Kaizen

In Japanese culture, Kaizen is the name for the 1-minute principle to learn something new. It's often used to improve your skills in a chosen area. How does this method work?

You should practice a skill for just one minute every day at the same time. If you can create this habit, you're more likely to stick with it for months and even years. It is a way to develop a desire for self-improvement. Let's say you can't find 15-30 minutes a day to practice your English pronunciation. How about just one minute a day?

My suggestion as a teacher is to pick an app or TV show or web site that peaks your interest. One fun app that students like a lot is SPEAK. It's a computer-generated dialogue that prompts you to record your responses to a fictional character as in a real conversation. Then, the program highlights each word in either GREEN or RED, to indicate whether or not you have pronounced it correctly. You can repeat your response to try to get it right as many times as you want.

A good listening web site I've mentioned before is Randall's Cyber ESL Lab. It's full of over 100 listening dialogues that take less than 2 minutes to listen to. These dialogues are at a normal rate of speech and spoken in very informal American English, just like our typical daily conversations in real life! You can challenge yourself to listen to one a day and check your understanding with the short 5-question comprehension quizzes afterword. Of course, you can also read the script and find definitions for new vocabulary. Challenge yourself to go from Easy to Medium to Difficult levels!

Another option is to watch a short video clip on Voice of America Learn English website or app.

There are clips for news, idioms and even grammar.

Here are the links to the sites I mentioned:


Speak App - by Speakeasy, Inc.

VOA Learning English - https://learningenglish.voanews.com/

Randall's Cyber ESL Lab
https://www.esl-lab.com/


Also, I've started an Instagram page to challenge you to listen and understand American English. it's https://www.instagram.com/accent4professionals/

Finally, this approach has worked for me in a personal way. I've recently started learning Chinese on Duo Lingo. It is set up so that you complete one lesson a day. Each lesson takes just a few minutes. It has motivated me to continue because the lessons are getting easier and I'm even recognizing characters. This is something I didn't think I could do. Well, I'm going to test my knowledge with my best friends (two sisters from Taiwan). Hopefully, they will understand me!

Happy learning to you all!

Maria

From a Pea to a Snowball

Once in a while I'll run into students who are absolutely convinced that they canNOT change their accent. They say they've tried a little here and there. They've clicked on a few YouTube videos, read a few online exercises, even taken some classes to practice speaking English. But the question is ---
have they...or should I say....have YOU, taken the R-E-A-L step?? Because it is an actual step forward - a commitment of sorts.

How do you gain the momentum to take that step? First, you realize that you have become so uncomfortable with your performance in speaking English without clarity that you are nearly desperate for change. Second, you realize something simple: that all you have to do is start out small. The analogy is the pea, signifying the pea-sized gathering of motivation and knowledge you are starting out with. Will it gather into a snowball overnight? No, but does it have the potential to become big? YES.

You see, you start out small....by listening to some minimal pair exercises that distinguish two similar sounds and you try to hear the difference. Once you can hear the difference, you move on to listening to each individual sound. So, let's say you hear the two words "could" and "good". (You will need audio examples.) The two sounds to distinguish are /k/ and /g/. Once you can pick them out in different pairs of words starting with /k/ and /g/, then you can learn how to say /k/ and /g/ individually. Once you understand the explanation of how to make the sounds using your mouth parts, you can commit this learning to memory - muscle memory. Then take a voice recorder and practice saying several of these words. Play them back and compare to the original audio.

 After that, pick several sentences to listen to that start with those two sounds and underline every instance of  words starting with /g/ and /k/  - from listening to them, not reading them. It is important to start with audio recordings. (Go to a site like VOA learning English TV to find audio with transcripts. It's free, too!)  Once you are confident identifying these sounds in the sentences, record yourself saying the sentences. Play back and check that you have made the /k/ and /g/ sounds correctly. Now you've got the idea! This method can be done with individual sounds, pronunciation rules, stress, rhythm and intonation patters.

There is no limit to the amount of change that can come from committing yourself to taking on little bits of learning at a time, and as you add up that change, you get a snowball of new pronunciation skills.

Of course, the eager learner will want professional guidance and someone to act as a motivational coach - that's ME :)

Stay tuned for upcoming instructional videos on American English pronunciation in October.

Until then, give yourself a chance - you're worth it!
http://english4professionals.webs.com

What is it about changing your accent that's so strange? Do you feeling like you are changing your identity? When you learned to speak, you followed the teacher - imitate and repeat, right?

Your teacher said, "Say it like this - "APPLE", and you did.
It seems like an easy concept -

....But it's something more.

Let's look at the psychology behind it. You think of yourself as this person who grew up speaking a certain language easily and fluidly..someone who sounds fine speaking that language. If your first language is Spanish, then you are awesome at Spanish! Then you learned English. Ahhhh! What frustration, right? When you learned it, you may not have had a native speaker to teach you correct pronunciation. This is most likely the case. And even if you did, you were too busy just trying to find the right words with the right grammar, and you didn't focus on the way it sounded when you spoke.

