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Revista Científica Zambos
ISSN: 3028-8843
Vol. 5 - Núm. 2 / Mayo – Agosto 2026
Revista Científica Zambos / Vol. 05 / Num. 02/ www. revistaczambos.utelvtsd.edu.ec
Repensar el Shadowing para la Pronunciación
Inteligible en la Educación Docente EFL
Latinoamericana: Revisión Crítica y Marco
Conceptual
Rethinking Shadowing for Intelligible Pronunciation in Latin
American EFL Teacher Education: Critical Review, Conceptual
Framework
Rivadeneira-Zambrano, María Angélica
1
Mero-Vélez, Jeny Stefania
2
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3924-5542
https://orcid.org/0009-0007-4058-3270
marivadeneira@uteq.edu.ec
jmerov@uteq.edu.ec
Ecuador, Quevedo, Universidad Técnica Estatal de
Quevedo
Ecuador, Quevedo, Universidad Técnica Estatal de
Quevedo
Autor de correspondencia
1
DOI / URL: https://doi.org/10.69484/rcz/v5/n2/190
Resumen: El shadowing se ha consolidado como una
técnica relevante para fortalecer la pronunciación en la
enseñanza del inglés como lengua extranjera; sin
embargo, su estudio presenta vacíos en contextos
latinoamericanos de formación docente y una orientación
excesiva hacia la precisión o semejanza nativa, en lugar de
la inteligibilidad comunicativa. El objetivo de este artículo
fue replantear críticamente el uso del shadowing en la
educación docente EFL hispanohablante, proponiendo un
marco conceptual orientado a la pronunciación inteligible.
Metodológicamente, se desarrolló una revisión crítica y
narrativa de literatura teórica, empírica y pedagógica sobre
shadowing, inteligibilidad, transferencia lingüística y
formación docente. Los resultados permitieron identificar
cuatro variantes principales de la técnica estándar,
prosódica, selectiva y mediada por tecnología, así como
mecanismos cognitivos vinculados al bucle fonológico, el
procesamiento ascendente, la automatización y la práctica
deliberada. La discusión evidencia que su eficacia depende
del diseño pedagógico, la selección de rasgos de alta carga
funcional y la atención a patrones específicos de
transferencia del español. Se concluye que el shadowing
debe aplicarse como una estrategia diferenciada,
diagnóstica y profesionalmente situada para fortalecer la
inteligibilidad, la confianza y el rol del futuro docente como
modelo oral.
Palabras clave: shadowing; enseñanza de pronunciación;
educación docente EFL; producción del habla en L2;
transferencia L1.
Research Article
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Abstract:
Shadowing has established itself as a key technique for improving pronunciation in the
teaching of English as a foreign language; however, research on this topic has gaps in
Latin American teacher-training contexts and tends to focus excessively on accuracy
or native-like pronunciation rather than communicative intelligibility. The objective of
this article was to critically rethink the use of shadowing in EFL teacher education for
Spanish speakers, proposing a conceptual framework oriented toward intelligible
pronunciation. Methodologically, a critical and narrative review of theoretical, empirical,
and pedagogical literature on shadowing, intelligibility, language transfer, and teacher
education was conducted. The results identified four main variants of the technique
standard, prosodic, selective, and technology-mediated as well as cognitive
mechanisms linked to the phonological loop, bottom-up processing, automation, and
deliberate practice. The discussion shows that its effectiveness depends on
pedagogical design, the selection of features with high functional load, and attention
to specific patterns of transfer from Spanish. It is concluded that shadowing should be
applied as a differentiated, diagnostic, and professionally situated strategy to
strengthen intelligibility, confidence, and the future teacher’s role as an oral model.
Keywords: shadowing; pronunciation instruction; EFL teacher education; L2 speech
production; L1 transfer.
1. Introduction
Over the past two decades, shadowing has grown from a niche interpreter-training
exercise into one of the more widely discussed pronunciation techniques in English as
a Foreign Language (EFL) instruction. Its appeal is intuitive: by asking learners to
reproduce incoming speech almost as they hear it, shadowing fuses perception and
production in a single act and promises to develop listening and speaking together. A
growing empirical record—recently consolidated in systematic reviews of 44 studies
(Whitworth & Rose, 2025)—reports gains in pronunciation, listening comprehension,
and fluency across a range of settings.
Despite this momentum, the way shadowing is conceptualised has not kept pace with
the accumulation of empirical studies. Two imbalances are especially consequential.
