English Speaking Practice ⚡️ Lockdown Challenge!

Hey there I'm Emma from mmmEnglish.

Even though we're apart, there are people

watching and learning English with us right now

all around the world which is very cool to think about.

So I wanted to do something special to bring us all

together

and I'm really excited to share this idea with you.

I hope you're up for the challenge.

Quite a few years ago, I ran a competition with my

mmmEnglish students

to practise with my imitation lessons and improve

pronunciation and their English expression.

In fact, let me know if you joined that challenge

way back then.

Let me know in the comments below.

Now there were quite a few imitation lessons

on my channel so I picked one

and I asked my students to practise with it,

to practise several times

and then record themselves performing it

and then they sent it to me.

And I was blown away like

because they had been practising so much that it

literally sounded like me, like I was listening to myself.

They used the same intonation, the same tone

their pronunciation was much clearer

because they've been practising and imitating

me as I spoke.

Some people even sent me videos where they copied

my facial expression and the gestures that I was using.

It was like looking in a mirror.

So I want to do it all again and I have this idea

to share your amazing work

with the whole mmmEnglish community

right here on YouTube.

Think of it as a bit of a project for all of us to work on

over the next couple of weeks. Are you up for it?

Four things that you need to know about this challenge

are it involves practising with this lesson

and then recording yourself on video

and uploading it to your YouTube channel.

So I'll be watching your videos and

selecting some to feature on the mmmEnglish channel.

Plus I'm gonna choose five to give

personalised pronunciation feedback on.

I'll give all the specific details about

how to join the community challenge

at the end of this video, alright?

So excited about this!

If you're a regular mmmEnglish student, well

you probably already know

how my imitation lessons work.

So feel free to skip ahead to step number one,

it starts right there.

Now if you're new to the imitation technique,

you might be wondering what is it?

And how does it work?

So it's a technique that is super effective

when it comes to improving your spoken English.

It teaches you to listen to the patterns

and the rhythm of English and trains you to produce

the English sounds that you need really naturally

just through repetition and practice.

Now if you haven't done a lesson like this before,

don't worry.

There are just three steps that you need to follow.

The first step is you just need to listen to what I say

and read the words on the screen as I say them

so you're just getting familiar with the story.

In the next step, you're gonna be listening to what I say

but then there's gonna be a pause afterwards

so that you can repeat exactly what I said

exactly as you hear me.

And this is a step that

you can repeat over and over again until

you think that you're starting to sound

very similar to me,

the way that I'm pronouncing and expressing myself.

You can even slow down the speed of the video

if you want to practise more slowly

and then return it to a regular pace when you're ready

and you'll need to practise a few times because

step number three is a bit of a challenge

even for a native speaker

because you're going to be listening to me and saying

what I'm saying at the same time

so you'll have me in your headphones or your ear pods

and you'll be speaking as you hear me speak.

It's gonna be tricky

and you're probably gonna make lots of mistakes

until you get it right

but it's gonna be a lot of fun too.

So you're ready to practise now.

I'm gonna be talking about current affairs.

My take on what's going on around us at the moment

so this is what we're going to use to practise with.

But I hope that it resonates with you in some way too.

Let's get started.

Step one's easy.

You're just listening and reading.

Step two is listen and repeat.

It's as simple as it sounds

but make sure you slow it down if you need to.

So you want to try and shadow me now?

It is definitely gonna take a few goes of this

to start feeling like you've actually got it right?

But imagine that you're learning to sing a song,

you've got to learn the words but you've also got to learn

the rhythm right and the expression?

So the imitation technique is very much like

learning to sing your favourite song, right?

You've just got to practise a few times

before you can really

get your voice behind it.

And that's it!

So the idea here is to practise this again and again.

Step three is tricky.

but believe that you will get better as you

practise and you become more familiar

with the meaning and the tone.

This is an awesome opportunity to work on your

pronunciation with me and to get into the habit of

natural rhythm and gestures as well.

But let's talk about how the mmmEnglish

community video will work

because this is a chance for you to be featured on

the mmmEnglish Channel along with

a whole bunch of other mmmEnglish students

from around the world.

So it's going to be a mash-up of all of us together

which is super cool. Plus, I'll be choosing

five videos to give pronunciation feedback for

so for those students, I'll make a personalised video

for you to help you with your pronunciation

and to help you improve it further.

Once you've practised this lesson,

the imitation technique, as many times as you want to

then you'll need to record yourself.

So you can do it on a phone or on your computer

but just make sure that you're filming in landscape

not portrait mode.

If you mess up or you get tongue-tied,

don't worry just start the recording again.

That's the beauty of a recording, right?

You can redo it until you're satisfied.

Once you're happy with it, upload the video

to your YouTube account.

It can't be private,

otherwise, I can't see it so make sure it's public

or unlisted.

Upload the video by Sunday the 19th of April

and make sure you use our hashtag in the

title of the video,

alright? That's going to help me to find it.

If you upload the video and use the hashtag

#mmmEnglishChallenge, then I'll assume

that you're okay with me

sharing it on the YouTube channel.

If you're not comfortable with me sharing your video

then don't do it, don't do the challenge.

The last step is just to make sure you're a subscriber

of mmmEnglish.

So I'm really, really excited about this,

it's never been done before on my channel.

I'm really looking forward to seeing your recordings

and also to making this community mashup video

and getting everyone together.

Make sure you like this video,

you subscribe if you haven't already.

Take good care of yourselves

and I will see you very soon.