Prática de Shadowing: How to Tell a Story in English - Using Past Tense - Aprenda a falar inglês com vídeo
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Hi, I'm Gina.
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Welcome to Oxford Online English.
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In this lesson, you can learn how to tell a story in English.
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Stories are powerful.
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When you meet someone new, go to a job interview, or take a speaking exam like IELTS, you need to tell stories,
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whether you realise that's what you're doing or not.
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Becoming a better storyteller will make you a more convincing speaker.
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People are attracted to good stories.
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It's a fundamental part of being human.
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Learning how to tell better stories can help you become a more effective English speaker and a better communicator generally.
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In this class, you'll learn how to build a story step by step.
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You'll see three different stories, stories, and you'll see how you can use the same simple ideas in almost any story.
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If you want to read the stories before the lesson, make sure you're watching this on our website, OxfordOnlineEnglish .com.
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If you're watching on YouTube, you can find a link in the video description.
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There you can read the three stories in full.
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We want you to take part in this lesson.
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Think of a story you want to tell.
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As you go through the lesson, you'll hear our stories, but you should also be building your own story.
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So, think of something funny, scary, interesting or weird that happened to you.
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Do you have an idea for a story?
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Then let's begin.
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A clear story needs to start with some background.
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Think about basic WH questions. Who? When? Where?
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What?
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Start your story with one sentence, which gives some of this information.
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For example, It was summer, and I went with some friends to a beach in Crimea, which you could only get to by boat.
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I was travelling in Kyrgyzstan, and I decided to go hiking in the mountains.
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At university, I shared a flat with three other guys.
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Keep it simple at the beginning.
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Who, when, where, what.
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Next, add one or two more sentences to give more background details.
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You need a balance here.
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You want to give enough background details to make your story feel real,
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but you also need to get to the heart of your story quickly.
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People will lose interest if you don't get to the point.
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Let's see how you can do this.
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Look at our first example.
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It was summer, and I went with some friends to a beach in Crimea, which you could only get to by boat.
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Think, if you heard this, what questions could you ask to get more details?
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You might ask things like, who were your friends?
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Why did you go to the beach?
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What was the place like?
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Were there any other people there?
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Answering these questions gives you details you can add after your opening sentence.
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For example, people had been going there for years, and there were benches and tables, places to camp, fireplaces and so on.
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It was kind of a hippie place, with everyone walking around naked and doing whatever they felt like.
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Here, we're focusing on one thing, the place, because it's the most interesting and unusual detail.
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For a different story, you might focus on different details.
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We were all good friends, but like lots of guys in that situation, we played a lot of pranks on each other.
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In this story, the people are more important, so you would give more details about them.
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OK, your turn.
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You need to start your story.
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Make an opening sentence.
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Who, when, where, what?
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Then, add one to two sentences, giving more background details.
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Focus on the most important elements in your story.
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Pause the video and do it now.
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Write it down if you want.
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What's next?
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Big question.
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What makes a story, a story?
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If I tell you that I went to the shop to buy some bread, and then I came home and ate the bread, is that a story?
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Not really.
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If it is, it's not a good one.
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So think about it.
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What makes a story, a story?
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A story needs two things.
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1. There needs to be a goal.
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The person or people in the story should want something.
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2. There needs to be tension.
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That means the goal can't be too easy to reach.
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In this section, let's look at putting a goal in your story.
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Here's the question.
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What do the people in your story want?
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They must want something.
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This is the heart of your story.
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If the people in your story don't want anything, then you don't have a story.
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Let's do an example together.
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On the last day, we had to catch a train in the evening.
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Pause the video if you need extra time to read.
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Here, we have a simple goal.
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We needed to catch our train.
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Let's do one more.
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To reach Izikul Lake, which was the end of my journey, I had to cross a mountain pass almost 4 ,000 metres high.
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What's the goal here?
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The goal is getting across the mountain pass to the lake.
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The goal in your story can be something big or something small.
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You can see in these two examples that we have something very easy and simple – catching a train,
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and something bigger and more difficult – crossing a 4 ,000 -metre mountain pass on foot.
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What about your story?
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What's the goal?
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What do the people in your story want?
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Keep this simple.
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Just add one sentence to your story, setting a goal for you or the other people in your story.
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Pause the video, write your sentence, then we'll move on to the next part.
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Ready?
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OK.
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Remember that we said there are two things every story needs.
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What's the second?
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Every story needs tension.
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What does that mean?
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Simply, it means that your goal shouldn't be too easy to reach.
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Here's a story.
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There was a monster which liked to eat people.
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A hero killed the monster.
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Everyone was safe.
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The end.
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Good story?
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Obviously not.
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If the If the goal in your story is too easy, then your story will be very short and boring.
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There needs to be tension.
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As they listen to you, people should be thinking, what's going to happen next?
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Will everything be okay?
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How are they going to get out of this problem?
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The goal needs to be difficult.
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There need to be problems.
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People need to doubt whether you're going to succeed or fail.
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This is tension.
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For example, on the third day, I had to cross a mountain pass almost 4 ,000 meters high.
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It was so hard because the air is thin up there and I was carrying a very heavy pack.
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It seemed to take forever, but finally I got close to the top.
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And then a storm boiled over the ridge and landed right on my head.
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There was lightning all around me, even below me.
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The noise was unbelievable.
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First, you hear how difficult it was, even before the storm hit.
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Then the storm arrives.
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What's going to happen?
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Did I make it over the pass?
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Did I get hurt?
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Let's look at one more example example.
