Articulation

The pomp and circumstance of convocation is over. My regular coffee shop has returned to it's home after being displaced by the rows of silky black robes. As I walk through the now sparsley populated halls, I smile to myself at the memory of the triumphant sound of bagpipes merely a week ago.

I am scheduled to lead a monthly drop in class and judging by the low traffic in the area, I assume that the attendance will be minimal. Five minutes before the class is scheduled to begin, only one student has wandered in. I do not blame our theme for the day, "articulation", for failing to attract. In fact, five minutes later as the room is filling up I realize that there is actually a great desire to find more clarity of speech. I pull out more chairs, apologize for not making enough copies and begin listening to the student's requests, "I trail off at the end of my thoughts." "Sometimes it doesn't feel like my thoughts link up with my speech."

We begin to work, as we always do, with the breath. We warm up by elongating vowels, then we move on to the articulators. Lips part, teeth are revealed, plosives explode and the words begin to find their life. We practice the sounds two ways, one without articulation and the other with robust articulation. "What is the difference?" I ask.

"You can hear the words."

"We're taking more time."

Another participant has heard an item on the news that morning, apparently, we in North America, I assume, are walking 10% faster than we were just a short time ago. She concludes that we must be speaking that much faster, as well. The group nods and mumbles their agreement. I launch into my impassioned plea to reclaim words and am stopped in the middle by a slightly flushed and earnest face. I recognize the look of frustration, "Sarah, that is all well and good if English is your first language, but I come to words that I don't know how to pronounce, so I just mumble them so no one knows what I am saying." Her frustration is understood by 90% of the class. How do we own words when they aren't in our language?

Accent Reduction classes have become extremely popular in Vancouver. So here are a few suggestions:

http://www.overseasemployment.ca/ESL_lose_your_accent.htm
This site refers you to a book written by Andy Krieger, a local accent reduction coach. I have never worked with the text, but know several of his past clients and most of them have been quite pleased with the results.

http://www.williamdaviscentre.com/parttime.php
Here is a class on accent reduction work, that is offered through the William Davis Centre for Actor's Study. Not to worry, you don't need to be an actor to take the class and the price is much more reasonable than you might find elsewhere.

http://learningcommons.sfu.ca/esl/eng_conv_grps.php
Here's the source that we needed all along. Free English conversation classes given by the University!

Finally, I mentioned "Speak with Distinction" by Edith Skinner (available at the Vancouver Public Library). Another great one to check out is "Voice and Diction" by Jon Eisenson. Both of these have lots of exercises focussing on challenging words and consonant combinations.

Keep me posted with any resources you may discover.

Oh, and one last thought, I just read a wonderful book titled, "Lost in Translation" (No relation to the Bill Murray film), by Eva Hoffman. It is a wonderful account of a woman's search to own a new language and culture. Eva Hoffman immigrated from Poland to Vancouver, B.C. when she was a teenager. It's filled with insights on the relationship between language and self.