We are
Family
Video

     Although this is not my first time to join English dubbing, I’ve join the dubbing competition when I was a college student. I’ve pay a lot of efforts to do all the characters and mimic the sound in different ways. But in this time, our dubbing task really helped me improve my pronunciation and fluency the most, we dubbed and acted the Japan cartoon “We are family” I dubbed the character for mom-Midori. When I listened to the original video and tried to match the tone and speed, I became more aware of how the speakers talk. I also practiced repeating the lines many times, so I got more comfortable with saying the words smoothly. It also helped me become more confident when I speak English. I felt nervous at first, but after practicing and recording many times, I wasn’t afraid to speak anymore.

     Otherwise, working with my group members really supported my speaking development. We gave each other feedback and helped correct each other’s mistakes. Sometimes I didn’t notice my pronunciation problem, but my group mates would point it out. We also practiced together and encouraged each other when we felt tired or frustrated. Their support made me want to keep improving. From Phase 1 to the final presentation, I saw more clear progress and improvement. In the beginning, I was not very fluent and I often stopped or forgot the lines and the sound for mom was pretty hard to mimic. My voice also sounded a bit high and not clear. But in the final presentation, I could say the lines more naturally and smoothly. I also tried to act more with my voice, just like the characters. I think I became more confident and expressive.         Moreover, the most challenging phase for me was the recording part. It was hard to match the timing and emotion exactly like the original. Sometimes my voice was too slow or too fast, or the feeling was not right. I had to redo the recording many times. It took a lot of patience and practice. But in the end, I learned a lot from this hard process.

What’s more, ChatGPT helped my learning in this module. I used it to translate subtitles, and it made the meaning clearer. It also helped me check my script and fix the grammar. I even used it to practice rehearsal lines. But sometimes, the translation was too perfect or formal, so I still had to change it to sound more natural in conversation. Overall, it supported me, but I still had to think by myself and practice a lot. I hope and I am sure that I would consider using dubbing in my own future teaching. It is a fun and useful way for students to practice English speaking, especially pronunciation and intonation. Students can also learn teamwork, and they will be more motivated because it feels like a real-life task. If I become a teacher, I might use short and funny video clips and ask students to dub them in groups. I think they will enjoy it and improve at the same time.

     In summary, dubbing project was not easy, but it was meaningful. I’m proud of what we did as a group, and I feel I really improved my speaking skills.