Did You Know Listening To And Watching is A Great Way To Improve Your Speech?

I’ve been listening to and watching,  The Last Post on BBC 1, Sunday evenings at 9pm,  which is a great show to improve your speech and, entertaining and disturbing in equal measures.

To improve your speech, this really is an excellent program because it is enjoyable and very useful in order to learn how to deliver clearly annunciated words whilst being emotional so that you can improve your speech and still be expressive. It is is also informative historically and politically, so very absorbing.

My father was in Egypt and Palestine just after the second world war and although it is set about 15 years later – it is set in ‘a dusty, hot country’ (my father’s words) in a place called Aden and the soldiers wear the same clothes as Daddy wears in my one precious picture of him in uniform.

The program really evokes the 1960’s and the dichotomy of the clashing desires of the indiginous people and the soldiers representing the British government, living in one of the last posts, of the by then, greatly reduced, British Empire. Showing the situation from both sides in the light of more modern times, I feel it gives me an insight to how things may have looked and felt.

In the black and white photograph from 1947, my father looks super fit as all army men tend to do and deeply handsome, but I’m biased I know. With one leg bent with his foot on a rock,  he stands next to another soldier, both with broad, youthful smiles. From the relaxed expressions on their both faces, they seem to be friends.
I don’t know if this was his best friend who was blown up, whilst next to him, or just one of many army colleagues, but the photo was kept and treasured.

The Last Post televison series, has exquisite set details that I can remember from my childhood. Like the gramophone needle that just spins round and round until someone lifts the record player’s arm away from the small round disk of the ’45  as we called them, also known as ‘singles’. These were small records with only one song per side, slightly larger in size than a cd and looked pretty similar, but were slightly thicker and of course made of black vinyl.

The reason I am blogging about this is that I want to encourage you to listen to and watch people whose voices you like and admire, in entertainment that you will enjoy, to improve your speech.

I admire the acting and the brilliantly delivered script whatever the emotional charge behind the words, by these highly talented actors, so I strongly recommend this series. The voices are excellent. They are all clear and well spoken whatever the regional accent …and however inebriated!
Yes, there is a hell of a lot of drinking going on, but from my memory this was very true of the 60’s. It was perfectly normal and in large measures!

The combination of listening to and watching to to words pronounced clearly by talented  actors (or normal people) is a very powerful way of learning how to improve your speech, because you see how the facial muscles work.

When I used to have to learn different accents for studio recordings, I found films an excellent way of immersing myself into a particular accent because one is listening to and watching.  If you are fully engaged and relaxed, information goes in at such a rapid rate and seems to stay there – well this is my experience  – it’s almost like there are no defensive gates half closed to limit access to my brain and senses – so I absorb quickly and easily and it  stays in!

Have you ever noticed that after reading a book you start hearing words and phrases in your head, similar to that of what the writer of your most recently read book, has employed?
It is a similar thing – you are relaxed and so achieve maximum absorption.

Listening to and watching, to improve your speech is nearly the fastest way I know how to bring about desired improvements,  other than studying with me on Skype or in person.

In person with me, as many of you know,  you learn where the tongue should be placed, where the tongue tip should hit, hang or maintain contact, for all the consonants and variety of vowel sounds. But, although you can’t see where the actors are placing  their tongues inside their mouths, you are seeing how they use their their jaw,  lips and facial muscles.

The sound that comes out of you mouth is based purely on engineering. If you change the shapes or structures that your facial muscles are making, you can change the sound and improve your speech without having to become anxious or rely on your ear.

This is why listening and watching is so important. And as the bankers say, it is a Quick Win!

I love quick wins, hence all my work is done with mirrors, as it speeds up the learning process so much: whatever voice training you are doing.

So, listen to, and watch faces – including your own – as this method will definitely improve your speech..