January 31, 2010
Welcome to the January Issue of Speaking-Out-Loud write-out-loud.com's monthly E-zine to help you effectively 'talk your walk'.
If this E-zine speaks to you, then quite likely it will talk sense to your friends, family or work mates too. Please pass it along.
You might even suggest that they sign up! The page to send them to is here Speaking-Out-Loud
Remember, if you have any questions you're most welcome to ask them through my contact form. I enjoy hearing from my readers and will respond as soon as I am able.
Happy speaking,
Susan
In this Issue
If you don't have time to read the whole ezine, click on the topic that interests you. This month you will find:
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They Said It I've always been shy!
Susan's Spiel
Accent Reduction
This month's Article focuses on the challenge of accent reduction. With the benefits of up-to-the-minute communication technology we can talk to people all over the world any time we wish. We can work and study remotely with ease, but only if we can understand each other and although participants in the conversation may be speaking the same language that is not a guarantee for being understood. The barrier is often accent. How do you reduce it to make communication possible?
Speechcraft is the subject of this month's They Said It.
'I've always been shy' is an excuse given for not taking part in activities even though they're of great personal benefit.
A Toastmaster's Speechcraft course provides a safe and proven environment to give 'I've always been shy' a long overdue retirement.
Read more and then find a Speechcraft course near you.
And lastly there's Eulogy Samples
One of my goals for write-out-loud.com was to provide a library of eulogy samples for visitors because I knew there were people searching for them all over the net. What they were finding wasn't satisfying their need to see a sample eulogy written for a real person by a real person that they could use a springboard for the one they had to write. Write-out-loud.com's funeral speech or eulogy collection is now a growing reality thanks to the generosity of site visitors who have shared their work.
You'll find them diverse, sincere, deeply personal and moving.
I am always looking for ways to improve the site. If you see any errors or would like to contribute in any way, please accept this invitation to contact me through my About Me page.
Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoy this month's Speaking-Out-Loud!
Happy New Year where ever you are. May 2010 bring nothing but the best to each of you.
PS. If you have some spare Summer weather, please send it through.
It's supposed to be fine and warm in New Zealand in January but I'm looking out my window at rain. It's cold, my heater is on and it's definitely beanies on the beach rather than bikinis!
Susan
Article
Accent Reduction
Two things happened recently quite independently of each other.
The first was a speech I listened to. The speaker; informed, intelligent, enthusiastic, was passionate about his topic. The audience should have been enthralled. They weren't. Instead they fidgeted, looked embarrassed and after waiting impatiently for him to finish, gave him a half-hearted clap.
The problem? He had a thick accent and the more impassioned he became, the more impentrable his words. Despite obvious careful planning, his speech failed.
The second was an email from a site visitor. He wanted help with accent reduction and his ultimate goal was to sound like he came from America. Having to speak in public had made him very self concious and aware of the barriers his pronunciation of English placed in the way of good communication.
Both events combined to stop me in my tracks. My past issues with pronunciation had mostly been about how people did, or did not sound vowels, consonants or word endings and that's very different from the issues apparent in heavily accented speech. Mine is a personal preference. I like listening to clearly articulated English and although habitual mispronunciation can skew communication, it doesn't entirely block it. For a non-native speaker however, English can present more serious communication challenges.
Regardless of the language spoken the primary purpose of speech is communication and for any of that to occur speech must be understood by those who hear it. For 99% of native speakers speaking to other native speakers being understood is not a problem. They talk, the person they're speaking to listens and communication happens without a hitch. But that is what doesn't happen quite so reliably when the speaker and the listener don't share the same cultural, linguistic or geographic background. What can occur instead is mutual confusion. The listener doesn't understand what's being said, or misinterprets it and the speaker struggles to find a way to make their meaning clear.
Although I have a degree in English and am a qualified teacher I am not trained to teach people for whom English is a second, third or more language. However with site statistics showing that visitors to write-out-loud.com come from 189 countries, I realised that a great many of them were probably in a similar predicament and want to offer some help.
The key to accent reduction is 'live' English. You need to hear and practice it. Your written English skills and comprehension may be superb and while that's a wonderful base to work from it's not sufficient. Read English doesn't give you the sounds, the rise and fall of stresses, pauses - in short the musicality of the language. You need it in your ears before you can replicate it with your mouth.
The very best way to achieve what you want is through a systematic guided program. This will give you more in the long run than one or two quick fix sessions. Choose a course especially designed to meet your needs run by suitably qualified people.
These days you can find those on the web as well as in your local communities. Some you can work at by yourself and at your own pace, while others are teacher directed. There are good points about both. With my teaching background though, I know that nothing can replace good old fashioned
face-to-face teaching. Working in a group or one-on-one can help you progress more quickly. If you're part of a group you learn from everybody as well as the teacher. A great example of this in action comes from New York where Professor Richard Green runs regular classses teaching
public speaking hand in hand with pronunciation practice.
