ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the background theoretical considerations and basic neurological data governing why shadowing is effective in developing speech input perception. Understanding messages by listening to speech is such a natural and everyday activity that few of dare to reflect on what is occurring in the mind during this process. The study of listening, or spoken language comprehension, has close ties with the fields of phonetics, linguistics, cognitive psychology, and neuroscience. The central stage of listening comprehension is the short-term memory stage, wherein primary information processing is conducted – namely, the processing that builds the ultimate semantic representation of the input stimuli. After shadowing or listening to each passage, participants were given the comprehension questions, which asked about the contents of the passages. The effect of shadowing on listening comprehension has been demonstrated not only for high school and university students but also for junior high school students.
