Shadowing Practice: Video 1: We are all storytellers - Learn English Speaking with YouTube

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Hi, I'm Valerie LaPointe and I'm a story artist at Pixar.
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47 sentences
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Hi, I'm Valerie LaPointe and I'm a story artist at Pixar.
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I'm going to be your host for our first lesson on storytelling, designed to introduce you to how we tell stories at Pixar.
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Throughout the next six lessons, you'll have a chance to create your own stories, and you'll go from a rough idea to having real storyboards like we use at Pixar.
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Each lesson features Pixar story artists sharing their insights about the story development process.
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My name is Domi Shi, and I'm a story artist.
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Hi, my name is Sanjay Patel.
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I'm an animator and storyboard artist.
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I'm Kristen Lester.
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I'm a storyboard artist.
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Hello, my name is Mark Andrews, and I'm a director at Pixar Animation Studios.
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The goal of this video is to remind you that you already are a storyteller.
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It's something we do naturally and start doing as children.
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To kick this lesson off, let's hear how some of Pixar's storytellers first started telling their own stories.
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Out on the playground where you're making up stories or playing in the backyard where we're making up whole worlds.
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From then on, I started drawing my own comic books.
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And I would fake being sick to stay home from school so I could draw my comic books and come up with my stories.
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What I did is I would take a drawing of Betty and Veronica that was in the comic books, and I would trace it.
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And then I would draw fashion on them.
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And I did this thing called Betty and Veronica fashions.
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Somewhere in my mother's basement there are thousands and thousands and thousands of these drawings of Betty and Veronica.
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These poster assignments that my art teacher would give me in high school, and even in junior high school as well, they were always around a theme of American history.
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And so the idea of this kind of homework of doing American history in a visual form was kind of the first avenue into telling stories in just one picture.
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When I was really young, I would draw pictures and I would show them to people and they would react and I'd really like that.
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I loved getting reactions out of people with the things that I drew and the stories that I tell.
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And I wanted to get more reactions out of people, so I drew more and more and more.
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I have to say, growing up, I felt like I had no ideas.
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I was just the most unoriginal.
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I always felt like artists have to have these kind of waterfalls of ideas, endless amount of ideas, and I had zero, I felt.
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So I get most of my stories and my ideas from my life.
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I think about a lot of stuff that's happened to me, like when was the last time I was happy?
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When was the last time I felt really sad?
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Like, when was the last time I cried or I got really angry?
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Most of my stories originate from my own personal experiences.
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And I think there's a touchstone there that is very important to the storyteller to find because it makes it honest.
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I'm not just gathering kind of ideas and chucking them together and there's a story.
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No story comes ready made.
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One way is that I think long and hard about my experiences in life and moments in my life where I've had what I kind of consider to be an epiphany.
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I have gained some sort of insight or learned something that I think is really important to share with the world.
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I think those are the kind of stories that are really fun because they only can come from you and your experience.
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Nobody else can have the same insights as you because they haven't lived the same life as you.
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No two people will experience life the same, so no two people will tell a story the same way.
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Think of this as a superpower we all have, your unique perspective.
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Only you see the world this way.
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Now I want you to think about a memory you have.
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It could be your most embarrassing memory, frightening memory, or a time you were very surprised.
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Whatever it is, it's a memory you remember vividly.
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In this first exercise, you'll have a chance to express this memory in various ways.

About This Lesson

You're practicing English with "Video 1: We are all storytellers" using the Shadowing technique — a method originally developed for professional interpreter training.

Focus on sounding like the speaker — not just repeating words. With 15–30 minutes of daily practice, you'll build real-world speaking confidence.

What is the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.

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