Pronunciation ChallengeImprove Your English: “Dramatic Shadowing”

Hello everyone my name is Jonathan and you’re listening to the VoiceTube pronunciation challenge. Today’s video is quite interesting because it talks about learning English and how different techniques work better for different people. The lady in the video mentions what techniques work for her and you might be surprised to find out what she did and didn’t do when learning English. So be sure to watch the video after you listen to this episode!

When you think about your own English learning, what strategies and what techniques have worked for you, and which ones haven’t? I have quite a few opinions about this myself because I’ve been teaching English in Taiwan for over ten years now. But I’ll save that for later. What I’m interested in talking about right now is our sentence of the day, it talks about one of the ways that you could improve your English. And here it goes!


If you are a foodie, start with food, find interesting videos online about your favorite food, pick up those words and use it immediately.

Pronunciation Tips

For today’s pronunciation tips, I’d like to point out a couple of linked words in the sentence. For example “are a”. When we say these words together, we should blend them together as if they are one word. For example: “are a” “are a” I’ll give you a sentence so you can hear it in context:

If you are a person who enjoys videos about cooking, then try to find those videos in English, and watch them.”

Another couple of words we have that are blended together are “use it”. We don’t say “use… it” we say “use it”. For example, I’ll give you a sentence: “If you learn a new word in English, it’s important that you use it, so you remember it.”


Vocabulary words

And now let’s move on to our vocabulary words.

interesting KK[ˋɪntərɪstɪŋ] IPA/ˈɪntəɹəstɪŋ/

Something that is interesting is something that personally appeals to you, and something that you want to learn more about. For example, “I find videos about cooking interesting.”

favorite KK[ˋfevərɪt] IPA/ˈfeɪv(ə)rət/

If something is your favorite, that means it’s the one you like the most. For example, “I like many different kinds of fruit, but apples are my favorite.”

Immediately KK[ɪˋmidɪɪtlɪ] IPA/ɪˈmiːdi.ətli/

Immediately means to do something right away. For example: “The plane is about to take off. Please return to your seat and fasten your seat belt immediately.”

Now as I mentioned earlier, I have some opinions about this video based on my own personal experience teaching English here in Taiwan. There are many different styles and strategies towards learning, and different strategies can be effective for different people. For example, some students do very well in a traditional classroom setting with textbooks. However, some students don’t thrive in that type of environment. Some students thrive in a dramatic environment, for example. When we do our school plays, some students, maybe students who aren’t so effective at learning English otherwise, suddenly become very good at memorizing their lines, knowing where to stand, knowing how to speak with proper expression and pronunciation, and it can be amazing to see how it works!

So that will wrap it up for today’s pronunciation challenge. I’m curious to know what strategies and techniques for learning English have worked for you so please leave me a comment down below. And, I’ll catch you next time!

Thanks, Jonathan. Have a great day, everyone.