English Speaking Skills- Make a Goal – Use a Visual Cue
English Speaking Skills- Keep Your Vision In Front of You
Do you have a dream? A dream is bigger than a goal. Here’s a tip- put your dream vision in front of you.
Simple idea- place a visual symbol of your dream in front of you. We move psychologically toward what we constantly see.
What you are want is not “kind of good” communication, At a minimum, you want English speech communication free of “What? What did you say?”
The purpose of your dream for communication is to make connection with people in daily life, at work, or in school with clear, easy to understand speaking voice, and easy to cognitively understand information message. Add to that an English speaking voice which communicates emotion and is pleasing to the ear.
How do you keep your vision of your dream in front of you?
Find a picture of someone you admire – a relative, friend, teacher, broadcaster, or famous person. Or find a photo from a newspaper, magazine or online of people happily communicating. Put it on your bathroom mirror or over your desk— any place you notice everyday.
This visual reminder will help you move toward what you see. Then when you have choices— of talking or not talking, engaging in conversation or remaining quiet, volunteering to answer a question in a small or large group— then you’ll remember the visual aid picture/photo. And you’ll take the extra effort to do clear articulation– leveled-up clear talk mode or careful leveled-up clear talk mode. You’ll do accurate word syllable accent stress. And if you have learned the skill– voice inflection in utterances or sentences which communicates emotion.
hat visual photo or picture will inspire you to do direct practice or more preparation for English speech a few minutes longer before your presentation , meeting or even a conversation. The frequent noticing of your picture or photo will inspire you to put extra effort and focus whenever you take the opportunity to do deliberate practice of your best English speech communication skills in daily life. Your picture will remind you of your dream of better than good— to do great— English speech communication. And you will stride to that dream step by step. It gets easier, and then you will feel leaps. You’ll do what the most masterful people do– direct practice which is like doing homework on your own for your skill, and taking every opportunity to practice your articulation, diction, word syllable accent stress and voice inflection skills.
Or– your picture will inspire you to get more– more systematic, optimal learning for higher level English speech communication skills. Check out your local schools or Clear Talk Mastery — get the best instruction you can.
Be sure to watch our English Speech Tips videos and Accent Reduction Tip videos for more English pronunciation and accent reduction exercise.
Consider doing a CTM coached course– which now leads to yields and gains once thought impossible.
Or on a super limited budget, do systematic and fast acting learning each week using our subscription called ClearTalk Weekly, www.subscription.cleartalkmastery.com
Get and Stay in Touch
Staying in Touch
Previous Monday speech tips focused on different kinds of calls you will be making to friends or colleagues. Examples of openers for different kinds of calls gives you confidence with telephone communication. Be alert to the tone of voice– you can hear emotion not only in the pitch of the voice but also in the pauses. Do follow-up questions which show that you care. Use emotion in your voice — empathy and caring, gladness, surprise, congratulations. Because the shape of the lips and other mouth muscles change with emotion, people can actually hear your emotion even if they cannot see your face or body.
In the United States, 50% of all adults are single. 30% of all adults live alone. Reach out. Get and stay in touch with friends, colleagues and family. That gives you and them support over a lifetime – people who care about your ups and downs.
English Speaking Training- Opening a Conversation— Top Tip!
English Speaking Training– How to Start a Conversation– The Top Tip!
Approximately 2010, I read a newspaper article that changed overnight my typical greeting to everyone.
The article’s topic was how to talk to a person who has recently suffered the death of a loved one—- spouse, partner, parent, child, relative, friend or for many, pet.
The article pointed out that the typical greeting is “How are you?” For a person suffering the loss of a loved one, the truthful answer would be “bad” for a considerable amount of time. The author reminded the readers that in North America, the expected answer is “Fine.” But that answer for people in grief is “a lie” and not at all accurate.
So the article suggested “How are things going?”. Then respondenta can answer the typical “Fine,” or “OK,” because for the “things” in their life — daily activities– those are “OK.” Emotions not fine but activites are OK. Noteably, the respondent has not been forced to lie or be untruthful.
Body language and tone of voice will reveal a great deal about the current well-being of people. Be alert to those.
For communication interactions where the other person is not grieving for a loved one, the question of “How are things going?” makes it easier for the respondent to immediately describe a recent significant happening in their life. For example, “I just got word from the programmer who developed the coding for my research for my PhD that there is an error in the code.” Or, “I had to let go the nanny for my child.” Those are real life examples.
The specific words of a question go a long way in determining the depth and quality of the answer.
Why would you want to know the current state of well-being of the other person? So you can determine how to proceed with the upcoming communication or task. If the other person had a car accident the previous day, then your proceeding forward with discussion of complex tasks could be modified to take account of less than optimal well-being.. Also, you could do follow-up questions to determine the current physical and emotional status of the other person. Follow-up questions show that you care. For relationahip and rapport, caring is the foundation.
For improving your pronunciation and diction for clear American English, practice with our English Speech Tips videos and Accent Reduction Tip videos.
Check out our subscription called ClearTalk Weekly,– weekly English intelligibility and pronunciation tutorials — video audio, and extra reading aloud exercises. Use the subscription as a first time learner with Clear Talk Mastery or as a refresh for your learning in the coached course. Just so you know, people’s pronunciation can drift from the great accuracy achieved during the coached courses. Click here for information about the subsripiton www.subscription.cleartalkmastery.com
Initial Call for Friendship
How to Begin the Friendship Call
“Hi. This is Emma Zhang. I enjoyed our brief visit last week and wanted to see about getting together for lunch.”
“Hi. This is Stefan Bosch. I enjoyed working with you at the conference last month. Hope things are going well. I wanted to see if you would like to join me for a round of golf in the next few weekends.”
English Speaking Training –Strategies for Satisfying Conversations
English Speaking Training-Strategies for Satisfying Conversations
To make a satisfying conversation, first consider the strategy of asking questions throughout the conversation. That makes dialogue and both people are learning about each other.
Satisfying conversations are like tennis games or badminton games. The conversation goes back and forth like the tennis ball or birdie. You talk for a minute or two, then you ask the other person a question.
What to do if you can’t think of a question after you have shared something? Try this: “What do you think about that?”
Now the respondent can go in any direction in response — refer back to something you said earlier, express an opinion, or even change the topic by saying “That reminds me of something that happened to me last week.”
Open-ended questions invite the other person to open up. Also, use them when in negotiating or planning.
“What do you think about that?” is fantastic in everyday conversation. You can get farther in understanding other people by learning about their experience and opinions. That makes for building relationship and ultimately trust.
Be sure to watch our English Speech Tips videos and Accent Reduction Tip videos for more English pronunciation and accent reduction exercise.
Check out our weekly tutorial program for efficient, systematic learning of accurate American English pronunciation, the subscription called ClearTalk Weekly, www.subscription.cleartalkmastery.com — less than five dollars a week.
Or…. do you feel your pronunciation skills learned in your personal one- on-one coaching course with Clear Talk Mastery has drifted and needs work? Clear Talk Weekly will get you back on target right away! Or better yet, go to the next level with your next coached course!