If you're not quite ready to commit to teacher-led course try these alternatives:
- listen to talking books or podcasts read by people who speak well.
Even though listening is passive rather than active learning you'll still be absorbing the patterning and sounds of clear spoken English. Libraries have huge selections of talking books as does the internet.
I like Learn Out Loud . The site offers a vast selection of material in varying formats and much of it is free. - listen to podcasts made especially for English language learners
Train Your Accent is an excellent site featuring podcasts and follow up exercises made by Randall Davis. This site is one of several of his specialising in helping English Language Learners.
And here's another podcasting site Pronucian Some of their material is free but the full course requires payment. I've listened in to several of the podcasts and think they're good.
Accent reduction is complex. You are re-training the spoken habits of a lifetime - a difficult quest that more and more people are embarking on because as the world is made smaller through increasingly refined technology, the challenge to communicate effectively beyond borders becomes more and more important. This particularly true if you want to pick up on work or study opportunities.
While there are pages from write-out-loud.com to help with pronunciation and articulation bear in mind they were primarily written for native speakers who want to improve their spoken English.
Finally you may also be interested in this page on Voice Image . Regardless of what we think or feel about it, how we sound to others matters. If your accent is blocking communication, it is more than likely shutting you out from opportunities in many areas of your life. Work with accent reduction could open the door.
They Said It
I've Always Been Shy
A woman appeared at the door just as I was about to open a meeting I was chairing. Eyes down, she slipped quickly into the nearest chair trying not to draw attention to herself. At the break she said, 'I've always been shy' and hesitated before adding, 'but I'd like to give public speaking a go.' I found out later her name was Anna.
That was serendiptous timing because at my Toastmasters Club we're preparing an 8 part course which we've called Speechcraft especially designed for beginner speakers. It's ideal for a person like Anna. The course will cover the basics and participants will, by the time they've finished, have prepared and delivered three speeches, practiced impromptu speaking, and learned how to give and receive speech evaluations. They'll be well on the way towards becoming competent, confident communicators.
If you'd like a boost in self confidence to spur you on but are unsure about taking on a full Toastmaster commitment, try a Speechcraft course. Toastmaster clubs all around the world hold them. Some are tailored especially to suit differing circumstances and needs for example, corporate communications speechcraft, speechcraft for community volunteer workers, speechcraft for teachers, youthcraft speechcraft for students and so on.
Contact your local Toastmaster group and ask what they have on offer.
Find a club near you now
Please don't let 'I've always been shy' or any other variation of limiting self-talk dictate what you do. I know for myself that if I listened to my excuses and doubts there would be very few postive achievements in my life.
If you haven't made a New Year's resolution then this could be it!
Eulogy Samples
One of the many pleasures of having an internationally visited website is receiving emails and submissions from people all over the world.
Of those that have arrived lately, it is the eulogies that have moved me most. I feel humbled that the folk sending them in are prepared to share one of the most vulnerable and important events in their lives with an unknown audience. It's a privilege to receive them. They're testimonies threaded through with the celebration of love, family, belief, personal anecdotes, pain and loss.
In sharing, these eulogies move beyond the immediacy of the original audience they were written for and find another. This audience is frequently desperate and frantically searching for inspiration that will kick start the process of writing a eulogy for someone special in their lives who has just passed. Because these occasions are often foisted upon us 'coming ready or not' a sense of urgency and panic often goes hand in hand with the need to write. What they want are examples to show them a way through, to provide a beginning point, a template to write to. Even if they end up discarding it after a first draft, at least they've started the process. And having begun it will get easier to complete it.
Thanks to these visitors, we now have a growing collection of funeral speeches for people to read. You can find them here:
Free sample eulogies
You will see there is no one right way to write a eulogy. They are truly unique to their writers' and the people they honor.
I hope that if you find yourself, or if you have friends and family, in need, you'll send them here to find the comfort and courage to begin.
In addition to the eulogies there's:
- how to write a eulogy
- a large collection of funeral poems
- inspirational quotations
- a free series of bereavement support messages
To keep up with what's new on the write-out-loud.com go to our What's New Page, Blogging Aloud. There you can subscribe to the site and add it to your RSS feed, Google, Yahoo, MSN, Newsgator or Bloglines site.
Thank you for reading the January Issue of Speaking-Out-Loud. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Please feel free to contact me with any questions through the form at the foot of the Speaking Out Loud Page. I love hearing from my readers!
If you enjoyed this issue of Speaking-Out-Loud, please feel free to send it on to any friends or family. The site url to forward so they can subscribe is Speaking-Out-Loud.
Until next time,
Happy New Year and happy speaking,
Susan