And still more thoughts about essential English pronunciation

In my last blog, Still thinking about essential English pronunciation in 2019, I suggested that the one pronunciation challenge that united all students was sentence stress.

But without understanding how to create syllable stress, the speaker can’t create sentence stress.

We teachers have been trained to say “stress” is all about volume, length and pitch. But we need to watch out.

If someone were to ask me, “Are you going?” I could reply,  “I can’t,” with the “can’t” rising or falling   

Both might express the same regret or the simple statement that I’m not able to attend.

But in either version, the longer vowel and the louder volume indicate, unmistakably, that the focus is on the negative response.

Intonation (the movement of pitch up or down) does play a part. Pitch changes can be very effective. But they can be small, subtle and harder to hear.

So it’s important to concentrate on the length of the vowel and the volume of the entire syllable. These are consistent markers of stress, way easier to identify. They make the important sounds stand out.

And students need to remember which sounds are important.

That’s why I still love to use Judy Thompson’s Vowel Color Chart. I created a YouTube video about it sometime ago.

I called the episode, “An Easier Way to Learn English Vowels.” But now I think I should have called it, “An Easier Way to Learn English Word Stress.” And I always bring students/clients back to the Vowel Color Chart for reference. I’ll give you the link to my video at the end.

In a nutshell, vowel sounds are given specific colours. The system doesn’t bother to explain the way to shape the vowel sounds. It simply assumes that all speakers of English as an Additional Language are able to say the vowel sounds quite satisfactorily when they are contained within certain words. These words are the names of colours. The vowels become associated with these colours. And, by extension, the colour of the vowel of the stressed syllable in any given word determines the colour of the word.

Just by associating a colour with the most important word(s) in a sentence, the learner can remember which word(s) to stress. Colours “pop” out – just as volume and length “pop” out – differentiating … identifying … clarifying.

With the added dimension of colour, learners absorb the sensual aspect of the music of English, i.e., the appeal to all our senses: seeing the colour of the important syllable through the vowel sound it contains, hearing the accented syllable stand out, feeling the sound inside the mouth and connecting with the rhythm of the accented syllable and word in the body.

Teaching sounds with colours is potent. It can develop both speaking and listening skills. And, in some small measure, can be related to the power of the associations of synesthesia.

There’ve been many studies and articles written on the various forms of synesthesia, the feature that certain people have of instantly linking colours, words, tastes, sounds, numbers, etc. In a 2011 LiveScience blog (https://www.livescience.com/4633-people-common-letters-brighter-colors.html , the author Andrea Thompson pointed out just how dynamic those associations can be.

Though synesthesia sometimes makes life a bit uncomfortable, “most synesthetes think of their abilities as a gift and wouldn’t want to lose them.” Check out this more recent article from 2018. https://www.mnn.com/health/fitness-well-being/stories/what-is-synesthesia-and-whats-it-like-to-have-it.

The first step in understanding sentence stress is being able to hear and feel that something different is happening. There’s an energy and excitement in that connection. The link makes the syllable memorable. Even when the syllable stress isn’t what’s expected, hearing the stress in the most important word in a sentence will catch the ear of the listener and guide them to the intention.

As your students become familiar with the vowel colour system, move on to having them listen to sentences to identify the words that seem to be most important. Write out the actual sentences. Have them identify the word(s) that stand out. Colour code important word(s). Make the colours vivid.

Then let them continue with the rhythm.

Have fun. Put each sentence into a rhythm that reflects the words that are stressed. And let those stressed words explode with colour.  Then let them move with tthe colours and sounds. Maybe they’ll start with movements as small as a fingersnap, a head turn, the flick of a wrist. Maybe they’ll drum, clap, stomp their feet, pound their chairs, their desks, sway their arms. Have them imagine colours as dazzling as the costumes in the Carnival of Rio de Janeiro or Toronto’s Caribana Parade. Make the associations memorable!

The power of communication is first and foremost contained within the music of English – the rhythm – the dynamics. That’s important for every student, no matter where they come from, no matter how they pronounce any particular consonant or vowel.

Hearing, understanding and using sentence stress effectively can give them the confidence to speak up and speak out – to speak publicly. Understanding rhythm and dynamics can help them find passion in public speaking even as they continue to study the details of pronunciation.

And please don’t misunderstand.

I’m not saying that you shouldn’t work on vocal mechanics or minimal pairs to develop speaking/listening skills.

