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.