How to be a great English speaker!

The main advice is DON'T BE SHY! Just SPEAK! SPEAK! SPEAK! Speak to anybody and everybody in English, especially to native English speakers. Don't worry about mistakes. Mistakes are OK! That is how we all learn!

Here are four tips!

ACCENT: Everybody has an accent, even native speakers. Don't worry about your accent or trying to change it unless your accent is making you 'mispronounce' a word so that the meaning is not clear to the hearer. Then you do need to try hard to change the wrong sound and make the right sound to have the right meaning. So, tip one is to remember that our main aim is to understand each other, not to copy each other!

RHYTHM AND STRESS: English is a stress-timed language. This means that there are some syllables in a sentence, or a 'verbal utterance', that are more stressed than the other syllables. This gives the overall sound pattern a kind of even beat. For natural, flowing speech, we like the beats to be an equal time apart. (e.g. Try to say this sentence with the beats an equal space apart: For natural, flowing speech, we like the beats to be an equal time apart.)  You may notice that the more unstressed syllables between the stressed ones, the faster we say those unstressed ones to keep the timing even. This is why it is sometimes hard to hear all of the small words in an English sentence when a native speaker is speaking quickly!  Japanese has a different kind of rhythm. Japanese is a syllable-stressed language. This means the stresses and rhythms are more even. (E.g. kon-ni-chi-wa) So, tip two is to listen to and copy the stress patterns of native speakers!

CHUNKS OF WORDS: English is written and spoken in 'chunks'. There are lots of groups of words that go together. When you start to recognise these chunks and learn these chunks, you will be able to say them very fast and string them all together very naturally. Try not to read or say each word individually. This sounds very artificial and strange. Let's think about our sentence above; it is in three natural chunks. / For natural, flowing speech, / we like the beats / to be an equal time apart./ Practise saying each chunk fast and fluently and then put the sentence all together. Keep repeating this until you are happy with your fluency. You will soon sound very natural! A good way to practise this art in speaking is to read aloud to yourself, recognising the chunks in the sentences and saying them quickly. Even when we read, good readers will not see and read individual words; instead we will let our eyes 'run ahead' in the sentence and find the chunks, so this is a good reading skill, as well! So, tip three is to learn natural chunks of English and to speak and read in chunks!

MOVE YOUR MOUTH: This may sound strange...but...stay with my point! You see, Japanese, is a very beautiful language and speakers of Japanese have very relaxed face muscles and don't need to open their mouth so widely when they speak. (Unfortunately!)...speaking English well makes our face muscles work much harder, which may feel strange, at first! BUT... if you are happy to open your mouth wider and use your face muscles in a more mobile way, believe me, all of the sounds of English will be easier for you to make! Ask a close 'Kiwi' friend to say the sounds that are the hardest for you. Then look at their face. Watch their mouth. Is it open or closed? Is it round or oval or a 'smiling' shape? What about their lips and tongue and teeth? If you can copy that shape, for each hard sound, then I can almost guarantee that the right sounds will come out! So, tip four is put your mouth and face muscles to work and happy talking!

Kathryn Thorne

Director,

Alpha Educational Institute

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