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One weekend, I was going home to visit my parents.
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I said bye to my flatmates, and told them not to do anything to my room.
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Don't worry, we won't.
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Have a good weekend, they said.
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I knew they were going to do something, but I couldn't believe what they actually did.
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This is a very different kind of story, but the structure is the same.
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I have a goal, which is to visit my parents and come back without my friends doing anything to my room.
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You also have some tension.
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You hear sentences like this.
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I told them not to do anything to my room.
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I knew they were going to do something.
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When you hear these, you know they're going to do something to my room, but you don't know what.
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This is called foreshadowing.
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You know something bad is going to happen, but you aren't sure exactly what.
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That's where the tension comes from.
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What did they actually do?
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Hopefully you want to know what happens next.
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Now, think about your story.
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How can you add some tension?
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One way is to add problems or difficulties, things that get between you and your goal example.
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Another way is to use foreshadowing, like our story above.
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Pause the video and add some tension to your story.
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This is an important part of your story, so think about it carefully.
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Aim to write two or three sentences, and start again when you're done.
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OK?
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Now you're ready to think about the end of your story.
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To finish your story, you need to resolve the tension.
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At this point, people listening to your story should want to know what comes next.
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You've created some tension.
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They aren't sure what's going to happen, but they want to know.
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So finishing your story is simple explain what happened in the end,
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and whether you or whoever reached your goal or not.
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Let's finish the three stories you've seen in this lesson.
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Remember that you can pause if you need more time to read or review the story.
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Let's read the end together.
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We loaded our stuff onto a kayak and swam almost a kilometer around the cliffs.
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A naked hippie paddled the kayak, which was piled high with our things and looked like it could sink at any minute.
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We made it to land, and after several hours of hitchhiking and walking, we caught our train.
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It was stressful at the time, but looking back now, it makes a good story.
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You can see that the ending does two things.
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In this story, we have tension.
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There's a mine in the harbour, and we can't leave by boat.
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How did we solve it?
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By swimming for a kilometre, with a naked hippie transporting our stuff in an overloaded kayak.
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Secondly, the ending explains whether we reached our goal or not.
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In this case, happily, we caught the train.
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What about our second story?
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I forgot how tired I was and ran down the slopes to get to safety.
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I stayed the night lower down and tried again the next day.
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I made it over the pass, but it was a very frightening experience.
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Again, the ending resolves the tension.
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I ran below the storm and tried again the next day.
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And also explains whether I reached my goal or not.
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Finally, what did happen to my room at university?
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They made my room into a jungle.
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I'm not kidding.
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There were flowers, plants, three whole trees, jungle animals made from paper, and a Sounds of the Forest mix playing on my stereo.
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It took me about three hours to clean up, and also I have hay fever, an allergy to pollen, so I was sneezing and blowing my nose the whole time.
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For my flatmates, that just made it funnier.
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It's the same pattern.
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We resolve the tension by answering the question, what did my flatmates do to my room?
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We also find out whether I reached my goal or not.
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I didn't.
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Now you've seen the three stories.
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Can you see what each one has right at the end?
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Each story ends with a retrospective comment.
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Retrospective means looking back.
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A retrospective comment tells people how you feel now about the story, or how other people felt.
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For example, it was stressful at the time, but looking back now, it makes a good story.
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It was a very frightening experience.
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For my flatmates, that just made it funnier.
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You don't have to put a retrospective comment at the end of your story, but it's a good way to finish.
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Most of all, a retrospective comment sounds like an ending.
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That's useful, especially if you're speaking, because it shows your listener that you've finished speaking.
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Now, you need to finish your story.
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Pause the video and write an ending.
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Remember that you need to do two things.
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Resolve the tension and explain whether or not you reached your goals.
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Let's review.
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To tell a good story, you need to set the scene and give some background information,
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• Establish a goal for the person or people in your story
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• Add some tension so
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that people aren't sure what will happen in the end • Finish the story and add a retrospective comment Of course,
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there are other things which are important in a story.
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Adding interesting details and descriptions can make your story more lifelike.
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Adding jokes and humour can improve many stories.
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Giving some background on the people and their personalities can bring the people in your stories to life.
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But nothing is more important than structure, and that's what you've seen in this lesson.
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A story without good structure isn't really a story.
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Get the structure right first.
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Maybe you're thinking, I don't have the vocabulary to tell stories like that.
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Not true.
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I've heard very powerful stories from students who spoke very basic English.
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Vocabulary doesn't make a good story.
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Structure and emotion make a good story.
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Focus on structure and practice what you've learned in this lesson.
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You can tell great stories in English, too!
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Do you have a story you'd like to share?
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Please post it in the comments!
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You can see the sample stories we used in this lesson, in the full lesson, on our website, OxfordOnlineEnglish .com.
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We also have many other free English lessons which you can watch and study from.
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That's all for this lesson.
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Thanks for watching!
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See you next time!
Sobre esta lição
Você está praticando inglês com "How to Tell a Story in English - Using Past Tense" usando a técnica de Shadowing.
O que é a Técnica de Shadowing?
Shadowing é uma técnica de aprendizado de idiomas com base científica, originalmente desenvolvida para o treinamento de intérpretes profissionais. O método é simples, mas poderoso: você ouve áudio em inglês nativo e repete imediatamente em voz alta — como uma sombra seguindo o falante com 1-2 segundos de atraso. Pesquisas mostram melhora significativa na precisão da pronúncia, entonação, ritmo, sons conectados, compreensão auditiva e fluência na fala.