SPEAKING EXERCISES

These are a bunch of exercises for improving your speaking ability. Most can be done alone, the rest are simple enough that you can go bug a partner, coach or even your parents if you dare.

Enunciation:

Practice reading cards, slowly at first, and over enunciate

Put a pencil in your mouth, hold it with your teeth and speak as fast as you can*

Use tongue twisters, especially those with S’s or B’s

Pitch and breathing:

Stand with a chair chest height and arms straight out, the chair will correct your diaphragm and help you to breath correctly.

Whenever you think of it, concentrate on your breathing. Your stomach should swell as you breath in, not sink.

Mush Words:

Say abadee (ah-baa-dee) fast, remember clear and clean breaks between syllables

Open mouth to an exaggerated degree in order to articulate better.

Not fluid:

Tap a pencil or your foot to get a rhythm, try not to miss beats

SPEAK to very rhythmical music, Mary had a little lamb or Twinkle Twinkle little starworks well, and little kids think it’s hysterical (great if you baby-sit a lot)

Read ahead a few words

Ignore your stutters, don’t go back and correct them only if won't draw attention.

Monotone:

Mark words for emphasis in the brief

Try not to raise volume or slow down for enunciation, listen to yourself, you’ll be surprised how much you do that.

Too quiet:

Read as loud as possible--you’ll want an empty house for this, they’ll think you’re in pain.

Too Loud:

Practice giving speeches in a whisper

General:

Read Aristotle or the classifieds, it’s so boring that it makes you work only on your technique

Don’t EVER drink milk or heavily sugared products

LEMON JUICE IS A NO-NO, I will strangle you if I catch you doing that.

Tape yourself and play it back, it’ll sound funny at first, but you’ll get used to it.

Have someone help you with a stop and go speech, basically every time you goof the listener will stop you and make you correct it. You’ll be so annoyed that you’ll fix it simply cause you are going insane

* I wouldn’t do this before going into a round, it will end up doing more damage then good.