What I’m saying is “Don’t leave sentence stress to the end.”

Start it from the very beginning and make time for it in every class, whether your students come from one country or many countries. And use the Thompson Vowel Color Chart to help you.

You can read about Judy Thompson’s vowel system, watch my video, and find a link to the Vowel Color Chart in my 2017 blog An Easier Way to Learn English Vowels.

And if you have any comments or questions or experiences to share, I’d love to hear from you.

 

 

 

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Thoughts on the arrogance of the unilingual anglophone

Picture this.

You work for a company with global interests. You’re meeting with your counterparts from Asia, Spain and France. But you speak only English. Why learn any other other language? After all, everyone has to speak English. That’s the international language of business.

You enter a boardroom filled with business people from Asia, Spain and France. Though English isn’t their first language, everyone has been communicating very successfully.  There’s an atmosphere of  professional kinship and cooperative interaction.

You sit down and listen to a discussion about a business deal that, though risky, could be very profitable. “Well okay,” you say to the group. “But look, if we’re gonna go there, we gotta cover our bases.” And then you continue talking, talking, talking, talking.

“Huh?” they’re thinking. “Where are we gonna go? And ‘cover’? What ‘cover’? Cover what?” As they stare at you, nodding out of courtesy, saying nothing, you continue your monologue, blissfully unaware that you’ve just destroyed that camaraderie and mutual trust. The meeting does not end well. Why?

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in “their stares,” but in yourself.

You might have tried to say a few words in their languages. But more importantly, you might simply have avoided colloquial expressions altogether, with more concrete language like “Well, if we decide to proceed with this plan, we’d better make sure to prepare thoroughly in order to succeed.” And then stopped to listen.

Why are you using expressions about travel — “going there” — and baseball — “cover our bases” – in a business meeting? Why are you assuming speakers of EAL, who don’t live in your country, should understand? The fact is, they were doing just fine until you arrived.

In 2016, Spencer Hazel, now Senior Lecturer in Applied Linguistics at Newcastle University, wrote in the online journal The Conversation, “there is mounting evidence in international business, native English speakers are failing to integrate … International colleagues resent the lack of effort made on the part of the monoglot English speaker.”

Among anglophones, there is a sense that they are the centre of reference.

In the same year as The Conversation article appeared, another article appeared in the online journal, BBC Capital. Michael Blattner, of the Zurich Insurance Company,  whose native language is Swiss German, commented, “At meetings … typically, native English speakers dominate about 90% of the time. But the other people have been invited for a reason.”

And Chia Suan Chong, a UK-based communications skills and intercultural trainer, wrote “… non-native speakers, it turns out, speak more purposefully and carefully, typical of someone speaking a second or third language. Anglophones, on the other hand, often talk too fast for others to follow, and use jokes, slang and references specific to their own culture.”

Professor Jennifer Jenkins, Chair of Global Englishes at the University of Southampton in the UK, also wrote “Non-native speakers generally use more limited vocabulary and simpler expressions, without flowery language or slang. Because of that, they understand one another at face value.”

The unilingual anglophone has no idea what international communication is all about.

Think about it.

To know a language fully, we must be fully immersed in it. We must live it. Even in the same county, one language spoken in a different region can have a different accent, different words and different expressions. It might seem faster or slower. As you move into the deep South of the United States, there’s a distinct Southern “drawl” that can seem very slow indeed.

I remember sitting in Heathrow airport near London. As I sat, quietly reading a book waiting for my boarding announcement, I overheard three people conversing at breakneck speed in some foreign language. Or so I assumed, until I realized they were all just speaking English with a Scottish accent.

There are common words and expressions in Britain that we don’t use in North America, from something as simple as “boot,” for the “trunk” of a car to something as elaborate as “throw a spanner in the works” meaning “to disrupt plans.” In North America, we have an equally confusing expression “throw a monkey wrench into the works.” Why would a speaker of EAL know either one? How many expressions and slang words can anyone possibly remember anyway? In June of this year 2018, the Oxford English Dictionary reported that it had added 600 new words, phrases, and meanings alone. Hello? …

And English is hardly special. Every major language has its own idiosyncrasies and regional accents.

The French spoken in New Brunswick can be quite different from the French spoken in Quebec City, both in Canada, which can be quite different from the French spoken in Paris, France, which can be different from the French spoken in Brussels, Belgium.

