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In order to speak we use a specific set of muscles, which help to form a selection of sounds we manipulate with our are tongue and lips to form into speech. Speech is an acquired habit which we learn as children. We learn it from what we hear around us and through experimental use of our mouth and tongue. Through this we learn to form the language of our country and cultural environment. Whatever language or dialect of a language you speak, or accent you have, you will employ the use of the same muscles. Elocution is a way of training those muscles, which you use anyway, to operate in a slightly different way.
When I teach elocution, I put my students on physical training exercises for the muscle structure they use in speech. This starts with stretching exercises to loosen and relax the body, particularly the stomach, chest, shoulders and neck, which all house the instruments of speech. We then move on to exercises for the muscles we use to breath, the muscles we use to make sounds, the muscles we use to form these sounds into words. When all these are warmed up, trained to be strong and flexible, you can use them to speak the language you want with clarity. It is not hard to learn to speak differently but it does require steady application. You see what you are doing are making very fine and subtle adjustments in the way you use a set of muscles.
If you want to change the way you speak, the next most important thing is your ear, you need to learn how to listen. So much information we receive to-day is visual, which is fine, but it has caused us to stop really hearing. You need to train yourself to listen properly, to listen to how words are put together, how stress patterns work, what is the rhythm of the language. Listen to how things are said rather than to what is said.
My courses are for 10 weeks, during which time my students learn to understand how the muscle structure works and train it, so that they can change the way they speak into something that they are far happier with.