The first is geographic and demographic: most evidence comes from Asian classrooms
and from general EFL learners, while Spanish-speaking learners and teacher-
education populations remain underexplored. The second is theoretical: a large share
of the literature still frames pronunciation success in terms of accuracy or native-
likeness, even as the field has reoriented around intelligibility as the proper goal of
instruction (Kang et al., 2018; Saito, 2021). These imbalances matter for a specific
population—Spanish-speaking pre-service English teachers—whose pronunciation
carries professional as well as communicative weight.
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This article responds with a conceptual contribution rather than a new empirical report.
It pursues three aims: to synthesise critically what is known about shadowing for
pronunciation; to propose pedagogical design principles that link the technique's
cognitive mechanisms to L2 speech production and to intelligibility-oriented outcomes;
and to set out a concrete research agenda attentive to Spanish-speaking teacher
education. The authors' own quasi-experimental study (Rivadeneira et al., 2025) and
perceptions study (Gáleas et al., 2023) are treated here as two data points within a
wider field, not as the object of re-analysis.
The review is guided by three questions: How has shadowing been conceptualised,
and what cognitive mechanisms are invoked to explain its effects? To what extent does
the existing evidence speak to intelligibility, as opposed to accuracy or native-likeness?
And what conceptual, empirical, and practical gaps remain for Spanish-speaking EFL
teacher education, where the speaker is also a future model?
2. Metodology
This paper is a critical, narrative review rather than a formal systematic review or meta-
analysis. The aim is interpretive synthesis: to organise a heterogeneous literature
conceptually and to build an argument, rather than to estimate a pooled effect size.
The review draws on three bodies of work: foundational and theoretical accounts of
shadowing and pronunciation; recent empirical studies and systematic reviews of
shadowing in EFL; and scholarship on intelligibility-oriented pronunciation pedagogy.
Where recent systematic reviews already provide comprehensive coverage of
effectiveness evidence (Whitworth & Rose, 2025), this article builds on their synthesis
rather than duplicating it, focusing instead on conceptualisation and on the under-
theorised Spanish-speaking teacher-education dimension. Readers seeking
exhaustive effect-size evidence are directed to those systematic reviews; the
contribution here is conceptual integration coupled with practical application protocols.
3. Results
3.1. Origins and Definition
Shadowing began as a training task for novice interpreters learning to listen and speak
in a target language at once. Lambert (1992) provided an influential definition,
describing it as a paced auditory tracking task involving the immediate vocalisation of
heard input—word-for-word repetition in the same language, performed with minimal
delay. What distinguishes shadowing from ordinary repetition is simultaneity: the
learner begins reproducing one chunk of an utterance while still receiving the next,
leaving little time to process meaning consciously.
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This defining feature has methodological consequences that the literature has not
always honoured. As Whitworth and Rose (2025) observe in their systematic review,
studies sometimes label as 'shadowing' tasks that are in fact delayed repetition,
blurring the construct and complicating cross-study comparison. A clear
conceptualisation therefore matters not only theoretically but for the cumulative
interpretation of evidence.
3.2. Shadowing as a Family of Techniques
A central finding of this review is that shadowing is best understood as a family of
related techniques rather than a monolithic activity. Variants differ in what learners
attend to and how much support they receive. Standard (or 'pure') shadowing asks for
immediate reproduction of the full stream; prosody shadowing directs attention toward
stress, rhythm, and intonation; content or selective shadowing foregrounds meaning
or particular target items; and increasingly, technology-mediated shadowing pairs the
task with automatic speech recognition (ASR) or mobile applications that supply
feedback (Foote & McDonough, 2017; Huang et al., 2023). Treating these as
interchangeable obscures the fact that they likely engage different processes and
serve different goals.
Table 1
A Working Typology of Shadowing Variants
Variant
Primary Focus of Attention
Typical Pedagogical Goal
Standard shadowing
Whole speech stream,
reproduced immediately
Automatisation; global fluency;
overall prosodic patterning
Prosody shadowing
Stress, rhythm, intonation;
suprasegmental features
Stress and rhythm control; weak
form production; intelligible
phrasing
Content / selective shadowing
Meaning or specific target items
(segments, clusters)
Comprehension; targeted
segmental accuracy; high-
payoff features
Technology-mediated
shadowing
Model speech plus automated
feedback (ASR/apps)
Autonomous practice;
segmental accuracy; extended
exposure; self-monitoring
Note: Variants are not mutually exclusive; effective classroom sequences often combine them,
beginning with prosody shadowing to establish rhythm and stress patterns, proceeding to content
shadowing for high-payoff features, and supplementing with technology-mediated variants for
autonomous practice (Autores, 2026).