In working with speakers of English as an Additional Language, I (and others, of course) try to take language skills up a notch in terms of pronunciation, use of grammar or vocabulary. Absorbing the local slang and expressions makes living in that environment richer. Besides which, in a local context where English is the official language, sometimes even minor enhancements can lend not just intelligibility but some credibility and authority in the workplace.

But with the “hyper dominance” of English throughout the world, anglophones –especially those who speak no other language but English — can be arrogant and insular.

In an international context, we’re interacting with people from all around the world who have learned English from a variety of teachers, both native and non-native English speakers from different parts of the world. We must be mindful and sensitive! We must make no assumptions.

To create partnerships and trust, communication skills are important. International English must be simple, direct and concrete. We must slow down our speech, choose language that’s universal and accessible. We must also stop and take the time to listen with attention.

That’s not “dumbing down.” It’s stripping off our egos and stepping into the shoes of colleagues, customers and clients around the globe.

If you’re an Anglophone who has travelled around the world for business, I would love to hear from you. If you’re a business person who’s a speaker of EAL who has experienced the challenges I’ve been writing about, I’d also love to hear from you. And I do apologize for any in-jokes or vernacular I’ve used in this blog.

Don’t forget to check out this week’s One-Minute Words on The Canadian Pronunciation Coach YouTube channel.

Thoughts on listening and a wonderful podcast

I love sound, be it the sound of laughter, singing, electronics, Foley (the art of creating/adding aural detail to films), instrumental music, the human voice …

So I love to listen to podcasts that explore the world of sound.

There’s one I listen to regularly. I mentioned it in one of my blogs awhile ago (Thoughts on the Music of English). It’s called Twenty Thousand Hertz. You can find it on ITunes.

The reason I love it is because it delves deep into the world of sounds that bombard us every day from gaming, computers, cartoons, slot machines, cars. From the people speaking around us, to us, at us … on podcasts, TV, radio, the internet. The list keeps going.  I love it.

In honour of Halloween likely, the most recent episode talks about the history of the “theramin,” the electronic instrument you play without touching it. It’s the instrument that put the “scary” into scary music, but has led another life beyond horror movies.

Why do I mention this podcast? Because it’s a great tool for listening practice. In the same way that I always tell clients they have to learn to “listen” differently, listening to this wonderful series trains the ear to listen in a different way.

You see, the show is about the sounds we take for granted – that we don’t even think about – in the same way that we often take “speaking” for granted. We hear without really listening.

Sometimes we let sounds wash over us, passing “in one ear and out the other.” Sometimes, they evoke strong emotions.

We live sounds in “broad strokes.” We may ignore them completely or be aware only that they make us “feel” one way or another:  soothing or annoying. But we never really take the time to get to know them.

Twenty Thousand Hertz calls itself “A podcast revealing the stories behind the world’s most recognizable and interesting sounds.” And that’s what’s so amazing. How many times have you wondered about what you’re hearing: the bleeps and “cheeps” that your computer makes when you turn it on or notifications arrive; emergency alert sounds; Siri’s voice; the short music that introduces current event shows.

How many times have you thought about their “why,” their “how,” their origins, their evolution, their composition, their distinct qualities? When you become curious and start to listen to them closely, when you start to think about them in a different way, your listening skills can change and your awareness deepen.

Each episode is also beautifully produced. The quality of the audio is outstanding. The host and executive producer is Dallas Taylor, an award-winning sound designer and sound mixer.

I urge coaches and clients/students alike to listen to this wonderful series Twenty Thousand Hertz. You get to hear a clear articulate speaking voice in the host, perfect sound quality, fascinating subject matter, new vocabulary and stories that will make you aware of your sonic surroundings like a baby discovering sounds for the first time.

Oh, by the way, if you’re wondering what “twenty thousand hertz means,” it’s the highest pitch (sound waves) that human babies can hear.

And, of course, don’t forget to check out  One-Minute Words on The Canadian Pronunciation Coach YouTube channel.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thoughts on building up your public speaking confidence

Last week I wrote about stepping out of our comfort zone.

Whether you’re a speaker of English as a Second Language (ESL), English as a Common Language (ECL) or English as a Native Language, many of us struggle with self-confidence when we have to get up to speak in front of people.

For speakers of ESL and even speakers of ECL, part of that lack of confidence can be helped by correcting the sounds that cause confusion.

