sensei, most people in Japan spend their English lives waiting for a day that will never come — the day they speak English perfectly. Most people will never be able to speak English like a native speaker. Even Mr Yasukochi himself admits that he will probably never be able to speak English like a native speaker. It's an impossible dream. David Thayne of AtoZ English agrees:

Montmartre s'éveille: Photo: gadlOne challenge in learning any language is the variety of accents that speakers have. Even when you can understand the "standard" version of the language quite well, you can have trouble understanding any non-standard accent. For this reason, it is advisable to "shop around"—deliberately expose yourself to a variety of accents, so you can gradually learn to understand the full range of pronunciations you will encounter in the real world.

Accents vary in strength, of course. Among both native and non-native speakers, you will always find some people with extremely mild accents. It's best, if you can, to look for accents that are slightly stronger, so you can see the typical features of that accent more clearly. (For this reason, it is sometimes best to avoid the news programmes of national broadcasters, which are often in an almost artificially accent-free, neutral English.)

Binary Kite: Photo: SynotopiaWhen we begin learning foreign languages, it is very easy to get the impression that languages are made up of two elements:

1. words; and
2. rules for putting the words together, i.e. grammar.