3.3. Theoretical Mechanisms Underlying Shadowing
Why might shadowing improve pronunciation at all? The literature converges on
several interlocking mechanisms, though it rarely articulates how they connect. This
section outlines four core cognitive and pedagogical mechanisms that explain
shadowing's effectiveness.
3.3.1. Working Memory and the Phonological Loop
Because shadowing requires learners to hold and reproduce incoming speech in real
time, it places direct demands on the phonological loop within working memory.
Repeated imitation is thought to strengthen short-term auditory storage and the
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subvocal rehearsal system, supporting the encoding of phonological detail that
ordinary listening lets learners bypass (Lambert, 1992). On this account, shadowing is
partly a memory-training task whose by-product is sharper attention to sound. For
Spanish speakers, this mechanism is particularly relevant because Spanish phonology
is less vowel-rich than English; the phonological loop exercises learners in
distinguishing and storing subtle vowel quality contrasts that do not exist in their L1
(e.g., /ɪ/ vs /i:/ or /ʌ/ vs /ɑ:/).
3.3.2. Bottom-Up Processing and Noticing
Hamada (2016) argues that shadowing trains bottom-up processing, anchoring
attention on phonetic and prosodic surface features rather than on top-down inference
from context. By forcing learners to track the signal closely, the task increases the
likelihood that they notice features—reduced vowels, linking, intonation contours—that
would otherwise pass unregistered. Noticing, in turn, is a precondition for uptake. For
Spanish learners, bottom-up processing is especially valuable because Spanish
prosody is relatively more stress-timed and transparent than English; many learners
initially rely on top-down inference to guess meaning from morphosyntax and context,
bypassing the fine-grained phonetic monitoring that English intelligibility demands.
Shadowing corrects this by forcing attention to precisely the weak-form vowels,
consonant clusters, and subtle intonation changes that characterise English connected
speech.
3.3.3. Automatisation Through Repetition
Repeated reproduction of authentic models is held to drive automatisation: with
practice, accurate articulatory and prosodic routines become faster and less effortful,
freeing cognitive resources for higher-level planning (Hamada, 2019). This is the
mechanism most often invoked to explain fluency gains. For teacher education
specifically, automatisation of suprasegmental patterns is crucial because pre-service
teachers must eventually model pronunciation fluently and naturally; stilted or effortful
pronunciation undermines their credibility and provides poor input to learners.
3.3.4. Deliberate Practice
Hamada and Suzuki (2024) situate shadowing within the framework of deliberate
practice, recasting it as focused, repetitive, goal-directed effort rather than passive
imitation. This framing is conceptually important because it predicts that effectiveness
will depend on design—on whether sessions target identifiable weaknesses, provide
feedback, and progressively increase challenge—rather than on the act of shadowing
per se. It also helps explain why undifferentiated 'shadowing' sometimes yields
disappointing results. For Spanish-speaking teachers, deliberate practice must be
specifically targeted at their L1-transfer vulnerabilities: a learner whose primary error
is cluster simplification (/skri:m/ → /eskrim/) needs different practice sequences than
one who neutralises vowel quality (/ɪ/ → /e/). Generic shadowing will not efficiently
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address these specific fossilised patterns; deliberate practice requires diagnostic
clarity and targeted feedback.
3.4. From Accuracy to Intelligibility: Reframing Pronunciation Goals
Contemporary pronunciation research has shifted from native-speaker imitation toward
intelligibility: the degree to which a listener actually recovers a speaker's intended
message (Kang et al., 2018; Smith & Nelson, 2019). Three constructs structure this
turn—intelligibility (recognition of words), comprehensibility (the effort understanding
requires), and accentedness (distance from a perceived native norm) (Saito, 2021)—
and they are empirically separable. A speaker may be markedly accented yet fully
intelligible, which is precisely why accent reduction is a poor target for instruction.
This reorientation has direct implications for how shadowing should be evaluated and
designed. Whitworth and Rose (2025) note that shadowing research has too often
relied on accuracy measures and called for more consistent use of comprehensibility
and intelligibility outcomes, alongside clearer theorisation of how segmental and
suprasegmental gains translate into global understanding (cf. Saito & Plonsky, 2019).
