February 2, 2010
Many ESL speakers, when tasked to make presentations, commit the mistake of making everything sound too formal. Truth is, much of English has gone the informal route – including getting up in front of people and giving the details of a report.
Most audiences, in fact, prefer a relatively informal delivery. That’s because it’s less stuck-up and more natural. The more comfortable they are, after all, the less of a hindrance it will be to impart your message.
However, informal doesn’t mean unstructured. Presentations, after all, are best accomplished when everything is organized for the audience’s benefit. When starting a presentation, make sure everyone is clear about what’s going to happen. However, be vigilant about keeping everything brief (use your language software to help you if you’re struggling). Here’s how you do it:
1. Get their attention. Project your voice and pipe up: “Let’s get started.” If you have a more fitting “call to action,” use it.
2. Welcome everyone. Greet your audience and welcome them to the presentation. It’s small talk, yes, but it breaks the ice and gets the ball rolling.
3. Introduce yourself. Make sure the audience knows who you are by giving your name and a short blurb about your qualifications (company, position and such).
4. Announce the purpose of the presentation. Tell them flat out what the presentation will be about. What are they going to learn? What should they get out of it? Keep it tight, though.
5. Tell them how you want to deal with questions. This is huge. People raising their hands in the middle of a presentation can be distracting. Different speakers have different preferences, so make sure you tell everyone how you’d like questions to come.
January 19, 2010
Word stress is one of the important keys to improving your English comprehension skills. Without a good grasp of where stress appears in the language, it becomes difficult for a second language learner to communicate clearly with a native speaker. And the confusion goes both ways.
In English, each word always has a single point of stress, meaning there’s one syllable that you accentuate. You pronounce this syllable loudly, all while staying quiet with all the others. If you hear two stresses, then the speaker just said out two words and so on.
In some languages, such as Japanese and French, all syllables are given equal emphasis. As such, native users of these vernaculars typically have a difficult time making out a conversation among native English speakers. It’s like learning a whole new system of using sound all on its own.
When you’re trying to learn word stress in English, the simplest rule you must bear in mind is that the stress is always on the vowel. There are many other rules, too, although learning them all will likely complicate matters if you’re only trying to get a good grasp of communication skills.
Rather than perform calculations on the fly, we recommend the following to wrap your head around various English pronunciations:
- When you memorize vocabulary with your language software, memorize word stress too.
- Realize that word stress is a big part of the language. Without learning where the stress falls on a word, you’re not learning a word completely.
- Listen to native speakers – either in person, on talk radio or in films. That’s the easiest way to get used to the way native English speakers use word stress.
September 7, 2009
Many ESL speakers never bother improving their accent. While I’ve met tons of people who picked up perfect-sounding English over long periods of repeated use, I’ve also come across a lot who speak with the same thick, uncomfortable accent even after many years of working with language software and classes.
Why do some lose the accent and others don’t? Simply put, they never bothered trying to drop it. People who live in migrant communities, for instance, tend to speak continuously with the same accent, as everyone immediately around them also does the same. If you spend the bulk of your time with social groups that don’t speak with the accent, it’s highly likely you’ll naturally shave it off over time.
Should You Drop The Accent?
Should you even bother trying to drop your accent? After all, that unusual flick of the tongue speaks of your heritage and sets you apart from many of the people around you. Isn’t it more fitting to wear it like a badge?
Unfortunately, sporting a thick Chinese accent (that’s half-comedic, half-painful, like you hear from Jacky Chan, for instance) is a guaranteed way to communicate badly with native English speakers around you. I deal with a lot of French folks in my line of work and those that speak English with a hard French twist over the phone usually make my ears bleed. Honestly.
To me, dropping as much of the accent to a point where you can easily be understood is not only polite, it’s a necessity. If you’re in the US, finding success in business, life and career usually requires that people can actually understand what you’re saying without asking you to repeat it several times over.
June 29, 2009
When working to improve your accent and pronunciation, finding the right point to put stress on words is one of the most useful things you can learn. Understanding how stress works in the English language can help you understand native speakers much easier as well as improve your overall ability to express yourself.
The Basic Rule
In a single word, there can be several points of stress. This is especially true for words that are a combination of two or more words (e.g. outstanding, homemaker). However, only one of these will feature the main stress, with the others playing as secondary stress, usually marked by a shorter length.
When practicing where to put stress in words, remember that in English, stress is usually placed on syllables that include a vowel. It’s the sound of that vowel, in fact, that gives the stress its power.
Stress By Pitch
When you listen to native speakers (or to the audio component of your language learning software), try to note how the pitch changes when they pronounce words. The point where the pitch is raised is the location of the stress – learn it and practice it with the same pitch to improve your own speaking.
Stress By Length
Similarly, the length by which a syllable is uttered is also an indication of stress. The point of stress is typically uttered longer, along with the higher pitch.
April 12, 2009
With English as second language, proper pronunciation in the vernacular can be more difficult than usual. These few tips should help you get a good grasp on it.
1. Speak Slowly. The faster you speak, the more mistakes you’re going to make. Unless you’ve already mastered a language, a slower pace will be of tremendous benefit. The faster you speak, the more pronounced your accent is going to be. In the English language, taking 2.5 seconds to utter a word is perfectly normal for non-native speakers.
2. Pronounce All The Sounds. As someone who’s more familiar with the nuances of a language other than English, it’s tempting to ignore certain sounds if you’re unused to doing them in your native tongue. Problem is, those utterances could be what separates one phrase from another, so make it a point to enunciate everything completely. Use your language software or audio course to learn the proper way to pronounce each portion of the speech.
3. Record Your Speech. A great way to be alerted of your weaknesses in pronunciation is to make a habit of speaking into a recorder and studying your speech. Recording lines that you hear from a movie, for instance, allows you to compare your speech to that of a better speaker. With enough practice, you can train yourself to deliver words in the correct manner by mimicking the source.
4. Speak Louder. Many folks speaking an unfamiliar language tend to drown out their speech with their thoughts, basically speaking with too soft a voice due to fear of saying the wrong things. Unfortunately, doing so just reinforces any bad pronunciation as they are unable to hear themselves clearly, apart from making it harder for others to properly make out what they’re saying.
April 4, 2009
Whether you have English as a second language or are a native speaker trying to improve your skills, putting the stress on key words is an important aspect of speaking that not enough people are doing well. As you work towards improving your verbal communication, make sure you spend sufficient time practicing the act of accentuating the important parts of your conversation.
What Are Key Words?
Key words are the important parts of your message. If the person you’re talking to hears nothing else but the keywords, they’ll still have a pretty good idea of what you were talking about. As such, think of key words as those specific terms and phrases that are the most vital to what you’re communicating.
Newscasters
Watch newscasters on TV and pay attention to those times when their tonality and enunciation changes. If they’re good, you’ll notice them do it every time they’re uttering an important key word in the piece. If you use a language learning software or an audiobook, launch it and listen to the sample conversations. Nine times out of ten, you’ll notice the same thing – they’re stressing the key words in their sentences.
Breaking Monotony
Stressing your key words help break the monotony of your communication, apart from making your conversation style more engaging. It adds to your magnetism and draws attention to what’s coming out of your mouth.
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