Click on a Picture to Link to Descriptions of Videos:

#1 Tonal Action

#2 Structural Action

#3 Neutral Vowels

#4 Consonant Action

#5 More Consonant Action

#6 Connected Speech

#7 Intonation & Rhythm Patterns

#8 Practice Scenes

#9 More Practice Scenes

DVD-1 Tonal Vowels

DVD-2 Structural/ Neutral Vowels

DVD-3 Consonants

DVD-4 Connected Speech/Intonation

DVD-5 Practice Scenes

 

Phonics Phonics is essentially The Science of Sound. It is a system or interpretation of spoken sounds. MSE uses a combination of number symbols and primary color-coding that provides a practical guide to these sounds. It demystifies the arcane IPA and other academic systems, and works in a much more direct and intuitive manner.

Speech Dynamics Structure (Spoken Fluency) The subtitle of this program is “Feeling Phonics”. The phonics system here is based on feeling, not listening. Feeling the sounds is what counts. So get “out of your head” and remember that learning takes place in other parts of the body as well. The Preparation area of DVD-1 offers some natural warm-ups for relaxation and breathing. Professional speakers and performers are aware of how valuable these methods are. You will be too, if you do even a very quick physical warm-up before starting. A little yawning, stretching, and shaking does more to put you in shape for speech than you would ever think it does. The vowels e, a, and y are your tonal anchors. They are the most strongly vibrating sounds in this system. They begin as vibration in the vocal chords, but become greatly enriched as you learn to focus the sound waves on the hard palate, and more particularly on the gum ridge behind your front teeth. When you can regularly produce E, A, and Y as strongly vibrating tonal vowels, it is the single biggest contribution you can make to improving every aspect of your speech . . . for being understood clearly: distinguishing between long and short vowels (like date and debt) . . . for clearly producing the second stage of 2-stage vowels: I (6Y) OI (3Y) . . . for providing added resonance to all vibrating vowels and consonants. And last but not least, for infusing good sound quality and control into all your speech, keeping it anchored in good tonality, at a low register (a lower pitch range) which opens the higher pitch range for intonation and making your speech more expressive. Mastering E, A, and Y will take you a long way. DVD-2 covers the Structural Vowels, the vowels that have a shape or structure that you see and feel. In this system they are assigned a number corresponding to the size of their lip shape. #5--AH is one of the largest, #1--OO is the smallest, so a #51 is AH/OO or OW. #21 is OH, #3--AW is the midway position, #4 is O as in “odd”, #6 is A as in “add”, #6Y is I, #3Y is OI. Giving good lip shapes to these vowels not only provides good pronunciation, but helps create a voice box or megaphone behind the lips. This is how actors project their voices to the back row of a theatre, without shouting, with no apparent effort. And good Structural Action will enable your voice to “carry” effortlessly in a public speaking environment . . . or when you want to be heard over the background noise on a busy street, or in a noisy restaurant. In an increasingly noisy world, being able to project your voice is a real advantage. All these major vowels, both tonal and structural, are color-coded in yellow. The short, grunt-like neutral vowels we call Neutral-1, 2, 3, and 4: N1—oo, N2—ih, N3—eh, N4—uh, are often interchangeable. The important thing is to keep them very short, treat them very different from the major vowels. On DVD-2 you will learn that one way to do this is to focus vocal energy on the surrounding consonants. Play the consonants on either side of the neutral vowel and treat the vowel like it is the shortest distance between two consonants. Another technique, and this is specifically for foreign or regional accent reduction, is to color one neutral vowel with another. For example, pronouncing “took” as “tuck” and “tuck” as “took” resists the tendency to slip into speaking a larger vowel. And that leaves the less troublesome Neutral Diphthongs: ND1—oor, ND2—ear, ND3—air, ND4—our. DVD-3. The consonants are color-coded in green or red. Green are the legato, sustainable, or continuant consonants—green for GO, continue the sound. Red are the staccato, plosive consonants—red for STOP, feel the drumbeat. They are studied in voiced and unvoiced pairs, like Z/S, D/T. Consonants are wonderful things—and they are generally underplayed by speakers who don’t realize their great musical values. In the consonant lessons we practice the full musical values followed by a repetition using the consonants to convey meaning. Following each video lesson you can select More Practice Material which uses the same structure of a list of operative words, followed by those words in sentences, all repeated in 2 or 3 stages of vocal energy. DVD-4 and DVD-5 put a lot of emphasis on Connected Speech, and utilizing monologues, dialogues, and movie scenes for practice. Now you will see a blue-underline where words are connected. Get used to pronouncing these underlined phrases like they were one word. Getting a feeling for connected speech is the key to getting a natural smooth-flowing style of speech. If English is your second language, connected speech is also critical to developing your listening and comprehension of spoken English—because people do not speak in separate words, they speak in logical connected groups of words. Those who grew up speaking English use connected speech all the time, but even they sometimes stumble over their words because they are not aware of the little tricks for avoiding pitfalls. Trained actors, of course, are able to deliver lengthy, complex, even tongue-twisting passages flawlessly. This is not a gift. They have simply learned the rules for linking one word into another with intention. Fast thinking, or fluent-thinking persons should never be forced to slow down, they must simply learn speaking skills that will enable them to keep up with their fluent thought processes. When they have learned to articulate their consonants, and to link them together skillfully, their problem is solved. Intonation and Rhythm Patterns go a long way in carrying the meaning across in English. You can be speaking with perfect pronunciation, but put the wrong stress on a syllable, and your whole statement may go without being understood. Likewise with how and where your pitch and inflections rise and fall, and the tempo-rhythms of your speech. Americans are used to hearing a familiar pattern or music in their speech. When you have learned to use the American pitch patterns to call attention to the important words in your speech, you become immediately more understandable. You should exaggerate these patterns and pitch jumps when you practice, especially if English is a second language to you. You may think you are using enough pitch, when you are really using hardly any. When first learning these pitch patterns it is better to over do them until you really have some mastery. Later on it will be easier for you to recognize the subtleties of intonation, and how the same words can carry either a very precise meaning, or even multiple layers of meaning. Remember, it’s not what you say, it’s how you say it.