The intelligibility literature offers principled guidance here: not all errors carry equal
communicative cost. Work on functional load and on the priority of nuclear and word
stress suggests that some contrasts and prosodic features matter far more for
understanding than others (Jenkins, 2000). A shadowing pedagogy aligned with
intelligibility would therefore prioritise high-payoff features rather than treating all
deviations as equally worth correcting (Suzuki & Kormos, 2020).
For Spanish-speaking learners this principle is concrete and operationalisable.
Spanish is broadly syllable-timed and maps sounds to spelling more transparently than
English; transfer tends to flatten English vowel-quality contrasts, simplify consonant
clusters, and weaken stress-based rhythm. Work on Spanish learners' English
pronunciation (Coutinho et al., 2024; Rivadeneira et al., 2025) confirms that vowel
mergers (/ɪ/ → /e/) and cluster reduction (initial /s/ + consonant) carry HIGH functional
load for intelligibility, whereas some other errors (e.g., very slight /ð/ → /d/ substitution)
carry LOW functional load. An intelligibility-oriented shadowing programme would
therefore foreground exactly those features whose neglect most often impedes
understanding, rather than chasing native-like realisation across the board. This
distinction is practically crucial for teacher education: pre-service teachers need
focused energy on features that matter, not scattered effort on all deviations.
3.5. Synthesising the Empirical Evidence
3.5.1. General Patterns
The weight of evidence is broadly positive. Across contexts, shadowing has been
associated with improvements in pronunciation, listening, fluency, and learner
engagement (Whitworth & Rose, 2025). Hamada (2018) reported gains in
comprehensibility and segmental accuracy among Japanese university students;
Martinsen et al. (2017) found video-based shadowing improved pronunciation by
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strengthening imitation and self-monitoring; and Salim et al. (2020) and Ulfa and
Fatimah (2019) documented gains in accuracy and in classroom participation,
respectively. Studies in Romance-language contexts (Coutinho et al., 2020; Gáleas et
al., 2023) report positive effects on intelligibility and fluency, lending credence to the
generalisability of shadowing benefits beyond Asian populations.
3.5.2. The Segmental–Suprasegmental Asymmetry
A recurring pattern is that segmental gains tend to outpace suprasegmental ones. This
is plausible on theoretical grounds: discrete segments involve identifiable articulatory
gestures amenable to direct imitation, whereas stress, rhythm, and intonation rest on
timing and discourse-level processing that mature more slowly. The authors' own
quasi-experimental data are consistent with this asymmetry (Rivadeneira et al., 2025),
as is the broader literature, which suggests that suprasegmental development typically
requires longer or more explicitly prosody-focused intervention. For Spanish-speaking
teachers learning English, this asymmetry has direct practical implications: whereas
segmental work (vowel contrasts, consonant clusters) can show measurable gains in
8–12 weeks of focused shadowing, achieving native-like stress and intonation often
requires 6–12 months of intensive prosody-specific practice.
3.5.3. Technology-Mediated Shadowing
A fast-growing strand pairs shadowing with ASR and mobile tools. Foote and
McDonough (2017) showed mobile-assisted shadowing could extend practice beyond
the classroom, and Huang et al. (2023) reported web-based applications improving
comprehensibility and lexical intelligibility. Recent work integrating ASR feedback into
shadowing curricula reports gains in pronunciation accuracy and fluency, while also
cautioning that uneven access to digital infrastructure can widen rather than narrow
equity gaps—a caution with clear relevance for Latin American public institutions and
for teacher-education programmes in resource-constrained contexts. For Spanish-
speaking teacher education, technology-mediated variants offer promise as a scaffold
for autonomous practice and self-monitoring, particularly when ASR feedback is
calibrated to recognise Spanish-accented English and to flag high-payoff errors rather
than all deviations.
3.5.4. Methodological Limitations of the Evidence Base
Three limitations recur. Construct slippage, noted above, means that not all
'shadowing' studies study the same thing. Outcome measures lean toward accuracy
and away from intelligibility and comprehensibility. And sample and context skew
toward Asian, general-learner populations, with small samples and short interventions
common. These limitations do not undermine the overall positive signal, but they
constrain how confidently and how widely it can be generalised. Particularly acute is
the absence of studies distinguishing whether the same shadowing variant is equally
effective for reducing different types of L1-transfer errors, and whether feedback types
differ in efficacy for Spanish-specific vulnerabilities.
