The development of human speech begins from the age of an infant. But the formation of correct pronunciation of sounds occurs over a period of 2-3 years, when the vocabulary is actively replenished. Speech is enriched with words, names, verbs. The child learns to formulate sentences and express his thoughts about simple phenomena. This is the age of understanding the pronunciation of sounds.
It is important for parents to pay attention to pronouncing vowels and simple consonants. The child should be able to speak them at different tempos and volumes.
Do vocal exercises
For greater effectiveness, such exercises should be done in front of a mirror.
You can start such exercises by yawning, this helps to relax the vocal cords. Then move your jaw left and right. Don’t forget to massage your throat with your fingers while humming a sound. After the exercises, you need to take a deep breath and exhale slowly, combining this with pronouncing the letters of the alphabet, until you feel the tension in your abdominal muscles. Next, hold your breath for 10-15 seconds and try to stretch out any sound until the volume of your voice completely decreases.
Control your breathing
After watching the performers on stage, you probably noticed the important role a person’s breathing plays. Knowing small simple tricks, you can learn the correct breathing technique, this will make your speech clearer and more beautiful.
- The first method is to place one hand on your stomach and the other on your chest while breathing. Your task is to keep the hand on your chest motionless and the hand on your stomach moving. Diaphragmatic breathing (when you “breathe with your belly”) promotes full inhalation, which will make your voice more consonant;
- The second way is to speak at a time when breathing is at its peak. After taking a proper deep breath, begin to speak, delving into the meaning of your words as much as possible. At the same time, breathe measuredly and slowly, this will allow your breathing to speak slowly and support speech.
Read aloud more
At first glance, such an exercise may seem banal and ineffective, but it is not so.
Reading aloud lets you control your pronunciation, volume, and pitch. The technique is one of the most effective for intelligibility and clarity of speech. Choose a good book or text. Watch your posture, don't slouch, straighten your shoulders and control your posture while reading. Each of these components is important. Control your voice tone, reading speed and volume. If you do this exercise regularly, you will be able to speak confidently, clearly and slowly.
What can a modern speech therapist offer for the development of speech of a child and an adult?
“The longer I work as a speech therapist, the more new and interesting things I learn,” says Vita Belukha. “Children change, parents change, and we, specialists, must keep up with the times. Today, a speech therapist can use a wide variety of techniques in his work: logorhythmics, music therapy, body-oriented techniques. Music improves the tone of the cerebral cortex and also evokes positive emotions in the child. The motor system is directly related to the development of his mental functions and so on.”
Speech is one of the most complex types of movement, and these movements always have some purpose. After all, we usually speak with a specific purpose, and not just move our tongue, move our lips and strain our larynx. Therefore, if you think about and analyze our usual life, it is impossible to imagine a single sensation that we could get without using movement.
“In my work, I first develop a skill separately - for example, pronouncing sounds in the syllables “ra-ro-ru”, and then combine this with simple movements: for example, hands down - “ra”, hands up - “ro” , arms to the sides - “ru”. And only then I “turn on” more complex activities. As a result, the child’s activities become more complicated, but he still does not lose the acquired skill,” our expert shares the secrets of his technique.
Through physical activity, children are much more interested in working, and the necessary knowledge, skills and abilities are given to them more easily and are better consolidated. This is especially true for children with severe speech impairment (SSD). Using various technologies in speech therapy classes, it is possible to achieve significant improvements in the correction of these problems.
Tongue Twisters
Tongue twisters are one of the simple and effective ways to improve speech clarity. Start by saying simple tongue twisters, such as:
- Merchandisers lied - samovar sampling was disrupted!;
- De-ideologized, de-ideologized, and pre-ideologized;
- He reported, but didn’t finish his report; I completed my report, and I did.
Then move on to more complex tongue twisters. For example:
The fast talker quickly said quickly, That you can’t quickly talk all the tongue twisters, but you can’t over-speak all the tongue twisters, But, having quickly spoken, he quickly said, That you can’t talk all the tongue twisters, but you can’t over-speak.
Once upon a time there lived three Chinese: Yak, Yak-tsedrak, Yak-tsedrak-tsedrak-tsedroni. Once upon a time there were three Chinese women: Tsypa, Tsypa-drypa, Tsypa-drypa-drympamponi. They all got married: Yak to Tsypa, Yak-tsedrak to Tsypa-drypa, Yak-tsedrac-tsedrac-tsedroni to Tsypa-drypa-drympamponi. And they had children. For Yak and Tsypa - Shah, for Yak-tsedrak with Tsypa-drypa - Shah-sharah, for Yak-tsedrak-tsedrak-tsedroni with Tsypa-drypa-drympamponi - Shah-sharah-sharah-shironi.
