Ten step guide to perfect spoken English

Hint 1:  Modify an accent, improve poor diction

If you speak with an accent that you wish to modify or just have poor diction that you wish to improve, the quickest way to purifying the sound of your voice is to speak on a whisper.

Start by choosing a passage from a book, magazine or newspaper and read it out loud on a stage whisper, gradually increasing the volume of your voice. 

Once you have practised this for about ten minutes, try taping your voice and then playing it back to yourself to see your progress.

Keep repeating this exercise until your sound is purified.  It DOES work but some people will need to practise more than others if their accent is well established or their diction is particularly poor.

 

 If you have difficulty being heard, have a quiet voice or a nasal quality to the tone of your voice (particularly present in Northern accents such as Liverpool), you can bring your voice forward by speaking with a pencil in your mouth.

 Place a pencil or straw between your lips and then read out loud holding the pencil between your lips.  Keep practising this and then remove the pencil and attempt to read the same passage again without it.  Keep repeating the exercise until your voice moves forward.  It is impossible to speak in the back or throat or through your nose with the pencil in your mouth and you need to retrain your speech organs to project forward.  Remember to tape and playback your progress.

 

 Hint 3: Cure a stammer or speech difficulty

 Stammers and speech impediments are often caused by lack of confidence.  Therefore it is important to work on your self-esteem and remember that stammers and other speech impediments have often become habits.  Just like giving up smoking or any other bad habit, stammers are some speech problems (not physical like cleft palate) are often just habits that we have established to cover shyness or lack of confidence. 

First work on self-esteem techniques. One boy was cured from a lifelong stammer in just one session using confidence techniques.  Give yourself permission now to lose the stammer or difficulty – Sounds ridiculous, but does work.   Say to yourself, ‘ I don’t need this habit any more, I can speak without it and BELIEVE you can do it.  Also practise speaking with the pencil in the mouth technique.  It is much harder to speak badly when focusing your attention on keeping the pencil there.

 

 Think Gareth Gates.  He has overcome his lifelong stammer since building a successful career and working with a speech therapist using some of the techniques in this guide.  Singing, no matter how badly, can help you purify your speech and lose a difficulty.  It is virtually impossible to stammer whilst singing and accents are hidden by singing.  Even if you are a lousy singer, in the privacy of your home, sing your words and then go back to normal speech immediately afterwards and notice how much better your diction is.  Again a tape recorder is helpful to practise this technique.

 

 Hint 5: Posture - stand tall to speak well

The way that we stand and hold ourselves has a direct effect on our speech.  Standing tall with your head held upright opens the throat and diaphragm for better quality speech.  Never speak looking down, you will mumble, always look directly forwards and hold shoulders back and chest out.  Give your passages and good open airway through which to operate.

 If you suffer from bad posture, back problems or just habitually slouch, then try Yoga or Pilates or working on an exercise ball to strengthen and improve your posture.

 

 Hint 6: Imitation

 Listening is one of the most useful things one can do to improve your speech.  Remember you first learned to speak by imitating those around you.  We tend to develop our accents and speech from our parents and family members and our peers at school.  Whatever we are exposed to most is how we learn.  Our ear is established before or voice and in order to change your diction you need to relearn by listening.  If you want to speak like a BBC newsreader, then listen to the news, even tape it. Listen to how Trevor Macdonald or Moira Stuart sound when they are presenting.  Take sentences, listen and copy.  Actors use the IMITATION technique all the time to create characters who sometimes speak with entirely different accents.  They do this by listening and imitating someone who speaks in the way they need to speak for the part they are playing.

BBC Radio 4 is a great place to hear good speech.  Saturate yourself with the sound of good clear RP (Received Pronunciation).  Go to sleep listening to it for even greater effect.

 

 Hint 7: Breathe your way to good speech

Our sound is very dependent on the way we breathe. To improve the quality of your speech you need to learn to breathe through your diaphragm.  A simple technique to discover where you are breathing from is to talk whilst placing your hands on your ribcage, if you feel a resonance/vibration in between your ribs, you are breathing correctly.  If you don’t you are speaking higher up in your chest.  To lower your speech to your diaphragm, say the sound O (o-her) as in the word COUGH – say this repeatedly whilst placing your hands on your diaphragm until you feel the vibration there.  It takes practise so don’t give up.  You will learn to feel where your breath is and then you will breathe naturally through your diaphragm.

 

 Hint 8: Tongue twisters

Tongue twisters are a great way of strengthening your vocal ability. Use the exercise with the different techniques listed here – speaking on a whisper, singing, with a pencil in the mouth.  This will strengthen your ability to have strong diction and to overcome lazy speech.  Practise whenever you can.

 A few examples:

Around the rugged rock the ragged rascal ran.

 (Use this if you have difficulty with the r sound – with the pencil in the mouth and on a whisper)

 She sells seashells on the seashore.

 (Use this for a sibilant s or for lazy speech with the pencil and whisper technique.)

 Red lorry, yellow lorry, red lorry……etc

 ( Use this for lazy speech with the pencil or whisper technique.)

 

Not being rude, keep your mouth clean and fresh and look after your teeth.  Poor dental care can affect our speech as gaps in the mouth change the whole structure of your sound and can lead to whistling sounds.  Oral infections lead to throat infections which are fatal to good speech, so keep healthy – this is good advice anyway and diet and exercise help in all matters anyway.

 Do not suck sweets to moisten the mouth…instead drink water.  It is a myth that sucking helps the throat and mouth where speech is concerned.  If you must use something, a small teaspoon of butter and sugar will increase saliva or honey, but far better is plain water.  Too many throat sweets can actually irritate the throat and mouth.

Hint 10: Love your voice

 Love your own voice.  Might sound ridiculous but our voice is part of our own unique identity.  It is not necessarily a good thing to change an accent for instance, unless it is holding you back in your line of work or daily life.  In fact you can never lose an established accent entirely, it is part of your heritage and whilst you can learn a new way of speaking, you can go back to your old way any time you choose.

Learn to love your voice and nurture it.  Don’t concentrate on what is wrong with it, improve what is good about it.  Tell yourself your speech is part of your unique wonderful identity and just like polishing your car, you can make it more beautiful, but it is beautiful anyway!