Speaking Practice Lesson | Tell A Great Story in English

Video Transcript
Section 1
Hey there this is Emma from mmmEnglish! Today we’re going to be doing some speaking practice together and we’re going to be practising with the mmmEnglish Imitation Technique.

Now I’ve talked about this before. We’ve practised it together before, it’s one of the most effective ways that you can reduce your accent and fix some of those pronunciation problems so that you’re speaking English clearly and confidently.

Plus we’re going to be using a lot of the narrative tenses you’ve been learning over the past few weeks. The past continuous, the past perfect continuous and the past perfect simple. Very, very exciting to be putting all of that grammar into practice in a speaking lesson.

Now one more thing before we get started. If you are not a subscriber yet, make sure you hit that button down there, turn on notifications so that you never miss one of the mmmEnglish lessons.

All right, time to dive in!

So if you’re new to mmmEnglish you may not have practised with one of my Imitation lessons before. It’s really simple. I’m going to help you practise out loud with me all the way through this lesson.

And if you like it, there are several other Imitation lessons on my channel and I’ve also got some Imitation Courses available on the mmmEnglish website. You can get to it up here or the link is down in the description below.

Today we’re going to practise storytelling in English, an exceptionally important skill to have. I’m going to be sharing a simple story about a coincidence at the supermarket.

A coincidence that turned into a disaster not an awful disaster, just a funny disaster. A mess.

Keep in mind that you can easily exchange my story with your own once you’ve practised along with me for a little while. That’s what I really want you to do is, take the story that I’m using and adapt it, make it your own.

An unusual trip to the supermarket.

Step One: Listen and Read

On Monday I was doing my weekly shopping when I bumped into an old friend of mine. We hadn’t seen each other for more than 10 years, so it was a real surprise to see her in my local supermarket. We stopped in the middle of the aisle, mouths open, then hugged and chatted for what felt like ages! It turns out, she’d been living overseas in Istanbul and had only just moved back home. That’s why we hadn’t seen each other for so long!

While we were talking, another friend wandered up the aisle. It was one of our old classmates from high school. What a coincidence! And it turns out, he’d recently become a dad! He had his new baby girl tucked up in the pram.

He admitted to us he was just trying to get out of the house for a while so we decided to go to the cafe next door. We couldn’t miss this chance to catch up after all of these years but it turned out to be a disaster!

We ordered cake but it tasted terrible. We ordered coffee but it never came! When one of the waitresses was rushing to open the door for a customer she knocked over a huge vase of flowers which, you guessed it, smashed onto our table and soaked us with water! Fortunately, we were having so much fun reminiscing about old school days that it didn’t really bother us too much.

Step two: Listen and Copy me
Now you need to imitate exactly what I say so that means you’re trying to copy my pronunciation, the word stress, the pause in every sentence. You can even try and imitate my facial expressions to practise communicating with more than just words in English.

Now there’s going to be a pause after each sentence or clause so that you can practise out loud with me okay?

Just try and relax and go with the flow all right? It’s just you and it’s me, we’re here right now. We’re doing some speaking practice together.

We’re gonna have some fun!

Step three: Shadow Me
So now we’re moving on to step three which is a little more challenging than the last one. So don’t forget that you can pause here, you can go back and practise section two as many times as you need to before we keep going. It’s gonna take a little bit of practice and some time for you to get comfortable and relaxed.

So you’re going to shadow me and that means that you’re listening to me and speaking at exactly the same time. And the reason why we’re doing this is because I want you to copy the rhythm and the tone that I’m using.

The pattern and the sounds that are coming out of my mouth so even if you get tongue-tied and you get stuck trying to make the words come out as quickly as I am saying them, don’t worry about it! Focus on following the rhythm. Follow that rhythm.

So you made it all the way through, well done!

I know that it’s a little bit of a mouthful trying to get all of those auxiliary verbs out, right? Trying to get it all sounding natural using those contractions and the linking between words.

But now that you’re feeling a little more comfortable with my story why don’t you try adapting your own story?

You know, have you had any funny coincidences happen to you lately? Run into someone that you haven’t seen in a long time? If you have, then share that story down in the comments.

See if you can practise using some of the same tenses that we shared in this lesson together. I’ll be down to check them out as soon as I can. I’m looking forward to jumping down and reading some of your stories soon.

Thanks for watching and I will see you in the next lesson. Bye for now!