But for all of us, there’s still an emotional component that has nothing at all to do with vocal mechanics. The idea of simply getting up to face a group of people we may or may not know and talk to them is absolutely terrifying.

Now public speaking skills can be taught. I coach those skills. But getting the practice to use those skills, that’s something else. Practising in front of a mirror will help. It’s good, but it’s not enough. You need to face people. And Toastmasters provides the perfect place.

At Toastmasters, I watch speakers of ESL, speakers of ECL and native English speakers alike get up and challenge themselves to talk on a regular basis. Their courage is admirable and contagious.

Sometimes they’ll give a speech from memory. Sometimes they’ll get up to speak on a random “table topic,” with no preparation at all.

Sometimes, they’ll take on one of the weekly roles:

• One person will announce how long each speech was.
• Another will ask questions about the content to see it people were listening.
• Still another will provide a word of the week for vocabulary building.

The point is that there are always opportunities to get up and speak in front of members and guests.

And that’s what’s important. Stepping out of your comfort zone and speaking publicly.

There’s a wonderful saying that I absolutely love:

 The comfort zone is a beautiful place to live, but nothing grows there.

Toastmasters is a beautiful place – a comfort zone of unwavering support in the joy and exuberance of its members. But every time you give a speech or wade into the deep and sometimes troubled waters of “table topics,” every time you take on a role, you step out of your comfort zone and grow.

Every week there are lessons to take away: in the shared camaraderie of watching and giving speeches and the universal hesitation of taking on table topics; in the gentle guidance of the speech “evaluators” and the smiles and applause that greet every single person who gets up to speak.

Toastmasters is a wonderful community that welcomes strangers with open arms, no matter what their age, and encourages but never pressures them to participate.

I can’t think of a better way and a more caring environment for speakers of ESL, ECL and native English speakers alike to build up your confidence. Find a branch near you and check it out.

And don’t forget to watch this week’s One-Minute Words on The Canadian Pronunciation Coach YouTube channel

Thoughts on the “music” of English and the “art” of the sale

With so much out there on the internet these days, it can be harder and harder to get your voice heard selling in the world of interaction with real live people.

So, more than ever, it’s about building relationships, listening, connecting.

But while it’s important to be able to listen, it’s also important to draw people in.

And sometimes, when the pronunciation, rhythm and intonation get in the way, it’s harder to connect.

Of course, when certain vowels or consonants are incorrectly pronounced, it can cause confusion. And when the listener stops listening to figure out just what was said, speaker and listener go out of sync.

The fact is we may not have 20 minutes or half an hour for the listener to adjust. The brain has already done a backflip, and it takes a moment for the listener to get back to the present. In that moment, we can lose the sale.

So the fact is we do need to correct some of the sounds that are causing confusion in the important words. But it’s never every sound.

There was a study done some years ago on by the psychologist Albert Mehrabian, who found that listeners judge the emotional content of speech, first by the speaker’s body language (55%), then 38% on “vocal qualities” – not words, but tone of the voice, the pitch and the pace of the delivery. It’s not about the words.

In any case, anglophones just listen for important words, the ones that provide meaning. We fill in the rest from context. So we need the clarity of important words to make sure we understand them the first time.

But the rhythm, the intonation, the dynamics all help us to understand what we need to focus on and what you want us to feel. When we know how and what syllables or words to stress, we’re guiding and motivating our listener.

English is constantly moving up and down staircases. If we want to emphasize an idea, the voice will rise in pitch, in volume. We’ll hold a note –– maybe just a word, maybe just one syllable –– but we’ll make it just a little higher, a little louder and a little longer.  We’ll speak a little faster. Then get a little slower. We’ll pause for a moment to let the thought sink in.  We’re guiding the listening saying, “Listen to this. This is important.”

We can listen to music that has no words at all. Yet it can motivate us to feel. In fact, it can evoke powerful emotions. The “music” of English works exactly the same way.

We anglophones are lazy speakers, so English is a language of reductions. If something’s too hard to say, we change it. So what you see on the page often has little to do with the way we say it. But that “short-form” English can spark the imagination with its rhythm and melody. It works on our emotions, consciously and unconsciously. It’s about psychology.

And the “art” of the sale is about psychology.

It’s about trying to enter into the mind of the prospective customer to make the listener feel as comfortable as possible. But to make that sale, the salesperson too, has be comfortable. If the customer and client are totally in sync, great. Why bother to make any changes?