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3.6. The Spanish-Speaking and Teacher-Education Dimension
3.6.1. L1 Transfer Patterns and Functional Load Mapping
Generalising from Asian settings to Spanish-speaking contexts is risky. Learners differ
in first-language phonology, in cultural orientation to oral practice, and in access to
authentic input and technology. Spanish-L1 transfer patterns—vowel-quality
neutralisation, cluster simplification, syllable-timed rhythm—differ markedly from, say,
Japanese vowel epenthesis, and they implicate different intelligibility-relevant features.
The handful of region-specific syntheses now appearing underscore that shadowing
for speaking in Latin American B1-level contexts remains comparatively
underexplored, even as they report broadly encouraging patterns. More importantly,
while Spanish L1 transfer patterns are well-documented in the accent-reduction
literature, their mapping onto functional load (i.e., which errors most impede
understanding) remains underdeveloped. Table 3 presents a synthesis of Spanish-L1
transfer patterns relevant to English intelligibility, mapped to high-payoff features and
to the shadowing variant most likely to target each feature efficiently.
Table 3
Spanish L1 Transfer Patterns, Functional Load, and Shadowing Variant Selection
Spanish L1
Pattern
English Feature
Affected
Functional
Load
Intelligibility
Impact
Recommended
Variant
Vowel quality
mergers (/ɪ/→/e/,
/ʌ/→/a/)
Vowel contrast
system
HIGH
Frequent word
confusions
(sit/set, but/bat)
Content-selective +
Prosody
Consonant
cluster reduction
(esp. initial /s/+C)
Consonant
inventory, word
onset
HIGH
Reduced
intelligibility of
common words
(stop, sport,
small)
Content-selective +
Technology-
mediated
Word stress
weakening
(Spanish:
syllable-timed)
Stress placement
and rhythm
HIGH
Misplaced stress
changes word
meaning
(PREsent vs
preSENT)
Prosody-focused
Weak form
deletion (schwa
reduction)
Connected speech
patterns
MEDIUM
Slower speech,
perceived non-
fluency
Standard +
Prosody
/ð/ → /d/ or /z/
substitution
Voiced fricatives
(rare in Spanish)
LOW-MEDIUM
Slight accent, but
word recognition
often succeeds
Standard or
Content
Linking
avoidance (word
boundary issues)
Suprasegmental
fluency
MEDIUM
Artificial speech
rhythm, audible
word boundaries
Prosody +
Standard
Intonation
patterns
(Spanish: less
variation)
Prosodic variation,
discourse structure
MEDIUM
Perceived
monotone;
reduced
emphasis
marking
Prosody-focused +
Technology
Note: Functional load assignment is based on intelligibility impact reported in recent Spanish-English
comparative phonology research (Coutinho et al., 2024; Rivadeneira et al., 2025). The 'Recommended
Variant' column suggests which shadowing family member is most efficient for addressing each pattern;
in practice, multiple variants are often combined in a sequence (Autores, 2026).
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3.6.2. Shadowing Variant Selection Protocol for Spanish-Speaking Teachers
The framework presented in Table 3 enables a diagnostic-to-intervention logic: once a
pre-service teacher's specific pronunciation vulnerabilities are identified (via diagnostic
assessment or self-report), appropriate shadowing variants can be selected for
targeted practice. The following decision tree illustrates this protocol:
(1) **Diagnostic Phase: ** Identify primary transfer patterns via short speech sample
or intelligibility assessment. Prioritize high-functional-load features.
(2) **Intervention Selection: ** Match identified patterns to recommended shadowing
variant(s) from Table 3.
(3) **Sequencing:** Begin with the variant most closely aligned to the learner's primary
weakness. For example, a teacher whose main issue is vowel-quality merging would
begin with content-selective shadowing targeting minimal pairs (ship/cheap, sit/set),
followed by prosody shadowing to automate suprasegmental patterns, and
supplemented with technology-mediated variants for autonomous reinforcement.
(4) **Integration into Teacher Training: Embed variant selection into regular
pronunciation modules; provide explicit guidance (model transcripts, video exemplars,
feedback templates) for each variant.
This protocol transforms shadowing from a generic classroom activity into a targeted,
diagnostically grounded intervention tailored to Spanish speakers' specific needs.
