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Measuring Improvements in Your Speech

Many students arrive for tutoring with only a basic idea that they want to improve their speaking skills. One student recently told me that she felt she had no idea what was happening at first and only realized the steps she had achieved after the accent had lessened. The voice is a subject that many people never study. In American schools, public speaking is an elective, and even then the content is more important than the way a person speaks. So the question is: how do we measure improvements in speech?

Milestone 1: Sounds of Letters
Most people from other countries have several letters that they are pronouncing differently. The common ones are: R, L, T, A, I, H, Th, V and W. Also, the vowel sounds (a, e, i, o, u) may not be clearly understood by spelling rules. Until these letters are pronounced clearly, there will always be some difficulty in being understood. It is also harder to master the rhythm of American English when individual letters are still obstacles. In lessons, it is best to choose which letters need work and achieve results on these letters first. A little work on rhythm can be incorpoated, but is not the focus.

Milestone 2: Reading the Vowels
Once you are comfortable with vowels, most people have to learn that Americans stress vowels more than consonants. If you think about how American English sounds smooth compared to British English or certain other languages, you will see that this is true. This milestone is simple, but takes a lot of practice because you have to change a basic habit. You can achieve this by reading aloud everyday.

Milestone 3: American Rhythm
Once you are reading the vowels you are already part-way there. To understand rhythm, you learn the rules about how we reduce some sounds, blend words together and stress one or two words in each long phrase. Reducing and blending other words causes the stressed words to stand out more. This needs to be practiced with both reading aloud and in practice conversation. This will not take a long time to master after completing Milestone 2.

Milestone 4: Finishing Grammar
Some people have no trouble with written grammar, but difficulty with speaking correctly. The common problem-points are: use of "a," "an" and "the" and use of prepositions (in, on, at, for, behind and so on). Studying rules for these small words and practicing using the rules with a teacher will perfect your speaking skills. However, you can work on grammar throughout your pronunciation work. While you work on Milestone's 1-3, you can be mastering grammar. Then, put the finishing touches on your grammar work.

Milestone 5: I Lost My Accent: What Now?
If losing your accent troubles you because you feel detached from your culture, you can also get it back. After learning to speak with an American accent, you can learn other American dialects, the British accent, a Chinese accent--anything that seems fun! Soon you will understand that all accents are based on sound and rhythm. A few key sounds are pronounced differently and there is a basic rhythmic pattern to every language. At that point, you will know how to speak with your old accent or with your new one or with several new ones.

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10/1/2009

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