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 stepping out of the comfort zone

It’s important to accept ourselves as we are. It is. Yes, we’re good enough as we are.

But sometimes we can use the idea of “good enough” as an excuse for not pushing ourselves to try something different.

I’m not talking about something extreme like white-water rafting or tandem parachute jumping or bungee jumping. It’s not just about facing physical danger.

I’m talking about little things.

For me, who had often given speeches and presentations using notes, it was giving a speech without notes for very first time. The relief and joy I felt was palpable to everyone around me.

For some, it might be walking an hour and half to a destination you’d normally get to by car or public transit. When we travel, we never think twice about walking for an hour or two. Might the neighbourhoods you’ve ignored so often as you passed by suddenly come alive with colour and sound?

For some, it might be finding a restaurant where the “locals” eat, where you don’t recognize a single thing on the menu. You look over at the next table and say to your waiter, “I’ll have whatever they’re having.” Might you suddenly find adventure in the city you’ve lived in your whole life?

For everyone, it can be about making a list of all the routine things we do and asking ourselves, “Why do I always do things the same way? What would happen if I were to do somethings differently?” How might I feel?

That’s what my advanced speakers of English as a Second Language or English as a Common Language face when they come to me for coaching. They’ve usually done fine with their English as it is. And yet, they’ve decided to challenge themselves to do more.

Sometimes it’s to make their pronunciation just a little clearer. Sometimes it’s to take their language abilities to a new level of sophistication. Sometimes it’s to add energy and emotion to their communication skills. They know change won’t come overnight, but they make the commitment to work at it. The excitement they feel as they change and grow feeds them, as does the thrill when other people notice.

Change isn’t easy. Sometimes it comes in a flash. More often, it comes slowly. I admire and applaud their spirit and determination.

There are things that all of us have done throughout our lives that we’ve never questioned because the answers could make us uncomfortable.

It’s unnerving to do things differently when we’ve been comfortable doing them the same way for so long. It’s so much easier to stay in one place with a minimum of stress and no risk – where the outcome is certain.

It’s hard to change. It takes courage. It takes stepping out of the comfort zone.

But oh … the rewards …

Your thoughts are always most welcome.

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