3.6.3. The Speaker as Future Model: Professional Identity and Confidence
Development
Teacher education adds a dimension absent from most shadowing research: the
learner is also a prospective model whose pronunciation will shape future classroom
input. Reports that Ecuadorian pre-service teachers experience anxiety and low
confidence about pronunciation (Abad-Célleri et al., 2024; Coutinho et al., 2020)
suggest that the affective and professional stakes are higher in this population.
Intelligibility here is not only a communicative asset but a component of professional
competence and identity, a point that reframes what 'success' in a shadowing
programmed should mean.
A pedagogically informed approach to shadowing in teacher education must therefore
explicitly acknowledge and work with the professional-identity dimension. This means:
(1) framing shadowing not merely as accuracy or fluency practice but as preparation
for the teacher-as-model role; (2) providing explicit reflection activities in which learners
consider how their pronunciation choices will affect learner input; (3) building a growth
mindset by celebrating intelligibility gains as proxies for classroom effectiveness rather
than native-likeness; and (4) creating peer-feedback structures in which pre-service
teachers observe and reflect on their own and classmates' classroom pronunciation
modelling. Evidence suggests (Whitworth & Rose, 2025) that when learners
understand the pedagogical rationale for shadowing—why they are targeting certain
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features and how those features matter for communication—engagement and
perseverance increase. For teachers, this rationale is especially motivating when
connected explicitly to their future professional role.
4. Discussion
Bringing these threads together, this article proposes an integrative framework in which
the four cognitive mechanisms of shadowing are linked, through five deliberate design
principles, to L2 speech production outcomes oriented toward intelligibility, appropriate
for Spanish-speaking teacher education. The framework is organised as a chain:
mechanisms enable learning, but only design choices channel that learning toward
high-payoff features that matter for being understood, and only an intelligibility lens
defines the relevant outcomes.
Table 2 presents the full framework, with each mechanism paired to a corresponding
design principle and intelligibility-oriented outcome. The addition of Spanish-specific
content (Table 3) and selection protocols (Section 7.2) operationalises this framework,
transforming it from theory into practice.
Table 2
An Integrative Framework for Intelligibility-Oriented Shadowing in Spanish-Speaking
Teacher Education
Cognitive
Mechanism
Design Principle
Intelligibility-Oriented
Outcome
Spanish-Specific
Application
Phonological
loop / auditory
memory
Authentic, level-
appropriate
audiovisual
models
Stronger encoding of high-
payoff phonological contrasts
Include Spanish-accented
English models; highlight
vowel-quality and cluster
differences
Bottom-up
processing /
noticing
Pre-shadowing
focus on high-
functional-load
features
Explicit attention to
intelligibility-critical features
(stress, clusters, vowels)
Pre-shadow minimal pairs
(/ɪ/ vs /e/); mark cluster
positions; flag weak forms
Automatisation
through
repetition
Spaced,
progressively
challenging
repetition
Fluent, less effortful production
of high-impact prosodic
patterns
Repeat stress and
intonation patterns across
semantically varied
contexts; build automaticity
of weak forms
Deliberate
practice
Targeted
feedback on
individual L1-
transfer errors
Reduction of fossilised,
meaning-impeding errors
specific to Spanish speakers
Diagnose top 1-2 priorities;
provide explicit
metalinguistic feedback;
track progress on
functional-load features
Professional
modelling /
identity
Explicit reflection
on the teacher-as-
model role; peer
observation and
feedback
Confidence in pronunciation as
professional competence;
intelligible, authoritative
classroom speech
Discuss how pronunciation
affects learner input; model
your own teacher-talk;
observe peers' classroom
pronunciation
Note: The framework treats intelligibility, rather than native-likeness, as the terminal outcome; targets
high-payoff features rather than all deviations; acknowledges Spanish L1 transfer specificity; and frames
teacher confidence and professional identity as explicit outcomes. Implementation requires diagnostic
assessment, variant selection per Table 3, and ongoing feedback calibrated to Spanish-specific
vulnerabilities (Autores, 2026).
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The framework's practical upshot is that the question 'does shadowing work?' is poorly
posed. The more useful questions concern which variant, designed around which high-
payoff features, for which population, produces which intelligibility-relevant outcomes.