Your goal is to learn how to pronounce all sounds correctly and as clearly as possible, and not just scribble tongue twisters at a frantic pace. First, speak the tongue twister slowly, assessing the sound pronunciation, then gradually increase the tempo each time. When you achieve perfection in this technique, you can complicate the task. Before pronouncing the next tongue twister, put a few walnuts in your mouth.
How to convey your idea to the audience
Eloquent people enhance their impact with creative phrases. "We're still dancing," said Chuck Prince, chief executive of Citibank, commenting on the boardroom discord. A memorable visual image can also be very effective.
Concluding his famous TED presentation (full name Technology Entertainment Design is an annual conference whose mission is to spread unique ideas (“ideas worth spreading”) on a variety of topics such as science, art, politics, business, global issues, etc. .), which was viewed by approximately 500,000 people on the Internet, Professor Hans Rosling (Swedish physician, academician, statistician and social activist. He is a professor of global health at Karolinska University, as well as the founder of the Gapminder Foundation) said that the impossible is possible, and to prove swallowed his words with a long steel bayonet.
Metaphors and comparisons
Metaphors and comparisons create a memorable picture of events or phenomena. They help clarify complex ideas and concepts, allowing you to simplify your thoughts. Let us give examples of metaphors. “This family has strong rules.” “There are some bad apples on this team.” You may think of metaphors primarily as a literary and artistic thing, but we all use them as an integral part of our language, sometimes unconsciously, in our daily lives because their apt definitions help us formulate ideas succinctly. When chief executive Lee Iacocca tried to save Chrysler, he asked the US government to provide a "safety net" so that employees would not be laid off.
Comparisons (“as” or “like”), as you understand, compare one thing to another. For example. - “He is as insensitive as a stone.” - “She is unbending, like steel.” “He always arrives on time, like clockwork.”
If you want to explain your point to colleagues, try to choose an object or action to compare that is not related to what you are talking about. Let's say you want to convince your team to take action in a certain direction. What connection can be made between this area and, for example, rafting, which you are interested in? Even if this connection is insignificant, you can create a memorable and convincing image.
Training speech clarity using improvised means
Many actors and artists use this simple life hack. For clearer, more beautiful and precise speech, they use... a simple champagne cork! You need to put the cork under your tongue and start speaking. Your mouth will have to work hard to fully pronounce each syllable clearly. Having a cork in your mouth will give your tongue the opportunity to stop stumbling on words that are difficult for you. If you experience increased salivation during the exercise, use a napkin.
Training using this method should not take much time, as this can lead to pain in the jaw.
How quickly can you start speaking English?
Beginners are most often interested in how long it will take to master English. Experienced teachers will tell you that you can learn a language throughout your life, but this answer is more frustrating than inspiring.
The pace of learning a foreign language depends on many factors: motivation, perseverance, determination, learning conditions, personal qualities. It is also important to take into account the desired level of language proficiency, since progress towards mastering a language occurs in stages, and each stage requires a certain amount of time. The Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) has six levels. Let's look at them:
| Level of foreign language proficiency | Designation | For what purpose | How long will it take to master? |
| A1 | Base | Getting to know the language | 70-100 hours |
| A2 | Below the average | Tourism, basic communication | 100-150 hours |
| B1 | Average | Everyday communication | 150-250 hours in courses + 200-250 hours of independent work |
| B2 | Above average | For work, study. Preparation for the international IELTS or TOEFL exams begins at this level | 200 hours with a teacher + 300-400 hours of independent work |
| C1 | Advanced | For moving | 200 hours with a teacher + 300-400 hours of independent work (same as level B2). Native speakers are usually involved in control |
| C2 | Free | Native speaker level | The transition from C1 to C2 is usually carried out smoothly due to independent improvement of the language at your own pace |
This is the official Cambridge Methodist count. If you really want to, you can learn English in a year. Provided you regularly study twice a week and diligently do your homework during this time, you can go from “zero” to a confident average level B1.
Smiling and public speaking
If information is presented to a person in a friendly tone, the speech becomes pleasant, inspires confidence and is better perceived.
Be sincere in your emotions, this will help change your speech for the better. The key to success as a speaker mainly depends on the ability to win over the audience. When speaking in public, most people feel very nervous. If you manage to pull yourself together and understand that you are in a hurry and worried, calm yourself down and try to speak more slowly. Breathe correctly, this will help you analyze your speech and be calm.
Remember that it is important for people to hear and listen to what you have to say.
Watch your intonation and pronounce each word with pauses. This will allow people to hear and understand you. Write several sentences on a piece of paper and underline the last letter of each word. When reading the text, focus on these letters, after taking a short pause.
The Greek thinker Demosthenes, to combat stuttering, spoke with a mouth full of pebbles. You can also practice with something more edible. Be careful not to choke.
When speaking in public, it helps a lot to think carefully about all the words before pronouncing them and get unnecessary thoughts out of your head.
