A technique for helping students say a difficult sentence by breaking it into smaller parts and practising slowly, then building up to the complete sentence is known as what?

• A. Backchaining
• B. Shadowing
• C. Chunking
• D. Rehearsal

Answer: (A)

Backchaining is a technique where you break a difficult sentence into smaller parts and practice slowly, starting with the ending part and then adding the preceding chunks until the whole sentence is produced. This approach reduces the cognitive load at each step and gives a clear target to hit, ensuring accurate pronunciation, rhythm, and stress as you build from the last word or phrase to the full sentence. For example, you might start by saying the final word or phrase, master that, then add the preceding segment and practice again, continuing until the entire sentence is fluent. This differs from shadowing, which involves imitating a model in real time without the gradual buildup; chunking, which focuses on meaningful groups rather than the end-first sequence; and rehearsal, which often means practicing the full sentence outright.