Lesson 1 – The Parroting Technique
Hello and welcome to the first lesson of this module. In this lesson, we'll show you
how you can improve your listening and pronunciation using a technique called
Parroting.
The first thing you need to know is that Parroting is similar to another technique
that you'll learn in the next lesson, which is called Imitation. The difference is that
Imitation is much superior.
While Parroting can only improve your listening and pronunciation, Imitation can
improve your listening, your pronunciation, your speaking vocabulary and your
grammar.
So you might be wondering, if Imitation is much better, then why do you have to
learn Parroting? Why can't you just learn Imitation and be done with it?
The answer is, while Imitation is more effective, it might be too difficult for
beginners. That's why you should use Parroting first before moving on to using
Imitation.
OK. Now that we're on the same page, let's talk about how to improve your
speaking with Parroting.
It's actually very easy to do. Here's how.
First, you need to find English materials like movies, podcasts, audiobooks, and so
on.
If you want to have an American accent, pick material where American English is
spoken. If you want to have another kind of English accent, then pick your
material accordingly. If you don't know what accent you should have, just pick the
American accent because most people are more familiar with this particular
accent than any other accent.
Once you have your material, just listen to it and try to repeat what you hear as
accurately as possible.
<Demonstration>
That's it. That's how you do it. The creator of this course is not a native English
speaker and has never been to any English-speaking country. However, his English
pronunciation is pretty good because he used this technique to improve his
pronunciation.
Parroting doesn't only improve your pronunciation, but also your listening.
Many students have trouble understanding native speakers even after a lot of
listening practice.
Now why is that?
This has to do with the way native English speakers speak. We speak English
differently than non-native speakers do.
We use contractions:
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She’s left.
I’ve made a terrible mistake.
Everyone’s been talking about you.
He said he would’ve come if he’d known about it earlier.
We link words together:
 I like it.
 Come on in. The door is open.
 That’s a lot of money.
We sometimes use casual speech instead of formal speech:
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Why joo do it? (Why did you do it?)
Wanna dance? (Do you want to dance?)
You musta seen it. (You must’ve seen it.)
It’s kinda hot. (It’s kind of hot.)
Get adda here. (Get out of here.)
As you can see, native speakers have several speaking habits that might trouble
non-native speakers. If you're not aware of them, you won't be able to anticipate
them when listening to native speakers.
So, what should you do?
Well, you can keep listening to English all you want and that will help to some
degree. But the most effective way to solve this problem is to learn to speak like a
native speaker.
You can do that by using this Parroting technique to mimic how native speakers
actually say things in English. If you can use contractions and other speaking
patterns yourself, you'll be able to anticipate them when listening to native
speakers.
So, how long should you practice Parroting before moving on to Imitation?
The answer is, it shouldn't be long. As soon as you start to feel like the technique
is too easy for you, move on to using Imitation right away. In our opinion, you
shouldn't use this technique for more than three months. In fact, if you can
already speak English quite well, you can skip this technique and start using
Imitation right away.
Remember, the only advantage of Parroting is that it's easier than Imitation,
which is a good thing for beginners. But in terms of effectiveness, Imitation is
much superior.
Alright. This is the end of this video. We hope you find it useful, and thank you for
watching.