Reading and Phonic Structure (Reading Fluency) We don’t talk, read or spell by saying and thinking names of letters. Phonograms are letters and combinations of letters that produce a single blended sound. Sounding out these phonograms lays a foundation for reading fluency. This feeling-based phonics system is a direct aid to mentally imprinting these phonograms through sense-memory. The phonograms here are taught with animations that show where the points of vibration and feeling are, along with description of the feeling-sensation. Live-action speakers work through a structure of word lists, sentences, monologues, dialogues, and finally movie scenes—utilizing a triple-repetition, in 3 levels of vocal energy. The phonograms are color-coded in 3 primary colors: Yellow are all the major vowels. Consonants in green are legato, or sustainable—green for GO. Consonants in red are staccato, or plosive—red for STOP. --DVD-1 TONAL VOWELS -- Y, E, and A are the strongly vibrating tonal vowels. --DVD-2 STRUCTURAL AND NEUTRAL VOWELS -- The structural vowels are largely defined by their lip shape. The number assigned to each simply corresponds to the relative size of the lip opening. Neutral vowels are the short vowels. --DVD-3 CONSONANTS – covers all the individual consonant phonograms. --DVD-4 CONNECTED SPEECH AND INTONATION -- has consonant clusters that represent blend phonograms. Connected speech deals with linked phrases. Attention to: Weak Forms, Contractions, and Linked Phrases is another aid to building speed and comprehension in reading. --DVD-5 PRACTICE SCENES -- has movie scenes from two feature films. One is a movie made for people learning English, the other is a Hollywood movie. These scenes are completely broken down for practice into: word lists, sentences, tonal and structural vowels, consonants, weak forms, and linked phrases. All the dialogue is color-coded, and performed in the familiar triple-repetition, in three-stages of vocal energy.   This feeling-based system has advantages to all ages and reading levels: K through college, gifted, school children, home school, career advancement, reading-skills enhancement for college and high school, special education, remedial, dyslexia, ADD, ADHD, ESL and EFL students.

Accent Modification (Accent Reduction, Accent Elimination) Accent modification is the most accurate terminology, because you are really learning to change, alter, or modify your native accent or dialect. You never lose your native dialect, it will always be a part of you, but you learn techniques to modify it. It is more accurate to say you are learning a new accent, than eliminating your own.

Pronunciation (Articulation, enunciation, diction, speaking clearly) Pronunciation describes an end result, more than it does a process. The act of pronouncing words, however carefully, does not produce any meaningful change in one’s speech. This is mere repetitive practice as implemented by most English teachers, and creates no lasting results. MSE teaches the dynamics of speech production, using a feeling-based system that creates a sense-memory of the phonics.

