The effects of Shadowing technique on L2 learners' pronunciation skills

In this study, it was aimed to find out the effects of Shadowing, a method which is one of the pronunciation development methods of students in the process of learning English as a foreign language, over the students' pronunciation development. The study was carried out with students studying in the preparatory department at a private university. A mixed-methods design was applied and the data were collected quantitatively and qualitatively. Qualitative data were collected through a pre-test and post-test which were taken by the control group and experiment group. Throughout the study, short videos of native English speakers were sent to both the experiment group and the control group. The experiment group repeated the sentences in the videos they listened to and sent them to the researcher as a sound recording. The control group only listened to these videos. At the end of the study, qualitative data were collected through an open-ended questionnaire applied to the experimental group. According to the results of the quantitative data obtained in the study, the implementation of Shadowing Method has positive effects on the development of students' English pronunciation. It was revealed that the pronunciation mistakes of the experimental group, in which the shadowing method was implemented for eight weeks, made in the pre-test before the Shadowing Method was implemented, were more than the pronunciation mistakes they made in the post-test after the Shadowing Method was implemented for eight weeks. These results show that the Shadowing Method improved students' English pronunciation. According to the quantitative data analyzed by the thematic coding method, it was determined that the motivation of the students increased with the shadowing method. It was stated by the participants that the shadowing method was helpful, effective, fun and motivating. The fact that it is not time consuming and provides consistency are among the positive comments made by the participants for this method. As a result, the Shadowing Method, which is an English pronunciation improvement method, revealed good learning results on pronunciation improvement. At the same time, it was observed that students developed positive perspectives towards their own learning experiences. The fact that the Shadowing Method does not take much time, is a method integrated with technology, the listening resources are provided by native English speakers, the materials used are obtained from interesting sources such as TV series, movies, music make this method both practical and fun to use. The Shadowing Method is recommended to be used in the language learning process to improve English pronunciation.