
Josue Daniel Ortiz Brito / Olga Cárdenas Guanoluisa
© 2026, Fundación Internacional para la Educación la Ciencia y la Tecnología, “FIECYT”
ISSN 3103-1129
145
communicative ability. Hence, these limitations underscore the need for students to
familiarize to pedagogical techniques specifically designed to support their speaking skills
development through continuous auditory input and active oral engagement in an EFL
classroom. One pedagogical technique that has gained considerable scholarly attention in the
field of second language acquisition is the Shadowing Technique, which engages learners
with the target language; while increasing their awareness of prosodic features such as
rhythm, stress patterns, and connected speech. Besides.
The Shadowing Technique strengthens the oral production, principally where English
learners exhibit only partial understanding of grammatical structures and lexical items.
Previous research has demonstrated that this technique enhances fluency and pronunciation,
leading to considerable improvements in learners’ overall speaking performance. (Suyadi,
2024; Doan, 2025; Dewi & Aswadi, 2025). Notwithstanding, the documented benefits of the
Shadowing Technique, limited empirical research has examined its effectiveness in
developing speaking competences among Spanish-speaking EFL learners, particularly in
Ecuadorian educational backgrounds. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the effect of
applying the shadowing technique on the development of speaking skill in EFL students.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Speaking skills in EFL context
The speaking skills are widely recognized as a central component of communicative
competence in second and foreign language learning. According to Shamim (2021), the
speaking skill refers to the ability to express ideas effectively in real-life communicative
situations. Besides, it involves the appropriate use of linguistic resources to convey meaning
and organize discourse coherently, allowing speakers to present ideas in a fluent and logically
sequenced manner. This process demands the real-time integration of ideas, encompassing
lexical selection, grammatical structuring, and accurate pronunciation. (Richards &
Renandya, 2002, as cited in Doan et al., 2025). Similarly, speaking skills demand simultaneous
processing of listening comprehension, linguistic formulation, and speech articulation under
time pressure. Correspondingly to its relevance, this speaking skill proficiency remains a
significant challenge for many EFL learners. (Leonita et al., 2023). The gap between the
linguistic knowledge and communicative performance is particularly perceptible among
Spanish-speaking EFL learners, who frequently make a great effort with fluency,
pronunciation, and confidence when engaging in spoken interaction in the EFL classrooms.
As a result, memorization and repetitive exercises in which accuracy is the primary
focus do not adequately prepare students for real-life communication; instead, effective
speaking instruction should provide interactive and meaningful learning experiences (Fu,
2021). This occurrence can be observed in both public and private institutions, where
traditional practices such as memorizing dialogues or repeating sentences are still commonly
used despite their limitations (Velez et al., 2023). For example, students may correctly repeat
a sentence like this, “I have visited Paris,” but struggle to use it in spontaneous
communication. In contrast, through the Shadowing Technique, learners are exposed to such
expressions in authentic contexts, including movies, interviews, podcasts, and recorded
conversations where speakers discuss personal experiences. Repeatedly listening to and
reproducing these utterances helps students understand how grammatical structures are used
in real communication, improving not only their pronunciation and fluency but also their
ability to retrieve and use language spontaneously during interactions.
Likewise, interactive activities such as role plays or pair work allow learners to express
their own ideas more successfully. In addition, effective speaking activities are centered on