TODD: Hey, everybody. Hi, this is Todd, the teacher from ELLLO and now we will look at Speaking Tip 2.

This tip is really easy. Maybe it’s difficult for some, maybe it’s easier for others, it depends on the level. What you do is just repeat what you hear.

Now you might think, “What?! Just repeat? That’s like a parrot, “Hello! Hello! My name is! My name is!”” But actually, repeating is very important because you want to work on intonation and word stress so you have good pronunciation. So we want to listen to the short, short bits of audio and we want to mimic, we want to copy the intonation and the pronunciation.

So I’m going to do one in the past tense. It’s myself and I’m talking with Rachel, she’s from New Zealand, and I will listen and I’m going to repeat what we say. Now you have five seconds, about five seconds to hear it and repeat it. And again, remember, we’re working on listening, speaking, and pronunciation.

So here we go.

RACHEL (Audio): Conversation 1]

TODD: Conversation 1.

TODD (Audio): How was the movie?

TODD: How was the movie?

RACHEL (Audio): It was really good.

TODD: It was really good.

TODD (Audio): Was it scary?

TODD: Was it scary?

RACHEL (Audio): Yes, it was really scary.

TODD: Yes, it was really scary.

TODD (Audio): Nice! Was it crowded?

TODD: Nice! Was it crowded?

RACHEL (Audio): No, it wasn’t.

TODD: No, it wasn’t.

So notice that we can practice listening, speaking, and intonation, and we have short, short clauses. So each part that you hear is very, very short, and we want to listen to that intonation to word stress and how we push words together to make one sound.

For example, “Was it scary? Was it scary? Was it scary?” So this is really good practice to practice three skills – listening, speaking, and pronunciation. And that’s Tip 2.