But, often, I find that people are hesitant to make changes – as if incorporating more of the Canadian accent (standard North American accent) would destroy a sense of identity.

The thing is … our accents (and we all have an accent) are a beautiful part of who we are. And making some changes isn’t the same as erasing our identity.

People respond to music. And the music of the Canadian English language can help communicate, negotiate and motivate.

In the long run, we’re not just selling a product or a service. We’re selling who we are. We’re saying, “I care about you. Trust me. Listen to me. I have something of value for you.”

The “music” of English and the “art” of the sale have a powerful connection.

Your own thoughts are most welcome.

And don’t forget to check out the latest word-of-the week at One-Minute Words on The Canadian Pronunciation Coach channel.

Thoughts on how to improve English pronunciation by wrecking your native language

Okay, no misunderstandings here, please! I’m not talking about ridiculing languages that aren’t English. I’m talking about using them with a sense of humour to help you understand English pronunciation in a powerful way.

There’s a particular exercise that I love to do with my clients. At first they think I’m crazy. But then they begin to understand the purpose. Once they truly get into it, it’s ridiculously fun and very very enlightening.

I’ll begin by having them translate a simple sentence or two into their native language, be it Spanish, Polish, Arabic, French, Mandarin, whatever. It can be as simple as “My name is [XXX] and I’m studying English pronunciation. Then I’ll ask them to pretend they’re anglophones trying to learn this foreign language, but with no feeling for the language at all, none whatsoever!!! It sounds terrible – truly awful!! The English-speaker just can’t manage to imitate the accent: wrong sounds, wrong syllable stress, wrong word stress … wrong … wrong… wrong. But it’s so bad that it’s cute. It makes you laugh in a loving way. The idea is to be playful and outrageous, by really trying to capture the authentic sound of the English language transferred to your native language.

There’s no anger, no frustration – just lots of love and appreciation for this anglophone trying so hard and failing miserably.

Why do this exercise that seems so pointless and silly?

Simple –– the more you can “massacre” the accent of your native language with an English-speaker’s accent, the better you understand the essence of the Canadian accent (or standard North American accent, whatever you want to call it). Where does the tongue need to go? How wide does your mouth have to open? What’s the shape of your lips? How different is it from what you would automatically do?

It actually takes a lot of thought. It’s not so easy.

And you tend to want to speak quickly because it’s easier to slip back into the accent that comes naturally. But you’ve got to slow down – be deliberate. Pretend you’re that anglophone. Think of yourself in different clothes, maybe with a different hair colour. Anything – just pretend. Step into the shoes of this imaginary anglophone.

What makes it so difficult for them to adapt to your accent? Insert the sounds that don’t exist in your native language: for example, that pointed vowel /a/ as is black (/æ/); that rhotic /r/ back in the throat with the tip of your tongue down, pulling back and up. Think of the vowels and consonants that have been especially difficult for you to correct in English and use them to replace the consonants and vowels in your language. You want to make your own language sound as terrible as you can.

You’re really being two people: the anglophone who’s wrecking the sound of your native language and the native speaker who’s listening with amusement (if not outright laughter) at just how far from authentic it sounds.

You’re putting yourself inside the body and the mind of the English speaker trying to speak your language. So really exaggerate the differences. Don’t be afraid to make it totally absurd. How does their foreign accent sound in your native language? How do their sounds feel inside your mouth?

It’s a surprisingly powerful and revealing exercise.

Have you, the speaker of ESL, or your clients/students (if you’re a coach or a teacher) ever tried it? If you’ve done it or used it, tell me how it worked. What sentences did you use?

And don’t forget to check out the latest word-of-the week at One-Minute Words on The Canadian Pronunciation Coach YouTube channel.

More thoughts on how to practise better and improve faster

In last week’s post Thoughts on how to practise better and improve faster, I talked about the importance of working in small chunks of time on a regular basis and about how we don’t even have to practise out loud. When we can clearly visualize until we feel muscle movements and, in the case of accent modification, also hear the sounds we’d like to create, we can improve.

I talk a lot about practising and listening with full attention. But what does that mean exactly?

Well the first thing, of course, is working without distractions. So for the ten minutes (more or less)  that you commit to practise –– no email, no text messages, no Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram –– just you and your lesson.

