Communication Solutions for Global Business


Quick & Easy Pronunciation Practice Ideas!
with Heather Hansen of English Pronunciation Lab

Today I’d like to share with you some really quick and easy ways that you can integrate speech and pronunciation practice into your daily routines.

1) Newspaper Practice
Do you read the newspaper in the morning? Ok, take just 10 more minutes to do an analysis of a short passage — mark the work stress, break the content into chunks, read it out loud to practice flow. Concentrate on sounds that you know are difficult for you. There you go. 10 minutes of practice. Check!

2) Morning Commute
How do you get to work? Do you drive? If you’re one of my clients, you have some pronunciation CDs and listening materials you can stick in your CD player. If you’re on the bus, metro, subway, listen to the mp3s on your phone. Obviously if you’re in a public place you probably won’t want to be doing production practice, but you could get away with it in your car. Either way, you’re at least working on your listening skills. That’s at least 15 more minutes of practice, and it’s really good practice if you’re able to also practice your speaking at that time. Check!

3) Boring Meetings
Now what about when you’re sitting in that incredibly boring meeting at work? Instead of letting your mind wander to all kinds of crazy things, put your speech awareness hat on and make some notes about how the person speaks. If they’re a good speaker, what can you learn from them? If they aren’t so good… what can you learn from them? Listen for pronunciation, timing, flow, use of examples and stories, audience engagement techniques (or lack thereof). Turn your daily experiences into learning experiences. We just got about 30 more minutes of practice in! Not bad!

4) Waiting Times
Now, another opportunity! Think about all the time you spend waiting during the day. Maybe you’re stuck on hold with your bank, or someone is late for a meeting, or you’re waiting in the car for your kids when you’re picking them up at school or another activity… Make small lists of minimal pairs that you can practice in these moments. Write them on small notecards, something like a business card size and have them handy at your desk or in your bag, so you can run through them and practice. You could get as much as 20 minutes of practice per day using this technique!!

10 + 30 (you have to commute both ways!) + 30 + 20 = 1hr, 15min per day!
Then let’s say you schedule just one 15 minute practice session into your day, as I recommend.
You’re working on your speech for an hour and half each day!!

And we haven’t even thought about all the talking you do in a day. Think about if you approached every conversation as an opportunity to practice! It’s just about raising your awareness!

Be creative with your speech practice. Integrate it into your daily routine. Raise your awareness about how you and others speak throughout the day. Always have this in the back of your mind in your conversations with people. You have more than enough time to work on your speech. You CAN do this!!

If you’d like to learn more about clear speech and pronunciation, and haven’t signed up for my free, 8-part pronunciation short course, please visit me at http://bit.ly/free8-partproncourse
to register.

I’ll see you there!

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  4. Heather Hansen

    Wow! A posh American!? I think some of my British friends would really
    cringe! Haha! I’m originally from California, and you’d be shocked to hear
    my ‘valley girl’ twang when I’m home! Over the past 10 years of living in
    Europe and Asia, I have conscious and subconscious choices about how to
    speak so that people can best understand me. Following international
    linguistic research, I try as best I can to integrate pronunciations that
    have been found to be easiest to understand all over the world.

  5. Heather Hansen

    (Continued – read my other reply first). For example, I try to use clearer
    Ts than the typical American (inTernational – sometimes I slip on that
    one). Small changes like these might create that ‘posh’ impression because
    I try to speak very clearly and really articulate, instead of being lazy.
    Thanks so much for your comments and the nice compliment. 🙂

  9. dgerardo22

    hello heather i have a question…i speak english but sometimes it’s a
    little bit hard for me to understand songs ..does that happen to native
    speakers??

  12. Heather Hansen

    Hi DGerardo! Yes, that happens to native speakers!! We mess up the words to
    songs ALL the time! I’m sure you can find some funny YouTube videos where
    people get the words wrong. It’s much harder to understand songs, so don’t
    worry if you’re having trouble there. Just keep listening.

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