Are you looking for a quick trick to help you speak with better diction and verbal fluency in English? Here's something that I've been teaching my students for years that I think will get you closer to native-like fluency. And guess what?! You're about to go back in time to a video I made around the December holiday season. Here goes!

Video Transcript:

Hi everybody. It's Jill Diamond. How are you? I hope you're having a wonderful holiday season, enjoying your friends, your family, your co-workers--whatever it is that you're doing, I hope you're having an amazing time. I was just thinking recently about this time of the year and how everything moves so fast, everything. People are running to buy their gifts. They're trying to finish school. They're trying to finish up projects, get year-end things done. Running, running, running like crazy--moving so fast and losing track. I thought to myself, "How could I help everybody to stay more focused? To focus!" Because the truth is that we all speak quickly at times. We just speak quickly. We think if we speak more quickly, things will get done faster. But the truth is that we need to be more effective. We need to be able to focus on what it is we're trying to say. I wanted to share for the holiday an exercise that's going to help you to slow down, to emphasize well, and also to be able to be effective in your speech. Right? How do you manage that speed and still speak really well? Being fluent. I'm going to share an exercise with you where we're going to work with a nursery rhyme, a children's poem. It's called 'Mary Had A Little Lamb'. I'm sure some of you might even know it. It goes like this.

Mary had a little lamb.

Its fleece as white as snow,

and everywhere that Mary went,

the lamb was sure to go.

Pretty simple. Go ahead and read that along with me. Listen again.

Mary had a little lamb.

Its fleece as white as snow,

and everywhere that Mary went,

the lamb was sure to go.

Now I want you to go ahead and say that in a natural speed. What do you think is natural for you? Go ahead and try that. Okay, good. Now, I'm going to show you how to emphasize with an exercise where we talk in slow motion. We're going to exaggerate. I want you to listen and then I want you to try this. Listen to this. 

Mary had a little lamb.

Its fleece as white as snow,

and everywhere that Mary went,

the lamb was sure to go.

You should hear how I'm lengthening the vowels, how I'm emphasizing syllables. I'm thinking about slow motion. I'm using my hands in slow motion just to have a physical experience with the language. Nice and slow. I'm going to show you why you're doing that in a minute. Go ahead and try that. I'll do it. You do it with me. 

Mary had a little lamb.

Its fleece as white as snow,

and everywhere that Mary went,

the lamb was sure to go.

Okay, good. That's step one. Step two, now we do have to go fast. We have to go super fast. We have to go super fast and articulate at the same time. I want you to move your hands, get them going really fast, so that your voice can mirror your hands. Listen to this. First, listen.

Mary had a little lamb.

Its fleece as white as snow,

and everywhere that Mary went,

the lamb was sure to go.

What am I doing? I'm overly articulating and I'm just moving as quickly as I can. Try it with me.

Mary had a little lamb.

Its fleece as white as snow,

and everywhere that Mary went,

the lamb was sure to go.

Again.

Mary had a little lamb.

Its fleece as white as snow,

and everywhere that Mary went,

the lamb was sure to go.

Okay. We went slow and then we went fast. Why? Because now we're going to find a balance. I want you to go ahead and now say the poem in your normal speaking voice again. Listen to me.

Mary had a little lamb.

Its fleece as white as snow,

and everywhere that Mary went,

the lamb was sure to go.

You should hear a little difference in mine as well, simply because I showed you how to go slow and then fast, and we found the middle ground. You have fluency, and you have emphasis. I want you to go ahead and try this with this poem. Have a super great holiday. Come back next year for some more learning videos. Thank you so much for watching this year. Bye, everybody.

Check out these FAQs related to today's post:

Q. How can I get into the child's mindset to really benefit from working with nursery rhymes to improve my spoken English? 

A. If you have young children, that is the best way to get into that mindset. When it is storytime, make it as much about your improving your speech patterns as it is about getting that kid off to sleep. When we read to children, we become more animated. Start to listen to your voice when you read to your child and then listen for that when you are speaking in your day-to-day life. And if you don't have a child, how about an animal. Think about how you speak to your pet. I know that I use a completely different tone when I speak to my dogs and cat. They respond to tone, volume, and even the tempo in which we speak. So, use your pets as a sounding board. Practice reading passages to them. Hope this helps!

Q. In what ways can I engage my body to help me speak more slowly in the real world and would this help me emphasize syllables better?

A. When we enunciate our words more clearly, we tend to have a slower speed to our speech. That combined with defined markers of silence will be the key to appearing like you are speaking slowly. Because speaking slowly is not necessarily the answer to your American accent. You want to give the illusion that you are speaking slowly and we do that when we speak in speech units and emphasize one or two words per thought chunk. Every time you can separate your words into individual thoughts, followed by a pause, you allow people to hear what you are saying as if you were speaking slowly. Get it?

Q. How do I maintain the balance of speed I found after doing this exercise?

A. It goes back to repetition. The more we do something, the better we get at it. We know that Olympian athletes and top leaders in organizations, for example, didn't learn how to do something once and then win medals, awards, and prestigious roles. No! They repeated their lessons over and over again until muscle memory took over (and even then, perfection isn't always the outcome.) So, you can take nursery rhymes and even parts of your presentations and work on the rhythm contrast of English by saying them slowly and then quickly. Over and over until you feel the flow of the language.