Speaking Practice Lesson | Tell A Great Story in English

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!