Ksenia Chernova
Speech coach, actress, TV presenter, author of the book “Speak Like God”
Usually people rarely ask the question “Why dress nicely?” or “Why walk around with a washed hair and straight teeth?” (we are, of course, talking about a certain category of people who care what they look like and what impression they make). It's the same story with the voice.
Voice is part of our personality, part of our characteristics by which people read information about what we are like. If we are visually beautiful, but we open our mouths and begin to creak, mumble, mumble words, speak quietly, uncertainly, with defects - the world of those around us literally collapses. They don’t understand; they have a kind of cognitive dissonance between what they see and what they hear. And if we want to create the right impression of a professional, confident person who knows what he wants, we must speak no worse than a minimally trained TV presenter. And it's not difficult.
The voice is a very flexible and malleable structure that can change in the same way that our body can change.
But if in the case of the body this is a long process, at least 3-6 months, then you can train your voice quite quickly. Moreover, you can see some first but significant changes in, say, 16 hours of training (that’s two days of full-fledged training and training), and the rest is a matter of regularity.
Having received a voice that he likes, a person begins to feel completely different - to feel real, more confident, and in control of the situation. The voice is a workout. Breathing, sound, and articulation training. And also - regular conscious control during the conversation: it is important to at least think about how I breathe, where I sound, whether I have lost my resonator, on which it is convenient for me to speak, whether my mouth opens, whether my tongue works well ...
All these points are a matter of discipline, as in any matter that we want to do well. Like any habit, like any restructuring in the body, mind, body, voice and speech training - everything takes time. For some it’s two weeks, for others it’s a month, and for others seven days is enough. It is impossible to predict exactly when speech training will become a permanent skill in life, but if you are systematic enough, it will definitely happen and is unlikely to take more than a month. My goal during the training process is to make sure that people enjoy the way they speak and sound. The correct sound usually comes from a well-stretched and relaxed body, this is the result of the correct adjustment of the muscles, when the body does not get tired of speaking, but enjoys the fact that it sounds full.
What is speaking technique? By and large, this is the sum of correct breathing, sounding in the right places, correct opening of the mouth and functioning of the articulatory apparatus and, most importantly, filling this entire form with content - your nature, sincerity, emotions and energy. This is exactly what people react to, because the main thing is when we, in addition to having a beautiful sound of voice, also know how to convey to them everything that we have.
A few more little lifehacks for speech
- Drink more water. The human vocal cords are like a machine that needs lubrication. Before starting speech lessons, rinse your mouth with warm boiled water, adding a small pinch of salt to it. This will help the ligaments become more flexible and relieve tension in the throat.
- Swallow any saliva that has accumulated in your mouth in a timely manner. Due to excess accumulated saliva, the pronunciation of the letters “k” and “s” is distorted, and words or parts of them are swallowed. Swallowing your saliva cleanses your mouth and also gives you time to pause and breathe again. Do not do this in the middle of a word or sentence; it is better to swallow your saliva after you have finished expressing your thought.
- Don't speak with clenched teeth. When you clench your jaw tightly, you are very tense, which can cause stress. At this time, you will not be able to open your mouth wide to pronounce words clearly and distinctly. If you notice that your teeth are already clenched, slowly take a deep breath, puffing out your cheeks, as if air is deflating from a balloon.
- Don't avoid difficult words; on the contrary, say them as often as possible. If you have difficult-to-pronounce words in your vocabulary, you are constantly in a hurry, trying to pronounce them faster, such attempts usually end in unclear and slurred pronunciation. Practice saying these words often until you develop muscle memory of how to sound them correctly.
Emancipation
The main enemy of diction is not speech defects, as is commonly believed. Even a person with perfect speech can instantly lose all its advantages, begin to “mumble”, draw out words, stutter, stammer, “chew” endings and do everything so that the interlocutor does not understand him. This happens, of course, not out of good will, but for purely psychological reasons. It’s not a fact that this will happen to you, just don’t delude yourself into thinking that the whole range of problems can be solved with one tongue twister.
Simply being able to speak quickly and clearly may not be enough. The hardest thing is to learn not to lose the skill under any circumstances.
The culprit behind slurred speech is called “excess tension.” To understand what this is, do an experiment right now: try to strain your neck muscles to the limit. Happened? Now list all the muscle groups that have tensed along with the neck ones. Face, shoulders, arms, chest? But the task was to strain only the neck.
The same thing can happen when you are nervous: tension constrains your speech apparatus, it becomes difficult to speak, your voice sounds muffled, and your throat becomes dry. The only thing that will help with this is the practice of relaxation, which can be used situationally and as a daily exercise. There are many variations of this practice, you can come up with your own. One thing remains unchanged: you need to relax your whole body as much as possible and consciously control the relaxation process in the smallest detail.