Sample Lesson Plans Keep in mind that Master Spoken English is organized like a reference work. It’s organized by sound. While there is a certain logic to proceeding from DVD-1 beginning to DVD-5 end, your best advantage is to mix things up, experience the benefits of cross-training. A good analogy is how athletes train: alternating running, swimming, and bicycling. By training different muscle groups in different patterns, you experience improvements in all areas without overexerting in any one area. Speech is synergistic. It’s an organic process. You are not just a machine where you can put oil on a squeak. It’s the same reason I suggest alternating among the Three Energies: Tonal Energy DVD-1, Structural Energy DVD-2, and Consonant Energy DVD-3. Each is a different type of vocal dynamic, and is an organic process. Each improvement in one dynamic is going to bring better performance in the other dynamics. Often sudden, unexpected, and wondrous improvements, when suddenly the synergy happens. A typical cross-training session might include: 1 tonal vowel, 1 structural vowel, 1 legato consonant, 1 staccato consonant, linking practice, intonation practice, consonant clusters, and a movie scene. This kind of session might take 30 minutes in self-study, or 50 to 90 minutes in a classroom setting. Initial training sessions, include work on: tonal vowels, structural vowels, neutral vowels, consonant energy, connected speech, and intonation. Consonants not only shape and articulate our speech, they have great musical values that often are overlooked by untrained speakers. Realizing these musical values makes your speech not only more understandable, but more sonorous, more persuasive and impressive. Just learning to sustain the legato qualities in the N and the M is very pleasing and musical, and brings a fullness to your speech. Consonant Clusters (DVD-4). These “tongue-twisting” monologues are meant to be fast moving. Grasp what you can, as you get familiar with the linked phrases, and eventually master these. If you can grasp only one phrase, or even one vowel or one consonant—that’s progress! With practice you’ll pick up more and more, and when you can go through an entire scene with all the vowels, consonants, linking, and intonation in proper play, you will have accomplished a very demanding exercise. Don’t feel bad about taking this step by step. It is important that you feel the focus of your points of vibration. As you get to know the scene try to stay “in synch” with the speaker and “mirror” the form and feeling of the speaker. There is some fun in discovering the rhythms of longer dialogues as you master the linked phrases, and a sense of accomplishment in being able to repeat these articulate and fluent. Intonation Preparation: Review the Y-Buzz Siren (on DVD-1). This teaches how to feel pitch change. Foreign students should go for extremes in feeling a jump up / step down in pitch patterns. Later, after feeling the extremes, it’s much easier to modify intonation to more subtle expressions. Note all of the variety in pitch and rhythms used throughout the program. Practice Scenes (DVD-5). You could start a session with a movie scene, then go back and work technique from earlier in the series. Right before you play a program, go to the blackboard and quickly outline the main ideas, just to reinforce what’s coming. Discuss key phrases, like: feeling, vibration, sensation, stretch, stage 1, 2, and 3. Offer advice like, “Work at your own pace. Just grab as much as you can . . .” During faster-moving scenes (especially from DVDs 4 and 5) each student should just do as much of the scene as he can do . . . completely, with energy. Even one vowel, or one consonant, or one connecting link executed correctly marks progress. “Instant gratification” comes only so far as feeling the energy while you practice. Then one day, you begin to notice a different quality and clarity gradually entering into your speech. More and more, without even thinking about it, the synergy is setting in, and your speech has made a dramatic and permanent improvement.

Work Schedule This is not brain surgery. It’s making sounds. It’s learning to make sounds very well, and connect them together nicely. Something as simple as the sound “air” has a name like “Neutral Diphthong”—but learning the name is not important. Also, the structure of this program is . . . large. Don’t be intimidated by that. Just because something has an elegant structure doesn’t mean it has to be any more complicated than breathing. You can ignore all the theory in this program, and gain much more from just doing the practice. But doing the repetitions and the practice cannot be ignored. Practice, practice, practice. Consider first, a classroom schedule. Your class only meets once a week for a two-hour session. If you can only spare 15 minutes of that session, then make it the first 15 minutes of every session. Remind your students to carry-over the good speaking skills from that little 15 minutes—throughout the rest of the class session. For example, if I took them through tonal A sounds that day, I would caution them to make good tonal A sounds throughout the session, even as we move on to another English subject area. While we are on the subject of classroom teaching, teachers: when the DVD is playing it acts as the master teacher—freeing you to become a side coach. Move around the classroom and give your students individual attention. Listen to the sounds they’re producing, check for good physicalization. Now regarding the independent student engaged in self-study: The only thing important is to get in the physical practice of producing the sounds. Think of these programs as exercise videos. And get creative. You could even play your own music in the background. Most programs are simple enough that you can even divide your attention, multi-task. Especially as you become familiar with the course. Practice while you’re making dinner, exercising, or even while cleaning house (use an iPod, or other mobile device to play the programs). Stay relaxed, but energized. Be sure you feel the lip shapes and points of vibration. Enjoy all the stretching, and get into all the sound-making exercises. Remember, sometimes it’s the seemingly silliest things that really work. That’s certainly true of speech; so loosen up, enjoy it, and produce amazing results.

Speech and Voice Training The history of speech and voice training goes back further than the Renaissance, although it started becoming more systematic from that time forward. Early Greeks and Romans took the subject as mandatory. Politics and stage acting were central to these cultures. In today’s culture, in politics and business, in the arts, and even in common daily exchanges, a good speaker excels in most situations. The strong advantages of public speaking skills became obvious in the 2008 elections. Actor training is the foundation for most of this training. Actors don’t care about theories or methodologies. They need something that simply works. Their performance is the only thing they are judged on. And whatever it takes to get there, that performance is all that matters.

SpeechMasters •