Listen carefully to the instructions you’ve been given. Listen to the sound you want to recreate. Try to listen without using your native language as a point of reference. Just listen.

Now, let’s take just one frequently problematic vowel as an example: the English /i/ as it silver. (Please note that I used the English Phonetic Alphabet (EPA), not the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). If you want more information on the EPA, read my 2017 blog An Easier Way to Learn English Vowels with its accompanying YouTube video.)

So, whenever you say “bit,” it sounds like “beat.” You try to say “fit,” but it sounds like “feet.” I could have also used the opposite Ey/ (as in green) vowel as an example, but I want to keep this simple.

First imagine the parts of your tongue that need to move.

Close your eyes and focus on your tongue and your lips. Your mouth is a little open. Visualize and feel the tip of your tongue resting behind your bottom teeth. Visualize and feel the rest of your tongue resting on the bottom of your mouth, just inside your bottom side teeth, not quite touching. Your jaw is still. Your lips are still.

Now imagine there’s a string in the front of your tongue behind the tip. The string lifts your tongue very gently, just the tiniest bit. Isolate this movement of the front of your tongue, without the tip of your tip, in your mind. Make it very tiny. You may also imagine that the centre of your tongue is attached to the dent in your upper lip. Imagine lifting the centre of your lip and pulling the centre of your tongue with it. Just a little. Just a little.

Next, practise doing this same movement slowly for real.  The tip of the tongue remains behind the bottom front teeth. The sides of the tongue don’t move. Only the front of the tongue rolls or lifts up the tiniest bit. Try rolling the centre of the tongue by itself. Then try lifting it with the dent in your upper lip.

Now listen to the sound of the vowel and imagine saying it as you lift the front of the tongue every so slightly, still letting the tip and the sides of the tongue be still.

Finally, say the exercise quietly – the vowel alone, then with the associated words. Don’t worry about the other vowels or the consonants that you may not be able to reproduce accurately for now. Just focus on the vowel /i/ as in silver.

And there you have it:

• Set aside small manageable bits of time
• Remove distractions.
• Focus on correcting one thing at a time.
• Drop preconceptions. Listen to sounds as if you were a baby in your mother’s womb, as if you’re hearing them for the first time.
• Fill your imagination with the task at hand. Work in your mind first.
• Work very slowly and isolate movements.
• Do this for five minutes … or ten minutes … or fifteen minutes if you can find the time. But find the time every day to practise in this way.
• And don’t give up.

I guarantee you’ll make changes you never thought you could.

And before you know it, those changes will be noticed by friends, family, patients, customers and colleagues.

I’d love to hear your thoughts, your experiences or your questions.

To listen to two Canadian accents presenting a new English word or expression every week, check out One-Minute Words on The Canadian Pronunciation Coach YouTube Channel.

Thoughts on how to practise better and improve faster

I often find that students have a misconception about practice: that it takes long hours of steady practice to improve. If they don’t have that kind of time, they give up altogether.

But it’s not about long hours of steady practice. It’s about steadfastness with practice over a long time. It’s about not giving up. It’s about finding little chunks of time for as little as five minutes or at most 15 minutes throughout the day, every week, and working with full attention.

It’s about countering every negative thought that says “I’m too busy. I can’t do this. I’ll never get it.” with a thought that says “I seize little fragments of time for me alone. I can do this. I will get it.”

No private place to put on your headphones, listen to the lesson and practise your homework?

• How about finding 10 minutes in the bathroom?
• How about 10 minutes in bed before you turn off the light?
• How about 10 minutes in the morning before you get out of bed?
• How about getting out of your workplace for a 10-minute walk at lunchtime?
• How about a quiet 10-minute escape to the stairwell once or twice during the day?
• How about 10 minutes in their darkened bedroom as soon as the kids fall asleep?

Heck, you don’t even need to practise out loud.

There’s a therapy and exercise method called the Feldenkrais technique (the origins are unimportant) that’s all about gentle movement and directed attention, in which we’re often told to visualize rather than do a particular movement. Extraordinarily, we can achieve the same positive results. In fact brain studies have clearly shown, for a long time now, that thoughts produce the same mental instructions as actions. Visualization is being used to enhance performance, reduce stress, increase motivation, self-confidence, efficiency. It can even help the paralytic learn to move limbs and machinery with the help of electrodes and computers.

Can you choose to find time on your own for just a few minutes each day to suspend judgment, listen intently and practise attentively before your mind starts to wander and your muscles start to weaken?