Now you have arrived at today - today you want to focus on the speaking part, but you don't know where to start.  Even when you listen to native speakers, you think you can't possibly sound like them. Well, guess what? You can't because you're YOU. Your identity that is connected to who you know you are needs to create a "new accent" that's only for you. So, if I'm Maria who is a native speaker of English and who sounds like "this", meaning a certain way, when I speak English, I want to now build a way that I want to sound when I speak ANOTHER language. This happened to me when learning to speak Italian and Spanish.

For me, speaking in Spanish, I feel more comfortable expressing my emotional side because it is spoken so expressively. In high school I didn't think about my pronunciation. But when traveling in Spain in my 20s, I listened and noticed how emotionally expressive everyone sounded. Now, when I am around friends I hear different inflections of emotions and I think, "Oh, I can feel comfortable saying it that way." So I try to say it myself after I hear the way someone said it. And if I can manipulate it to my own style, I keep it. But, I won't go too far.  I'm not going to sound like I'm in a  telenovela,! That's not my style. Italian is a little bit different for me.

I studied Italian more formally and was a little older when I learned to speak it. The people I was around when I did the "listening phase" to learn how to pronounce, were more mature. In turn, I think of myself as more controlled in my speaking. Maybe that's because my professors in college were more subdued than my high school Spanish teacher!

How did you learn English? Who was your role model? Whatever your situation was, you can start today by getting back into the 'listening phase' to pick the way you want to sound. It won't take away from your identity of who you are. In fact, it will just add to it. When students say they are afraid to speak, I tell them that this is their chance to create any voice they want for themselves in English. Just listen to others, isolate a phrase or two and decide if you can say it that way. If you can, practice it then make up your mind to adopt it. The more you speak in English, more comfortable and relaxed you'll feel and the more you will want to create your own accent - one that fits just you!

http://english4professionals.webs.com

A little pronunciation humor..

I couldn't resist. Here are a few humorous examples of how difficult English pronunciation really is!

Here is Ricky Ricardo from I Love Lucy trying to pronounce words that end in 'ough':
https://www.schooltube.com/video/8d94448e0ba3a3f756b9/

"Dearest Creatures in Creation" poem:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzMaMDu_VQU

And here is the poem "I take it you already know"...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRe-j2EC1j8

To see the script including IPA symbols, click here:
http://www.jochenenglish.de/misc/phonetic_symbols_itakeit.pdf

I hope you have fun with these!

All the best,

Maria

http://english4professionals.webs.com

Practice makes Chemistry

Have you dreamed of better pronunciation in English? Do you imagine yourself talking effortlessly to English-speaking colleagues and friends?

I advocate the method of self-monitoring together with awareness of muscle memory when speaking. Self-monitoring is the process of monitoring your speech by recording it, transcribing, checking for target features, and correcting over time. What does all this have to do with changing old habits of pronunciation?

In order for old habits to change, they must be replaced and reinforced. This is why repeated practice is the key. But even before repeated practice is implemented, the awareness of the way your muscles move in your mouth must be solidly learned. You need to learn the correct ways to move your muscles in your mouth and its environs.

 In his book Evolve Your Brain, Dr. Joe Dispensa, a Doctor of Chiropractic states that, “The repeated action of learning semantic knowledge with attention and awareness initiates a strong enough signal to make new intellectual data that we never experienced before form long-lasting and more synaptic connections. The key ingredient here is focused attention. By paying complete attention to our task, we produce a strong enough signal to form that new synaptic connection. In doing so, we have created a more refined memory. The more numerous synaptic connections formed in the brain, the greater the working mind at that level. When we turn on that particular neural network, we will have more enriched machinery to process more enhanced mind. We can therefore perceive more information from our environment, demonstrate a skill with greater ease, or learn more readily because we paid attention to the stimulus to make more circuits.”

What does this mean for my students? Once I teach you the correct movements, you will need to make sure you understand them. This means asking me to re-teach and show you again and again until you “get it”.  Then you have in place the knowledge to train yourself through structured practice. As your practice progresses, you will be speaking with greater ease.

Can this be done, actually done? Yes, I’ve seen it. But first you must remove your limiting beliefs that say, “I can’t do this. It’s too hard.” It’s not brain surgery, just brain ‘chemistry’!

To work with me, go to http://english4professionals.webs.com

Why do you need accent training?

There are many reasons why people who speak another language want to improve their accents.

See if these are some of your reasons:

1) People can't exactly get your point sometimes. It seems like you have to repeat yourself several times. Even then, you are not sure if your message was completely successful. You end up sending an email just to clarify.

2) Even though you might not care what others think of you, something about the way you speak affects your confidence. You feel that if you could just pronounce English more correctly, you would feel better about yourself. It's like buying a new pair of shoes. You would shine!


3) You feel that if you spoke more eloquently, or more like a native speaker, you would be offered better job roles, leading to more career advancement. Like it or not, the more you can fit into your company or industry's culture, the more you will rise to the top!

4) You just want to perfect some problem areas. You always pronounce a certain word incorrectly, so you want to learn the rules or just the correct way to pronounce it. It is a personal achievement to say that you have accomplished correct pronunciation.

Which category do you fit into? More than one?

Please leave a comment describing your pronunciation difficulties. I promise to write back!

and visit http://english4professionals.webs.com for more information on how to improve.