For Spanish-speaking pre-service teachers, the framework recommends a
coordinated sequence: (1) diagnostic assessment of pronunciation vulnerabilities, with
specific attention to functional-load features; (2) standard shadowing with authentic
Spanish-accented English models to normalise Spanish-English phonological
differences and build automaticity; (3) prosody-inclusive shadowing organised around
stress and rhythm, supplemented by explicit weak-form work; (4) content-selective
shadowing targeting vowel contrasts and consonant clusters (the high-functional-load
errors); and (5) technology-mediated shadowing enabling autonomous, extended
practice beyond class. Throughout, feedback should highlight functional-load features
and be explicitly calibrated to Spanish learners' transfer patterns. Crucially, design
must explicitly acknowledge the teacher-as-model dimension, reflecting with learners
on the professional significance of intelligible pronunciation and embedding
observation and feedback on classroom speech modelling.
Agenda De Investigación- Research Agenda
Several priorities follow this synthesis. First, the field needs construct discipline:
studies should report task designs in enough detail to confirm that simultaneous
listening-and-speaking actually occurred, and should explicitly name which variant is
implemented. Second, outcome measurement should incorporate intelligibility and
comprehensibility alongside accuracy, and should theorise how segmental and
suprasegmental gains aggregate into global understanding. Third, Spanish-speaking
and teacher-education populations require dedicated longitudinal study, including
interventions long enough to move suprasegmental performance (ideally 6+ months,
with spaced practice) and designs that capture affective and professional outcomes
(anxiety, confidence, identity, classroom speech monitoring).
Fourth, comparative trials contrasting standard, prosody-focused, and technology-
mediated shadowing, each structured around the high-payoff features identified in
Table 3, would clarify which variants serve which goals for Spanish learners. Fifth,
studies should empirically validate the functional-load assignments in Table 3 via
intelligibility testing; it is plausible that some patterns assigned 'high' load carry lower
actual intelligibility impact than estimated, and vice versa. Sixth, research should
explicitly map specific Spanish L1 transfer patterns onto shadowing variant
effectiveness: do Spanish learners with primary vowel-merger errors benefit more from
content-selective than from standard shadowing? Does the availability of Spanish-
accented models improve engagement and performance relative to native English
models? (Pennington & Rogerson-Revell, 2019).
Finally, mixed-methods designs—pairing performance data with learners' own
accounts of confidence, anxiety, professional identity, classroom speech monitoring,
and perceived relevance to teaching—would address dimensions that purely
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quantitative studies leave underexamined. Such work should also investigate whether
shadowing experiences affect teachers' subsequent pronunciation pedagogy for
learners; it is plausible that explicit work on teachers' own intelligibility improves their
classroom pronunciation modelling and feedback, but this hypothesis remains
untested (Crowther & Gass, 2019).
5. Conclusions
Shadowing has accumulated a persuasive but geographically and theoretically uneven
evidence base. This review has argued that progress now depends less on
demonstrating that the technique 'works' than on conceptual clarity: recognising
shadowing as a family of four technique variants, each with distinct attentional and
design requirements; connecting its four cognitive mechanisms through five concrete
design principles to intelligibility-oriented L2 speech production outcomes; anchoring
its goals in intelligibility rather than native-likeness; and mapping Spanish-specific L1
transfer patterns onto variant selection and feedback strategies.
For Spanish-speaking EFL teacher education in particular, where the learner is also a
prospective model and where authentic input is scarce, an intelligibility-oriented,
functionally-grounded, Spanish-aware, professionally-conscious shadowing pedagogy
holds clear promise. The integrative framework and selection protocols offered here
are intended as tools for designing such pedagogy and for posing sharper empirical
questions. The addition of Table 3 (transfer-to-variant mapping) and Section 7.2
(selection protocol) operationalises the theory, enabling practitioners to move from
generic shadowing to targeted intervention.
Realising that promise will require research that is contextually grounded,
methodologically disciplined, attentive to the affective and professional stakes that
distinguish teacher education from general language learning, and cognisant of the
specific phonological vulnerabilities that Spanish learners bring to English. It will also
require explicit, sustained attention to the teacher-as-model dimension: unlike general-
learner populations, pre-service teachers' pronunciation development is inseparable
from their preparation as oral models for future classes. A comprehensive shadowing
pedagogy for teacher education must therefore work simultaneously on three fronts:
improving learners' intelligible production, building their confidence and professional
identity, and preparing them to model and teach pronunciation consciously to their own
students.
CONFLICTO DE INTERESES
“Los autores declaran no tener ningún conflicto de intereses”.
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