It’s a strangely simple technique with a huge reward: less stress and faster improvement.

What’s holding you back?

What techniques have you found to maintain a steady practice?

Don’t forget to check out the latest word-of-the week at One-Minute Words on The Canadian Pronunciation Coach YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqJIW9b8ceo&list=UUtLnMIqmYW9uRCi_Kx48AaQ

Thoughts on Identity and the Music of Language

I was always aware of the question of “identity” in accent modification, but it didn’t really hit me in the face until, as I mentioned in last week’s post Thoughts on “Identity” and Accent Modification, one of my clients brought it up in class. She talked with great insight about the internal shame she had absorbed related to accent modification as well as the loss of identity (feeling like a fake) in choosing to take on the accent of the native speaker.

Not all students are dealing with the psychological trauma of political tensions in their native country. However, the issue of feeling like a “fake” is something I’d heard before.

But what if we were to focus instead on the music of language? What if we could step outside our fixed ideas of identity and adopt a more open and fluid sense of self?

In my hometown Toronto, we can turn on CBC radio or Radio Canada (Canada’s English and French national broadcasting systems) and hear artists singing in languages other than English or French. We can hear music from Africa, Latin America, South America, for example –– and that, without even searching out a specialty radio station. We may not understand the words, but we respond to the rhythm and the melodies. As we listen and respond viscerally, for that brief period we become one with the music.

Can we do the same with spoken language – listen for its music and respond with the innocence of a child? Can we take the time to listen in a new way and go beyond the words? Can we go beyond consonants and vowels, beyond the memory of muscles and mind? Can we embrace new rhythms and melodies by putting aside assumptions about who we think we need to be by listening with attention to the musicality of the speech around us and absorbing it without judgment?

After all, we can learn to sing a song in a language other than our own and dance to the music of a country far away from home. We may not be the best singer or the best dancer but we can sing and dance with abandon. In the same way, it’s not about losing an accent. It’s about flowing with more of the sounds of the everyday speech and dialect, the vernacular, of the adopted language.

Far from being a “fake” for reshaping a native accent with the music of the vernacular,  I think we become richer. We experience a little shift, knowing that we’re no less who we are for embracing a place in the middle with enough room for everyone in the music of English.

And speaking of everyday speech, check out “ vernacular” in this week’s One-Minute Words.

 

Thoughts on “Identity” and Accent Modification

The other day there was a client in one of my group classes who made the most interesting observation. This person was, as are most of my clients, a very advanced speaker of ESL. She had been in English-speaking countries for the last ten years and was picking up the sounds of vowels and consonants very quickly. But finding the “music” of English was particularly challenging: the idea of linking consonants and vowels from syllable to syllable to find a flowing rhythm, and changing pitch to find melodies that express meaning more readily.  There was also some resistance to what I call “short-form” English, the spoken expressions that we native English speakers use all the time but which have almost nothing to do with written English (e.g., wanna, gonna, gotta, hafta).

There were two issues that came up, both equally important.

The first was political. In my client’s native country, there are two large populations with different languages. When speaking the language of the majority population with the accent of the majority population, her own community judged her harshly. They wanted and expected a more guttural sound in keeping with the native language of her community.

In learning to speak the English language, she had absorbed the “shame” of her community’s judgment – the implication that speaking a language other than your own with the accent of the native speaker was, perhaps the gentle word is, a “sellout.”

The second,  which I’ve sometimes heard from other clients, was that she felt that by imitating our “short-form” spoken English, using expressions like “wanna,” “gotta,” “gonna,” etc., she was just being “fake.”

These are interesting and sensitive challenges. When she recognized that there was “shame” involved in making changes to her accent, she felt a great sense of relief and freedom. And yet the general sense that absorbing the “music” of English to sound more like a native speaker could cause her to lose her identify was a different story.  This part was not about the intensity of shame, but more about the fear of losing a part of yourself, your roots.

So the question is “Do we really lose our identity when we choose, consciously or unconsciously, to incorporate the sounds of the vernacular of our adopted country?” Must identity be tied to accent or is identity something internal – something felt – a deep love of one’s native country,  native culture.

I would really love to hear from speakers of English as a Second Language on this.

Meanwhile, check out the Canadian Pronunciation Coach YouTube channel at One-Minute Words for the web series One-Minute Words and other videos on pronunciation.