Repeat Sentence too long to remember? Try silent shadowing

What this video covers

Repeat Sentence plays each sentence once, and the long ones run past ten words. Losing the start halfway through is usually not a listening problem but a memory method: storing word by word fills your memory fast.

Remember chunks, not words

Hear the sentence as three or four chunks of meaning: The library will be closed / on Friday afternoon / for staff training. Three chunks are far easier than ten loose words, and once you hold the meaning the words follow.

Silent shadowing

1. Repeat along silently in your head as you listen, lips still. If you get used to mouthing words in practice, your real answer in the exam tends to come out quiet and weak.
2. Get the amount right: echo just the first few words of each chunk, like a label. Echo every word and the new ones can't get in.
3. Pause, then speak: when the audio ends, replay it in your head for a second or two, then say it aloud. As it gets easier, shorten the pause until you can speak right away. Don't pause long in the exam.

When you miss part of it

Don't stop and don't start over. Join the chunks you remember, in their original order, with a steady pitch. A smooth, complete part beats a whole sentence pieced together in fits and starts.

Five ways to practise

1. 20 new sentences a day: drilling the same sentence trains recitation, not memory.
2. Hear each sentence once: shadow silently, pause a second or two, say it aloud, record it.
3. Check against the text: did you lose the start, the middle or the end?
4. Bring your reading habits: linked words and a steady pitch. For example: Students who hand in their essays late / will lose ten percent / of the final mark.
5. Don't change methods in the last three days before the test.

Then open Repeat Sentence practice and do 20 new sentences today. Previous episode: five reading habits.

Next episode: Stalling in Describe Image? One template, and look ahead while you speak